OOC: Well done Raiden, it was very entertaining

When: Saturday July 28th, 8pm GMT
Where: Meet at the Barracks
Who: Every available guardsman is welcome

Last Saturday, Grenadier Cadet Eve was possessed by an unknown force and is being held captive until we bring the entity holding her a piece of Black Rock. So our mission will be two-fold: To find and procure this Black Rock, then bring it to the dungeon of fire to rescue Eve before she is killed.

If anyone has any information about where such a rock can be found, please post a note below so it can be assured that we find one as soon as possible.

After a week of searching, I discovered Jacob, the commoner, happened to have a piece of blackrock in his possession and donated it to us. He is to be commended.

[When:]

When: Thursday the 26th, at 8pm GMT
Where: Covian Theatre of Arts (Right next to the Grenadier HQ and Altmere Outpost)
Who: Flina Trix, Desmond Krieger, Mercy, Ileana Leontine, and Amelia Cane MUST be there!  Anyone else not involved with the play is allowed to quietly observe the rehearsals if they wish.

The Covian Theatre of Arts will open it's doors for rehearsals on Thursday evening to those persons involved in performing the play, Ezmerelda. Direction and scripts will be given as well as a tour of the theatre and dry run through the play. If we have time, a costume fitting will also be done.
The actors listed above who have accepted their respective roles MUST attend or risk being re-cast much to my dismay. Any others who wish to observe the rehearsals are free to do so as long as they don't interfere.

Set aside a Fiction or Entertainment section Ileana to house all the grand Covian scripts soon to come out of the theatre!

Full valo suit (balanced) + Inscription bonus (cast reactive armor and spell reflection while having gm inscription) + armor is crafted with gm armslore+ a valorite shield, can get your resists to something like:

I'll take a suit of that Cel! Chop chop! *Nods*

We spoke to each other on Ventrilo.

Hmm why don't we do that in Cove?

My wife and I used Ventrilo with our raiding guilds in WoW as well, and you're right that it brings everyone much closer together. One of the most fun nights of my life (yes, my life) was when my wife and I nearly had a heartattack laughing ourselves silly at a guild mate's antics on Ventrilo.

It can be a pain in the ass sometimes, especially if you're not in the mood to talk to anyone, but for the most part it's fun and I'm sure it'll bring us all together more.

UO is piss poor compared to how it USED to be. Like Kas said, you have to have the suits to compete. Skill is worthless, items are everything.
But that's just the content they intend for you to play. The content we make for ourselves, the RP, the house designing, the aspects that rely on the player are beautiful, because we know what we like.
I just hope they fix things, because it's only gotten worse. In a few years, will it be too bad for even RP to survive? I hope not.

I really don't think it's that bad, unless you're a hardcore PVPer. The items only really help in that respect, unless you're trying to compete with everyone to be the richest, or have the most rares. If you make the game into that, it's no better than WoW.

I don't think all the new changes have hindered or changed the core casual fun that UO provides, especially the RP. The changes have really only hindered PVP and PKing at the end of the day.

Been playing UO since 2001, so this was before the introduction of magical armour, those times were good. Had a three year break, two breaks actually adding to three years, in which i played WoW (Yes i know ) for two years. And i tried a RP server at first, but the complete lack of RP scared me away.

Nothing compares to the game play in UO, the choice to customise your character is great.

Ten years old, and still has the best gameplay. =) UO ftw.

God Kas, get a life! - Good post mate.

Ith's situation is much like mine though. I played UO waaaay back when it first started up for a couple years, then quit when Trammel came into existence. My brother and I had too much fun randomly PKing people every time they left Trinsic to continue playing once that stopped.

So I haven't touched UO for 7+ years until just a few months ago. I thought I'd give it another go and see if the magic was still there. In the meantime, I'd played just about every other MMO brought to market, which all were very shallow except for WoW (the only game since UO to hold my interest for more than a couple months. Not because I wanted to play it, but because in WoW, you HAVE to play it). Even the recent Lord of the Rings Online with it's vast opportunities for RP was very shallow and just a WoW clone at the end of the day.

I was very pleasantly shocked to see after 10 years, UO still has such a rich RP community, much richer than any other game by far. And even with all the newbification and mass-media changes, it still has that UO magic and charm, and I have as much fun as I did when I first played it. I honestly don't feel that the changes have harmed the game itself at all; they've merely just changed the sort of player who plays it now.

No other game can hold a candle to the vast number of things that are possible in UO.

You guys know there is a BandageSelf macro in game right? The only thing I found UOA useful for is to get rid of the annoying horse and bard sounds (after they took out the infinite macro capability  ). But it's not worth running it just for that to me.

[Ezmerelda]

**Announcing open auditions for actors and extras for the first run production of Ezmerelda at the new Covian Theatre of Arts!**

All parts including the leads are available! There is also an opening for a Costume Designer if you have skills working with clothing.

Have the distinction of being one of the principle players of this exciting new production held at the Grand Opening of the Theatre.

The auditions will be held from 9pm on Thursday, July 19th, so be there!

High talent? No talent? Even bankruptcy! All are welcome to come and try out!

The theatre is located just north of the Baron's Household, along the coast near the road to Altmere.

[OOC: I'm basically using this event to see who is interested in being a part of the theatre at some point, so I can see if this idea has enough support and will fly; as well as seeing who has the flair for the dramatic .
So, if you think you will ever be interested in becoming an actor or even a stagehand or something, please turn up. Or leave me a message if you're unable to make it, but are interested.]

It's just the first step in my conspiracy theory of EA wanting to put everyone off playing UO so they can close it down once and for all! KR and the demise of the 2D client will be their coup d'gras!

[Distance]

Distance

Being in the saddle again was a comfortable feeling for me and the horse I was given was just the right size. He has a bit of spunk in him too so we charged through the forests to Minoc's statue, then ran back near the coastline to Cove at a good speed. We managed to run the course in just under 4 minutes.



Jump

It took me a little while to find a suitable pool to jump, but once I did, I sussed out the best part to attempt. Charging at full speed, I pulled up on the reins and the horse responded. We easily cleared the distance, but it still made my heart skip a beat.
I then looked for a good height to attempt and found a nice large bramble bush. I ordered the horse toward it, and we jumped the bush just clipping the brambles extending upward.



Obstacle

Trotting through the woods, I came across a dense area of trees so I weaved the horse through them at speed. I even had to dodge a startled deer, and low hanging branches as I weaved. We came out of the dense area with a few scratches, but made it together nonetheless.



Speed

Under the Sergeant's watchful eye and watch, Roseville and I ran the pre-determined course around Cove. We ran at full speed, and I felt I had to constantly tug on the right rein to finish each lap. Luckily it was late evening so not many townspeople were about and we managed to finish all three laps in 1 minute, 55 seconds.



Combat

I knew the brigands around Cove were gaining in numbers so I sought out one of their camps. When I spotted one, I immediately ran in full speed and split the head of one of them before they knew what was happening. The three remaining brigands surrounded me but the horse held firm and I managed to kill them all and scatter their camp.



*Signed*
Zoie Hayden, Dragoon Officer Cadet

I find it odd that that house fell at all because I distinctly remember seeing it's sign the other day when Hew's house fell and it was fine (Not in any stage of decay).

If it did indeed fall, that means Stein's account has been inactive for some time, which to me means he has little intention of playing for awhile. So as far as I'm concerned that plot is Cove's now. Just need someone to take it off Arma's hands...

[To the Vesperian Border and Crossroads]

To the Vesperian Border and Crossroads

Led by: Zoie Hayden, Officer Cadet

Guardsmen in attendance:
- Hoagie, Dragoon Sergeant
- Eve, Officer Cadet
- Kas Valentine, Regular Guardsman
- Marcus, Watchman

I began to brief the guardsmen at the barracks when they all lined up, but a strange woman began hanging around so I decided to begin marching and fill the troops in about what we were doing later. I informed them about our mission as we walked, and soon we'd passed the graveyard. When we reached the closest ruins to the Vesperian border, we stopped to secure them.

Hoagie and Eve began to discuss the strange stone disc that was there and Sergeant Hoagie reckoned there'd be something under it. So I allowed Grenadier Officer Cadet Eve to set up some expolsives to see if we could move it. The blast was even and well placed, but the stone was unmoved and undamaged. As we still had a job to do, and these ruins were secure, I ordered that we move on, but made a note of the stone for future reference.

Just west of those ruins, we happened on another smaller ruin, but this one looked lived in. There were hides, body parts, and remnants of camp fires strewn all about. No sooner had we supposed that someone was living there, than a lone deadite popped out of a pile of hides and fired on us. His hastily shot arrow missed us completely, but I still ordered Eve to flush him out with some fire. As soon as she did, he fired on us again and ran off.
After we'd chased the deadite off, we cleaned up the ruins and secured them.

We then set off down the road toward the crossroads but came upon a camp of brigands and their ogre and troll pets. We easily dispatched all of them and scattered their camp. We continued on and arrived at the crossroads without any more incident. There was no activity there save for some cows, so we had the Watchman slaughter one of them and used it's meat to have a nice barbeque. We feasted then secured the area and made our way home.

*Signed*
Zoie Hayden, Officer Cadet