Patch 73 - Feburary 13th, Valentines Event, Combat Changes & More!

Update: There is a problem blocking the poison spell in town, this has been addressed and will be fixed in the next patch (7-10 days). I >'ed when I should have <'ed. Sorry for the minor annoyance!

Valentines Event

Cupid's Army has once again been summoned to Britannia!
http://uorforum.com/threads/cupid-returns-a-unique-holiday-event.15608/​

Chess Papers

If any player had a special chess paper from when we were testing the chess system, those have been removed.
We can re-create them for you as a new item, just contact the staff to report it missing.
Note: These had to be removed unexpectedly so we didn't have time to replace them before the patch​

Accounting

* Added a high level access command to allow senior staff to purge the IP history of an account.
This will help the staff deal with complex issues related to players who have extensive IP history bound to their accounts.
* Added a command to purge IP access history from all accounts
* Added a command to purge all accounts that contain zero characters.
These commands will be incorporated into the servers general maintenance and have reduced our account overhead by 30% in testing. (3-5% reduction in save times)
* Added a new wallet value, copper coins, to be used with the new reward system (Moats, House Customization, Character Transfers, etc). ​

Combat

* Removed the caps that have been in place for years that normalized combat damage.
These caps could affect damage players would do should they exceed standard combat norms and were in place as we researched the exact functionality of combat when outside standard values. (110 Strength, 125 Tactics, etc).
Strength @ 100 = 20%, Strength @ 110 = 22%, Strength @ 120 = 24%
Tactics @ 50 = 37.5% , Tactics @ 75 = 43.75%, Tactics @ 100 = 50%, Tactics @ 110 = 52.5%, Tactics @ 125 = 56.25%
Anatomy is unchanged (0-30%)
Note: A minor problem with the tactics formula was fixed which should result in more stable damage values for players with 25-75 tactics.
Summary: This will allow for a small increase in weapon damage of around 10% when using strength potions and tactics bonus weapons.​

Items

New Item - Copper Coin, to be used for the clean up Britain system.​

Mobiles

* Graveyards now have a much better chance to spawn the graveyard boss. (Revenant)
* Monsters will now self assign a home location when their status changes.
This will apply to pets that go wild, or are tamed and released.
Note: This will resolve the odd behavior players have been noticing with pets trying to endlessly return to their home spawn location.
* Resolved a variety of issues with legacy spawners (from 2012) with abnormal home ranges for monsters/animals.
Note: All home ranges should be roughly 5-10 tiles. (The area in which a pet will randomly wander when idle)
* Tamed animals, that operate using smart pathing (Advanced path finding logic) will be downgraded to a lower grade pathfinding logic when tamed.
Note: This will resolve some minor performance issues related to players attempting to send tamed animals against inaccessible targets.
* Bonded pets will now only lose 1 loyalty when their owner attempts and fails a command.
Non bonded pets will still lose 3 loyalty when their owner fails a command.
* Transferring a pet to another player will now clear the friends list of the transferred pet.
Note: Down the road we will add a command to address this.
* Dread Spiders will once again spawn in the fire dungeon.
Their spawn area has been adjusted slightly to include a larger area and deter non active farming methods.
* Packhorses & Packllamas will no longer drop an empty backpack if they die while bonded, and have no items in their pack.
* OakTables can now be broken properly by monsters when not locked down and impeding their pathing. - Thanks ElHorno, Invoker​

New Account Restrictions

* Explosion potions can no longer be used by new accounts in guarded regions.
* The Poison/Poison Wall spells can no longer be used by new accounts in guarded regions.
* Firebombs can no longer be used by new accounts in guarded regions.
* Firecrackers can no longer be used by new accounts in guarded regions.
Note: I have avoided this change for years, but lately there have been a rash of new accounts created for the express purpose of murdering players in town. While our official stance is that town killing is part of Ultima Online. We do not believe that creating accounts for the express purpose of murdering players is. In 90% of the cases in which we investigate this activity we find some other rule being broken (General Conduct, Account Limitations, 3rd Party application abuse)
Our veteran players will not notice this chance at all. It will function much like the requirements to join a NPC guild like the thieves guild. A certain baseline amount of gametime and account history will be checked before allowing these actions in a guarded region. ​

Home Owner Vendor Management

Three new actions will now be available for home owners/co-owners.
Vendor Re-Location

Players will be able to move a vendor in their own house to any valid location that is not already filled by another vendor or blocking a doorway.
This command will only be usable by the home owner.
Vendors will only be able to be moved once every 60 minutes.
Vendors will can only be moved to standard locations in a house. Front Steps, Static Floors and 1 tile away from any doorway. Player created floors will be invalid targets for moving a vendor.
Note: This command will have a copper coin cost associated with its use. ​

Vendor Information

Players will be able to determine information about vendors placed in their house. Such as last interaction with their owner, and how long they are paid for.
This command will only be usable by the home owner.
This will allow players to determine if someone has abandoned their vendor or if the vendor is still active.
Note: This command will have a small copper coin cost associated with its use. ​

Vendor Retirement

This command will allow a home owner to retire a vendor placed in their house that has been adandoned by the owner.
This command will only be usable by the home owner.
This command will only work if the player who owns the vendor has not interacted with the vendor in 30 days.
All earned gold from the vendor will be moved to the owners bank account and the vendor will be removed.
A log entry will be recorded for the home owner and vendor owner to trace the removal of the vendor.
Note: This command will have a copper coin cost associated with its use. ​

Note: These features are being added but will not be player accessible for a bit.​

Player Vendors

* Player vendors can no longer be dismissed if the vendor has earned income that has not been collected by the player.
Note: Previously the gold was automatically deposited to your bank account.
Note: Player vendors will return a deed to the player if the vendor has been paid at least 1 gold directly by the player. Should a vendor have zero funds paid to them by the owner of the vendor and they are dismissed no vendor contract will be returned. ​

Player Profile (Renaissance) Menu

* Updated the profile menu to have the correct Renaissance era fonts
* Added a new navigation tag, a unique feature tab, and a shard support tab.
Navigation & Shard News

Unique Renaissance Elements & Updated Player Profile

Shard Support / Copper Coin Wallet

The Renaissance Guide to Shard Support & Copper Coins​

Server Performance

* Removed a wide variety of code that has made it to the live server over the years that was not implemented or still requires more testing.
Note: Most of these systems were disabled or inaccessible, however we have completed stripped these systems out until they are ready to be deployed formally. This included things like poker, battlechess, automated event scheduling, advanced regioning, etc.
Completely removed the combat log book hooks from the combat code. This system was needed years ago as we worked our the combat systems for Renaissance. As the combat system is stable other than a few minor planned changes this is no longer needed.
http://uorforum.com/threads/renaissance-blog-introducing-the-combat-log-book.1232/​

Scissors

* Scissors can no longer be used intentionally or unintentionally used on blessed items.
Note: This is a quick fix to a larger issue in which the RunUO core will literally cut the color off of an item you are wearing. Given that this is a fairly complex fix to the server core we believe this will address the main issue as most items of a desirable hue, are blessed. This can happen when running a macro that cuts sandals by type, and then wearing a pair of colored sandals. You would return to the macro having tried to destroy the sandals you were wearing, but failing to do so as you are wearing them. However this results in the color being removed as that happens before turning a leather item into leather. We will address a more complete fix in a future patch. ​

Sheep

* Resolved a problem related to performance and cleanup operations related to sheep shearing.Thanks FranzPfniffel
* Updated the shearing mechanics related to sheep on a boat to remove some outdated restrictions.
* 1-5 Sheep, on a boat, will re-grow their wool every 60 minutes.
* For every sheep over 5 it will add 20 minutes to the respawn timer.
* At 25 sheep shearing them will no longer refresh the sheep and they will decay.
Note: This is the same system in place for houses, just with a 50% penalty due to sheep being located on a boat.​

Spells

Fireball can now be cast on items allowing for magery training without a player target. - Thanks Canis​

Tracking

* When tracking a player, in a dungeon region, you can no longer find players in a completely different dungeon.
Note: You could still find someone on Level 1 of shame, from level 3. But not find someone in destard, while tracking in shame.
* Reduced the max range on tracking from 100 tiles, to 50 tiles for player to player tracking.
Note: This is a temporary change. Each use of tracking runs a fairly complex check to determine if a player can be tracked. This is inefficient, as it runs the check on everyone in range, rather than listing the players in the general area, and then attempting a skill check once you attempting to track that player. The fix for this is a fairly large re-write that we will address down the road a bit. Once we address this issue, the range will be increased. We will most likely address the horrible Renaissance era tracking gump at the same time as well.
* Re-wrote the logic that factors range into the success/failure chances when tracking a player to provide more consistent results.
Note: The range feature was added in 2014 and was a bit rough. Details on the new mechanics will be added to the tracking skill page once testing is complete.
* A player using tracking, at any skill, will be able to track a player they are standing on, or directly next to.
http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/Tracking​

Treasure Maps

* Fixed a problem in which the public broadcast for a player completing a level 7 map incorrectly indicated they had failed the event.
Note: This was happening when a player failed to complete the ironman challenge, but otherwise finished the event instance. The alerts will now correctly indicate whether a player failed, completed, or iron-maned the event.
* Monsters can now trigger morph items, like the ones found in the Spider Caves map.
Note: This will avoid situations where the players can easily attack the final boss without the boss being able to pathfind to them.​

Wands

* Wands have been converted to the proper era accurate naming conventions.
Magic Wand, Greater Heal:4 will become "a greater healing wand with 4 charges"
* A wands magical charges can now be transferred to other wands.
While holding a wand in your backpack, but not equipped, if the wand is identified you can double click it and target a wand of the same type.
* Charges will be transferred to the target wand up to the maximum amount of charges that wand can naturally occur with.
Example: Greater Heal Max:5, Fireball Wand Max:15, Lightning Wand Max: 20, Identification Wand Max:175, Most others:30
* If there are no charges left in the original wand, it will be destroyed.
* If there is not enough room for all the charges in the original wand, as many charges as can be transferred will be moved from wand to wand.
This change will serve two purposes.
It will encourage people to manage the global item count by consolidating wands into more functional wands.
This will also negate various tactics players are utilizing with non approved 3rd party applications that are providing an advantage in pvp situations with wand use.
Note: Non Approved 3rd party applications are still not allowed, and will result in the possible loss of access your accounts. This change simply makes sure that if someone manages to avoid detection for a brief period of time they do not receive and unfair advantage in combat situations.
​

Website Updates

* Completed Style and CSS Update for the following pages
Skill Trainers > http://www.uorenaissance.com/compendium/npctrainers
Skill Trainer Locations > http://www.uorenaissance.com/compendium/npctrainer_location/2
* Resolved a problem where the forums were not showing the game server stats after a php version upgrade.
* Updated the website to include Player vs Monster leaderboard data for 2017
PvM Leaderboard - http://www.uorenaissance.com/pvmleaderboard/Monsters/2017
Monster Profiles - http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/Dragon​

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The plan at the moment is for the patch to include the following

Moats (75% done)
Clean Up Britain System (75% done)
Shard Support Rewards (6/7 Character Slots, Character Transfers, etc) (25% done)
New Guild System (Old/New Guild Hybrid created specifically for UOR) (90% done)
Dragon's Den level 7 Dungeon (25% Done)
Christmas Content Updates (Reward store, additional instances (if time allows) (0% done)
Performance Improvements (Neverending Work/Research)​

Carpentry BOD's and Gardening are two systems I want to work on but both are massive projects that have to be done perfectly to fit into our economy. I have most of the items/resources/rewards mapped out already but a great deal of planning is still needed for both systems before coding can begin. After this patch however they will move to the top of my todo list.

Moat Work In Progress

Not yet, but some/all of what I listed will hopefully be ready by the 15th/18th.

Right now I am working to trace the performance issue plaguing the live server, which is slowing things down a bit.