Patch Notes from 1998-10-11

Patch Notes from 1998-10-11

• Learning skills by watching people who are using them will be removed.
• Problems with ghosts entering certain caves will be fixed.
• All references to mounts now use the word "mount" instead of "horse."
• The invisibility spell, broken last update, will function again.
• Game Masters will no longer be revealed for getting items out of corpses while invisible.
• Players who take items from their own corpse while hiding will no longer be revealed.
• GMs have gained the ability to tell who last changed a house sign; if your house's sign has been defaced, GMs will be able to determine the identity of the vandal. Special thanks to the rec.games.computer.ultima.online newsgroup for the suggestion of this feature!
• The text message for the armslore skill, broken last update, will be correct again.
• Excess messages were removed from the healing skill.
• Healing should be advancing properly now. The amount you advance is based on how wounded the individual you tried to heal was--the skill is now difficulty based, so the more health the target is down, the greater the chance of increase.
• Incidentally, the vet skill will behave the same way.
• Spell casting interruption should now be correct. In the last upadate, a change was made to it which we have determined was not well-balanced. It has therefore been reverted back out.
• Very tough llamas should no longer occur. (We know a lot of folks asked for them to stay this way as they were being used as house guards. We will see about adding something else to serve as house guards).
• Several more fixes were made to prevent abuse via third-party programs. In particular, a house-looting tactic will be fixed.
• Fishing poles will no longer vanish when used from the ground. This was a problem introduced with the last update.
• Explosion potions no longer set off other explosion potions. We regret that our earlier post seemed to indicate that the explosion potion was changed only at the request of the City of Oasis, without input from other player sources. Reports from the City of Oasis on Sonoma, which was suffering from terrorist bombs during their periodic Fight Nights, and subsequent support from other player commentary brought this issue to our attention. Please note that the explosion potions were never intended to be instant-kill tools. From now on, explosion potions will only detonate themselves.
• Escortees will now only respond to the word "destination," and will no longer spam you when you talk.
• The poisoning skill is fixed. Difficulty in making more powerful poisons will now work correctly. Many thanks to the players who wrote in with exact details of this problem.
• Using scissors on a bolt of cloth now leaves the remaining cloth in your backpack, instead of on the ground.
• Horses now eat fruit again.

Client patch

These items will require a client patch to be visible to you.

• "Paperdoll lag" caused when sailing, hiding, and drinking potions should be resolved.
• You will no longer be able to walk uo onto furs or vegetables.
• Combat automove should be completely gone!
• Chopping up corpses will now result in a pile of remains, which is a container. Within the remains will be the contents of the original corpse. This container acts exactly the same as the original corpse--looting it can still result in criminal flagging. Special thanks to the regulars at the Crossroads of Britannia Dev and Discussion boards, whose discussing of this problem led us to a solution.

Guilds and player vs player combat

• The Fame requirement or joining and staying in order/chaos guilds will be removed.
• All the glitches in fealty calculation in guildstones are believed to be ironed out. Incorrect GMs will be automatically deposed when fealty challenges occur.
• You are no longer criminal flagged for looting the corpses of opponents in guild warfare.