ORIGINS & CHANGELOG

Britannia Before Numbers (1997–1999)

One seamless world. No Trammel. Open PvP outside the guardzones, ruled by the old Notoriety system — Dread Lord to Great Lord. Updates carried no numbers, only dates, and the foundations were bolted on patch by patch:

• Dec 1997 — the original Bounty System, Order/Chaos shields, player vendors, tinker traps
• 1998 — interruptible casting and per-circle cast delays; the Reputation system replaces Notoriety; true house ownership
• Oct 1998 — The Second Age (T2A): the Lost Lands open on every shard
• 1999 — treasure maps, colored ore, the Meditation skill, stamina-driven swing speed, long-term murder counts, Young player status

Before the moons split the world, Britannia was one lawless land where notoriety was currency and every patch rewrote the rules of survival.

Publish 1 — The First Numbered Publish

• Skill locks debut — the up/down/lock arrows on the skill window
• Rune books: sixteen locations, Recall and Gate straight from the book
• Potion kegs and the full crafting chain behind them
• Clean Up Britannia II — big house storage increases, secures count 125 each
• House co-owners (up to 8); holiday 1999 gifts, including the clothing bless deed

The publishes finally get numbers — and players finally get to lock a skill, stash a rune book, and brew a keg of poison.

Publish 2

• Clean Up Britannia III — item decay comes indoors (secures and lockdowns exempt)
• Pack animals carry 1,600 stones, up from 400
• Land Surveying Tool — preview house placement before buying the deed
• Taming overhaul: pets remember owners, line-of-sight required

The great house-cleaning comes indoors — leave junk on the floor and Britannia will quietly reclaim it.

Publish 3

• Instant resurrection removed — death always makes you a ghost
• Secure pet trading and secure house trading via deed windows
• Moonstones seeded on monsters — dormant, hinting at worlds to come
• Monster treasure revamped; most monsters lose their backpacks

No more cheating death with an instant res — and the mysterious moonstones start appearing.

Publish 4

• Power Hour: boosted skill gain during your first hour of daily play
• Anti-macro skill-gain code demanding diverse, human-like play
• Bank checks, 5,000 to 1,000,000 gold, blessed
• Deep-sea fishing pulls up sea serpents, SOS bottles, treasure hooks
• Shopkeepers lose invulnerability — killing peaceful ones earns murder counts

Set thine alarm — Power Hour arrives, and the smartest grinders learn to make every one of those sixty minutes count.

Publish 5 — The Renaissance Publish

• THE FACET SPLIT: Britannia doubles into Trammel (consent PvP) and Felucca (open PvP); reds banned from Trammel
• Two-handed special moves vs. players: Crushing, Concussion, Paralyzing Blow; wrestlers gain Stun and Disarm
• Lumberjacking axe damage bonus; the great AR/dex armor rebalance
• One defensive spell at a time: Reflect, Reactive, or Protection
• The party system, the Haven tutorial, one-house-per-account

The moons Trammel and Felucca tear the world in two — and Ultima Online is reborn as the game a generation remembers.

Publish 6

• Looting-rights overhaul — on Trammel only rightful looters can even open a corpse
• Locked-down resources become untargetable for crafting
• Stuck-player teleport menu; the Make Last / Smelt / Repair smithing interface

Who gets the loot? Publish 6 finally writes the rules of the corpse, facet by facet.

Publish 7

• Random stealing from players restored — weight only affects success
• True-black dye tubs arrive; secure-container access levels
• Starting gold raised from 100 to 1,000
• Update 5 (Oct 3): Dungeon Khaldun opens in the Lost Lands

Thieves rejoice as random stealing returns, and the coveted true-black dye tub finally hits the shard.

Publish 8 — The Factions Publish

• The Faction System: Minax, Council of Mages, True Britannians, Shadowlords
• Silver currency, faction-crafted gear, floor traps, elected Commanders
• Town control by sigil theft (80+ Stealing) and 24-hour corruption — eight cities in play
• Faction death penalty: 33% skill loss for 20 minutes

Choose thy banner — Minax, the Mages, the Britannians, or the Shadowlords — and wage organized war for the soul of Britannia.

Publish 9

• Recall and Gate open between the Lost Lands and Britannia at last
• Stabled creatures claimable across both regions
• Christmas 2000: holiday bells, snow globes, snowballs

The gates to the Lost Lands swing open — recall straight into T2A and skip the long ride.

Publish 10

• Ten spells banned in town justice regions — Energy Vortex, Meteor Swarm, Earthquake and friends
• Moongate facet menus; murderers can't pick Trammel
• Karma locking at shrines via power words
• A new dynamic spawn system — the seed of champion-style spawns

The town mages get muzzled, the moongates get menus, and thy karma title finally holds still.

Publish 11 — The Ilshenar Publish

• Ilshenar opens — adventure-only third facet: no housing, no Recall or Gate within
• The House Decoration Tool (turn, raise, lower)
• Item Identification window; taxidermy kits; hair stylist NPCs
• Good creatures now attack negative-karma players

A strange new land appears — no houses, no recall, just monsters and the brave pioneers who face them.

Publish 12 — The Veteran Rewards Publish

• Veteran Rewards by account age — dye tubs, +2 AR cloaks, and the coveted ethereal mounts
• Player-vendor rent introduced; unpaid vendors self-destruct
• Skill-bonus calculation fixed — equipment bonuses finally count in full

Loyalty pays off — long-time accounts claim ethereal steeds, while vendors start charging rent. (Our shard disables the rewards: nobody here is 36 months old, and the skill cap stays honest at 700.)

Publish 13 — The Combat Damage Publish

• HP = STR/2 + 50 — the formula every dexxer and mage memorizes
• Anatomy damage bonus (to 30%) and the Lumberjack axe bonus formalized
• Spellbooks no longer required in hand; precasting rules formalized
• Low-circle spell buffs: Magic Arrow, Fireball, Lightning
• Per-character Power Hour; player-owned barkeeps

The arithmetic of the Renaissance duel is written — and Power Hour becomes truly yours.

Publish 13.5

• Commodity deeds — a tower of ingots becomes a single slip of blessed paper
• Repair service contracts
• Secure house trading anti-scam: the window shows the house type, not its name

Commodity deeds turn a tower of ingots into a single slip of paper — the resource baron's best friend.

Publish 14 — Blacksmith BODs

• Bulk Order Deeds — blacksmithy only — and with them, runic hammers
• The unified crafting gump across nine trades; multi-make batching
• Context-sensitive menus on NPCs and creatures
• The New Player Experience: three Haven tutorial paths

The blacksmith's grind gets a purpose — and a unified crafting menu ties nine trades together.