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Ultima Online Journal Two
There was a chill wind blowing through Britannia, the innocence of the game was about to be lost. For my part, I didn't have as much problem with the PKs as other players. I was a resourceful and careful player and was able to avoid most confrontations. In the first three months, I was only truly pk'd once. It was a time early on when two friends and myself journeyed to Hythloth. There we encountered the stereotypical kewldood pk crew. So stereotypical in fact the character's name was 'Cool Dude Tesh'. This was before I had created my own mage though and Energy Bolt was doing the same damage as the caster's skill in magery. Basically what happen was, my friends and I were just standing in the room past the teleport hallway chatting with Tesh and his friends, when suddenly Tesh just starts Corp Poring us. It was really the first and only times early on that I died while minding my own business. The rest of the world was not so lucky and because of the imbalance in the magical ether, players were dying by the cart full.
As bad as it was, OSI still felt they could go on vacation around Christmas Holidays leaving open majority of the exploits. So for about 3 weeks you had to just resign yourself to not being able to set foot outside a guard zone. It might be hard for anyone to understand if they weren't there because now we are so use to games that have delineation between PVP and Non PVP. It is also a repugnant thought to many that bands of players could dictate where other players can go. While I agree that it is villainous to waylay and kill other characters, the fact is it adds to the variety and thrill of the world. Without danger, the world is sterile and monotonous. Many people prefer the more regimented experiences of Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC), but the truth is a game like that will never be more than the sum of its parts.
Once OSI had gotten back from vacation, they implemented some much-needed changes. Notably, paralyze spell lasted a shorter amount of time and broke as soon as damage was applied. Not surprisingly this did not sit well with mages. Some might think, OSI fixed the problem, no more easy kills. Not so, not so. Instead we saw the birth of 'The Adapter'. Perhaps one of the most important non-game skills a player can master. While some stomped their feet and took their ball and went home, others changed tactics. Magic was still powerful, it was just the mechanics that changed.
The game still did not have a recast timer, which meant you could literally cast fireballs like shooting a machine gun. There was also a chain lightening client crash around this time or before it, I can't remember precisely when, but it was fixed quickly. Magic was still doing bonus damage to people in metal armor, which made the fireball attack probably more lethal than the old paralyze lightening bolt attack. Death was much quicker, although it was a bit easier to escape if lucky. There was one saving grace for players and that was leather armor lessened the damage, actually one was almost invulnerable to fireball attacks while in leather. Still other attacks like Energy Bolt and Harm could get through the leather defenses, but since most people were hurling balls of fire, you could at least attempt a getaway before assailants changed spells.
OSI finally put in a stop gap fix for the Snoop Bug, but the larger problem of the notoriety system remained. Also of note was a bug with first circle spells that caused them to do much more damage than they should. Magic Missile became a favorite of the cookie cutter mage because of its killing power. Once again you had naked throwaway characters on killing sprees. Even more comical because it looked like these streaking mages were slinging red eggs at their targets. The growing issue though was the notoriety system.
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