Patch 54: June 30th 2014 - Website Maintenance, 4th of July & More

Notice: Trolls are spawning 100x more often than they should when travelling and mining. This will be fixed in a hotfix in the next few days, but in the meantime it is best if you avoid recall mining.

Bank Access

• Increased the range in which bankers and minters will respond to players

Boats

• Resolved an extremely rare bug with the default RunUo code which could cause a boat to handle all speech actions for a massive area.
• Adjusted boats to properly handle speech from only players on the boat.

Counselor Program

• Implemented a new list for counselors allowing them to greet any online young players.
  
• Implemented a method for counselors to mark a players account as greeted.
  This will help us ensure that all new players receive a visit from one of our player volunteers.
  Note: Counselors still cannot see account names, IP information and such. They can simply mark accounts as greeted via their normal activities.
  
• Added a new command for counselors allowing them to add a player to the young player program.
• Note: Allowing that this player meets all the standard conditions for addition.

Guild System Overhaul

• Note: Due to time constraints this system will be pushed back to patch 55 as it undergoes more testing.
  You can read more about the new system here - http://uorforum.com/threads/new-guild-system-discussion.5319/

Guild Chat

• Guild chat will no longer register as a system message in razor.
• This will address any player concerns that it was being used as a trigger for a variety of macros.
• Note: This change was not made due to any one player, or group of players actions. It was a planned fix to bring balance and fair play to the world.
• Warning: Anyone using guild chat as a trigger for macro's after this patch will face additional scrutiny for unauthorized 3rd party application use.

Harvest Systems

• Discovered a problem that was causing pickaxes to not register properly as a harvesting tool thus excluding them from the proper timing checks when harvesting.
• Discovered a bug that was resulting in tools being able to be used without the proper delay when chopping or mining.
• Properly adjusted the harvest system settings for pickaxes.
• They will now register as a mining implement and apply the correct delay between use.
  You will not longer be able to rotate tools to speed up the mining or chopping process.
  Each tool use will require the appropriate delay while the gathering process finishes.
• Resolved a bug in RunUO that was resulting in Axes not properly wearing when used for lumberjacking.
  Axes will now properly decay uses when chopping trees and break once their uses are exhausted.
  Regular axes have 150 uses on average, while exceptional axes have 300 uses.

Holiday Rewards

• Added a special reward for our players this 4th of July.
• Players logging in between 7-3 and 7-5 will be rewarded with a gift bag.
• Added a special reward for our players on the shards 2nd Anniversary.
• Details will be posted on 8/20/2014 regarding this event which will take place around 9/1/2014.

Instrument Names

• Converted all instrument single click names to lowercase to account for various cliloc conversion issues resulting in random capitalization.
  "a new lap harp of Daemon Dismissal" will now be "a new lap harp of daemon dismissal "

Monthly Activity Rewards

• Added several performance improvements to the system to account for our much larger playerbase.
• The process will now only take .5 to 1 second a month.

Mobiles

• Adjusted the beggars skills so that he can now teach begging and camping.
• Created a hireable shepard that can teach herding and camping.

Misc

• Removed advertising contracts from the banker and allowed all vendors to be published on the website
  To see a list of all the vendors on the server - http://www.uorenaissance.com/vendor_list
• Rangers now sell arrows and bolts.

myRenaissance - MyRunUO

• Resolved a problem in which the new pet export system was not properly truncating the skills table for pets before each new export.

New Player Program - New Dungeon

• Added a new dungeon expansion to Occlo, the drowned caverns.
• This dungeon will provide new players a graveyard style experience which on the island of Ocllo.
• To learn more about the new dungeon click here
  

New Player Program - Young Status

• Implemented a perma-young account flag allowing removal of the young program expiration
• This will be primarily used for special cases where players wish to allow their young children, wife, or girlfriend to experience the server in a limited and protected fashion.
• This flag will be staff approved, and subject to additional rules/regulations.
  Notice: If you know someone that meets these conditions and is interested in more information contact me via forum conversation.

NPC Training

• NPC's will no longer display all the skills that they train in a quick succession of single speech actions.
• They will now speak a concise list of the skills that they offer for training.
• This will allow players to easily see which skills are available without checking their journal.
• Should you correctly name a NPC and use the word train but not correctly identify a skill the NPC will say the following
  "I cannot teach thee if thou dost not name what to learn!"
• Added a new feature to the Renaissance website allowing players to easily determine who trains which skill, where it can be learned at and which keywords to use.
  http://www.uorenaissance.com/compendium/npctrainers
  
  Training before the patch
  
  
  Training after the patch
  

Player Barkeepers

• Allowed access to the barkeepers customization options via a double click action by the owner.
• This will provide you access to the customization system for the barkeeper along with payment information.

Platinum Vendor

• The vendor now sells a 3 charge runebook dye tub for 18 platinum.

Profile Menu/Gump

• Split the profile section of the gump into two sections.
• One section will provide links to your online profile and detail your currently online activity
• The second page will now detail all of your privacy and character options.
  
  

Skills

• The poisoning and item ID skills, when at grandmaster levels will allow you to see the level of poison and charges remaining on a poisoned weapon.
  

Stuck Menu

• Allowed players to now select Ocllo as a destination when using the help stuck system.
  

Taming Event, Zookeepers Quest

• Resolved a problem in which the zookeeper was not accepting certain pets.
• The Hypno Toad now has a namehue of 33(red) allowing for players to rename them.
• Fixed a problem where the instance check was not properly closing out a timer resulting in rare situations of instance overlap.

Weapon Name Descriptors

• Converted the names of all weapons to the classical Ultima style.
• The old system of name [Property1, Property2, Property3] has been removed.
• Unlike the classic ultima we have fixed the prefix so that it is "an exceedingly" vs "a exceedingly"
• Removed all traces of case variance, all descriptors will be shown in lower case.
• Axes and Pickaxes will have an additional keyword added to describe the condition of the item for the purpose of harvesting
  new, slightly worn, somewhat worn, fairly worn, greatly worn, and nearly broken
• This applies only to the durability or "uses" of the item as a harvesting tool, not the items combat durability.
• Weapons are now named as such
  
  Unidentified Weapon​
  a magic broadsword​
  Unidentified Weapon, Also used for Harvesting​
  a new magic pickaxe​
  Unidentified weapon, but poisoned, viewed by a player with Gm Poisoning or Gm Item ID​
  a magic broadsword, it is greater poisoned with 11 charges​
  Unidentified weapon, but poisoned, viewed by a player without Gm Poisoning or Gm Item ID​
  a magic broadsword, it appears to be poisoned​
  Unidentified weapon, but poisoned, viewed by a player without Gm Poisoning or Gm Item ID, also crafted by a factioneer​
  a magic broadsword, it is faction crafted and appears to be poisoned​
  Identified weapon with magic properties​
  an exceedingly accurate broadsword of might​
  Identified silver weapon with magic properties​
  an exceedingly accurate silver broadsword of might​
  Identified silver weapon with magic properties, also used for harvesting​
  an exceedingly accurate silver slightly worn axe of might​
  Identified slayer weapon with magic properties​
  an exceedingly accurate silver broadsword of might and dragon slaying​
  Identified slayer weapon with magic properties, poisoned and viewed by a player with Gm Poisoning or Gm Item ID​
  an exceedingly accurate silver broadsword of might and dragon slaying, it is greater poisoned with 11 charges​
  Identified slayer weapon with magic properties, poisoned and viewed by a player with Gm Poisoning or Gm Item ID​
  an exceedingly accurate silver broadsword of might and dragon slaying, it appears to be poisoned​
  A runic crafted halberd​
  an exceptional supremely accurate halberd of vanquishing​
  A runic crafted halberd, crafted by a factioneer​
  an exceptional supremely accurate halberd of vanquishing, it is faction crafted​
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Note: Pictures don't represent the final version of the descriptors.
  Notice: Should you find a weapon with a name not quite displaying correctly, make sure to contact the staff.

Website Updates - Under the Hood

• Successfully implemented the mod re-write system into the Renaissance website.
• This gives our website a more professional look when sharing links, advertising the server or just providing links to our players.
• This change was done in a way that all old links will continue to work, while all new links displayed on the website will go to the new simplified versions.

This link for a players profiles will go from
http://www.uorenaissance.com/?page=m_player&id=61796

to​

http://www.uorenaissance.com/player/61796

Compendium articles will go from
http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/?page=info&id=201

to​

http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/alchemy

Search links will go from
http://www.uorenaissance.com/search/?page=g_search&s=dalavar

to​

http://www.uorenaissance.com/search/dalavar

Item database links will go from
http://www.uorenaissance.com/?page=m_items&fn=Rare

to​

http://www.uorenaissance.com/items/Rare/100

This project is still ongoing as all links for the website have to be updated. So should you find a dead link please report it to the staff.​

Website Updates - New Content

• New Compendium Articles
  
  
  All Commands - http://www.uorenaissance.com/categorylist/Commands
  Boat / Tillerman Commands - http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/Boat_Commands
  Faction Commands - http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/Faction_Commands
  Guild Commands - http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/Guild_Commands
  House Commands - http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/House_Commands
  Hireling / Follower Commands - http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/Hireling_Pet_Follower_Commands
  NPC Shopkeeper COmmands - http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/NPC_Commands
  Player Vendor Barkeep Commands - http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/Player_Vendor_Barkeep_Commands
  NPC Trainers - http://www.uorenaissance.com/compendium/npctrainers​

Website Updates - Stratics Archive

• We have begun work on our own private version of stratics articles from 1999 and 2000.
  This will ensure that this information is available to our staff and players in case other sources are lost.
  They can be found here - http://www.uorenaissance.com/stratics/

This is a client side issue, where the client does not listen for the word "Discordance" Each keyword is passed from the client to the server as a binary number. I will be looking into additional (server side) options to solve this but most likely it will require a small client patch to fix correctly.

Yea, the server problem is the same, its reading the skill names from the same file in question. That is still on my todo list to fix however, but the main goal here was to fix the 3 line display issue and restore the classic skill training verbage.

In the end I might add a 3rd line of text should the NPC train discordance indicating which keyword to use. I still would prefer to design a small menu of sorts for training skills as this would be drastically more appealing to new players. But I want to preserve the nostalgia of the old system.

Most likely I would tie it to the young program. If you are young and use the keyword train, but no NPC responds you will get a link to the NPC trainers page, and general info. If you are near a NPC, in addition to the text a small info gump will be provided listing the skills available, how much they can train you, for how much and what exactly you need to say to the NPC to train the skill.

This will also let me resolve the eternal questions of skill training.

ie... "Why wont the thief guildmaster train me in stealth (you need more hiding)"

Either skill will show you the additional information, however just about the poisoned status of the weapon. Weapons still need to be identified to see the magic properties.

The two cases we envisioned were a player checking weapons as they were placed on a vendor, or a player shopping for poisoned weapons with the item id skill.

The second case would be a player who decided to specialize in the poison skill who could check his weapons quickly in a combat situation.

1/3 more than previously, similar to what I witnessed in the demo if a player was yelling.

There are still ways to make macros dependent on razor system messages, however guild chat allowed for some very unfair situations such as sync timing, auto gate bots, and other combat related directions.

Normally I am all for macroing but this gave razor features similar to EUO/UOS. There are still methods to create complex triggered macros, just not with guild chat.

There are other ways to accomplish that, and while that may be a trivial use of guild chat, it is the other uses that were more of a concern.

An example being 3 players PvP'ing. 3 players could run a macro quickly cycling looking for a guild chat message (10x a second) and once that message was seen, target the spell they were holding. Directed from a specific player this could be very effective in synced spells. Taken further this would allow the creation of combat bots that are controlled by a single player.

This is one of the main reasons we do not allow EUO and Steam UO as they can provide some extremely advantageous benefits in combat. And while we were not overly worried about razor, this change will let is easily identify players using an unapproved 3rd party application since razor can no longer trigger on guild chat.

The bulk of the crafting updates are being help a bit until I finish up everything.