RELEASE the Krakens!!!

[Generic Player]

1998 patch note FTW. why would they become aggressive if they weren't in the game.

Because individual developers didn't know the entire code base inside and out. Just because a creature had its aggressive flag enabled doesn't mean there were any spawns of that creature. Wasn't that patch in response to people farming dragons too easily? Quite likely a dev was told "go through all the mobs and make sure anything that should be aggressive is" and that was the list of ones he had to change.

[Yew]

I researched krakens in Shame a few hours last week.

Contrary to my recollection, I found an old fan page that was dated year 2000 describing some of the "new" creatures in Shame. The kraken was one of these, along with the elder gazers.

So in the end, my result was that krakens were not in Shame when I remember them being there, although it does not disprove they existed in other places.

[Derrick]

Indeed. Whether they spawned naturally in the world or not though, it would still be nice to have them in the toolbox as OSI did. I'm beginning to fear though that accurate information on them prior to UO:R just isn't out there :/

[Barid]

I didn't realize this topic was here...

Personally I, for whatever reason, adored the kraken so I tried to gather all the info I possibly could on it, back in the day. The dungeon spawns of the kraken didn't come until UO:R and it wasn't magical. However the open-water kraken DID have a fire-breath attack but was blue hued (the monster itself was blue hued as well). It was also able to move on land and water, this was later changed in third dawn, if I remember correctly.

Also, it did in fact spawn in T2A, in the ice region of the lost lands. Since it's in a specific area and I've never know the Lost Lands to be hugely popular for boating, makes sense it would be little known of. This spawn area is also confirmed via the stratics page archived at October 1999.



Give me krakens or give... you.. death! The certainly should be in. (And considering they give MiB loot... I detect a possibly largely hunted creature)

[Rammar]

Give me krakens or give... you.. death! The certainly should be in. (And considering they give MiB loot... I detect a possibly largely hunted creature)

In any event, they would not drop MIBs. This was only loot on krakens which were fished up (aug2000).

I found one last scrap of player information, as well as a discription of that missing photo on stratics -- its white.

Oct 26, 1999
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.game ... e99c5514b6

I heard a tale on Stratics of a foul beast named the Kraken. Nothing was
known about it absoloutley nothing. I though this strange as the guys at
Stratics know everything there is to know about anything, to do with UO.
They do have picture, it is creamy/white with a line of spikes along it's
back. It has large goggle eys and a row of sharp teeth. It is supposed to
inhabit the area around the Ice Dungeon in T2A. I looked in the T2A book
and it says the Kraken looks like a corpser and lives in the sea. I think
it is lying becasue the picture still had soil around the base of the
plant. Has anyone seen the Kraken? Check out the hunters guide on Stratics
for the picture. I'm planning an expedition in a few weeks to find the
beast. I need a boat, then I shall sail from Papua around the desert island
and over to the Ice dungeon, then I can check the sea and the Ice bits
along the way. If you have any info on it please post it! I'm curious.
Thanks!

The only reposponse:

As far as I know, the kraken was planned with T2A and never
got implemented.

[Barid]

Oh yea.. After writing that I remembered that about the MiB loot.. haha.

The white blobby thing you mention, that's a different sprite which was called leviathan, if I remember correctly...

-Just checked to make sure and yes, according to stratics it was something seen in the T2A beta but never seen in the final release:


Several years back I was playin around with game files and found that, never seen it used though. But I understand the creature concept was used for the kraken's new look




In any case, it sounds like we have some minor conflicting details... Without a doubt they did not spawn in dungeons. Everything points to the only place they would've spawned was the ice area of the Lost Lands.

Honestly I don't see any reason why their spawn shouldn't be added. Some things point to them spawning, some things point to them never spawning at all. Unfortunately at 11 years later we can't know 100% but we do know that the creature was made for T2A. All pictures point to it being a blue corpser (the blob thing wasn't used) and aside from the dungeon incarnations of it, I've always heard of it doing the blue flame-breath type attack as well as hurting like hell. It really seems like such a waste to abandon the kraken. We know it was at least designed in T2A soo.. Even if it didn't spawn then, that's not much of an era jump, yes?

[Rammar]

I never heard anything about leviathans in T2A -- or UOR for that matter. Source?

This guy is merely describing what the stratics people called a kraken. Presumeably they checked its name. It just does not sound like they spawned in era, theres virtually no mention of them, and even people who played then thought they didn't exist.

They'd be an interesting creature for an event though.

[Barid]

I never heard anything about leviathans in T2A -- or UOR for that matter. Source?

This guy is merely describing what the stratics people called a kraken. Presumeably they checked its name. It just does not sound like they spawned in era, theres virtually no mention of them, and even people who played then thought they didn't exist.

They'd be an interesting creature for an event though.

The "leviathan" was just the name for that sprite in the game files. It never actually showed up in the game, as far as I know that sprite was never used either. They now have a creature called a leviathan, but this particular one is just the name for that freaky lookin white thing.

Makes sense too since the kraken is supposed to be able to move on land and water. Taking a look at that thing, I don't think it'd make much sense moving around on ground.. lol

Bottom line though? Add the damn kraken! ... I'll even give you a cookie for it, Derrick!

[Barid]

After quite a bit of playing in InsideUO I believe I have found the kraken hue. There appears to be a very slight difference in color between what I got and what is shown for the in game screenshots however I am inclined to think that this is just cause by in-game viewing. The most notable area of this is the "dirt" base, the screenshot base appears to be a bit lighter than what I got however the hue I'm using is the lightest hue I could get while matching the other colors. There is also bound to be a difference from the source screenshot due to jpg compression.

It's entirely possible I missed one, afterall there are a ton in there... However I spent about an hour scrolling through the list testing each and every hue that had a possible chance to be the right one, so, I feel quite certain this is it. To clarify too, I didn't just eyeball it. I took exact RGB numbers on the same pixels for both sprites and compared them for every hue I tested (which was probably around 40).

It's hue number 0x59, 166->20447

The original:



And the new re-hued corpser:



(You'll notice the screenshot is horizontally flipped. I did this just to get it to match the orientation of the kraken sprite.)

[GuardianKnight]

Derrick, I am honestly starting to wonder if people are adding information to see whether or not they can trick you into adding era inaccurate things. It's pretty widely known that there was no kraken in game until UOR.

[nightshark]

Can you please research the proper hue for beetles?

[Barid]

Derrick, I am honestly starting to wonder if people are adding information to see whether or not they can trick you into adding era inaccurate things. It's pretty widely known that there was no kraken in game until UOR.

We really don't know that for sure though. We have some things which say they didn't spawn, some which say they did. However for both cases the information is really dodgy at best. When it comes down to it, we honestly just can't know for sure either way. Really though, so far we have more that says they did spawn than didn't. Have some player accounts saying they didn't but as I posted, an archived stratics page that says they did.

Also I wouldn't call it era inaccurate in the first place since, spawned or not, it was something made with and for T2A, even modified in a patch within the proper timeframe.

[nightshark]

Really though, so far we have more that says they did spawn than didn't. Have some player accounts saying they didn't but as I posted, an archived stratics page that says they did.

really? I would've thought the exact opposite... I don't see one single player account saying "krakens spawn" in the 1999 period. There's a few that actually contest to the fact they don't spawn...

[Barid]

really? I would've thought the exact opposite... I don't see one single player account saying "krakens spawn" in the 1999 period. There's a few that actually contest to the fact they don't spawn...

Like I said, we have player accounts that say they didn't spawn. However



We have a stratics page, which is considerably more reliable than 10 year old player statements, that says they are known to exist. I'd consider that more of a solid proof for them than against.

[nightshark]

That's pretty anecdotal to me.. "known to exist", "nothing is known about this creature". Sounds more like a RP story...

The fact their loot is unknown is enough to say that noone ever fought one