This has been a day awaited by many, at least based on conversations I’ve been privy to over the last couple of weeks: Broadsword Online Games have finally released Publish 99 for Ultima Online to all shards, which means that the Endless Journey free-to-play experience of the game has finally become available:

Publish 99 has been deployed World Wide, introducing a host of new features – most notably Endless Journey!

The transition for closed accounts to Endless Journey accounts has begun and will continue until all accounts have been processed.  We appreciate your patience as we work through this process.  You will not be able to login until the account has been processed.

Update 4/7/2018 7:19pm ET: The account transition process is continuing.  As you may imagine there is a very large number of accounts to process.  Thank you for your continued patience while we work through this process.  Keep an eye on UO.com for continued updates.  You can check the status of your account by visiting the account center and checking the “end date” for Endless Journey accounts.  For those accounts that have completed their transition the “end date” will be marked as “N/A”.

Update 4/5/2018 6:00pm ET: The account transition process is continuing.  Based on current processing rates we expect this process to take as long as the next 48 hours to complete.  We will update this post when the process has fully completed.  Thank you for your continued patience while we work through this process.

We look forward to your feedback, and welcome new and returning players back to Britannia!  Be sure to check out the forums for the latest conversation on all things Ultima Online.

For those of you who want to give your return to — or, perhaps, your first foray into — Ultima Online a bit of a boost, there’s a new Deluxe Starter Pack available for purchase which will give your account and character a number of helpful things:

• A Runic Atlas (a high capacity runebook) that comes pre-loaded with recall runes to Britannia’s Vaults, Banks, and Points of Interest
• A Runic Hunter’s Atlas that allows recalling to a variety of hunting grounds friendly to the training adventurer, complete with location descriptions and tips
• A full complement of full spellbooks for all magic schools including Bushido, Chivalry, Magery, Mysticism, Necromancy, and Ninjitsu
• A Token of Skill Alacrity that allows you and your party members to experience an increased rate of skill gain for an entire week.  This token is bound to the character that purchases it.
• A Deluxe Journeyman’s Armor token that outfits the adventurer in a starter set of human/elf or gargish leather armor providing 70% in all resists, +15 Hit Points, +17 Mana, +17 Stamina, +30 Lower Mana Cost, +6 Hit Point Regeneration, +6 Mana Regeneration, +10 Stamina Regeneration, +5 Strength, +5 Dexterity, +5 Intelligence, and 100% Lower Reagent Cost
• A Community Collection Point Award token that can be redeemed at the Moonglow Zoo, Vesper Museum, or Britain Library for 500,000 points
• A Dungeon Point Award Point Token that can be redeemed for 100 Blackthorn Dungeon points, 1000 Dungeon Crystal Points of Despise, and 1000 Covetous Points
• A direct deposit of 100,000 gold into your currency account

A full list of the features and limitations of the two versions of Ultima Online can be found here, in case you’re curious for more granular detail about just what sort of restrictions are imposed upon Endless Journey players.

Additionally, all Veteran-level accounts received a special gift last week, in the form of an Enchanted Wheelbarrow. And for those of you who’ve already been exploring Publish 99, you may want to take a look at this brief news update from Broadsword if you’ve completed any of the Town Cryer quests.