The Summoner update is now live in game! For details about this new playstyle, check out this wiki article: https://wiki.shardsofbritannia.com/en/skills/spirit_speak

Many thanks to everyone who helped test!

Test Center has been opened to the public for testing of Factions and Summoner content. To connect to test center, open your client and in the address bar at the bottom, connect to test.uo4.life:5002

For Factions: NOTE: All timers (capture, etc) have been set to 5 minutes temporarily to ease testing, except the sigil reset timer which is now set to 10 minutes to allow you to run between towns. Only Minoc and Brit are available, which is where you will find faction and town stones. This system is a direct copy of the old UO system, including stealing and IP restriction mechanics. https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/technical/previous-publishes/2000-2/2000-publish-08-5th-december/ We would love some robust testing of the general mechanics of combat and town capture in particular. As the fundamental mechanics of the system are a direct UO copy, these are unlikely to change too much. Wiki article: https://wiki.shardsofbritannia.com/en/factions

Summoning: This system, however, is NOT from old UO, it is our own special homebrew. Think of it sort of like a "Magical Tamer." We'd really love some feedback on how the balance of these mechanics feel in PVE and PVP, and any ideas you have for improvements that would make it better (keeping in mind that the Summoner's Tome full of a bunch of new summons is on the not too distant horizon) Wiki Article: https://wiki.shardsofbritannia.com/en/skills/spirit_speak

Vendors with full spellbooks and regs will be out at the banks shortly. Thanks for helping test!

Please report any bugs with /bug, feel free to ask questions.

A cold wind blows from the East and as it breezes past your cheeks you hear the faint cries of an otherworldly being. Its tongue is both unintelligible but strangely familiar, beckoning you, filling your mind with patterns you struggle to fully understand. What felt like an eternity of thought passes as quickly as it arrived and you return to your senses, wondering whether you've gone mad or tapped into an energy pulsing beneath the surface of Britannia.

(These changes are in testing and are NOT live- see more below)

Spirit Speak has been completely overhauled to allow for benefits for players wishing to focus on summoning! Currently these changes apply to existing summons associated with Magery, but in the future a Summoner's Tome will allow players with the Spirit Speak ability to summon even more creatures from another plane! Details can be found here: https://wiki.shardsofbritannia.com/en/skills/spirit_speak

We need testers! Test Center will be publicly opened soon for testing of this new feature.

Discordance can now be "refreshed" on a target (as with Peacemaking and Provocation currently)- thus resetting the timer of the effect on a mob that already has the effect on them.

Sorry for the short interruption! Service has been restored. The server will come back online at it's normally schedule time in about 10 minutes after the posting of this

Factions have been completely overhauled from the ground up and include new content- including capturing towns and rewards! This content is currently in testing, but you can see what's coming soon (pending tweaks) at this article: https://wiki.shardsofbritannia.com/en/factions

(After next restart) Lumberjacking has been slightly tweaked to give more chance to gain per attempt.

We want to share with you that Stimwalt has decided to step away from the project indefinitely and retire as a player. To Stimwalt: thank you for all of your contributions over the years and we wish you the best in your endeavors! While you cannot be replaced, you will remain with us in spirit. We hope to see you in-game! <3

PS: Soon we will work to add some in-game clones/statues to showcase past and present team members.

Dev Blog/State of the Game:

• Staff Activity

  Some staff is on break right now for one reason or another, but not everyone is playing other games. Life always comes first and if things come up in life, it is always advised for staff to focus on real life, which may warrant some time away from the project. When staff members take breaks, that doesn't mean the separation is necessarily permanent or that they did anything wrong.

• Player Feedback & Game Balancing

  We do our best to read all feedback submitted, but we do not have the time to acknowledge or reply to most submissions. If you submitted something a while ago and it hasn't been improved yet and you have something else to add to your submission, please feel free to re-submit it, but please avoid sending in repeat submissions just for the sake of trying to get it fixed quickly. There's always a possibility that we have trouble replicating a reported issue, so more details or a fresh account of the issue is always welcome.
  Additionally, it should be noted that not everything is final, and many features of the game are subject to change when we do balance passes and content expansions, but those things also take time to complete as we discuss, debate and use metrics to determine the best course of action.

• LoA New Client/Citadel Studios Changes

  A lot of people have expressed concern over the changes announced by Citadel Studios in regards to the new experimental client and 3D camera. We can confirm that this will not affect our project and there are no plans to shut down Legends of Aria as it exists today, meaning our project is not in jeopardy of being shut down due to the new client changes, nor will we be forced to use the new client. Additionally, a lot of people ask what happens if CS goes under? In the past, we have stated that it is possible that we may be able to continue the project if that ever happens, but neither we nor CS expects anything like that to occur, and we would do everything in our power to make sure we can proceed.

• The Map

  Most of the map terrain is complete but requires finishing touches. Right now progress is on hold while we work on other content.

• Population

  The population is always in flux and changing depending on many factors like new games coming out, limited time off for people, and season changes. The game is still being played by plenty of people and we are doing everything within our ability to release updates and content as we're able to, to keep people busy having fun.

• Actions Against Player Accounts

  Sometimes players break the rules or behave in a manner that is harmful to the game or our community and we have to take actions against their Discord privileges or in-game accounts. Players that have action taken against them are almost always verbal about it and claim they did nothing wrong when in fact they did. Please make sure you're aware of the rules and are abiding by them. We will never discuss actions taken against individuals specifically in public, but if you have had action taken against you, or you suspect so and would like to inquire about it, please use the Contact Us page on our website to do so. We understand that everyone is human and makes mistakes sometimes, and are willing to give second chances when people show remorse and willingness to do better, so you may dispute the actions and explain to us why you think they should be reversed, and we will consider. Reminder: Real Money Transactions are strictly prohibited and harmful to our economy, anyone suspected or caught buying and selling may be subject to have action taken against them pending review.

• Goals & What's Being Worked On

  We're always working on bug fixes and polishing existing features. Here are some of the goals on our list:

  • short term goals:

    • Holiday Events like Halloween events and Gravedigging
    • PVE, Inscription, Treasure Hunting [and more] content additions. See: https://wiki.shardsofbritannia.com/en/dev-letters/inscription-overhaul
    • resolving issues with the remaining house models and making them available to be placed

  • medium/longer-term goals:

    • faction content
    • more PVE content & encounters
    • bulk order deeds
    • house customization options (changing the style of walls/roof/floor)
    • gardening (potted plants, does not include growing reagents or other resources)
    • map expansion

• Fixed issue with containers losing their original hue when being locked down and/or when choosing Container Type: None option
• Cost of fishing nets reduced slightly
• Chance to catch fishing nets with general fishing increased slightly

• Fixed an issue with some SOS maps not working that was created prior to the latest fishing patch
• Fixed an issue with some potion kegs not working that were filled or created prior to the Potion Keg patch last month; the tooltip may still show 0/200 even though it is filled, but drawing a potion from them should now be possible which will, in turn, update the tooltip when you draw a potion from it.

Two new tames have arrived in Britannia!

• The Fire Beetle is a new mount available for taming that anyone can control. This mount also acts as a mobile forge and can be used to smelt ore on the go!

• Bake Kitsunes have made their return to Britannia. These foxes are noted for their ability to cast powerful spells.

• A bug was also fixed which would cause the beetles to sometimes not follow pet commands from their owner.

Signup for the PVP event closes tomorrow! Head over to https://event-signup.uo4.life/ if you'd like to participate!

After next restart:

• Lockpicks obtained from mobs will be smeltable
• Players added as a friend of a guild house will be able to enter the house

• Fishing SOS treasure maps have been refreshed to work with Britannia, any existing maps should now be decipherable
• SOS treasure maps require the use of Fishing Nets to attempt fishing them up
• Fishing Nets have been added to Fishing Vendors while also being able to obtain them from general fishing and the chance to receive them from general fishing increased slightly
• Fishing nets will no longer break as often when using them for fishing SOS treasure maps
• Sunken Ships will now appear in the water where the SOS treasure map is located
• Refreshed sea creatures & loot tables & a couple of new semi-rares added to strive towards (more additions to follow in time)

The upcoming Fishing SOS changes are delayed slightly while we continue work on it, however, the container organization changes will go out tonight during the daily restart.

Fishing

• Fishing SOS treasure maps have been updated to work with Britannia
• Fishing Nets are now required to attempt to fish up SOS treasures
• Sunken ship will now appear in the water near the SOS location, which should normally be visible from shore

Organization

• Added new Move Contents option to containers to help with moving items from one container to another
• Added new Stack Contents option to containers to help with stacking a container's contents
• Added Organize Backpack option to characters (right click self); this will automatically organize all of your non-blessed items into pouches
• Updated "Set XXX Bag" options, replaced all of the right-click options with single "Set Container Type" option, works with backpack organizer

General Fixes/Changes

• Fixed issue with security option not being added to items when locking them down in some cases (may need to release & re-secure existing items to give them security option if they are affected)
• Changed default security option to Co-Owners when owner is securing items

Go play!

Apologies folks, we'll need a little longer to finish our tasks. This could be up to an hour, but should be sooner. Thanks as always for your patience.

We'll be offline for up to an hour during this evening's maintenance window @ 9am UTC. Thanks for your patience.