UO Second Age

Derrick wrote:

Hemperor wrote:any thoughts on stocking amounts?

I belive it's pretty well established that they did double when sold out, and halve when not sold out. I do seem to recall them starting at 9 at least at one time, I don't know if it would even have been documented if there had been a later change to this.

Do we know when OSI turned off their closed-loop resource/economic system? I'd say that would be an excellent candidate for when stocking levels also went from 9 to 10.

Teg wrote:Do we know when OSI turned off their closed-loop resource/economic system? I'd say that would be an excellent candidate for when stocking levels also went from 9 to 10.

Based on what I've read on Raph Kosters website, I don't know if the closed loop ever made it to production.

So what about crystal balls?

The mage shop needs to sell them and they should drop off liches as well.

I'd like to find the date at which this ended. I don't believe they are dropping on liches, or available from mages throughout T2A although I could be wrong.

Crystal Balls droped from liches and were sold at the mage shop lol. I remember then being people people's homes.

Remember gming magery by casting spells on a crystal ball bug? WE had them.

Can anyone else confirm this? We need more feedback here.

I don't see anything mentioned on Stratics or even in the demo code.

I do remmember crystal balls droping of lichs, but that may have been UO:R im not sure, they are listed as "loot on certain monster" in the misc & rare items database on archived stratics, but the first accesible date is just after UO:R.

I remember killing liches during 1998 and they dropped crystal balls but I never picked them up.

Ok Crystal Balls! Now had a look at the stratics archive and no real clear info there so had a dig around the Usenet archives and had some better luck. Due to the lack of info I've included slightly out of era posts purely for reference and to show a continuity of drop rates/functions across the time periods.

Personally I think Psilo is correct on his claims that bog standard Crystal Balls were indeed common, and you could cast on them. I however didn't find any mention of them being available from mage shops, just that you could give them to mage vendors for 1 point of Karma. However the rarity of the singing, 8-ball or glowing Crystal Balls all seems to be fairly high due to them being token/seasonal event rewards or rare spawns. I also remember seeing regular Crystal Balls dropping from Liches back in T2A but my memory alone shouldn't be trusted.

In-Era Posts:

March 2000
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.game ... 6d8fa91a70

"Are Crystal Balls important? Can you sell them? They are everywhere
and I still do not know what to do with them. Any help available on
this one? " <-- common!

"Plain old crystal balls are useless, as best I can determine. You can
find them laying around all over the place, and the Vesper bank always
has some laying outside." <-- really common?

"I think you should be able to cast spell and target a crystal ball. Then
you can double click on the ball later and cast the spell without using
regs. Of course you would still have to recite the spell and go through the
movements. This is kind of like inscribing a scroll... heh"

Slightly out of Era Posts (for further reference):

Posts from April-May 99

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.game ... 1e76d1bb3d

"You can use them to practice spells , simply target the crystal ball with a
spell like Corp Por ! "

"Chrytal balls, when given to mages in shops give you 1 point of karma, the
higher u are in karma, you wont even get a message, but yes they give u karma. "

Posts from May 98.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.game ... 609ddc3cb0

"Crystal balls are used to show the last 5 lines spoken. They do not all
work though. "

"Actually crystal balls can be quit usefull to those practicing magery. You
can set them on the ground in front of you and cast offensive spells into
them. The spells get absorbed and your magery goes higher. No PC, or
animals, or monsters needed."

Posts from April 98.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.game ... 549ee85fd4

"I recently found a crystal ball on a ettin, what does it do?
Is it only for decoration, or can you actually use it for something?"

Posts from Feb-March 99
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... d29c9c000c

"2. From spell casting monsters mainly, usually on the stronger ones liches and
such. Sometimes in chests
3. Use them to pratice magery on. It still uses mana and reagents. No bonus for
using them . Just lets you cast on it for gaining skill. "

Posts from Nov 2001
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.game ... 18f4f47138

"Besides, back on topic: Why? They are one of the most common loot items and
a waste of time. The only use i have found is for some house decoration."

"Why buy? Just go mug a lich on the road from Britan to Yew "

If anyone else wants to do some further digging here is the link to the search I used
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.game ... ll&start=0&

Edit: put some posts in wrong section there.. sorry, eyes getting fuzzy reading all these.

Is it possible that crystal balls were available on vendors pre T2A but not during "era"?

I stopped playing right around the time T2A came out. I knew old, old school UO. During that time crystal balls were certainly not rare, and if memory serves right available on the vendors.


I know memory is not proof, just wondering if we're not looking in the right area for clues to what happened with them.

Zane wrote:Is it possible that crystal balls were available on vendors pre T2A but not during "era"?

I stopped playing right around the time T2A came out. I knew old, old school UO. During that time crystal balls were certainly not rare, and if memory serves right available on the vendors.


I know memory is not proof, just wondering if we're not looking in the right area for clues to what happened with them.

It's quite possible, although on the posts I found from pre through to post era it was never mentioned. The only constant seems to be that standard Crystal Balls were a common item as a loot drop. Possibly more common pre-T2A with the report of them dropping off an Ettin but reffered as common from then on.

The problem is that the archive.org versions of stratics have missing parts making it hard to verify. Also Crystal balls arent mentioned in the specific loot tables of any in-era monsters I could find. This didn't gel with what I remembered though so I did the Usenet digging and confirmed for myself they did drop. Maybe they were some sort of global drop for all magic creatures? (if such a thing could exist)

Sentinel wrote:

Hemperor wrote:On another note, all things stock to 9 initially on the demo, what is the 20 based off of?

Dude, it's always been 20.

On a side note I'd like to add that, last time I checked, there are no NPC vendors in the Sage Adivce shop on the east side of Britain. There should be

No, it hasn't always been 20.
It used to be 9.

Sage Advice used to have scribe NPCs, and the Britain Library did not used to have Scribe vendors.

Crystal balls were definetly on liches.

Jeez come on people, your memory sucks.

We can't always trust stratics and UO demos.

Stratics used to be inaccurate even in 19998 as a source since everything was constantly changing about the game anyway.

Psilo wrote:Crystal balls were definetly on liches.

Jeez come on people, your memory sucks.

We can't always trust stratics and UO demos.

Stratics used to be inaccurate even in 19998 as a source since everything was constantly changing about the game anyway.

Did you miss the research I'd done there? Sheesh.. neither stratics or UO demos involved, thought you'd be grateful I bothered to look it up for you. After all, you're sitting there bashing us having produced nothing in the way of evidence yourself. Your observational skills suck!

Demo is basically always 100% accurate at least to a certain point and time in Ultima Online. The most concrete source ever IMO.