Publish 44 - Feb. 3rd, 2013

[Horns Nigel]

Yes Vor, you have a ton of support out here, dont let the few outweigh the many, we appreciate all you both do for us here, please ignore the negative and embrace those of us who are positive and support what you are trying to do here......Nigel

[Voxpire]

Since someone felt the need to come here and disrupt our services, I have deleted his forum account.
Being time-served doesn't protect anyone from anything if they are disrespectful.

[Mercathane]

Absolutely do not become a cynic Vorspire.  In my 80 or so days on Pandora I have not had much interaction with you, however, any interaction i have had has always left me satisfied.  Hell, you even rolled the battle season per my request when it didn't roll as intended.  Personally I always look at things this way, you can get a million atta' boys but its all forgotten if you make a mistake or someone disagrees.  If peeps leave over something trivial, especially without giving the Devs the benefit of the doubt and at least putting together a well thought out argument/discussion as to why something current doesn't work, then they don't understand what it takes to play a 15 year old game, and a free shard at that. 

I haven't been here as long as some but in my short time i have noticed tremendous changes.  Most absolutely are for the better and its immediately telling.  Some things might need a few tweaks..but at least in my time here the Devs have listened to the players.  The resource box is a current hot topic and prime example, removing conflag pots is another.  It proves at least to me that y'all are not dictators and really do care about your player base.  Sure everyone might not always agree or be pleased with the final decision.  Life happens..I dealt with not always getting my way in the USMC for 5 years..did it always make sense?? No, but at the end of the day this shard like the USMC is bigger than one person.

So take it all with a grain of salt Vorspire, those that see the bigger picture are the ones you want to keep around anyhow.

And on a side note I love the new patch, the garden shed is awesome, the champs are awesome.  Being able to cap spellweaving..sweet!  We know its all a work in progress and for our benefit and enjoyment.  Thank you very much.

Peeps need to remember this patch isn't the last patch!

[Voxpire]

This is the first, and hopefully last time I've ever had to use the ban button in all of my time here.
I hate using a ban, it's a last resort when people simply fail to communicate, I can't stand being ignored in that manner.

Since the offender can't be here to defend themselves, I would like it that people refrain from any future remarks about this unfortunate occurrence and continue to focus on the greater good of the shard.

It's easy to correlate a player count drop with the frequency of changes made, but in reality, UO is dying slowly and there have been some pretty big named titles released in the past year that have managed to be more appealing than UO to some, which is unfortunate and something we can't really compete with when developing content for a 15 year-old game.

Although to be fair, some of our players transferred to our sister shard, which dented pop further on Pandora - but I have noticed a general increase in the server population here, climbing by about 5 per week, which is better than dropping IIRC

---

Thank you for the kind words, I really appreciate it.

Are conflagration potions still off the crafting lists? I fixed them in the last patch, they should be fine to use now

[Horns Nigel]

TY Vor, great job man...Nigel

[Mercathane]

On the topic of conflag pots...

They are still currently turned off on the crafting menu.  When Kon wiped them all bottles were removed..i however still have a keg sitting on a table.  I am able to pull bottles from it.  I have not used them as i did not appreciate their use in battles and such, and since i started the post asking players not to use them in battles i dont feel being a hypocrite would help the cause.

Can u let us know what you mean by fixed?  I will test this today..anyone wanna volunteer to be mortaled then conflagged or doing the same to me.  No looting, or taking heads..its for research!!  Its been great without them.

Also if the intent is to place them back into the game can you PLEASE not allow their use in any [battles.  Open world PvP (field pvp)..everyone agreed in the other post was fair game.

[Voxpire]

Well, they were 'fixed' in the sense that they were only supposed to ever deal damage once per tick/cycle (a single, full flame effect) - we updated them thinking that the damage buffer was perfectly in place, but it seems that I missed a crucial part of the code - adding the already damaged players to the buffer so they don't get damaged again by the same tick.

You shouldn't receive extra damage if you move around inside the flames any more.

I hope that makes sense.

[Mercathane]

Will the conflag still follow the player it was tossed at or be an area of affect that is possible to run out from under.  Everyone knows to run outta the fire.. Unfortunately the fire followed you..

[Voxpire]

Hmm if it's following you, I know what the issue is - I'll pop it in with the next patch tonight

(I didn't know the flames followed you - this is the first time I've heard of it AFAIK)

[Mercathane]

Yes it was one of the major issues..If i didn't mortal you before i conflagged you i had plenty of time to do so as u were stuck with the potions full duration.  Crazily easy combos became easy..

Conflag>>Mortal
Mortal>>Conflag
Lethal Poison>>Conflag>>Mortal
Any of those was 99% certain death.

Basically it dumbed down pvp and you couldn't have a single fight without seeing that combination.  I do understand this is an open cap server and so "templates" don't really matter..but basically for pvp if you weren't doing the above..you weren't winning against someone that was.  Although the shard isn't huge population wise the core group of active pvpers are very skilled.  Making it this easy definitely takes something away from the game IMO.

[Thatperson]

Just gonna pop in and say the new shrink system is great! being able to see exactly what type of creature it is as well as the name is just the right touch and makes trading much safer :]

[Mercathane]

Patch tonight? Or at least imminent!! Happy days!! Don't forget battle necklaces....raaawr! Lol

[Voxpire]

On it!
If anyone has any other high-priority bugs that detract from the game experience, post them in the bug tracker now, because I'm going through things now. If a post already exists and you think it's a priority, feel free to bump it.

[Ladibug]

I can't think of anything. Thanks Vorspire! 

[Horns Nigel]

Me either  looks good Vor...Nigel