The Latest News: Changes for the UO Message Board Community Hooded Shrouds on Europa and Drachenfels Custom House Design Temporary change to in game support Incorrect Acct. Expir. Dates & Acct Age

The Courant: Lycaeum Festival Moonglow City Council meeting Moonglow Beergarden! The Art of Sorcery. Spiritwood UNI news

The Other Worlds: HoC Chat about NWN PostMortem on Neverwinter Nights SWG only one character per server Is Raph Koster still idealist? (SWG & UO) Middle Earth Online in development (again)

The Courant: Quests: Memoirs of an old mage, part I The Rhythms of Time - Part IV. The Rhythms of Time - Part III. The Rhythms of Time - Part II. The Rhythms of Time – Part I.

March 24, Monday

Changes for the UO Message Board Community -Videric

March 19, Wednesday

Hooded Shrouds on Europa and Drachenfels -Elv'eng

This was posted at the Europa Board at Stratics: Hey - for those of you who haven't gotten your Hooded Shroud code yet... that's because we haven't sent them yet. Those emails should be going out on or near March 25th. As a reminder, here's the relevant info from the FYI we posted about the subject: --- If you live in Europe (excluding Germany and Sweden) or Australia, and you create a new Age of Shadows account or upgrade your current account to Age of Shadows status by March 21st, 2003, you will be sent a Hooded Shroud of Shadows Promotional code via the email address that is on your account information at ultima-registration.com. You will then have until April 30th to collect your Hooded Shroud by following the instructions at www.uo.com/ageofshadows/preorder.html. This means that any players living in these countries can receive one shroud per purchase of AoS, provided they upgrade within 2 weeks of the European "in-store" date of March 7th. Please note that it is crucial that your contact information with us is correct. If your email or other information is incorrect, you will not receive the code for your Hooded Shroud! --- Remember, players in Germany and Sweden had their own retail pre-order offers to get the Shroud, so they are not included in this one. Thanks! -Cynthe Community Manager Ultima Online ORIGIN Systems And later this was said: When will GM's start replacing one's lost to revert's? I don't know for sure. It should be very soon - within a week or so is my guess. We'll post it into FYI as soon as get the date from the GMs. -Cynthe Community Manager Ultima Online ORIGIN Systems

March 11, Tuesday

Custom House Design -Elv'eng

We recived this from IanStorm: IanStorm, along with several other fansites and OSI, are holding a Custom House Design Contest! The rules: The theme and design of the home that you submit is entirely your choice, it can be anything from an opulent palace to a decorated dirt plot if that's what so you prefer ;) The house must have been modified/created using the Custom House tool. Castles and Keeps will not be accepted as they cannot be customised. The entries must be in no later than 11:30pm on Sunday, 23rd of March. Once we get all the submissions, we will choose the top 10 and submit them to OSI. Voting will then begin! The top 2 voted upon by yourselves, the players, will then go into a final round with the winners being decided by OSI. All finalists will receive a prize. Further details on the competition and the prizes, can be found over at IanStorm.com's Contest Area! Good luck to everyone that will take part in this =)

February 26, Wednesday

Temporary change to in game support -Elv'eng

News from UO FYI: While some players are having the time of their life with Age of Shadows customizing their homes, exploring Malas, and raising the dead, others have run into snags that require the help of our in-game support to resolve before they can continue to play. We have the staff to solve these problems, but as anyone who has submitted an in-game HELP request recently knows, our in-game support staff is currently stretched to their limit, due to a combination of the influx of new players and the recent server instability, which our development team has been working around the clock to resolve. We want to address every issue for every player, but we're seeing two major problems: (1) The number of calls is currently greater than the number our staff can take; and (2) Every time we see a shard revert of any duration due to the server instability, we have to take care of many of the calls all over again, which is causing some people to have to call in for the same issues more than once. With this in mind, we're enacting a temporary change to help reduce the Help queues down to more manageable levels. Of our current top call generators, those which have the least immediate impact on a player's enjoyment of the game are Hooded Shrouds of Shadows recovery, Advanced Character creation, and Character Name Changes — all of which require assistance from Game Masters. Please understand we don't think these services are unimportant, but our top concern is ensuring that people can log in and play the game, which puts the "blackholing" issue and any other "stuck" problems at the top of the list for support calls. If you're eligible for the Shroud and have not yet claimed it, you can still enter your Hooded Shroud of Shadows Redemption Code manually and redeem your code through the help menu, and any Advanced Characters or Character Name Changes already paid for will still be addressed. The change is this: If you lose your Shroud due to a time warp or want to purchase an Advanced Character or Character Name Change, you will be asked to wait until our Help queue is under control and all game-stopping and time-sensitive issues have been addressed. For anyone concerned about not getting a Shroud replaced before the previously stated deadline of March 31st, GMs will continue helping recover Shrouds lost to shard issues beyond the normal deadline to ensure that no one misses out on getting their shroud. Again, these are not permanent changes. The goal here is simply to resolve the most serious issues in a reasonable period of time. We appreciate your patience and understanding and plan to resume full services as soon as conditions permit.

February 25, Tuesday

Incorrect Acct. Expir. Dates & Acct Age -Elv'eng

This was posted at the UO Boards at UO.com: We're seeing lots of reports of accounts that are set to expire within the next couple weeks - accounts that should not be expiring. We're also seeing a related issue, where some accounts are not shoing the correct account age (especially young accounts). We're on both of these problems right now, and we'll get it fixed asap. As of right now, please don't do anything until we tell you... you do not need to go re-enter your information in registration. We'll let you know if there is anything you need to do, but for right now, don't worry about it. The housing changes that would make your house inactive once your account expires are not in the game yet, so your houses, items and characters will be fine even if - in the worst case scenario - your account did lapse for a day or two. However, our engineering and billing depts are working on it, and we don't think that will happen. I'll get back to you guys once I have more info! __________________ Cynthe Community Manager ORIGIN Systems You'll need to register a name to post/read the boards.

UO StormChat - Wednesday, 26th February -Elv'eng

Found this at IanStorm: IanStorm is pleased to announce another UO StormChat with the teams from OSI.It will take place at 7pm CST (5pm PST, 8pm EST, 12noon AEST) on WEDNESDAY, 26th of February in #StormEvent. To access the network, you will need an IRC Client (like mIRC or Pirch) and use one of the following servers: irc.ianstorm.com irc2.ianstorm.com Don't have an IRC client? Never fear, you access our network via our Java IRC client, here. If you require help with IRC commands, please see our FAQ, here. The topic for this month is the new expansion, Age of Shadows, so if you have a niggling question to ask, come prepared! You can access logs of our former chats here.

Hooded Shroud of Shadows in Europe and Australia -Elv'eng

This was posted at the FYI The Age of Shadows pre-order offer has been extremely popular across several territories. Our North American office was able to arrange it with North American retailers, and we also saw it successfully run in Korea, Taiwan, Germany, and Sweden. However, we were unable to arrange a retailer deal to promote the Hooded Shroud in the remaining countries in Europe and in Australia. Our main goal in offering the Shroud was to give players an incentive to upgrade early, and we don’t want to deny players the opportunity to get the Shroud if possible. So, rather than require players in Europe and Australia to order from an overseas retailer to get the shroud, we’re going to do something a little different for those areas only. If you live in Europe (excluding Germany and Sweden) or Australia, and you create a new Age of Shadows account or upgrade your current account to Age of Shadows status by March 21st, 2003, you will be sent a Hooded Shroud of Shadows Promotional code via the email address that is on your account information at ultima-registration.com. You will then have until April 30th to collect your Hooded Shroud by following the instructions at www.uo.com/ageofshadows/preorder.html. This means that any players living in these countries can receive one shroud per purchase of AoS, provided they upgrade within 2 weeks of the European "in-store" date of March 7th. Please note that it is crucial that your contact information with us is correct. If your email or other information is incorrect, you will not receive the code for your Hooded Shroud! Remember, players in Germany and Sweden can get their Shrouds by ordering through the retailers listed in this post. Note: This does not apply to Japan. Even though Japan also did not participate in the retail distribution of the Hooded Shroud, our Japanese office is providing Shrouds to its players through a different method available only on Japanese shards (please check our Japanese UO site at http://www.jp.uo.com/ for more info).

February 22, Saturday

No shrouds for Europe, except Sweden and Germany -Elv'eng

This was posted at the UO Boards at UO.COM: Okay, here we go - after lots of back and forth, we just learned that our European office will not be able to get the promotion running with European retailers after all, with the exception of Germany and Sweden, which we've already posted. BUT - before anyone panics - we will do everything we can to make sure you guys get a chance at the shroud. It may not be a pre-order deal, though, since we'll have to figure out another option we can do here in Austin. We have one idea we think will work, but I'm still waiting on approval before I can post it. Bottom line right now - if you're in Germany and Sweden, you'll still need to pre-order from the retailers we posted last week in order to get the shroud. If you're somewhere else in Europe, you should be able to buy the game from wherever is convenient, and we'll make other arrangements. Stay closely tuned over the first couple days of next week for more info - I'll post in FYI as soon as I have the final word on what we're doing as far as that goes. Oh, and our statement on you being able to redeem a US shroud validation code on Europa and Drachenfels is still accurate - those codes will still be good there once AoS is live on those shards. __________________ Cynthe Community Manager ORIGIN Systems

February 14, Friday

European AoS Publish Dates and Promotions -Elv'eng

This was posted at FYI at UO.COM The ship date for Age of Shadows in Europe is February 28th, but the "in-store" date, as well as the date given on many European online retailers’ websites, is the following Friday, March 7th. In light of this information, we’ve decided to push back the Age of Shadows publish for the Europa and Drachenfels shards until March 7th. We understand that it’s possible some European players who get their game shipped earlier than the "in-store" date will need to wait until March 7th before accessing the new features, but we feel it’s extremely important to hold off on opening housing on those shards until the game has actually hit the shelves. This means that the Early Settlers program will be active on Europa and Drachenfels beginning Friday, March 7th, and ending on Tuesday, March 25th. Players who upgrade to an Age of Shadows account and log in before the end of this period will receive a special Mini-House Collectible and an Item Bless Deed (good for blessing one single item; non-transferable between characters or accounts) in their character’s backpack. We know you’ve been waiting eagerly for details on where you can order the game to get your Hooded Shroud, and we’ve gotten some of that information for you! Our German players looking to pre-order Age of Shadows for the Hooded Shroud of Shadows can look here for information on how to order. Our Swedish players can find that information here. We are still waiting to hear the final word on participating retailers for the UK and Denmark; we will let you know as soon as we have that information. Thanks for being patient, and we look forward to introducing Age of Shadows to our European counterparts! Good to see that they postpond the patch day for us Europeans abit. This mean that the American servers can beta test AoS a bit more for us. And we'll have (hopefully) a more smoother patch day, and not to forget those that will buy the game from European dealers MIGHT get a chance to place houses in Malas.

January 9, Thursday

Britannian People -Videric

Unfinished section named People of Britannia have been added under the Britannian Lore section. As I do not see myself finishing all the information and text at least any time soon, I decided to share with you what is done. Its largely functional, with perhaps some grammar mistakes and few missing links. Feel free to correct any mistakes or grammar and send me your opinions by email. It should actually be the largest and most complete list of (official & seer) characters on Europa. Enjoy! http://traveller.rper.org/characters.shtml