Ultima Online: Publish 93 on Test Center; Enhanced Client Bugfixes; Possible High Seas Update

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So there’s been a bit of Ultima Online news over the last couple of weeks. The latest Ultima Online newsletter (sign up at UO.com if you want to receive that), for example, contained some news about Publish 93:

We are getting to the middle of May and looking forward to getting Publish 93 out the door.  We are deploying Publish 93 to TC1 later today and hope by the end of the month to have it on all production shards.  We will be doing something a little different this publish, we will be deploying to 3 production shards in hope to get more feedback. The shards we are publishing are Origin, Izumo, and Baja.  Make sure you check out all the latest content in Publish 93, including the epic “Myrmidex Threat” quest that brings back popular features like the “Ophidian/Bane” war mechanic, as well as two quest lines that conclude with some great boss encounters against some of the Valley of Eodon’s most formidable opponents!

We are excited to announce we have picked 10 winners for the Spring Contest.  We will be notifying the winners via email to find out what reward you would like. Everyone will be able to see the winning entries on UO.COM here.

We have already begun working on Halloween, Anniversary Gifts, Holiday Gifts, Vet Rewards and a few new items for Thanksgiving!  One of this year’s new Vet Rewards is a new mount…here is a hint:  It has more than 4 legs!  Can you guess what it is? *evil grin*

And, indeed, Publish 93 was released on the Test Center shard (TC1, as it is known) later that day. Full release notes for the Publish can be found here.

Content for Publish 94 — which will apparently be coming some time around October — was also briefly discussed in the newsletter:

With Publish 93 getting ready for deployment we look forward to Publish 94. Even though Summer is just around the corner we’re looking forward to Halloween! This year we are happy to announce that popular events such as Pumpkin Carving and Trick or Treating will be returning with some new additions. In addition, this Halloween we’ll be concluding explorations of Eodon and uncovering the truth behind its mysterious origins in the “Temple of Doom.” This “Treasures of Tokuno” style dungeon crawl is sure to provide fright and surprises around every corner with glorious treasures to be found by those brave enough to explore its depths!

Additionally, in the Q&A section of the newsletter, the possibility of an update for the High Seas expansion was (briefly) discussed:

A High Seas update has been on our wish list for a while. Our goals for this update would be to streamline the canon supply crafting and firing processes, as well as make a balance pass on the challenge vs. reward for some of the encounters. We hope to address this in a future publish.

Finally, yesterday, a bugfix for the Enhanced Client was released, resolving an issue with text display on some gumps.