UO NEWS AND WHIRLED REPORT [Author: Arcadian Del Sol]

PAGE ONE: Now we can’t get them to shut up.

Remember when comments from the Dev Team used to be something that the Crossroads Network boasted about? Or when the House of Commons Chats were the only stage in town? Then came the UO.com “Comments from the Dev Team” which shortened a lot of leashes, and served more often than not, as a barrier to information than an outlet for it.

I’m not sure what is being put in the coffee at Starbuck’s on 6th Street, but in Austin, they’ve decided that we’ll be hearing “comments from the team” with greater frequency. To prove it, you can check out Cal’s latest contribution and notice that it falls almost within the SAME MONTH as the previous comment; which was something to the tune of, “Hey I was digging around with the code and discovered that UO’s economy is in shambles.”

DO TELL, VEX.

Anyway, not to beat up Vex, Cal’s contribution is about Artificial Intelligence and Monsters, and begins with…The dictionary defines artificial intelligence as: “The ability of a computer or other machine to perform those activities that are normally thought to require intelligence.”

That rules out most of the factions system, which oddly enough, IS a monster. If someone were to give it AI, it would immediately storm out of the castle and toss little girls into the river to see if they float. Despite my unfounded and baseless attacks, it is a good read. If you are having a slow day at work like I am, but you don’t have a r33t website to update, you can give it a gander or two. Hell, give it three. Calandryll is one of the good guys. He has no problem coming here and talking common sense with the goodly folk of our discussion boards. You’d never find him wasting his breath on any of those boring cut-and-paste non-news websites. He’s got standards and whatnot.

PAGE TWO: Calandryll speaks to Stratics.

He’s lean, he’s mean, he’s saucy like a half-rack of baby-back; he’s Calandryll, the People’s Champion. In a joint venture with Der Ultima Online Website Auf Deutchland, An_Stratics_Updater_00 inteviewed him and here’s your highlight (yes, in English):

Are there any plans to support player made quests? The tavern keepers are a step in the right direction, but are not enough. For example, we need the ability to save some items for a group of players or to generate monster spawn. We’d like to do more, but many of the good ideas are also filled with loopholes and exploits.

As you said, the first step is the barkeep, but I doubt that will be the last thing we do for player events. I’ve seen ideas (both by players and people here at OSI) for player spawned monsters, player controlled monsters, and player created event items. But all of those systems would have serious balancing and exploit issues. I think there are already quite a few systems that help players run quests. The guild system allows players to run PvP oriented quests without fear of others interfering (in Trammel), house banning lets you run events with the ability to remove unwanted guests, etc. There’s still more we can do, though.

Good to see that despite having dismantled and dismissed the entire Seer program, OSI is still looking for ways to replace them with software features and abilities. One point of clarification however. The Seers did not run “quests” – they ran EVENTS. The players have always been the ones to provide quests for themselves, and finally it looks as if they’ll be able to do them properly. Because Barkeeps rule, right Gromm?

PAGE THREE: Gromm being the best Gump he can be

Known mostly for the fact that he has not yet quit to go work for Destination games or Sony Interactive, Gromm has been steadily cranking away at one of the coolest updates in a long time. Barkeeps are a new kind of hired npc for home owners, and they can take on a variety of roles and serve a variety of functions. They can respond to a short number of code words, possibly giving guests clues for some player-run quest, or just inform as to when the owner will be back. They can be bartenders (and serve drinks, dude!), Bards, Drunkards, Gamblers, or any one of over thirty character types. Tavern owners and quest coordinaters – welcome to the next level. Please direct all your adulation to Gromm, who has taken this project and run wild with it. One note: when UO:3D was released, one of the complaints was that the gumps had been sterlized as part of the “make it fun for the 1.5 million online Koreans” project, and all our scrolls and packs and crates turned into Flintstone-esque tablets. While the return of actual “atmosphere” to UO is nowhere in sight, if you look at some of the screenshots of the Barkeep gumps, you have to give Gromm some credit for at least making an effort to dress up those chalkboard pop-up windows that we all know and hateth. Now if only he can help me with the riddle of ‘steal’, maybe I wont die so much at the Britain bank.

PAGE FOUR: LumtheMad.net to offer naked pussy pics to increase revenue and pay hosting fees.

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