UO Second Age

I began playing in fall of 1999, and I'm pretty sure I remember Wall of Stone being castable in town. I assume it had to be possible in T2A, because it felt like the list of spells you could cast in town only seemed to get smaller. Anyone else with memories?

Latest I can find references to it is Jan 1999. Anyone?

Wall of stone should be castable in town without any issue. If it isn't we do need to fix it. This patch note from early 2001 notes the first significant restrictions to spells that could be cast in town. The specific line item is as follows:

Certain spells that were previously castable in justice regions will no longer be castable in justice regions. These spells include: Wall of Stone, Poison Field, Mass Curse, Paralyzation Field, Chain Lightning, Energy Field, Meteor Storm, Earth Quake, Blade Spirits, and Energy Vortex.

Awesome - yeah, when I double-click my WoS icon, I get a "You cannot cast this in town!" system message.

And I feel like yes you could cast some of those others in town too... EQ and the rest. Of course, you're apt to be guardwhacked... but it should be possible.

Hehe, EQ in town (especially at a major bank) would make so many guards appear I am surprised OSI's servers did not crash.

I noticed this as well, recalling all spells being castable in town but some with criminal consequences - I just assumed I must've been confusing OSI with some UOR freeshard since it wasn't already fixed.

The only one I think you specifically cannot cast in town is Fire Field. And even then, I was reading reports of people casting it from outside of town and being able to target it inside of town.

The only spells I remember not being able to cast while standing in gzone, is firefield, then all the summon spells. In the case of firefield, I'm pretty sure you could still cast it into gzone as long as you were standing outside it.

On a related note:
NPCs (only non-humans?) should also take damage from magic in town, including tames. This was frequently used to kill the casters of firefields when it was still possible to cast them in town -- just dismount on their field and call guards.

I also don't remember damage spells giving 1 damage in town (shouldn't it be 0?). Where did this come from?

Rammar wrote:The only spells I remember not being able to cast while standing in gzone, is firefield, then all the summon spells. In the case of firefield, I'm pretty sure you could still cast it into gzone as long as you were standing outside it.

On a related note:
NPCs (only non-humans?) should also take damage from magic in town, including tames. This was frequently used to kill the casters of firefields when it was still possible to cast them in town -- just dismount on their field and call guards.

I also don't remember damage spells giving 1 damage in town (shouldn't it be 0?). Where did this come from?

I agree, a popular pass-time of mine was loading up with a single flamestrike scroll and taking out packhorses in Delucia.

MatronDeWinter wrote:I agree, a popular pass-time of mine was loading up with a single flamestrike scroll and taking out packhorses in Delucia.

But wouldn't the spell only do 1 damage?

Awesome! I knew there was something wrong about limiting casting.

Mens Rea wrote:

MatronDeWinter wrote:I agree, a popular pass-time of mine was loading up with a single flamestrike scroll and taking out packhorses in Delucia.

But wouldn't the spell only do 1 damage?

When I said non-humans should take damage, I meant full spell damage. I have no idea where the 1 damage stuff came from, I believe it should be zero for all humans, and full damage for everything else. It appears to be like this in the demo (a very brief test), but I haven't had time to more thoroughly test, or pour over the patch notes.

It is my suspicion that Fire field, Para field, and Poison field were not castable in town, but I have not had a chance to confirm this.

As for the 2001 patch note, at some point it was made so that neither could these spells be cast in town, but they could not be targeted in town as well. I believe it's possible that as a group only some of these spells could previously be cast in town, and that after this patch none could be cast, nor targeted in town.

The demo is not a good guide on this, for as far as i can see, summons are also castable in town in the demo timeframe. I know this thread is a little old, but can anyone dig up more info on this?

In the meantime, some of this will be in next patch, but not all pending further investigation.

The demo is not a good guide on this, for as far as i can see, summons are also castable in town in the demo timeframe. I know this thread is a little old, but can anyone dig up more info on this?

Exactly, the demo never was the "be all end all" for discussions about proof of accuracy.

Player's memories are much better, some players have better memories than others!

Psilo wrote:

The demo is not a good guide on this, for as far as i can see, summons are also castable in town in the demo timeframe. I know this thread is a little old, but can anyone dig up more info on this?

Exactly, the demo never was the "be all end all" for discussions about proof of accuracy.

Player's memories are much better, some players have better memories than others!

Absolutely not.

The demo may not be the end all be all regarding discussions of accuracy, but its a good starting point that, combined with other resources, can be used to figure out exactly what is allowed. In this case, the following trace of information allows us to determine exactly how things worked:

The Demo (circa May 1998) wrote:All summoning spells and field spells can be cast in town.

Treasure maps and more! Jan 19 1999 3:05PM wrote:You can no longer cast firefield in town.

Blue PK changes, fishing, and more Mar 28 1999 9:35AM CST wrote:Elemental summoning in towns will be disabled.

Magic in Towns, Hero/Evil Changes Jan 9 2001 8:17PM CST wrote:Certain spells that were previously castable in justice regions will no longer be castable in justice regions. These spells include: Wall of Stone, Poison Field, Mass Curse, Paralyzation Field, Chain Lightning, Energy Field, Meteor Storm, Earth Quake, Blade Spirits, and Energy Vortex.

Publish 15 Updates and Bug Fixes Jan 10 2002 10:56AM CST wrote:The Firefield spell will no longer be precastable outside of town and targetable in town.

From the above trace starting with the demo, we can see a clear line of progression culminating in the removal of field spells from towns, and none of it required or took player memory into account.

Kaivan wrote:From the above trace starting with the demo, we can see a clear line of progression culminating in the removal of field spells from towns, and none of it required or took player memory into account.

Thanks much. Making these corrections was a last minute effort last night, as i wanted to get it in this mornings patch; i didn't have time to look this up.

I will inject the differences between what is correct as per above, and what was patched this morning in a mini-patch tomorrow.

(patch notes for this morning in progress)