The server is coming back online with the Halloween festivities activated as described in the previous article here: https://shardsofbritannia.com/news/halloween-event-progress-report
Halloween Paragon mobs will spawn in both dungeons and in overland & smashing pumpkins and graveyard camps will spawn only in the overland.
The Candy Vendor has not yet finished setting up their shop but we will let you know when they have, very soon. See you in-game and happy Halloween hunting!
Fixed several house decorations that were previously not able to be placed:
Please let us know if/what other items cannot be placed, providing the exact name of the deed or object helps tremendously. Thanks!
The server is now offline for Halloween updates and will remain offline for approximately an hour! 🎃We'll post again when the server is coming back up, thanks for your patience.
The server will go offline around 11pm UTC/6pm Central (approx 2 hours from the time of this post) or a little later depending on our schedules. An hour prior to that we will schedule an automatic shutdown and begin announcing. The downtime is expected to last about an hour to deploy the Halloween updates. Thanks for your patience! 🎃
The Halloween event will start soon! Gravedigging needs a little more time and will come as quickly as possible after the event goes live.
When: The goal is for Today or Tomorrow 10/21 or 10/22 and will last 3-4 weeks, to end before US Thanksgiving
What to expect:
Soon to follow:
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:
medium/longer-term goals:
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:
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