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The newest patch is now available in the Downloads section. Please download and install this patch. Otherwise, you will probably get stuck somewhere! Current version is now 2.5.2 and please allow just a bit more time to get some of the new areas spawned and decorated.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
We hope to have the patch completed this weekend! Come back Monday for any news of that and the new download link. Have a good weekend.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Server is back online. Thanks for your patience.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Nothing wrong, it's just I'm out for a couple of days. I was going to leave the server on until I realized that without my AC on, the ambient temperature of this room is going to be about 20 degrees hotter :/ Not good. So, rather than risking messing it up for months, I'm just taking it down 2 days. I apologize for the downtime.
Have a good weekend!
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
NEW PATCH! Please update to RetroShard patch version 2.5.1 to see new locations!
Server may be down while I'm out surfing this weekend. Have fun!
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Server connectivity may not be constant in the next couple of weeks... but at least it is there at all ;) That is... now that the development hardware is stable and cool.
Check the Guide for installation instructions... which are now more simplistic than ever. Server is now running version 6.0.1.10
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
I am by no means ending development of the shard, however I am taking a bit of a break with it. I'd also really like to slap some piece of junk server together that I can leave on 24/7 for this, but so don't have the money, even for that right now. I don't have a whole lot of time outside of work and lately I've been tinkering with other projects.
Check back here once in a while though and keep an eye on the forums.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
I've had the server off and on lately, mainly because for the first 2 weeks or so of leaving it on, I had zero connections from others (lol). But another reason for this is I have begun overhauling the map again a bit, adding new areas and cleaning up some things. This is important for things like getting UO auto-map to work correctly.
I hope to add some screenshots to this webpage as well of the game. I'm starting to think some people see links to the shard and may start to read things, but are curious as to what the game actually looks like.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Everything has now been converted over to Linux and is running smoothly. During the month of April I will have the server up as much possible, but keep in mind it will be quite some time until I'm able to scrape together enough spare parts for a cheap dedicated server that will run 24/7. If you are trying to connect but cannot, you can reach me via the forums, chat, email, or add my email to msn.
It looks like from now on, the server will run version 6.0.0.0 of the UO client. Please be sure to update Ultima Online no higher than that. Also, the current RetroShard patch version is 0.2.4 and can be found in the download section along with the UO client. See the Guides section for help installing and getting started.
Note that I have updated the guides and section a bit, including starting the skill guide which explains how skills on this shard differ from others. While all custom scripts have properly been ported over, not all changes to the gameplay system itself has changed. Perhaps you guys could play around with how things are now and let me know what you think should perhaps stay OSI-type and what should be customized.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Hardware problems finally have been resolved. The server should be back on very soon for open testing. I just have a couple of issues to work out as I convert the shard over to Unix.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Bah, broke again. I know this is frustrating to anyone who enjoyed playtesting here, but trust me... 3 months plus without a reliable computer has become beyond frustrating! I hope to have a motherboard replacement by Wednesday of this week.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Well damn, that only took a month! It seemed to be not a power issue at all, actually an operating system issue... a very strange one. At any rate, Faelyn and I have definately missed working on the shard and I will do my best to get it back online as soon as I can!
The forums have been rather dead lately. I know they aren't as nice as our original phpBB board, but it is unfortunately all I have to work with right now. I'm trying to have another nice one though in the future once the shard goes public.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Having power supply issues with my machine. I will have it replaced or something as soon as possible.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
New town! New Moongate area! Update your client to 6.0.12.3 and see the Install Guide for instructions on connecting.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
The Cosmic Chamber is now open and houses all current moongates. There is now one moongate in each town, and each will teleport you to this chamber. I will try to get the story section of the site updated soon.
A new town has opened. East Montor which is sort of a town of lawful guards hosts a tavern, a tinker/blacksmith shop, a barbershop, and more. It could use a little more decoration but I wanted to go ahead and open it. I will be harrassing Faelyn about getting the town of Moon finally opened. The Royal City area (AKA Britain) will also be open soon, although its PVP arena is already available.
Since the server is running the newest version of Ultima Online, you may need to uninstall Ultima Online and re-install... then patch all the way to the newest version and add my patch. I found my PC at work could not patch UO properly with the retroshard files installed and would make my client hang on connecting.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
There will be a new update released soon with a new town :) I'm also working on trying to add a new moongate chamber, which will introduce you to some of the weirdness ahead. The story section here will be updated soon as well to explain that a bit.
Had some bad routing/DNS issues last week that knocked the shard offline, but that's all fixed now. Be sure you have updated your client to 6.0.12.3! Otherwise some things won't function correctly.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
I apologize for the shard being down for so long. I've had some really bad computer issues over the past month and didn't exactly have the money or the luck to get another good one running again quickly. My ISP outsourced the webserver my site used to reside on and it took too long to migrate. The old forums have sadly been accidently erased by the host, but I have a temporary forum spot for us though in the time being that I know isn't going anywhere, at least until I can host a better forum in the future... in that case I will attempt to merge it.
Since I am still tweaking the new machine and getting things rolling again with the shard, the server will probably be up and down a bit during the month of January.
See the Install Guide and Downloads section to connect to the shard. Thanks to anyone still around ;)
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Hello people! Well the average users online the Retro Shard for about the past 2-3 weeks has been 0. Which is understandable, considering I have not advertised the shard so there aren't many online.Another major factor is the fact that some of the gameplay system and a lot of the first custom map is not completed yet. So, people get on and make characters... find a couple of bugs then start to get bored after they've covered the open areas of the map a while.
At this point because of having to do many server restarts and changing the static files many times to get this map completely open, it will not be online for the rest of you to check for a couple of weeks. If for some reason you feel you really need to get online to perhaps pay a tax or prevent anything from decaying, shoot me an email or an IM.
Be sure to keep an eye on the forums for news on what is going on. I also encourage anyone to leave me any suggestions as we adjust scripts, add quests, and overall make the shard more complete.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
The Royal Arena has opened, download the 0.2.1 update and copy it over the existing files in your Ultima Online directory so that if you take the moongate to the arena, you will not be stuck.
Not only will this arena be used for events, it should also be a good PvP pratice area for everyone as you will poof into spectator area upon death.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
The new area of Yew has been opened, please update by downloading this and copy it over the existing files in your Ultima Online directory.
Check out the forums for information on new mounts recently added!
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Ok, server is back online again :D Download the newest patch from here or in the downloads section before playing... otherwise you may not be able to move.
Have fun and be sure to report any bugs or suggestions on the board.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Things seem to be getting fixed faster than expected. See this thread on the forums for more info.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Until further notice, the server is shut down. I'm now experiencing a major problem with things Faelyn is building just mysteriously disappearing, wasting hours of work at a time. I am submitting a request for help on this to the RunUO boards, and we will have things running again asap. Sorry for this nessasary evil.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Things didn't go well with the last patch, but are fixed now. Download version 0.1.7 from the downloads section.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
The Cave of Fire has been introduced into the map, but will take a little more time to finish spawning. In the mean time, please download the new 0.1.6 patch.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
The Retroshard has been running solid for 3 weeks now. There have been a couple of bugs reported here and there, but I've fixed some and am working on others. Yew and our first dungeon, The Cave of Fire are currently under construction. Moon and some other locations will also be opened soon.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Shard is online! Look in the Guides section for instructions on getting into the game. I plan on keeping the server up for testing all weekend.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
- Newbie graveyard is done and should be spawned accordingly.
- Area surrounding newbie town spawned with animals, mongbats, orcs, quite a few headless ones, and a couple of ettins. (I will hope to get input from you all once shard is online on how you like/dislike the loot on these spawns thus far)
- Everything you should need for crafting should be there, with a couple of exceptions. Once the rest of the map is unlocked there will be different venders for things such as bowcrafting, etc but in the meantime ask a GM to spawn any NPC vender you may need in the Fighters Guild building.
- Just give me a couple more days to put in final details, freeze our playable area into a static, and then FINALLY test/upload the patch for you all to download and play!
- Lady Faelyn is already working hard on areas outside of the Devil Guard new testers will be restricted to such as The Royal Castle and town, Moon, etc :)
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Mining caves have been constructed and are now functioning! We will be going live with the newbie/test area possible as soon as later this weekend. Stay tuned ;)
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
We got a lot done over last weekend. Hopefully this next weekend or so we will be opening the server to you all! It will not be the whole map, because I've decided rather than make you all wait for us to finish this completely custom map we'd let you get a feel for the servers style. You will be able to start basic training of your character in a newbie-town type of area.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Thanks to my sister (AkA "Shadowbunny") for hosting our new forum! I have much more control over this one and will be working on a cool new skin for it. So go register on it and hopefully we can discuss some aspects of the gameplayer such as PvP balancing in the meantime while Sosaria is being finished.
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Things are stable now at version 0.1.0. A custom jail system has been added and I've worked some weird kinks out of that. Our custom version of Castle British is near completion, and is very different from the OSI version! Loot weapons with damage bonuses now are named in the same fashion as oldschool UO. For example; Ruin, Might, Vanquishing, etc plus a couple of new names for very high damage bonused items I'll leave for a suprise ;)
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
All sections of the website are now open! More additions and news coming soon. If you see something that you think should be changed or added, just let me know on the forum
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner
Welcome to the home page of the Retro Shard. Look for shard-specific changes to skills in the skill guide to come soon. Work on the shard is currently at 0.0.8 alpha state. Our goal is to open with our first custom map around the end of this summer. This first map is a revisit to a land that should be familiar to many old Ultima players; Exodus-era Sosaria. History and story will be added as time goes on, and split into chapters of chronological order.
Go ahead and sign up for our forums in the meantime! An IRC server for our room will be designated soon as well. I look forward to seeing all of you in the near future...
Jizaboz, The Great Shard Owner