If you try to transfer a horse (or presumably anything) to a red, it instantly goes wild. So, since reds can't go shopping (duh), the only way they can get a horse is not only to have a blue bring them one AND have enough taming to re-tame it. OSI is fucking over reds so much, it's just sickening. If they don't want us in the game, why don't they just fucking ban us for murdering. You don't want my $10? Just fucking say so OSI...

First, the no insta-log for reds in their own house is stupid. I want reds to stop getting dicked, but that'll never happen. Just when I think they've done WAY too much to fuck us over, they do more. Are they going to make all of the changes to reds that they did on Seige? Are we not going to be able to ban like other characters now? How far is this going to go?

On top of that, they are dicking off too much and giving us gay client updates instead of working on evil/good (for normal shards), necromancy, alchemy and (most importantly to me) skill management. I mean, that opening screen on the new client looks like it was done in MSPaint. I haven't logged in but for a second, but I'm sure that messaging system is going to piss me off if people can just message me without some authorization.

Anyhow, overall this patch was a "not only did we make UOA legal, we made it part of the client to shut the whiners up". Again, the squeaky wheel gets the grease - I'm amazed how people who whine get their way from OSI. "We want makers marks for carpenters" - are you fucking kidding me? All things considered, I bet that's next on their list instead of skill management or something else LONG promised.

Well, it's confirmed that murderers cannot insta-log in their houses. I don't know if they can in the Bucs Den Inn or with camping, but I'm sure not going to test those with my perma.

Anyhow, SexMachine emailed me a couple of responses that he got from a gm last night.

Paged with : "Ummm, my red can't insta log in his own house?"

Paged with : "What possible reason could you have had for doing that?"

Great. So, we're intentionally fucked again. Figures...

Saw this posted on Greybeard's site, but didn't take a look at it until today. GM Abuse is a nice interactive Flash where you can... well, abuse a gm...

I'll be updating the Links section today, so if you give a shit, look there later.

I got this email this morning :

Just thought you may like to know about another "gift" that comes with the patch from osi. I just discovered that you can no longer insta-log from your house if you are red. So now for ten mins after u log your red out you are a sitting duck.I mean i know you can hide but this is getting ridicoulous. Anyways i could rant and rave about this for a while but i just wanted to let you know in case you didnt already.

I knew this was the case on Seige Perilous, but I seriously hope this information is not accurate for normal shards. If so, no more logging your red out on the steps of your house safely to quickly swap characters... *sigh* Goddamn OSI...

On the OSI update page, they finally posted the date of the next patch. It's today. This patch is the one with the new client with Last Target and other features that were perviously only found on third party apps.

Supposedly, this patch also brings with it some sort of UOE detection (that or UOE just won't work with it). Either way, if you use UOE - plan on the way you play the game changing today.

I've been told countless times that I don't include the bad things that happen to me. Well, I've mentioned my tower decay, almost having my large forge looted (back when I first took over JoV), etc - so I assume these people are talking about pvp fights and such.

Well, here I am to say that I've been getting tooled a lot recently. I dunno if it's just me, but my spell lag has been about 5 seconds here recently. My pings are great and everything else is fine, but my "post cast" spell lag is ungodly. Thusly, my combos are suckin and even worse, my heals bite it. However, in the end, there are just people out there better than me.

I'll still dish out a class-A beatdown occassionally, but they are not as common as they once were. I think everyone is becoming closer and closer in skill. There is only so good you can get. Anyone can beat anyone, at least in my eyes. And, well, I've been getting a lot of that recently.

Just thought I'd share that I suck. I'm not a pvp God. Then again, I never claimed to be...

If you skip the www.wtfman.com main page to get here, the you missed the quick Flash4 tweaking that Ronald McDonald did to the site choosing sceen. I know that Greybeard and I have the same kill shot, but soon Grey will have one of his own.

Go take a look at it. It's pretty brief, but it's something I wish I could do in game very badly.

I'll split everything I have to say into a couple of updates so there isn't 4 or 5 topics covered in one.

Anyhow, after finally sitting down long enough to do a write up on the Macro Protest, I decided to go ahead and make a story out of it. It's long, detailed and had screenshots - so it would have made for a huge update. Anyhow, it's my 19th story and you can find it (obviously) in the stories section.

I know I promised some screenshots. I forgot to get the pics to work, so I'll have to work on that when I get home if I get a second.

Also wanted to remind people of the Pro-Macro Petition.

From what I heard after the protest, GM Ja had little to add except that if we really wanted to have an impact, we should write support@owo.com. So, everyone who is all for macroing no longer being a bannable offense, write that email address a calm sane letter along the lines of "I'm a paying customer and I think that banning for macroing is wrong".

Well, I was saying it all day yesterday, posted it today when I got a chance, and now OSI confirms it. The full story is available at the update.owo.com Shard Issues page.

To quote a bit:

We believe we have the solution to this issue and it is being implemented now. We hope that all the issues will be resolved when Baja returns from its maintenance.

An unfortunate, but necessary result of this exploit and its surrounding issues is that we must revert Baja to its last save on Friday, August 13th. The shard experienced severe issues all weekend, and while we regret having to revert the server, we must do so in order to ensure that many player items are not lost.

If you play on the Baja server, you probably know that the Baja curse is back. Stuff in everyone's houses are decaying along with other comparatively minor issues. Basically, this is the deal :

Baja will revert back to Friday night. They haven't officially said it yet, but that is my prediction. My guess as to why they're stalling is because they see the problem but they don't know how to fix it. That's why GM Boo was running around like a madman last night getting info and what decayed, when, etc. As soon as they come up with a fix, I'm convineced they will revert back to Friday.

Well, it was a partial success but mainly a failure. We got the attention of GM Ja, but for some reason he (and everyone not standing right on me) couldn't hear me when I was asked to speak. I'll post screenshots tomorrow of me actually speaking (and not being heard), but if you want a quick rundown of it - Kilamani this rundown at "Spam Competition" link that sumarizes the event fairly well.

Baja has been unplayable all night and basically all day. It figures that would happen on my day off. At least I finally achieved one of my simple goals before Baja went down for surprise maintanence:

I guess I could go for Dread Lord, but I play my character a bit too actively to not be able to access my bank (NPCs don't acknowledge Dreads).

Just in case you didn't know, there is supposed to be a major client overhaul in an upcoming patch. In this client is Last Target, Target Self, arm/disarm, etc. Supposedly UOE will also be detected by this new client.

This patch was originally going to be published in late July which got pushed back to August 10th.... which has again been pushed back to an undetermined date. Why'd they push it back? Well, besides the obvious "that's OSI", they further fucked up by starting the beta for the new client 4 days before they were going to release it. Fucking morons.

Anyhow, the long and short of it is, UOE users beware and watch for a patch coming soon. Oh yeah, for those of you that bitch about 3rd party programs' Last Target and such, you're about to run out of bitch-ass excuses.

Saw this bumpersticker yesterday on my way home from work. I dunno why, but it struck me as funny.

Remember: do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with catsup.

Too much UO for me I guess.

We're on Baja. Of course, if you don't know me and what shard I play on, you probably had no chance of joining anyhow. There are many requirements including that I know you. Email me if you're interested (don't ask me in game if you can avoid it - I'm normally in the middle of something then).

I'm starting to get super jealous of all this hatemail you keep getting. I keep posting the link to your email, but all it does is put the spotlight back on you. I make these bomb ass Flash movies and for some reason people still like your shitty ass site. Tell your fucknut JoV followers if they can explain this to email me.
- Ron

Dunno what's wrong with him. Maybe too much attended macroing on Seige does that to ya. Anyhow, everyone makes sure to give Ron a big "suck it".

If you think that banning or penalizing in any way for macroing is stupid, please join us this Saturday at the Macro Protest. I chose a random shard to hold the protest on : Lake Superior. Make a character there and head to the throne room in Castle British at Noon PST (3pm EST) on Saturday, August 14th.

I'll be there a little early, so someone could at least use me to macro Eval or Anat on....

I guess good help is really hard to find.

Sometime on the weekend after this one, I think we should have an in-game protest about all of the penalty boxing and banning they've done to macroers. It's horrible the way they think they should police this GAME and penalize its customers. Until Feb 1999 it was completely legal to macro in UO. That probably means that if you were banned for macroing and you agreed to the Terms of Service before Feb 1999, then you could probably sue OSI for what you could have sold your account for (talk to legal council about this - don't email me for advice).

Anyhow, we should have an in game protest on some random shard. Everyone name a newbie character there "No Ban For Macro" or something like that an meet in Castle British. I'll post specifics here next week - this is just a heads up so you can plan on being there if you want to.

I posted some more viewer submitted stories. There are six new ones by Cyle of EiG, Dark Jedi, Agent EvilCow, Slick the Bastard, Mr. Pink and Lews Therin. Thanks for the submissions.

Well, OSI has lost yet another customer. Again, it was a wtfman - Greybeard. he was penalty boxed for macroing and well, Grey isn't gonna take that shit. I'm sorry to see him go, but I understand completely why he wouldn't stick around for the horrible customer service we have to deal with daily. We'll miss you Grey.

Let me take this opporunity to remind people of the Macroing Petition. Also, don't hesitate to email support@owo.com and/or uoconcern@owo.com anytime you have something to say about UO. Afterall, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so apparently they don't listen unless we annoy the shit out of them. Pretty sad, but I guess it only takes 30 seconds to type out a quick "quit banning for macroing" email.