UOLS - GenCon 2004 UO Meet Details by Talanithus

The Turbulent Waters UO in Indianapolis Report by Admiral Ruffie

August 20-22, 2004
Reported by Lady Beth

On August 20, 2004 I had the pleasure to go to my first UO Meet up! The EA employees that came were: GM Platinum, Fertbert, Leurocian, Binky, EM Zilo and Vex. The meet up started at 6:30, one by one everyone raised their hands and started firing questions at the team. Question after question the team patiently answered all they could for the players. Although, Vex did wiggle around many questions because of the current "unannounced project" he is working on. EA also provided food for all the attendees, which was pizza and soda. Below are some pictures I was able to snag.

Binky holds the UO Meet up posted that all attendees will sign.

GM Platinum smiling for the camera before the questions start.

Say Cheese Vex!

Binky hanging out and answering questions during the break.

Fertbert chatting with our very own Tellsien (Great Lakes Reporter)

Vex and Binky staying on top of all the questions.

Leurocian posing with Leif of FCB and holding the presents he received. A fishing pole, loot and his very own backpack.

Leurocian striking a pose with Admiral Ruffie of Turbulent Waters, he is also holding a model of the Serpent Pillar Admiral Ruffie had made and presented to Leurocian.

At the end of the questions and answer part of the meet up, we were all asked to sign the Indy 2004 poster. This poster would be taken back to California and hung up.

Everyone hurry sign you name!

All signed and ready to go back to California!

Binky snapping pictures of all the players by what shard they play on.

Vex's turn to take pictures!

The Great Lakes Crew!

The team also gave away prizes which were UO hats and UO sweatshirts for answering trivia questions. In order not to leave anyone out, everyone received a UO T-shirt,UO necklace and a UO key chain.

Here they all are, they whole gang at the August 20, 2004 UO Meetup!

A few points I picked up in the time we had for questions are:

Samurai Empire:

• Soul Stones will be linked to your account and they will be blessed.
• You can cross shard transfer with a Soul Stone.
• Soul Stones have to obey all caps, it will not accept a partial transfer. An example would be if your cap on a character is 100 and you are transferring 120 from another character you will need a +20 powerscroll in order to transfer that skill.
• You will be able to dump the skill you are currently storing in your Soul Stone if you no longer want that particular skill.
• The Samurai Empire will be tackling the virtue of Honor, plus the team also commented they do have long term plans to finish up the virtue system.
• Vex commented that the skill Samurai will be one skill, and the closest skill we have to it now in game is Paladin. *hint* *hint* Work those Pallys!
• Powerscrolls will be available for the new skills.
• Chefs will be able to make their own drinks.
• Housing will be around the city, and it will be "pre defined" with shrubs and bushes. It will not be like Luna.
• The Serpent pillars will not be working to get to these new lands, but it may be implemented in the future.
• UO is not being pulled in fact they commented that the Samurai Empire will be out in a lot of stores, and for European players they are looking in to the possibility of making it available by downloading it.
• Samurai Empire's ship date (leaves the warehouse) is November 2, 2004, most stores will get a drop shipment of it on November 3, 2004.

Vex's "Unannounced Project"

• Working on the client
• Possibly adding races, any race suggestions should be emailed to [email protected]
• Vex's "Unannounced Project" might be announced in November.

Ilshenar

• Possibly adding "mini bosses" and "minor artifacts".
• Leurocian is also looking for ideas for these new artifacts, please pm him or email Fertbert at [email protected].

Publish 27

• Instead of fishing up a water stained sos you would "possibly" fish up an ancient one, also a fabled fishing net (pure white) is in the future of fishing

Long Term goals

• Working on making some items stackable, although this is not a high priority at the moment.
• Experimenting more with boats. (a cannon was suggested)
• "Thinking" about gambling of some type being added into the game.
• "Thinking" of turning the Vet Reward System into a Ticket System. For example you would get tickets for finding bugs and reporting them and for attending player gatherings.

This was a great time! I hope more can attend the next one, you will not be disappointed!

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Have you ever been to GenCon? This year's GenCon was full of excitement! It had a huge variety of vendors which included fantasy artists and many different customizable card games on display. A few of the gaming companies that had booths were: Wizards of the Coast, Xbox, Atari and Nintendo. They had upcoming games and recently released games playable for the public. There were even die hard gamers dressed up as their favorite characters! Many gaming companies gave out free t-shirts, pens, pencils, trading cards, and posters! They did have a few celebrities on hand also to sign autographs including author R.A. Salvatore, David Carradine and Walter Koenig.

Here are some pictures to give you a "feel" of what it was like.