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Well, the main connection is back and seems stable, so I'm going to schedule the reconnect tomorrow AM (GMT).

I'm afraid I can't be much more specific than that, because it all depends on what time I get to bed tonight!

Of course I will give about 10 minutes warning in-game and post as I take the system down, and as it comes back up :-)

Ususally there's not that many on in the morning over here, so I doubt many will notice the down until after it's completed and we're back on the original ip.

Due to a British Telecom issue in my local telephone exchange, the main server connection looks like it's going to be down for some time (Current estimate: 3 days at time of post).

So, here's what you need to do to alter your settings to connect via the backup connection :

In UOGateway, change the IP of the server to "sylvan.game-server.cc".  That's all :-)

I've added a new One-click link for those who want to do it that way too.

Okay folks, I'm sure some of you will have already noticed the voting links at the top of the forum have had a new addition, but here's the detail :

ConnectUO is an alternative to UOGateway, and it looks pretty cool so far.  It's patching however doesn't work for us yet, so we can't use it to connect to Sylvan yet.

It's voting is done inside and outside the program unlike gateway and so we can vote so we get recognition.  We have had account requests from being on there already so lets get voting there.  Voting is a little different though - you can vote there once per week and voting resets once per week too.  This seems to happen at midnight on Monday at their time zone (5AM GMT).  That's about 4 hours away :-)

So whilst we can't use it to connect yet, let's get voting.

Okay folks... here is the complete current list of Veteran rewards, but don't stop reading when you get to the end!

3Months :
OSI Monster Statuettes : Crocodile, Daemon, Dragon, Earth Elemental, Ettin, Gargoyle, Gorilla, Lich, Lizardman, Ogre, Orc, Ratman, Skeleton, Troll
OSI Reward Cloaks/Robes : Bronze and Copper
Sylvan Heart Staff Doll of your choice.
Sylvan Heart Wristwatch
Special Dye Tub
Special 3 month hue (3 uses)

6Months:
OSI Reward Cloaks/Robes : Agapite and Golden
OSI Ethereal Mounts
OSI Banner Deed
Leather Dye Tub
Black Dye Tub
Tarot Deck
Clothing Bless Deed
Special 6 month hue (3 uses)

9 Months:
OSI Reward Cloaks/Robes : Verite and Valorite
OSI Monster Statuettes : Cow, Zombie and Llama
Ankh Banner
Serpent Crest Decorative Shield Hanging
Royal Chair
Special 9 month hue (3 uses)

12 Months:
Spell Channeling/Mage Armor Deed
Item Bless Deed
Universal Dye Tub
Mini House Kit
Glass Sword
Flaming Skull
OSI Monster Statuettes : Ophidian, Reaper, Mongbat
Special 12 month hue (3 uses)

15 months:
Portable Forge
100 Point Skill Deed (increases skill to 100 if you have space for it)
Use Best Weapon Skill Deed
OSI Monster Statuettes : Gazer, FireElemental and Wolf
Special 15 month hue (3 uses)

18 months:
Blessed Reagent/Bandage Pouch
120 Point Skill Deed
Verite Runic Hammer - 30 uses
Horned Runic Hammer - 30 uses
Special 18 month hue (3 uses)

21 months:
Pet Hue Deed
Valorite Runic Hammer - 30 uses
Barbed Runic Sewing Kit - 30 uses
Special 21 month hue (3 uses)

24 months:
Soul Stone
100 point Skillcap Increase - does NOT go over the 1500 skillcap but can go over the 1200 skillcap.
Special 24 month hue (3 uses)

Okay some important info :
Because the intervals were changed from 1month to 3months, and a lot of people have been affected by this, here's the effects explained :
Before any changes, at 1 month, you got 2 reward points, and then 1 per month afterwards.
After the reshuffle, you got 2 reward points at 3 months and then 1 per 3months afterwards.
As a thankyou for your patience, we're setting the start point to 3 reward points at 3months and also when you first log in on an account you will be presented with a reward voucher that you can redeem at any point by paging.

There's also a new command for players : [myrewardinfo - try it - you'll get information about how many points you've spent and how many you have available, what is currently available to your account by way of rewards, and what you'll get if you wait for the next level.

There's a display area for the monthly hues in the Deco mall.

This is an official statement to avoid the problems we had when Oak decided to leave :

The name Sylvan Heart was coined by the staff and some players at the time, and it was coined for the community which continues no matter who is staff and admins.  With this in mind, the name is not owned by any one person and will not change without a unanimous decision by all active staff.

What this really means is that if I or any other staff/admin at any future point, decide to go off in a huff, those remaining have full right to continue and continue using the name Sylvan Heart.

I would like to point out that this is not likely in any way shape or form, just a statement that is public to safeguard our community.

The Reward Trash Barrel in the meadow now has a new nifty feature :-

  If you drop a container in it (e.g. your grab bag), it will give empty from it everything that Dalos buys and give you the gold he would have given you.  The bag is returned to you with the gold and anything that Dalos doesn't buy.

If you have razor, it's really not an advantage as you can use your sell agent, but for those who don't/can't use razor, this is for you!

As the title suggests, we now have a Gem Resource Box.

This little item holds all your Augments, plus normal gems without taking more than 1 server item count (reduces your lockdown count too).

For now, these are free - one per account (need a house to lock it down in) - page for yours today!

[[moveitems]

• Runic Sewing Kits and Fletchers Tools now upgradable in the Transmution boxes
• Porcelain now convertable to Obsidian in the Transmution boxes - 1 arcane gem and 100 porcelain creates 100 obsidian.  Also works with different amounts - 1 arcane gem and 30 porcelain returns 30 obsidian, 5 arcane gems and 480 porcelain returns 480 obsidian. :-)
• Fixed a [moveitems bug
• Rewards now set to an interval of 90 days instead of 30
• Occlo and Lake Shire added to public moongate

Please remember folks that characters are characters and that the people behind the characters are not always like the characters they play.

There have been some instances where players have been rude or downright nasty to other players outside of character.  This won't be tolerated... Keep it nice people - we're a family shard.

If someone happens to be on the other side and you meet them in the street, and maintain an in-character dialog that's fine, but being nasty over PMs, in the forum, or obviously out of character will not be tolerated.  By all means, enjoy the RP and if you're Lawful Good, shout like hell in-char at the Chaotic Evil people, but ONLY in-character.  PM'ing someone who's on the other side with nastiness that is not in-char just causes angst and bad feeling.  If everyone did that, then it's not gonna be a nice place to play.

And please folks, though it shouldn't need saying - It's a game - enjoy it, but don't spoil others' enjoyment of the game - you wouldn't want them to do it to you.

[do not]

Right, I've been through this on a couple of occasions with a couple of people, so I thought I'd Sticky this here.

• Try not to say "this is easy", 'cos there can be knock-on consequences, both technical and balance-related to anything that is suggested.
• If you're gonna download RunUO to play with, do have fun, but don't start sending me whole files to replace.  First of all we do not use RunUO, we use SunUO, which is based on RunUO version 1.  Sending me a huge file that comes from RunUO2 saves me no work at all as I have to look at every line, compare it with every line in our system and work out exactly what it's doing... all-in-all a huge pain in the rear.
• I love unified diffs - they tell me what file you've changed and what changes you made - so if it's a one-line change, the unified diff will be about 6 lines long.  Easy, lovely.  If you REALLY want to get RunUO and play about and make the suggestions (which are not guaranteed to go in), then sending me unified diffs of RunUO1 with Oak's scripts installed will get much higher priority in my workload.  NOTE: this will NOT get your suggestion any higher priority in being appraised by staff as suitable for the shard.
• Suggestions always get a lower priority to bugs and server stability.  There are occasions where I might apply a suggestion before a bugfix but usually it'll be because I'm hitting a brick wall with the bug and need something easier to do.  Those occasions are gladly few and far between.

Yes, the grand unveiling has come.

There are a few sections still to be rewritten, but the majority of the website is up and running.

And for those who have asked about donations, they are up too.

Oh, yeah, the URL http://www.sylvanheart.co.uk/

    * [atone: allows you to convert the bodies of your enemies into atonements. Atonements also can be gotten from doing BODs. Atoning your kills is something you really should do as it reduces lag.
    * [c : to chat
    * [chat : to get chat menu
    * [pm "name" : to pm a player
    * [where : to find out your current coordinates
    * [helpinfo : to get some help. Most of these at player level are spells from the various schools of magic but there are other helpful ones
    * [password : change your password.
    * [PW : set your password
    * [motd : get the message of the day that pops up automatically when you login.
    * [MWSet : set your magic word. This is used to retrieve your password if you forget it. Don't forget this as it is only ever set once!
    * [echo :echos some text as if it was a system message. Do other players see this? I don't know. Seems somewhat useless but hey, sometimes it gets boring slaying daemons.
    * [e and [emenu : for doing emotes - keep these to a minumum - especially in events - not everyone finds them amusing.
    * [grab : automatically loot ground and corpses in 3 tile radius.
    * [grab bag : to set the bag your loot goes into. default is main backpack
    * [grab options : to set what types of items to loot. Gold is always looted.The main benefit of a loot bag is keeping your main backpack uncluttered.
    * [harvest : target a packpack in your main backpack for harvested items to go into. This works for all farming crops, mining, fishing, lumberjacking and probably some others. There are some crops that don't go into it.  It's a bug, feel free to point it out to Alder in the appropriate forum, but list what doesn't go in, or it won't get fixed. The main benefit of having a harvest bag is keeping things organized and you main backpack less cluttered.
    * what is my status : just those words typed by themselves, no [ required. This will bring up a window showing you info about your game time, karma and fame and so on.
    * [sort will allow you to sort items from one container to another. The FROM container must be locked down or in your main backpack. - Type [sort followed by one of the following: gems, wands, regs, scrolls, armor, clothing, weapons, hides, potions, jewelry, help. help will give you a list of the above item types.
    * [dump is similar to Sort but it dumps all items from one container to another, stacking of like items in the process

Note: Sort and Dump are intended for sorting/dumping FROM your main backpack or a subcontainer in it, TO an external container, or subcontainer. Sorting from main backpack to a subcontainer of your main backpack doesn't work. Just drop the container you want to sort INTO on the floor and lock it down.

[current]

Here are the current rules - any changes to these will be announced here and on the website (once it is fully built - this is in progress).

• Macroing is allowed 24/7 as long as you are in a private area.
• Macros must be quiet - no saying pointless things, or making NPCs constantly chatter
• AFK Macroing is defined as any macroing where you are not paying attention to the game screen - this includes reading or posting in the forum.
• All AFK Macros must have an 8-10second gap between actions.  Players will on occasion be asked to respond by GMs if they appear to be macroing. Non-responsive players will be jailed and disconnected.
• Resources must not be macro harvested when AFK. This includes ore, wood, wool, yarn, cloth, fishing and crops. If you are detected in this activity you will be jailed the 1st and 2nd time for increasing amounts of jail rock. If you are caught again, you most likely will be banned.
• There is no need to macro skills on a ship. We've had people running noisy macros where they are constantly changing directions, working an 8x8 (which doesn't work here anyway) or whatever.
• NEVER macro custom items such as resource chests, toolboxes, gem resource chests or whittling, these can crash the shard.
• Do not use the [afk command and stand in a public place, such as our Meadow. That is annoying. Go out on the beach and snooze.
• Do not spam in game, especially in a public place or over shard chat.
• Respect the Staff and Players. No harassing, no name calling, no cursing, luring MOBs, impersonating staff or players, no griefing of any kind. Period. This applies to the forums as well. If you enjoy flaming others for fun or profit, go somewhere else.
• Use the Page system if you need help or have a question for Staff. Do NOT PM Staff or call for Staff on the chat system. In most cases, we'll just ignore that type of contact.
• One account per person. If you sneak in an alias and get another account, both of them are up for deletion. However, it is perfectly acceptable to have two or more unique accounts (1 per person) in a family with the same IP number, ie: a cable connection or whatever. Please PM Acacia with your account names if you do have multiple people on the same connection to avoid being considered as the same person
• Wear clothes. This is a family shard. Deliberate offenders will be jailed. Deliberate multiple offenders face a ban
• Exploits: Do not exploit bugs. If you know of a bug or potential exploit, Page for a GM or PM Alder on the forum. Exploits include speed hacking, 'clever' ways to beat the system, outright bugs, etc. If you are caught exploiting bugs you will be banned first time. No second chances on that sort of thing.
• Tokuno and Ocllo are under Felucca rules. You can steal from players or kill them. However, try to have a bit of class and roleplay it a bit. We do not promote Player Killing but we do recognize that some players enjoy this type of activity. We do insist it must be role played. Don't meet a person and immediately attack them without warning and then shriek at their corpse how u r00l and they are not only lamrz but also pwned.
  Rather, notify them of your intent and then get to work. It'd be lovely to see a player declare "Your gold or your life ..." and so on. In fact, play it to the hilt and be a wandering ronin, disgusted with imperial edicts and determined to survive by your wits and skill at arms.
  Note: Tokuno and Ocllo are under Felucca rules! This bears repeating. Don't go there and then complain after wards if you get pk'd or have something stolen. However, if players are found in Tokuno who are just engaging in player killing and not role playing it, there will be severe consequences
• In the event of a group battle or set event, looting other players is forbidden, and will be punished.
• We have Auto-Jail running. If you say a "bad" word, you'll find yourself in a rocky area and having to mine sufficient jail rock to win your freedom. Don't ask to be released early and for heaven's sake, don't cuss while you are in there or your jail rock amount will be doubled automatically.  Anyone caught trying to get around the filter can be jailed without warning by staff.  Just don't use naughty words and don't act shocked when you get caught.
• Do not ask Staff members for skill modifications, stat changes, special items, item tweaks, transport, resurrections and so on. If you die in-game for whatever reason, we are truly sorry but we cannot replace your items, mounts or pets. We are here to help things go smooth and continue to build a world that will be a virtual home for all of us. But, we aren't going to shower you with "stuff". Skill/Stat gain and items are easy enough to come by.
• Feel free to suggest anything at all in the forums! We welcome all feedback and although we may not implement a suggestion right away or at all, or in its original detail, we certainly will consider it. We do not feel we have the "last word" on what it takes to build a shard that everyone can enjoy. This is a group effort that involves everyone! Yes, players too.

Naming

• Pick names for your characters and pets that are appropriate to the medieval world of Ultima. That means no names like "Chevy Man", "YoAzIzMine", "IaMdEAth", "MentosMan", "LaserBlaster", "Chuck Norris", and so on. Avoid names of well known people, television or movie celebrities. Avoid purely descriptive names like "Smithy" or "Mule", etc, etc.
• Elaborate role playing names are not only permitted but encouraged.
• Fantasy and RPG Names Generator is a nice site to get some ideas if you want some name possibilities. There are many other sites that have a utility to generate names as well
• Please try and pick a name that is a name or can be justified in the role play setting.
  

The link to launch Sylvan Heart from UO:Gateway now works on the homepage... the settings are correct and Gateway will ask if you wish to add Sylvan Heart to your custom serverlist.

This will save people a lot of typing, and so anyone who is having problems patching or is still getting the old "Sylvan Dreams" login screen, simply click the link on the homepage.

Just for ease of use I'll duplicate the link in the news box up there.  *points skyward*