The latest Ultima Online newsletter from Broadsword Online Games brings news of Publish 109, the summer update for the long-running MMORPG:

With the summer moving into full swing The UO team would like to take a few moments and wish everyone in the US a happy upcoming 4th of July!

We are putting the final touches on Publish 109 and should have it on Test Center 1 by July 10th.  Please make sure you visit TC1 for a preview of new content coming for our 23rd Anniversary, Halloween Treasures event, Huntmaster’s Challenge, and the Artisan Festival.  We would also like to thank everyone who has come onto TC to check out the new tools that will be available for our Event Moderators.  Keep an eye on UO.com for full details!

Their Fall Event Roadmap is also rather interesting…fans of the single-player Ultima games will take note of the title of what is planned for this coming September:

Additionally, they offer some details about the planned Event Moderator tools that will be added to the game with this Publish:

You’ve heard us talk quite a bit about tools in this publish, and how they will expand the abilities for our Event Moderators. I would also like to take an opportunity to talk about another aspect of these tools that may have gone unmentioned. Global, persistent events are one of the core features of the world of Ultima Online. Traditionally global events often times include a combination of game mechanics such as quests, epic spawns, in-game fiction, and rewards. Implementing these global events is an incredibly resource intensive process. Because of this we are limited in the frequency by which we can have these events and also the variety at which we can tailor them. With Publish 109 we have completely revamped how we implement global persistent events to ease that burden. We are currently planning our first global event using these new tools in September, but anticipate a “soft opening” for dynamic events in the next few couple of months. You can check out our event road map below and keep an eye on UO.com for updates on when we will be having soft events to prepare for the fall.

And, if you needed a reminder not to purchase your game codes and whatnot from third-party vendors, Broadsword have your back:

The Origin store is the only official site for purchasing UO codes and purchasing codes from a third party site is not advised. Purchases from 3rd party sites are not supported and these codes can be considered to be fraudulent by EA. With that being said we want to give everyone fair warning regarding buying codes from a 3rd party site. If your account is flagged for buying codes from a 3rd party site it may result in your accounts being actioned.

Finally, they also offer some account recovery suggestions. Someone should really put these on a wiki page:

I know we have said this many times but I want to bring it up again. For those that would like to recover your old accounts and can’t remember the information to retrieve it please send support the answers to the following questions. Since character names are not unique we can not look up accounts by that specific information. When asking for help with your accounts please remember not to give passwords. If you think the account has a secret word attached to it please ask for the secret question and we will send you the hint.

Secret Word
Emails used:
Full name:
Date of birth (month/day/year):
Phone number:
City, state, and country of residency:Last 4 digits of credit card AND type:
Full name on card:
Key code(s) redeemed:
Account creation date (MMDDYY):
Account close date / last logged in, if active please specify:

As always, if you would like to receive the UO newsletter in your inbox every month, you can sign up at the Ultima Online website.