The August 2016 newsletter for Ultima Online has been published. As you might expect, much of the news therein concerns the recently-released Publish 94:

We are pleased to announce that Publish 94 is out the door and all of the in game systems including the Ultima Store, Character Transfers, and Promotional System have been turned back on as of this morning.

We are getting together a new schedule for the Dev Meet and Greets which will start back up in September. Stay tuned to UO.com and future newsletters for the updated schedule.

After an interesting meet and greet with Siege where the hot topic was VvV artifacts, we received a lot of feedback which we greatly appreciate. After reviewing the feedback, we have decided not to add VvV artifacts to Siege at this time. We will continue to gather information from the Siege players and review this decision at a later date.

We are working hard to get Publish 95 together. We hope to get it to you before Thanksgiving so that you can enjoy all the exciting new gifts and veteran rewards we are working on. I will give you a hint, one veteran reward is a creepy crawly mount! :smiley:

Kyronix and I have been invited to speak at SyndCon again this year and are are looking forward to speaking with all of the players from the oldest guild in online-gaming history. Congratulations to the Syndicate on maintaining this distinguished honor!

As well, we get a look ahead to some of the changes that are coming in Publish 95:

One of the more common points of feedback we receive is regarding the Bulk Order Deed system. We’ve focused primarily on combat as we’ve fleshed out the Valley of Eodon since the release of Time of Legends, with a few bits of crafting sprinkled in here and there. With Publish 95 we are currently in the planning stages of a Bulk Order Deed update. In planning this update we are remaining true to the original intent of the Bulk Order Deed system while taking some of the randomness out of the reward delivery. While you will not be able to bank low end Bulk Order Deed turn-ins for higher tier rewards, we do plan on removing the randomness from the reward delivery so crafters can target the rewards they want the most without having to rely on the RNG. We’re also looking at introducing new rewards and crafting systems to BODs. As we progress further with the update we look forward to your feedback on these new BOD changes.

To go along with the BOD update, we are also planning a community crafting event for the holiday season. We want to give crafters something to rally behind in order to fill some of those BODs that have been collecting dust, as well as earn some fun new rewards for getting in the holiday spirit!

There’s also a new piece of lore fiction, written (as always) by EM Malachi, as well as the usual Q&A segments.

More recently, an update for Publish 94 was also released:

The 15th Anniversary Robe was removed from the store due to a delivery error on our part. We will be making it available at a later date for purchasing once we have resolved the issue.

We are aware of the issue with the Koti incorrectly spawning on Great Lakes, and are working on correcting this today.

Keep an eye on the Ultima Online website for further news regarding this issue, I guess.