March 2003

Hail, Citizens of Britannia!

This is a reminder of tonight's meeting (31 March 2003) of the High Council, which is set to take place at 8:00 PM (CST) in the North Dining Room of Castle Britain on the Trammel Facet. There will be time prior to the close of the meeting for members of the public to bring item before the High Council.

The Seat of Skara Brae sits empty, and we are now accepting applications for the position. To apply, simply send a Writ of Candidacy to the Chancellor that indicates your eligibility (that you are a citizen of Britannia, over the age of majority, and that you either are not a leadership member in a local government or militia or that you are aware you will have to resign such a position if elected to the Council), and your reasons for wishing to become part of the High Council. Note: The meetings of the High Council take place on Monday evenings at 8:00pm on a weekly basis, and you are required to spend at least an hour each week amongst the citizens of your city — please be sure that you are able to commit to such prior to application.

Town Councils of the realm... Throughout the next couple of weeks, I will be journeying the realm to speak to town councils that have been established in order to discuss cooperation between the local governments and the High Council. It is my belief that our very basis is to support and assist the local governments, and as such, I will be looking for thoughts and ideas to this end. If you are part of a town council and would like to see me stop by, please contact me.

Thank you,


Ra'Dian Fl'Gith
Chancellor of Virtue
High Council of Britannia

From Goldberry:

This week is the grand opening of Tales and Ales Tavern of Malas! Our normal storytelling will be Friday night, except at our new Malas location. There might be games, but there sure will be prizes! Tales and Ales Malas is located east of Hanse's Hostel in Malas, the 18x18 behind the house with 'TAT' on the roof. There is also a rune at Tales and Ales Tavern in Trammel, locked down on the floor right when you enter. Hope to see you all there!

Tonight at 7 PM Central

From Redlowwinski:

Hear ye, Hear ye!

You are all cordially invited to the wedding of Goldberry and Redlowwinski!

Goldberry and I would like to extend our warmest invitation and welcome to our upcoming wedding on Monday, March 31st at 9 pm CST (10 est). The wedding ceremony will be at the Skara Brae Fairegrounds, performed by Adso of Melk.

Activities will continue after the ceremony at the Fairegrounds including dancing, singing, drinking, and general mayhem involving furry blue bunnies.

Goldberry and I are both members of the Royal Britannian Kilted Police. She is a Senior Constable and Seraph of Honesty within the guild. I am a Senior Constable in the guild and formerly worked along side Dr. Jerred Ghyss with the High Council before joining.

It shall be a grand evening for all and we very much hope that all we have met in our time together in Britannia shall come celebrate with us--be they old friends or new friends or someone we've only heard of in passing.

BAGBALL ARENA SEASON TO OPEN APRIL 5th.

Four teams! * 12 Games! * 1 Championship Game! * Over a million in prizes!

The bagball season will begin on April 5th. We have four teams itching to take the season trophy worth 500,000 gold, and over a million in total prizes thanks to our generous sponsors: Ultima, Kishan and Jade's Vendor Expo, The Town of Novus Terra, and the Luna Rune Library.

Each game will feature a contest for spectators to take part in for fun and prizes. Please visit our web page for more information.

http://www.moroleplay.net/gl_bagball.htm

From Dragons:

The Syndicate is pleased to announce that we have made it easier than ever to locate and dig up your Felucca or Trammel Treasure Map libraries. Our TMap library is the origonal one on Atlantic (and the oldest in all of UO) that was where the others sprang from. Up until recently it has existed in two locations. One in Felucca and one in Trammel. With the release of AoS, players can now recall between facets, so we have merged the two libraries into one.

Both the Trammel and Felucca runes are now located inside our Trammel
Castle on the island we call Arx Draconis. Along with those Treasure
Map runes are also runes to most other key locations in game including mining spots, tamer spots, shops, dungeons and more.

The Treasure Map runes are located on the first floor of the castle in the upper left corner in the grey & blue chests.

Blue Chest = Felucca Treasure Map Runes
Grey Chest = Trammel Treasure Map Runes

To use our TMaps library, complete the following steps:

1) Decode your map
2) Visit http://www.llts.org/tmaps.html
3) Drill down into the maps until you get to the area your map is in.
4) Locate the rune number (for example: A7 or DD3) and record it
5) Go to the TMaps rune library in the AD Trammel Castle and find that runebook. Recall and dig. You will be within 1 space of your map.

For those who dont yet have a rune to our Trammel Castle you can get
there in one of the following ways:

A) Its on the small island located NE of Trinsic. On your UO map, it is the island with the white OSI building on it. You could sail over OR get to it via the T2A area. There is a tunnel entrance from T2A that is located NNW of the Orc Fort/Undead Area north of Delucia.

B) Every Thursday night at 630pm EST, Syndicate gaters (knowm by the
LLTS over their heads) visit the Trammel and Malas banks offering gates to Craftsman Night. That event is held at the Trammel castle so you could hop a gate to get a rune marked for the rune library

C) Coming up in early April, we are holding another of our large public lotteries. 200 or so players are likely to attend for the 25+ prizes that are available. If you check back to this news site, you will see information on when that is and can you catch one of those gates from the major banks to the island as well.

To Whom It May Concern

What I tell you now, I tell you with the heaviest conscience, for I could have stopped what is to come. But I had not the strength to believe that I alone could have made a difference. Perhaps there is one of you out there who will hear this story, and find the courage within yourself to stand against the impending storm. I fear few of us will have the strength to weather it.

It is said that the Serpent of Order and the Serpent of Chaos are
intertwined around the Great Earth Serpent of Balance, in a never ending battle. Many names have been given to them by the various races who have acknowledged their presence, and some have seen their work among the lands of Sosaria. Thirty years ago they fought a battle here, upon the Sosarian plane, stepping down from the Ethereal Void to bring their war to flesh and bone. The Serpent of Chaos, known then as the Black One, defeated the Serpent of Order, known as the Gold One, in open battle. Dark times approached, and it would be a quarter of a century before the forces of Chaos were beaten back again by the forces of Order. An unsettling peace has existed for many years. But a prophecy that was spoken in a time long before our memories can reach, tells of the doom that awaits us. The time
has come...

I was approached several nights ago by remnants of a Cult devoted to the one we used to call 'His Blackness.' They were searching for information about the Fallen Crest. Only His Blackness could have given them the name 'Fallen Crest,' which means that he once again roams the world. I gave in to their demands, wanting only to find my rest, and I gave them the riddle which would lead them to the Fallen Crest. I then told them of their need for a bard, to sing the Hymn of the Fallen One, to revive the soul of the Fallen Crest.

On they travelled then to the city of Wind, where within the 'Seat of
Knowledge' library, cursed by the visits of the evil Raistlin, a text
containing the words to the Hymn could be found. There they acquired the Hymn through bribery, and the librarians turned a blind eye. They captured a bard from the city of Trinsic, and brought her to the passage between worlds where the Fallen Crest lay burried. The song was sung, and the soul returned. Ciril, an ancient baron who served as a guardian knight to King Wolfgang of Akalabeth, was raised from the grave and given life once again. The Fallen Crest, as he had long been called, was fallen no more.

His story is long and sad, and will have to wait for another time. But know that he is a hate from olden times, a good man seduced by the whispering tongue of His Blackness, much as I was. He and I are the puppets of a Chaotic master, and I would like to believe that my hand in all of these events were forced. I would like to believe that I had no choice in the matter, for it was His Blackness who kept me alive all these many centuries, to tell his remaining followers how to raise this ancient hate. And now the Chaos Knights ride again, and the army of the Black One is raised and poised to bring down their chaotic fury, like the thunder of a spring storm.

Perhaps I am just as evil as Ciril, for my heart and mind allowed His
Blackness inside. I pray that you do not. I pray that their crusade yields no converts. I pray that the coming storm will burn itself out.

But without His Blackness, I lack a deity to send my prayers to. Woe is the heart of an old man, who too late, learns that all he once believed in is a treacherous lie.

-Alon Tarrapin
Former Steward of the House of Ciril

Greetings!!!

Over the past few weeks, on various message boards, and in various IRC channels, not to mention over ICQ conversations or via plain old email, there has been talk about forming an out-of-game council that will work to improve roleplaying relations between guilds on Great Lakes. Today, the first steps have been taken to get this underway. While this is just the beginning, and much work remains to be done, three things are getting started today:

First, a page has been set up for news and information about the RPAGL. It sits at rpagl.alterythem.com.

Second, an IRC channel, #rpagl, has been set up on the Stratics IRC server for communication between member representatives.

Third, an email address, rpagl@alterythem.com has been set up.

The first use of this email address will be to collect information about those guilds that wish to become members of the RPAGL (currently there are no prerequisites to joining other than you agree to be a part of the association and work towards the betterment of roleplaying on Great Lakes). Each guild that would like to become a member should send the following information in via email:

• Name and abbreviation of your primary guildstone (ie: Cult of the Azure Dragons [CAD]).
• Name and abbreviation of your warstone (ie: Enforcers of the Cobalt Dragons [ECD]).*
• Name of your guildmaster.
• Name of the person representing your guild to the RPAGL (this may be the guildmaster).
• Registered IRC nickname of your representative (this is so that you may be added to #rpagl, as it is set to invite only).
• Website of your guild's website and public message board (if applicable).

* Note, you need only provide information on your warstone if you will be warring participating guilds from a stone other than your primary guildstone.

I will begin adding people to the IRC channel as soon as I receive emails, and will be compiling information that will be posted to the RPAGL website for ease of reference. You will receive a confirmation email as soon as you have been added to the channel.

While this is just a small step, I look forward to seeing all of the guilds of Great Lakes come together to work for the betterment of roleplay and interaction on Great Lakes!

Thank you,


The Player of Ra'Dian Fl'Gith

Hail all Bagball Teams. We will hold our first organizational meeting on Saturday at 6 PM Central at the Bagball Arena. We will discuss the schedule of games, the amount of games to be played, rules, fund-raising and sponsorship. All interested in joining or being involved with the league are welcome to attend. For more information please go to our web page:
http://www.moroleplay.net/gl_bagball.htm

From Cade:

Cade fell to the floor of his tower. His whole body was burning yet he could see no flames. His limbs began to spasm out of control. The once proud creature who's people was once called the Dow; had now changed. Cade lifted himself up and looked around the room with his new eyes. His pale skin stood out in the dark tomblike building which was his home. How could this be he thought? Although he looked somewhat the same Cade felt he was different than before. He set off to find the one person who understood him and had to spoke to him before. Of course this could not be any human. Cade arrived at the Temple of Mondain only to find it deserted. Things had definitely changed since he had gone into hibernation. He returned home with no news of the worldly changes. Before Cade could open the door a firm hand grabbed his shoulder. He spun around quickly spear at the ready. He lowered it when he realized who it was. Monger his closest friend had left the depths of the Dow underground sanctuary. “How did you find me?” Asked Cade. Monger frowned and hesitating speaking. Instead he pointed to his head. “Ah I see my thoughts are that loud eh?” Said Cade. Monger frowned again. “Why are you speaking to me in human tongue great one?” Projected Monger into Cade’s mind. “I have been here so long; I’ve gotten use to it.” Projected Cade. Monger nodded and proceeded to enter the tower with Cade. Before the door closed behind them Monger let out a gasp. Upon the floor lay a puddle of blue blood. “Why Cade were you hurt?” Asked Monger in the Dow telepathy. “No. In fact I can’t explain. That spot on the floor is where I went into a mind relapse.” Said Cade. Monger stared down on the puddle then back on Cade. He could no longer sense the high priest in Cade. In fact he could not sense Cade at all! Who is this imposter? Before Monger could think a rush of pain swept his body and his legs gave way. Cade examined Mongers mind. It was so clouded he could not heal. Cade rushed to his library and grabbed a dusty old book covered in mold and spider webs. He brushed the cover clean. “The book of Dow Foreshadow” Cade ran back to where Monger lay sprawled upon the floor. A pool of bright blue blood began seep around him. Monger began to spasm. Cade flipped through the book. Monger screamed in pain. Finally Cade flipped to a page labeled Transformation. He held the book closer to make out the small faded text. He scanned down the page. His eyes rested on the word “Taltos” He lowered the book from his sight to find Monger standing in front of him grinning.

The Lycaeum Fellowship of Scholars will be sponsoring the continuing series of Atalan History Lectures, hosted by Arman Kharas. Kharas has served as an attaché to the High Council and is a valuable source of information regarding this militaristic race of elves. The third installment, “The Fara: Predators of the Soul” will take place on Tuesday 3/18 at 8pm CST at the Lycaeum in Moonglow, Trammel. Scholars will be at the hedge maze entrance to escort those wishing to attend.



In an effort to maintain a streamlined lecture, all questions will be posed to Arman at the conclusion. This will ensure a concise flow of information and optimal use of the time allotted to us.



Arman Kharas

Historian of Atalan Lore

Lycaeum Fellowship of Scholars

From Keheleyr:

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.

We had a slight problem with our server, but we're back now! enjoy!

The Great Lakes Bagball League has been formed to bring together guilds of all types interested in participating in bagball tournaments. It is our hope to foster friendship among the players and guilds of Great Lakes through the game of bagball. Roleplay guilds, PK guilds, Merchant guilds, etc. are all welcome to participate.
We are looking for other guilds and organizations to join us. We will hold an organizational meeting during the first week of April, with first games tentatively starting in April/May.
At present we have two confirmed teams: The Minoc Highlanders (The Highland Guard), and The Yew White Harts (Yew).


If you are interested in joining, please contact Jakob Covenant at ICQ 100914910.

From Seamus Korlow:

Head out to 82* 42N, 20* 19W in Malas for the Love Shack. We have a number of items for sale, for low prices I might add, and more vendors are on the way, so keep coming back. The building has a foundation size of a log cabin, and it is made out of stone if you don't see it immediately.

Presented here, unedited, uncensored, for your reading pleasure: a candid interview with UO's lead server programmer, Mr. Tact. Enjoy!

[12:03:27 pm] (MrTactOSI) So, ready whenever you are.
[12:03:47 pm] (Seafort) alrighty, just so you know I am not exactly a conventional interviewer-type guy
[12:04:13 pm] (Seafort) so just try to have fun.. and if I ask something weird.. well
[12:04:14 pm] (MrTactOSI) I'm not exactly a conventional interviewee-type guy, so that should work out
[12:04:16 pm] (Seafort) expect it hehe
[12:04:27 pm] (Seafort) hey, its a perfect match!
[12:04:52 pm] (Seafort) Alright, so I asked my readers to submit questions.. and you know, they didnt submit a single one in the realm of "lead server programmer"
[12:05:17 pm] (Seafort) Do you wanna try to take a crack at them anyways?
[12:05:17 pm] (MrTactOSI) Hmm
[12:05:23 pm] (MrTactOSI) Certainly
[12:05:40 pm] (MrTactOSI) I will warn you that if they are game design questions I'm almost certainly not going to be able to answer them.
[12:05:49 pm] (MrTactOSI) Especially if they are about Resist
[12:05:50 pm] (MrTactOSI) :-)
[12:05:56 pm] (Seafort) Alright, the first person wants to know if you've heard anything about log cabins converting to the proper sized customizable lot
[12:06:07 pm] (Seafort) (actually, there is a resist question in the list hehe)
[12:06:37 pm] (MrTactOSI) I have heard vague rumblings about that, but I don't recall actually reading any threads on it.
[12:06:51 pm] (MrTactOSI) Not terribly surprising, I might have missed them.
[12:06:59 pm] (MrTactOSI) If there
[12:07:01 pm] (MrTactOSI) Oops
[12:07:22 pm] (Seafort) alrighty
[12:07:23 pm] (MrTactOSI) If there's an issue with that, I would encourage people to email the bug mailbox, as we DO read that.
[12:07:44 pm] (MrTactOSI) It's a more reliable communications channel than the boards.
[12:08:02 pm] (Seafort) Yeah, supposedly when you convert the log cabin it strips one tile off the length of the cabin
[12:08:11 pm] (Seafort) but I have a cabin, and I converted it, but I didnt notice any difference
[12:08:20 pm] (MrTactOSI) That is definitely something we would want to look into.
[12:08:41 pm] (MrTactOSI) Not quite as critical as shard crashing or players blackholing . . . but we're very committed to fixing bugs like this.
[12:09:02 pm] (MrTactOSI) Next q?
[12:09:03 pm] (Seafort) Okies, the next question is.. what happened to the risk vs reward in fel?
[12:09:11 pm] (MrTactOSI) Heh.
[12:09:23 pm] (Seafort) specifically, regarding gold loots
[12:09:32 pm] (Seafort) the amounts are the same now, or so I am told hehe
[12:09:44 pm] (MrTactOSI) If that's true, I believe that's a bug.
[12:09:57 pm] (MrTactOSI) Wait, re: gold loot
[12:10:39 pm] (MrTactOSI) I have to say I'm not sure about that. I will have to talk to the designers about that. Sorry, not my area of expertise unfortunately.
[12:10:48 pm] (Seafort) yeah, I dig..
[12:11:09 pm] (Seafort) I told them you were a server programmer, and then they start askin all about like "whens that new 3d avatar comin in?" and stuff
[12:11:16 pm] (Seafort) go figgger
[12:11:23 pm] (MrTactOSI) Ah well
[12:11:28 pm] (Seafort) Alrighty, I got a PvP one here
[12:11:36 pm] (MrTactOSI) Let's hear it :-)
[12:12:14 pm] (Seafort) Alright, this ones from my bud Nero.. and it was his impression that one-hit-kills and such would be eliminated in AoS
[12:12:33 pm] (Seafort) but Nero has also pointed out that theres just about nothing except one hits on AoS
[12:12:56 pm] (Seafort) he wants to know "what up with that?" hehe
[12:13:48 pm] (MrTactOSI) All I can say on that one is, once we have worked out the gameplay-stopping issues and things have settled down to a regular publish cycle, it's probably reasonable to expect that the designers will do another balancing pass based on the input we've gotten from players.
[12:14:05 pm] (MrTactOSI) But I can't say exactly when that will be.
[12:14:29 pm] (Seafort) so the damage and whatnot will be addressed once all the kinks are ironed out
[12:15:01 pm] (Seafort) That should be welcome news to them, its been really bugging our PvP crowd hehe
[12:15:16 pm] (MrTactOSI) I can't say for certain that WILL happen, because I'm not a designer. But if I were a betting man . . .
[12:15:31 pm] (MrTactOSI) Contrary to public opinion, we do like to make our players happy.
[12:15:33 pm] (Seafort) well, I'll bet with ya then hehe
[12:15:39 pm] (MrTactOSI) We're not actively out to antagonize people.
[12:15:48 pm] (Seafort) hey, thats a perfect segue there..
[12:16:04 pm] (Seafort) why is it, do you think, that so many people think that OSI is "out to get them"
[12:16:32 pm] (MrTactOSI) Because in a persistent world, players invest a great deal more than in off-the-shelf games.
[12:16:54 pm] (MrTactOSI) Anytime you have that much energy invested in something, it becomes very personal. People get very emotionally attached.
[12:17:40 pm] (Seafort) You know, I never really thought of it that way, but youre right
[12:17:42 pm] (MrTactOSI) Then when the thing you happen to love about the game changes -- whether that change is for better or worse -- you can't help but react emotionally
[12:17:43 pm] (Seafort) at least, I think so
[12:18:15 pm] (MrTactOSI) I don't think that anyone sits down and analyzes our behavior and concludes "OSI hates me"
[12:18:49 pm] (MrTactOSI) I'm done, I guess :-)
[12:18:55 pm] (Seafort) yeah, but you do get a lot of "OSI is nerfing resist OMG WTF!?"
[12:19:04 pm] (MrTactOSI) Well, here's the deal.
[12:19:27 pm] (MrTactOSI) We do exit surveys to find out why our players quit.
[12:19:55 pm] (MrTactOSI) Ideally, so we can target those areas that drive the most players away, since that is the logical thing to do from a business standpoint.
[12:20:12 pm] (Seafort) right, that makes total sense
[12:20:26 pm] (MrTactOSI) We lose a lot of veteran players NOT because we break things they like, but because they are bored.
[12:20:40 pm] (MrTactOSI) They've done everything, and so there's no point in sticking around.
[12:21:01 pm] (Seafort) sure, I can see that.. felt that way myself a time or two
[12:21:16 pm] (MrTactOSI) And again, contrary to broadly-held opinion, we DO like our vet players and we recognize the tremendous value they contribute to the community.
[12:21:34 pm] (MrTactOSI) But (and not to sound all corp-speak, but here it is)
[12:22:30 pm] (MrTactOSI) Many of the players who will likely quit the game because we changed it would have left anyway if we HADN'T changed it.
[12:22:57 pm] (MrTactOSI) Now if you consider new players, they come into the game with no preconceived notions about what to expect.
[12:23:20 pm] (MrTactOSI) So any changes we make aren't really going to impact them, unless we make the game easier to play, increasing the likelihood that they'll stay around.
[12:23:45 pm] (MrTactOSI) Accordingly, the people that are most impacted by the changes are the moderately experienced players.
[12:24:07 pm] (MrTactOSI) If you just figured out how PowerHour works, you're going to be irritated when GGS goes in.
[12:24:13 pm] (MrTactOSI) If you take my point.
[12:24:25 pm] (Seafort) Right, completely logical to me! hehe
[12:24:33 pm] (MrTactOSI) And actually, most of the board posts bear this out.
[12:25:09 pm] (MrTactOSI) Most of the veteran players are like "OMG! PvM is actually challenging again! Thanks, OSI!"
[12:25:40 pm] (Seafort) Yeah, I find it challenging
[12:25:45 pm] (MrTactOSI) So there you go.
[12:26:03 pm] (Seafort) alrighty, now a question thats near and dear to me..
[12:26:05 pm] (MrTactOSI) My grand conspiracy theory on what motivates us to change things, and why we make the specific changes that we do.
[12:26:22 pm] (Seafort) Where have the paladin swords gone?
[12:26:34 pm] (Seafort) They looked super cool, but nobody can find them
[12:26:37 pm] (MrTactOSI) Ummm . . .
[12:26:53 pm] (Seafort) oh right, server programmer!
[12:26:55 pm] (MrTactOSI) Not sure . . . I personally haven't even had a chance to play a pally yet.
[12:27:09 pm] (MrTactOSI) But again, if I were a betting man . . .
[12:28:00 pm] (MrTactOSI) Next q?
[12:28:11 pm] (Seafort) Righoh, just fishin up a good one
[12:28:22 pm] (Seafort) Ho whard was it to publish AoS to the shards?
[12:28:25 pm] (Seafort) er how hard
[12:28:25 pm] (MrTactOSI) You need to get a serpent.
[12:28:35 pm] (MrTactOSI) Ha! A lot harder than we thought it would be.
[12:28:51 pm] (Seafort) hehe I think thats going to be my headline for the interview
[12:29:27 pm] (MrTactOSI) So in a perfect world, every shard would be exactly the same hardware-wise, and each would be configured identically.
[12:29:27 pm] (MrTactOSI) What we found out during the publish was that it's not a perfect world, by a LONG shot.
[12:29:57 pm] (Seafort) Anything interestingly imperfect that you can share?
[12:30:16 pm] (MrTactOSI) So we ended up doing a lot of manual fixing and tweaking to bring up indivdual shards, which was the bulk of the 18 hours or so it took to do the conversion.
[12:30:40 pm] (MrTactOSI) Rather not, don't want to give any unsavory types any more information than they already have.
[12:30:43 pm] (MrTactOSI) Sorry :-(
[12:30:52 pm] (Seafort) thats cool hehe
[12:31:05 pm] (Seafort) but the original plan was for the whole thing to be completely automated?
[12:32:17 pm] (MrTactOSI) No, actually. But we had a series of steps "1. combine the backup 2. publish the code 3. Change the config files to add malas" etc. etc. and what really ended up happening was a lot of "2a figure out why the code won't publish 3a adjust the config files to this particular shard's weird hardware layout" and so on.
[12:32:51 pm] (Seafort) so, not all shards are created equal, then
[12:33:04 pm] (MrTactOSI) You have to bear in mind, they were deployed at very different times.
[12:33:38 pm] (MrTactOSI) So when we rolled out Lake Austin & moved Pac to new hardware, we couldn't even BUY machines that were the same as the hardware running some older shards.
[12:33:51 pm] (MrTactOSI) The vendor literally didn't sell those machines anymore.
[12:34:00 pm] (MrTactOSI) The proc speeds were no longer being manufactured.
[12:34:11 pm] (Seafort) Just because it was older, or because new technology had prevailed?
[12:35:15 pm] (MrTactOSI) Just the march of the tech industry. Try and buy a 1Ghz P4 anymore, for example.
[12:35:26 pm] (Seafort) ahh, I see what you mean
[12:35:29 pm] (Seafort) All of my readers are on Great Lakes.. is GL particularly cantankerous compared to some of the newer shards?
[12:35:31 pm] (MrTactOSI) Except for some specialty retailers that have old stock, you can't even find em.
[12:35:44 pm] (MrTactOSI) Not that I know of. Has that been their experience?
[12:35:56 pm] (MrTactOSI) The only shard I know of that has been especially crashalicious was LS.
[12:35:58 pm] (Seafort) No, just curious.. I mean, every computer has little quirks hehe
[12:36:42 pm] (Seafort) I saw an old comic once where Chesapeake blew up and killed Melantus
[12:36:43 pm] (MrTactOSI) Cool. Moving on . . .
[12:36:44 pm] (Seafort) hehe
[12:37:07 pm] (Seafort) Alrighty.. folks on GL have been getting these.. freeze-pockets
[12:37:20 pm] (MrTactOSI) Like in the last week?
[12:37:23 pm] (Seafort) like, youll be going normally, no lag, and then BOOM frozen.. and the monsters and everything are frozen too
[12:37:32 pm] (MrTactOSI) Or before that?
[12:37:34 pm] (Seafort) then 30 seconds later it comes back
[12:37:36 pm] (Seafort) yeah, last week
[12:37:39 pm] (Seafort) and before that
[12:37:41 pm] (MrTactOSI) Hm.
[12:37:51 pm] (MrTactOSI) Shouldn't be seeing that anymore, I am thinking.
[12:37:58 pm] (Seafort) Is it just that so many people are online that causes that?
[12:38:00 pm] (MrTactOSI) If I may get a little technical for a moment . . .
[12:38:05 pm] (Seafort) oh, by all mean
[12:38:14 pm] (Seafort) bust loose with the HAL9000
[12:38:17 pm] (MrTactOSI) As you know, we had a memory leak issue in the server.
[12:38:58 pm] (MrTactOSI) Which meant that eventually the process sizes would grow to hundreds of megabytes in size.
[12:39:18 pm] (MrTactOSI) When we back up, we fork each area process, which means we spawn a dupe of it.
[12:39:41 pm] (MrTactOSI) In a worst-case scenario, this could double the instantaneous memory usage of the shard.
[12:40:10 pm] (MrTactOSI) So what could have been happening was some stuff had to be swapped out, which would explain the lag you were seeing.
[12:40:28 pm] (Seafort) That makes sense
[12:40:47 pm] (Seafort) Is the new AoS processes generally more intense on the server than the pre-AoS?
[12:40:47 pm] (MrTactOSI) But removing the minoc moongate should have alleviated the memory leak problem, so you shouldn't still be seeing that.
[12:41:13 pm] (MrTactOSI) Bigger. A lot of the stuff we added grew the memory footprint quite a bit.
[12:41:22 pm] (MrTactOSI) That's one of the things we are working to optimize.
[12:41:47 pm] (Seafort) How much ov the very original UO programming is left, would you say?
[12:41:57 pm] (MrTactOSI) More than I'm happy with :-(
[12:42:18 pm] (Seafort) I bet it pops up at inopportune times hehe
[12:42:29 pm] (MrTactOSI) Actually, most of the problems we've had with AoS are due to old bugs in code that were surfaced by the changes we made under load.
[12:42:54 pm] (MrTactOSI) The memory leak is the same bug that causes the !#$% spam tile problem.
[12:43:18 pm] (Seafort) I am not aware of that problem heeh
[12:43:29 pm] (MrTactOSI) Cool, then you can't get banned for it :-)
[12:43:39 pm] (Seafort) oh hey, I am down with that then
[12:44:04 pm] (Seafort) okay, I got an oldschool one here for ya
[12:44:17 pm] (MrTactOSI) Well I'll see what I can do.
[12:44:35 pm] (Seafort) which shard is actually the oldest shard?
[12:44:46 pm] (Seafort) some people say Atlantic, some pacific, some GL..
[12:44:58 pm] (MrTactOSI) The answer to that question is "I don't know"
[12:45:05 pm] (MrTactOSI) But I can find out.
[12:45:12 pm] (MrTactOSI) I know some people who would know.
[12:45:14 pm] (Seafort) aww man, I bet the debate will continue to rage
[12:45:25 pm] (MrTactOSI) Nah, there's a guy named Zippy who was the first tester on UO.
[12:45:28 pm] (Seafort) you know, the debate between nerds who debate things like that
[12:45:35 pm] (Seafort) Zippy eh
[12:45:40 pm] (Seafort) I'll have to track him down
[12:45:48 pm] (Seafort) swamp fox skillz and all
[12:45:56 pm] (Seafort) okay, back to UO! hehe
[12:46:09 pm] (Seafort) You play UO yourself as a player, yes?
[12:46:49 pm] (MrTactOSI) Sorry, had to answer the phone
[12:46:59 pm] (MrTactOSI) Sadly, I don't get to play as much as I used to.
[12:47:13 pm] (Seafort) I bet hehe, what with all those kinks to iron
[12:47:19 pm] (MrTactOSI) Before I get lambasted, let me explain why I think that's a GOOD thing.
[12:47:35 pm] (MrTactOSI) First off, I don't have an agenda. I am interested in doing what's right for the game and the players first and foremost.
[12:48:12 pm] (MrTactOSI) There are some things that we have done as a dev team that past teams would not have done, in spite of the fact that they are probably the right thing to do for the long-term success of the game.
[12:48:34 pm] (MrTactOSI) That probably annoys a lot of people.
[12:48:43 pm] (Seafort) things like localization you mean?
[12:48:57 pm] (MrTactOSI) Hmm, I was thinking more along the lines of "one house per account"
[12:49:02 pm] (MrTactOSI) But yeah.
[12:49:16 pm] (Seafort) oh yeah, thats a good one too
[12:49:29 pm] (Seafort) How long have you been with OSI?
[12:49:39 pm] (MrTactOSI) one sec, not quite finished :-)
[12:50:03 pm] * Seafort shuts up
[12:50:10 pm] (MrTactOSI) The other good thing is that, since I don't get to play much, I have to rely on what I hear from players to decide what they really want out of UO
[12:50:45 pm] (MrTactOSI) Except for a brief & very intense period right before we published AoS, I read the boards every day.
[12:51:17 pm] (MrTactOSI) I try to look at as many threads that are not obviously insane rants as I can.
[12:52:17 pm] (MrTactOSI) Obviously, sometimes we're going to make the players unhappy & there isn't a lot we can do about that.
[12:53:19 pm] (MrTactOSI) If someone gets used to having it easy, and then we make it harder, they're probably not going to be happy. But as an example, there was no way we could continue to let bards and tamers farm millions with no risk. It would have destroyed the game in the long run.
[12:53:50 pm] (MrTactOSI) OK, I think that's enough of THAT rant :-)
[12:54:07 pm] (Seafort) hehe
[12:54:14 pm] (MrTactOSI) So back to your other question
[12:54:23 pm] (Seafort) okay, yeah, how long have you nee around?
[12:54:27 pm] (MrTactOSI) This summer I will have been at OSI 4 years.
[12:54:40 pm] (MrTactOSI) Which is fairly amazing.
[12:54:58 pm] (MrTactOSI) I'm like the 20th most senior person employed there :-)
[12:55:02 pm] (Seafort) so you were around before Reniassance
[12:55:12 pm] (MrTactOSI) Yeah but I was not in product development then.
[12:55:30 pm] (Seafort) how did you start, and how did you move up the chain?
[12:56:09 pm] (MrTactOSI) I was originally hired as a DBA/programmer for what was then the Ops team. That's the team that supports the game on a hardware/network infrastructure/operating system level.
[12:56:41 pm] (MrTactOSI) Most of my job was maintaining the login server.
[12:57:12 pm] (MrTactOSI) Due to some . . . interesting circumstances . . . I ended up needing to not be in that group.
[12:57:24 pm] (MrTactOSI) Fortunately, they were looking for a QA engineer at the time.
[12:57:46 pm] (MrTactOSI) This is a person who develops tools and processes to make QA's job easier and help catch more defects before they leave the building.
[12:58:01 pm] (MrTactOSI) So I interviewed for that job, and they offered it to me.
[12:58:14 pm] (MrTactOSI) I did that for about a year.
[12:59:33 pm] (MrTactOSI) At that time, Rick Hall, who was the exec producer of UO at the time, concocted a way to move me onto the dev team, which he knew was my long-term goal.
[01:00:23 pm] (MrTactOSI) And then when Prophet left, they made me lead server programmer.
[01:00:23 pm] (MrTactOSI) The end.
[01:00:25 pm] (MrTactOSI) :-)
[01:00:44 pm] (Seafort) truly inspiring hehe
[01:00:55 pm] (MrTactOSI) Yeah a long and winding road.
[01:01:04 pm] (Seafort) as the Big Server Cheese.. do you also maintain stuff like the webservers and patch servers, or just shards?
[01:01:37 pm] (MrTactOSI) Shards, and a little bit of the patch server (although realistically, we haven't changed the CODE of the patch server in a LOOOONG time)
[01:01:59 pm] (Seafort) yeah, I guess it wouldnt really require that many upgrades hehe
[01:02:10 pm] (MrTactOSI) Not the web server, though, that's a separate group.
[01:02:21 pm] (MrTactOSI) Actually *2* separate groups.
[01:02:46 pm] (Seafort) well darn, I was gonna ask you what the heck is up with the boards being so slow
[01:02:54 pm] (Seafort) but I guess I will have to interrogate someone else for that oen
[01:03:17 pm] (MrTactOSI) Expect vast improvements in the boards soon.
[01:03:22 pm] (Seafort) good, good
[01:03:25 pm] (Seafort) welcome news
[01:03:36 pm] (MrTactOSI) Secondhand reportage.
[01:03:54 pm] (Seafort) alright, switching gears.. we've heard rumblings that guildstones were gonna get a second look
[01:04:00 pm] (Seafort) have you heard anything on that one?
[01:04:34 pm] (MrTactOSI) Guildstones and factions are what people gripe about the loudest, historically.
[01:04:51 pm] (Seafort) yeah, I'd agree on that one
[01:04:52 pm] (MrTactOSI) If you take it on face value when I say we are interested in pleasing our customers . . .
[01:05:07 pm] (MrTactOSI) Again, if I were a betting man . . .
[01:05:12 pm] (MrTactOSI) :-)
[01:05:14 pm] (Seafort) rightoh
[01:05:31 pm] (Seafort) Alright, I am switching gears again.. I am actually taking in new questions from people as we talk here
[01:05:36 pm] (Seafort) so thats why theres no whyme or reason
[01:05:37 pm] (Seafort) but..
[01:05:38 pm] (MrTactOSI) I'm not trying to be mysterious
[01:05:47 pm] (MrTactOSI) (re: guildstones)
[01:06:07 pm] (MrTactOSI) The fact is, we haven't actually planned out what we're going to do after the firestorm that is AoS dies down.
[01:06:16 pm] (Seafort) some are wondering why some of the AoS bugs and such weren't found and eliminated before AoS was released
[01:06:36 pm] (Seafort) and I suspect some of that is due to that old code stuff you mentioned earlier
[01:06:42 pm] (MrTactOSI) Harkening back to a perfect world . . .
[01:06:59 pm] (MrTactOSI) It would have been really nice to do a public load test.
[01:07:20 pm] (MrTactOSI) Most of the problems that have caused people the most pain and suffering only appeared under significant load.
[01:07:57 pm] (Seafort) Like the problem with the Ghosting doors on custom houses?
[01:08:08 pm] (MrTactOSI) Kind of
[01:08:24 pm] (MrTactOSI) That's a rare one, it only happens under some pretty unique circumstances
[01:08:36 pm] (MrTactOSI) So it only occurred when we had a large number of people customizing houses.
[01:09:09 pm] (MrTactOSI) OK I probably have to get going, but I can take a couple more quick ones.
[01:09:20 pm] (Seafort) alright.. 3 more then, sound good?
[01:09:38 pm] (MrTactOSI) Well, now you only have 2
[01:09:39 pm] (MrTactOSI)
[01:09:44 pm] (MrTactOSI) Go ahead.
[01:09:54 pm] (Seafort) What was causing that problem where there were 3 4 or 5 doors would appear on NPC buildings?
[01:10:04 pm] (MrTactOSI) Speaking of old bugs.
[01:10:07 pm] (Seafort) hehe
[01:10:22 pm] (MrTactOSI) When the shard loads up, there's a file to tell it where to place all the stuff that's not part of the map.
[01:11:06 pm] (MrTactOSI) When it does that, it looks for a particular object type
[01:11:16 pm] (MrTactOSI) Well, guess what? An open door isn't the same type of object as a closed door.
[01:11:21 pm] (MrTactOSI) So it created a new one.
[01:11:24 pm] (MrTactOSI) How cool is that?
[01:11:39 pm] (MrTactOSI) There are several variations on that basic theme that need to be addressed.
[01:11:39 pm] (Seafort) apparently, the server thought it was WAY cool
[01:12:14 pm] (MrTactOSI) A permutation of that problem is what is making . . . hmm, is it the gardens in Delucia? a very blackhole-laden region.
[01:12:37 pm] (Seafort) I was under the impression that it was the tree canopies or something
[01:12:39 pm] (MrTactOSI) Fertbert either has already fixed this problem or is working on fixing it, as part of our "stamp out blackholes" initiative.
[01:12:54 pm] (Seafort) yes, the SOB initiative
[01:12:56 pm] (Seafort) *LMAO*(
[01:13:02 pm] (MrTactOSI) I think it's cotton bales, actually
[01:13:17 pm] (MrTactOSI) Some clever designer in the past made those spawn in midair and fall to the ground.
[01:13:35 pm] (MrTactOSI) So logically, every time the shard starts up, it looks in midair and says "hey, there's not one there, I should make one"
[01:13:36 pm] (Seafort) cool, spontaneous midair cotton
[01:13:49 pm] (MrTactOSI) Result: tons of copies of those objects lagging the daylights out of the area
[01:14:18 pm] (MrTactOSI) Next?
[01:14:38 pm] (Seafort) Alright, what causes those extraneous bits of castle, or stone walls, or other junk in the middle of the ocean?
[01:15:08 pm] (MrTactOSI) No idea. Sorry. That's an issue I hadn't even HEARD of before.
[01:15:22 pm] (Seafort) really? I'll go get some coordinates and mail em to ya hehe
[01:15:30 pm] (MrTactOSI) Please do
[01:15:34 pm] (Seafort) theres this like mile-long line of castle windows in the ocean
[01:15:40 pm] (Seafort) its freaky
[01:15:50 pm] (Seafort) okay, anyways, last one..
[01:16:04 pm] (Seafort) Do people call you Mr T, and if so, do you pity the fool?
[01:16:09 pm] (Seafort) hehe I had to ask that one
[01:16:18 pm] (MrTactOSI) They do not.
[01:16:44 pm] (MrTactOSI) Perhaps it is because I am a pasty white boy who isn't 6'4" with $80K worth of gold chains.
[01:16:47 pm] (MrTactOSI) But that's a guess.
[01:16:49 pm] (MrTactOSI) :-)
[01:16:55 pm] (Seafort) you could get some chains though
[01:17:07 pm] (MrTactOSI) Nah, my wife would take 'em
[01:17:11 pm] (Seafort) little programmer bling-bling going on
[01:17:26 pm] (Seafort) or, yoy know.. you could get like a solid golf 5.25 floppy
[01:17:33 pm] (Seafort) er solid gold even
[01:17:43 pm] (MrTactOSI) Oh yeah, that would DEFINITELY make me look cooler than I already am.
[01:17:44 pm] (MrTactOSI) NOT
[01:17:54 pm] (Seafort) well, lets face it..
[01:18:03 pm] (Seafort) its hard to find something that makes you cooler than you already are
[01:18:20 pm] (Seafort) unless it were a mullet..
[01:18:23 pm] (Seafort) that might work
[01:18:32 pm] (MrTactOSI) Aside from a decent haircut, losing 20 pounds or getting a new wardrobe, you mean?
[01:18:41 pm] (MrTactOSI) I think it's a lost cause :-)
[01:19:07 pm] (Seafort) just get one of those tuxedo T's
[01:19:12 pm] (Seafort) you cant go wrong with that
[01:19:15 pm] (MrTactOSI) Classy!
[01:19:27 pm] (Seafort) okay, well, I guess thats it
[01:19:37 pm] (MrTactOSI) K, gotta run, but thanks very much for having me on
[01:19:38 pm] (Seafort) Its been an enlightning conversation! lots of fun
[01:19:44 pm] (MrTactOSI) Take it easy
[01:19:48 pm] (Seafort) you too man

The Keepers of Virtue are hosting the second monthly PvPer tourney for the roleplaying community, Saturday, March 8, 2003, to start at 8pm under the Central Skies. The tourney is being held at the Academy for Higher Learning's Arena. Lilly and others of =V= will be gating or giving runes to guild leaders/members to the location of the tournament.

Entry fee for the tourney is 5k. We request that you bring the money with you the night of the tourney and pay it to Lilly. We also request that you register before hand so that the draws can be set up the night before the tourney. Last day to register will be Saturday at noon. I request that all guilds participating be warred to each other. If you are not warred then you will have to temporarily go on a stone that is warred, or forfeit your round.

1st place will get 50% of the entry fee, 2nd place 30%, 3rd 20%.

Rules for the tournament are still being discussed but the basic rules still stand.

1) No looting.
2) No invising/hiding.
3) No area effect spells
4) No sunmmoned creatures or pets
5) No prepoisoned weapons. If you can poison your weapon, you can do it at the start of the match, other than that, no pre-poisoned weapons.
6) If you run out of regs during the 15 minutes of battle...sorry...no pausing match to get more.
7) No mounts.
8) Vet reward cloaks and robes are allowed
9) Have fun.

If interested in participating, please ICQ me at 6840996 or email ksilverleaf@yahoo.com. More information will be forthcoming soon

Thanks,
Lilly Thann
GM of Keepers of Virtue Lilly Thann, Great Lakes;
Jasmine Silvers, Oceania

Trinsic and the Nasty Old Vikings (NOV) of Great Lakes is proud to bring you the first Krewe of Odin Mardi Gras Parade. The Parade and Ball will be held on Tuesday, March 4th, 2003, starting at 7 PM under the central skies. (CST). Come one, come all, and enjoy the party South Trinsic style! The Parade will start at Barrier Isle bridge and proceed through Trinsic ending at the Political Residence in front of the South Trinsic Bank in Trammel as indicated on the Parade Route.

Just as the true Mardi Gras, trinkets and other goodies will be thrown to any and all gathered crowds. People are asked to stand in the grass area so as to better allow the Krewe members to toss these various trinkets!

The First Annual Krewe of Odin Ball will follow the parade. It will be held inside the Political Residence once the parade ends. Come on out and enjoy the fesitivies!


http://www.farlighthall.com/mardigras.gif

-City of Trinsic and NOV

Hear Ye Hear Ye!

The High Court of Britannia is now taking applications for Judges, whose responsilities will be to hold trials and interpret laws and Lawyers, who will be charged for defending/prosecuting criminals for the High Court.


Requirements and Restrictions

An essay detailing the applicant's reasons for joining the Committee,

A brief history of the applicant's life and experience,

A test to be administered by the Justicar of Virtue or a person appointed by the Justicar to administer said test. This test must prove the applicant is:

Knowledgeable of his or her local city government's laws,

Knowledgeable of the High Council's laws,

Knowledgeable of the process contained within this constitution,

Shows and understanding and acceptance of Virtue.

Applicant must have no criminal record.

Applicant may not be an enemy of the state.

Applicant may not also serve upon the High Council, a local government, or in the military while in service upon the Judicial Law Committee.

Send Applications to

highcourt@alterythem.com

This is just a reminder that tonight's meeting, the 34th Meeting of the High Council, will take place at 6:00 PM CST at a private location, as this is a private meeting of the High Council. Next week's meeting will take place on Sunday, March 9, 2003 at 6:00 PM CST in the North Dining Room of Castle Britain, and time will be given prior to the close of the meeting for the public to bring items of importance before the Council.

I would also like to announce that the Seat of Balance sits empty, and we are currently accepting applications. To be eligible to serve on the High Council, you must not be a voting member or authority figure in any local goverment or in the military, however, you may still run for the seat if you are -- you would be expected to resign any such position prior to taking office however. To apply, simply send a Writ of Candidacy to the High Council through the Chancellor (you may do this in-game, or via email at radian@alterythem.com). This Writ of Candidacy must include your eligibility (you must declare that you are a citizen of Britannia, and over the age of majority of fourteen years, and note whether you are currently serving in another governmental or military capacity), and your basic reasons for wishing to serve upon the Council.

All applicants for the Seat of Balance will be required to attend the March 9th meeting. At that meeting, all applicants must endure public scrutiny wherein members of the Council and Public alike are allowed to ask questions of each candidate.

Thank you,


Ra'Dian Fl'Gith
Chancellor of Virtue
High Council of Britannia