The login server is currently offline and thus the game is not accessible at this time.. We have contacted Citadel to have this addressed. Apologies for the inconvenience, we'll advise as soon as it's back online
UPDATE: The login server is back online and the game is accessible again!
The time has come folks. All going well, we will migrate to our new login server over the weekend of 11/12 July.
We understand and appreciate that these types of changes being done over a weekend may be disruptive, however it's also the only time where key staff members can be present to support the initiative. Such is the nature of a volunteer-led game.
Remind your friends to /verify ASAP and ensure you've reviewed all the details at https://uo4.life/verify - this will result in an easy migration for you all. After the login server migration, we'll also share details on how to get access back if you missed the /verify boat.
We'll announce a specific time for the actual migration closer to the date, however we expect the server to be offline for no longer than an hour while we put what we need in place.
Please note this patch has been reverted and is no longer active - we'll continue to work on this feature in the background and hope to have it available to you again real soon.
And we are back online!
Unfortunately, there are currently issues with the server. We need to wait for additional support from the team. As soon as we have an update, we will share it here. Sorry :-(
The server is back online.
We've temporarily rolled back the recent Account Bound Item Recovery patch while we investigate it as a potential cause of this week's instability. We'll be monitoring closely and will re-introduce an improved version of that change once we're confident it's stable.
To the community: we know crashes and downtime are frustrating, especially when they're happening with some regularity. We want to be transparent -- when multiple people are contributing changes to the server, tracking down the root cause of an issue isn't always straightforward. It takes time to isolate what's actually responsible, and we take that process seriously rather than guessing.
The people working on Shards of Britannia are volunteers. We have day jobs, families, and lives that don't pause when the server goes down. We're not always available the moment something happens, but we do get to it as quickly as we possibly can and we care deeply about this community and this game.
Thank you for your patience -- it genuinely means a lot to us.
-- The Shards of Britannia Team
Unfortunately the server is offline at the moment whilst we investigate what caused the crash. apologies for the inconvenience.
The server will be coming back online shortly. Please note that due to a data integrity issue, it was necessary to roll back to approximately 15 minutes before the crash.
We apologise for the inconvenience - as always, we do everything in our power to avoid rollbacks, however it was not possible to avoid it at this time.
The server is currently offline. We're investigating and will restore it ASAP.
Your bound items are now protected from accidental loss.
🎁 Automatic Item Rescue Soulbound, account-bound, and Patron reward items will no longer be destroyed when they would normally be lost. The server now catches them and delivers them safely to your bank instead.
This now protects items lost to:
Account-bound & soulbound items return to your account vault — claim them from any character the next time you open your bank. Character-bound Patron items return to the specific character they belong to.
📬 Rescue Notifications You'll get a message letting you know when an item has been saved so you know to check your bank. During big events like a house collapse, these are bundled into one summary so you're not spammed.
🗑️ Destroy Bound Item Need to get rid of a bound item on purpose? Right-click it and choose Destroy Bound Item. You'll always get a confirmation prompt first — no accidental deletions.
Bound Item Rescue — Soulbound, account-bound, and Patron reward items are now auto-saved to your bank instead of being lost to house/IDOC decay, ground decay, or monster corpses; adds rescue notifications and a right-click "Destroy Bound Item" option.
Earlier today, while testing our new mass-mailing system, we accidentally sent a test email with the subject "[TEST] Your Shards of Britannia account isn't verified yet" to all players instead of just our staff. Sorry about that!
Shortly after, we sent the real verification status emails to all addresses we have on record.
A couple of things to be aware of:
We may have email addresses on file that aren't your login email (such as a Contact Email). If one of those received a "not verified" notice, that's expected — what matters is whether your actual login email is verified.
If you know you've already completed /verify, you can safely ignore any email saying you haven't.
Please take this moment to double-check that your /verify is complete and that all of your accounts are linked under a single email address. If you haven't verified yet, please do so as soon as possible to avoid disruption.
Full instructions: https://uo4.life/verify
Need help? Log a ticket: https://uo4.life/ticket
Update: As you know, we will be moving to our own login server. That date is fast approaching, and we've noticed a couple of issues that a few players have had with using the /verify system.
First, PLEASE ensure you read https://uo4.life/verify in detail and understand it. Ensuring you do that means you'll have a painless transition when the time comes.
Second, we've noticed quite a few players /verify against the same email address that each account they have already uses. The idea is to /verify all of your accounts against a SINGLE email address. When the new launcher comes along, it will let you log in using the email/password, then pick from a list of your accounts.
If you either used the wrong email, or didn't /verify against a single email, log a ticket at https://uo4.life/ticket and we'll get you sorted out!
Lastly, don't worry if you miss the boat or get it wrong. We'll have a backup process which we'll announce after the transition - however, that process will be manual and will take time.
A new progression system has arrived! Craft or purchase a Gem Mastery Necklace and socket it with up to 30 Mastery Gems to gain permanent stat bonuses. Gems come in four materials (Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz, and Obsidian), each with a randomly rolled effect covering combat, healing, harvesting, barding, and follower bonuses.
Earn Mastery XP by defeating monsters and level up to grow your power over time. Head to the Test Center vendors to try it out and let us know what you think!
Wiki page on Gem Mastery
Wiki with all the tests we need help testing
Test Center Discord Channel
Web Map is now working as expected.
Web Map window is now draggable from the title bar
Journal logs are now exported in the game's log folder as txt
Hail, brave citizens of Britannia! The feathers have settled and the clucking has ceased! After a fierce and glorious battle in the arena, the winners of the Chicken Fighting Tournament have emerged victorious! Final Standings: 🥇 1st Place: Cappie — Champion of the Pit! 🥈 2nd Place: xsite — A worthy challenger! 🥉 3rd Place: Copernicus — Fierce competitor! Let us give a mighty cheer for our top warriors and their mighty feathered gladiators! May their names be remembered in the halls of legend. A huge thank you to all players who donated to the prize pool! We are currently sorting it all out and will start rewarding players very soon. Thank you to everyone who participated and spectated — may the next tournament be even bloodier (and cluckier)! For Glory and the Grandest Rooster! ~ The Shards of Britannia Team
Tired of hauling multiple repair deeds or running back to town every time your gear breaks? The new Mobile Repair Kit is a portable tool that handles all your repair needs in the field!
What It Does
How to Craft
Each Repair Deed consumed grants 1 Charge. ⚪ Iron: 5 Ingots / 5 Deeds ➔ 5 Charges 🟤 Copper: 10 Ingots / 10 Deeds ➔ 10 Charges 🟡 Golden: 15 Ingots / 15 Deeds ➔ 15 Charges 🟢 Verite: 20 Ingots / 20 Deeds ➔ 20 Charges 🔵 Valorite: 25 Ingots / 25 Deeds ➔ 25 Charges
*Requires 5/10/15/20/25 each of: Blacksmithing, Carpentry, Fletching, and Tailoring Repair Deeds
Valorite Bonus
Craft once, repair everywhere!
This change will be live after the next server reboot
After the next reboot, existing mage bucklers that couldn't be repaired after the Inscription update should be fixed.
Faction Pillar Conflicts have received their largest update in years. Events are no longer locked to a single thirty-minute ruleset at a random site. Faction players can now configure almost every aspect of a match from their faction stone before it goes live, choose where it is fought, and pick one of three distinct game modes. Portals still open in major cities when an event starts, and the classic pillar arenas remain the battlegrounds — but how you fight there is now largely up to you.
To schedule an event, use Activate Pillar Event on your faction stone. A setup window lets you pick duration, respawn rules, player limits, combat mode, base protection, mounts, bolas, and location. When you are ready, press Schedule Event for a Team Pillar or Free-For-All match using those settings. Capture the Flag is started separately with the CTF Mode button, which applies fixed CTF rules on top of your chosen duration, respawn, mount, bola, and location options. You must select a location before anything can be scheduled. The server also checks that enough players are online; team and CTF events normally require at least two factions represented, while FFA events can be scheduled when only one faction has members online, as long as the minimum total player count is met. A short countdown follows approval, then the announcement goes out and the portals open.
Duration and reward scaling now follow the length you choose. Team and FFA events can run ten, twenty, thirty, forty-five, or sixty minutes. Capture the Flag requires at least twenty minutes; if you had ten minutes selected for a pillar event and switch to CTF, the duration automatically bumps to twenty. Rewards scale with time, using thirty minutes as the baseline at one hundred percent. A ten-minute event pays roughly a third of that, a twenty-minute event about two-thirds, forty-five minutes one and a half times, and sixty minutes double. Team events capped at one player per faction pay twenty-five percent of the scaled amount on top of that. FFA gold payouts use the same duration scaling.
Respawn and stat loss can be set to Zerg (instant respawn, no stat loss), Fast (light stat loss and quicker healer cycles), or Standard (classic delay and heavier stat loss). This applies to all three modes. Player limits for Team and FFA range from Open (everyone can fight), Balanced teams (overpopulated factions may bench extra players as inactive standby), or hard caps from one-versus-one through five-versus-five per faction. CTF always uses balanced teams with a plus-one standby slot. Combat mode for scheduled pillar events is either Team battle, where only rival factions score kill credit and a faction wins by total points, or FFA, where everyone can damage everyone and the top individual player wins the announcement. Faction bases can be Safe, with guards protecting spawn areas as in classic events, or Open, allowing fighting inside enemy spawns. CTF always uses open bases. Mounts can be allowed or disabled; when disabled, players are dismounted on entry and cannot use mounts or ethereal mounts for the duration. Bolas can be allowed or turned off entirely. Locations include Spiritwood Outpost near Skara Brae, Vraal's Mausoleum near Minoc, Deep Forest Ruins in Yew, Samlethe Pass in Wind, and Dragon's Peak on Dagger Isle.
When an event goes live, faction members who enter the arena receive the Faction Event buff automatically if they are eligible. While under that effect you do not consume reagents, bandages, or arrows, though you must still carry them. On death you drop only magical equipment and volatile spellbooks. Recall and gate travel are blocked, skill gains are paused, and after a short delay you teleport to your faction's event healer, which resurrects on a timer depending on the respawn mode you chose. Bonded pets teleport with you; healers generally will not resurrect pets unless they are mountable. If death teleport fails, the /basereturn command sends your ghost and pets back to your faction base while you are dead. Players suffering event stat loss are not worth silver and cannot earn kill silver until it wears off. Under Standard respawn, expect roughly ninety seconds of reduced stats and slower movement, scaled by the selected preset. Factions with more active players than the smallest faction may suffer increased stat loss over time. If safe bases are enabled, enemies who enter a guarded enemy spawn are killed by guards; that protection does not apply in CTF or when open bases are selected.
A draggable event HUD shows the mode, faction standings, your kills, deaths, and captures where relevant, the options in effect, and in CTF the flag status including a respawn countdown when the flag is returning to the pillar. The plus button opens the leaderboard. When balanced teams are active and one faction is overpopulated, extra members join as plus-one Inactive standby. Standby players are in the event but cannot fight for score and cannot pick up the CTF flag; they are activated automatically when team sizes even out. Balance benching does not apply when fewer than three players are in the match. Please note that Minax characters are temporarily blocked from joining live pillar and CTF events, though staff may still spectate; this restriction may be lifted in a future update.
Team Pillar remains the default classic mode. Every thirty seconds the pillar ticks if at least two factions have active fighters present. One faction controlling the pillar earns two faction points and two individual points for nearby members. Two factions contesting earn one point each. Three factions present, or nobody holding the pillar, earns nothing. Kills steal a portion of the victim faction's points when that faction has points to lose, with the top damager credited on the leaderboard. Same-faction kills do not score. Kills between characters on the same machine do not score. Repeat kills on the same opponent within two minutes do not score, except in one-versus-one team events where that cooldown is skipped because there is only one enemy. Valid rival kills during the event pay kill silver through the pillar system rather than normal overworld faction payouts. The faction with the most points when time expires wins.
End-of-event rewards for Team Pillar and CTF require meaningful activity in the match: at least two total kills across all players for team events, or at least one flag capture plus two opposing factions having been present for CTF rewards. If the gate fails, everyone is told that no rewards were given. Winning faction members receive faction coins and silver scaled by duration, with bonuses if your faction controls Cove. Losing faction members who earned individual points receive a participation silver payout. The top five players by individual points receive tiered silver bonuses if they meet presence and participation requirements; team mode requires sufficient combat involvement and, for top rewards, kills on multiple unique opponents (one unique opponent suffices in one-versus-one team events). The number-one player by points also has a ten percent chance at a rare faction pillar prize, but only on events scheduled for thirty minutes or longer. Presence requirements are fifty percent of the event for team pillar and twenty-five percent for CTF. Standby players generally do not receive win or lose payouts unless activated onto the fighting roster. You must still have the Faction Event effect when rewards are processed at the end.
Free-For-All mode removes faction victory. There are no pillar faction points and no kill point stealing between teams. Individual score comes from your share of damage on kills, and same-machine and repeat-kill restrictions are relaxed so scrimmages flow more freely. The top individual player wins the end announcement, with ties possible. FFA does not pay faction coins, silver, or the rare prize, but it now pays gold to the top five players deposited into your bank. At a full thirty-minute event the winner receives fifteen thousand gold, with second through fifth place receiving twelve thousand, nine thousand, six thousand, and three thousand respectively, following a five-four-three-two-one split. Shorter or longer events scale those amounts with the same duration multiplier used elsewhere. FFA requires at least two total kills in the match for any gold to be paid, and eligible top players must have scored points or sufficient combat participation and meet the twenty-five percent presence requirement. Scheduling an FFA event only requires one faction to be online rather than two.
Capture the Flag is a entirely new way to fight at the pillar. Use the CTF Mode button on the faction stone rather than Schedule Event. CTF uses balanced teams with plus-one standby, open bases, flag captures as the only scoring, no pillar control ticks, and no kill-based point stealing. Kills still matter tactically because they drop the flag, and rival kills during an active CTF now pay kill silver the same way team pillar kills do, without affecting capture points. The flag spawns at the central pillar. An active fighter uses the flag to pick it up, wearing it as a flag quiver on their back, and carries it to their faction healer base within capture range to score. Each capture awards ten points to your faction and to you personally. After a capture the flag respawns at the pillar after two minutes, with a countdown shown on the HUD. If the carrier dies the flag drops where they fell. If the carrier leaves the event the flag returns to the pillar after two minutes. Carriers can pass the flag to a teammate through the quiver's transfer target, but cannot mount, and sigil or siege key holders cannot carry the flag. Standby players cannot pick up the flag. To prevent solo abuse, the flag cannot be picked up or captured until at least two different factions each have one active fighter on the roster; the HUD will show when the flag is waiting for another faction. End rewards follow the same coin and silver structure as team pillar, with CTF-specific presence and participation rules tied to captures and roster membership rather than kill counts.
When an event ends, the pillar deactivates, healers are removed, rewards are calculated, leaderboards are shown, and the Faction Event effect remains briefly so payouts can finish before normal rules return. Staff who stop an event early end it with no rewards for anyone.
Whether you are organizing a quick ten-minute skirmish, a full-hour siege for maximum payout, a free-for-all gold hunt, or a capture-the-flag grudge match, the faction stone is now your war table. Rally your faction, choose your rules, and meet your enemies at the pillar.
A few minor updates that will go live after the next server restart.
We're currently experiencing higher ticket volume this week, so please expect longer response times than usual.
Email tickets: Currently taking 5-7+ days to respond to, depending on queue depth.
Discord emergency tickets: Prioritized, but may take 2-3 days during heavy periods like this.
We're working through everything as quickly as we can. Thank you for your patience!
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