A suggestion I hope is considered.

[Finesse]

like i said you could without a doubt do spell damage in towns for most of t2a but both are accurate the admin just needs to decide what he wants.

i do like the idea of britain being a warzone city.

[Pro]

RP for story line; Armies of blackthorne (chaos) Vs armies of Lord brit (order) Fight for supremacy of the town.

[Kaivan]

Just to clear up some misconceptions, the lack of spell damage in town persisted from before T2A all the way until the end of T2A.

Here are some excerpts from HoC chats that mention town fighting:

Fripp - *Ekir* Hi. I wanted to know if you really wanted to get rid someday of townfighing. A lot of people have made a townfighter caracter, which means a caracter with no resist, and capped. If tf is removed, these cars skills will be screw up when they'll fight mages.
DD - As we've stated before, we do wish to remove townfighting. We find it disruptive for everyone in towns. Wealso stated that we'd remove it only once the reasons why people do it in town are resolved (in other words, not until the fun you can have townfighting now is available elsewhere).

Glamdring - *Web Question* The removal of town fighting is conspicuously absent from the Dev List and yet this more than perhaps anything else would improve PvP. Any eta on this or has it been scrapped as a change?
SunSword - As was foretold on the website and on other forums, big changes are in store for PvP in UO. Removal of Town fighting, or at least changing the nature of town fighting is certainly likely, but not for several more months.

Jerrith - *Odin_407* With the new "PvP Enhancements" I hardly see how a mage holding a spell book will Help! PvP! This will destroy PvP with Mages against Town Fighters...I hardly see that the new Stunning Blows with wrestling will effect how a mage performs in combat.
Runesabre - The new wrestling moves are not necessarily intended for mages. If a mage wants to take up that capability that's fine but the new wrestling moves were not specifically geared as an enhancement to mages. Hopefully new types of characters will evolve with these changes beyond the standard Mage or Warrior choices that prevail today.

Each of these chats mentions town fighters (aka townies) as a current portion of UO. Given that fact, townies were viable templates up until at least February 2000. Given that as the case, it existed for most (assuming it was removed with the next patch) if not all of T2A.

[Faust]

Kaivan clearly states what was previously said from myself... The two areas known for the possible removal of no magic damage in town was either the UOR publish or the introduction of factions. I personally believe it was factions.. but there isn't any evidence to suggest other wise that I have been able to find. However, either way it goes t2a did not have any magic damage in town... This was clearly the main reason that fighting occurred in dungeons like Deceit, etc..

[Finesse]

sorry but im calling bullshit on this one and im gonna hunt out some screenies from the era to prove it :>

[Alex the Artist]

My old records also indicate no town damage as late as Feb of 2000. Emails from enemies talking about taking the fights outside of town for our mages, etc. I don't have any docs on when it started, but it went at least through Feb of 2000.

[cletus]

My old records also indicate no town damage as late as Feb of 2000. Emails from enemies talking about taking the fights outside of town for our mages, etc. I don't have any docs on when it started, but it went at least through Feb of 2000.

Yes, this is absolutely correct. I had a townie thief named lice (Trinsic Borrowers, whut) on Atlantic until around the start of 2000. Of course, like most things my memory isn't infallible but I am pretty sure on this one.

[Arcott Ramathorn]

Anyone else remember running through fire walls on top of Vesper Mage Shop roof for resist? I'm pretty sure they did damage. I also remember griefers running into them to turn the caster grey and get them guardwhacked.

[malice-tg]

dmg in towns should be on anyways

townie era was only in for the last part of t2a, before ren, and its pretty lame.

o/c battles in towns was the BEST part of t2a.

This is actually quite the contrary. If anything magic damage in town was removed near the UOR publish. Take special notice to the remove of magic resist gains in early '99 for the exploit that manipulated no magic damage in town. Casting from outside to in, etc... The bug that involves the famous picture with tons of npc mages casting on an individual from inside to outside of town. There are multiple townie articles that mention specific dates such as one involving the Hades article in December of '98 on stratics.

There is no true mention of magic damage in town being turned on during or after the t2a era. However, there are two assumptions that suggests the activation of magic damage in towns. The first assumption is before the UOR publish that made monster AI drastically smarter. This would render the previous PVP spots in dungeons invalid adding all the annoying interferences from them. The second suggestion is the most obvious. Factions, which required magic damage to be turned back on for obvious reasons.

It would be nice if someone could pin point the exact time frame for this issue.

i remember they definitely added and removed it during order chaos era before factions. i cant remember any chronological order though.

i remember being mad my mage was red when they fluxed damage in town

[malice-tg]

Well, I realize this isn't accurate, which is why I am only suggesting it go into effect on a temporary basis. Basically, I think we should turn spell damage on in Britain for two weeks, just so that new player logging on to the shard see all oft he action and are motivated to stay and make characters. Someone else suggested this, and I think the idea has legs. So, let me know your thoughts, and again, it would only be temporary and guards would still be functioning.

ferp i like the idea behind your suggestion.
maybe if we cant get magic in brit.. we should all try rolling some towny fights.

i wouldnt mind it at all.. there is a whole tactical art to townie warfare that i do miss. i wish more people would just fight in town. specifically in brit...