Treasure hunters, rejoice: The folks at Broadsword have been hard at work retooling and updating Ultima Online’s treasure hunting content, and they’ve recently posted a new dev diary that details some of the changes that are in the works. One of the biggest changes coming in the next patch is a massive overhaul of the way removing traps on treasure chests works.
Now, when a player attempts to open a trapped chest, he or she will be prompted to use the Remove Trap skill, which will begin the disarming process, during which “Ancient Chest Guardians, chosen from the monsters that can spawn during the initial dig, will spawn to defend the chest.” These monsters won’t drop any loot themselves, but they must be defeated before the chest can be opened. The devs have also made another pass at the quality of loot contained in chests, which will now guarantee that magic equipment spawns “in all level chests” while also doubling the amount of magic equipment that spawns. Players can check out the changes on the test center right now.
Meanwhile, in Broadsword’s other classic MMORPG Dark Age of Camelot, the devs recently answered a handful of player questions as part of the weekly Friday Grab Bag. In addition to tackling a couple of quick mechanics questions, the devs also discussed the prospect of bringing back some of the trophies from the Las Vegas and Virginia roundtables, saying that were they to do so, they would “do so in a way that maintains their rarity,” though there are no concrete plans at present. They also revealed that once Endless Conquest launches, the devs plan to introduce a classic progression server that will feature only the base game, Shrouded Isles, and housing, which “will only progress to newer content if its player-base votes to do so.” If that server is successful, the devs say they’re open to introducing other alternate-ruleset servers as well.
