Some of you may recognize pieces of content from a recently closed standout server, Rel Por.
UO:Sanctum is, for all intents and purposes, Rel Por 2.0.. back, and better than ever. Sanctum is administrated by a completely different team, and seeks to revive Rel Por, with a twist. So if any Rel Por junkies are reading this, check out Sanctum and get your fix again! Sanctum recently launched into Open BETA (mentioned at the bottom of this post), and the official launch is a mere two weeks away. Don't waste your time on knockoffs, trumped up "year-long closed beta" one-liners, and over powered cookie cutters that downloaded everything from RunUO's release section.
Gorgeous, new custom map, diverse player ruled towns, perpetual militia combat system, world wars, crafting improvements, new monsters, anti-railing, guild and player stat tracking, two client limit and more. Enjoy Ultima the way it was meant to be.
What is Sanctum?
Sanctum is a new, fresh take on "classic era" UO. The core elements of old-school UO are still intact: PKs, thieves, tank-mage templates. But there's also a whole body of new material to fix the things about UO that are broken or don't hold up in 2013. You can check out more elaborate descriptions of those features at our site (UOSanctum.com); continue reading for a brief explanation.
Custom Map
For years, players have been skeptical of custom maps on free shards, but we truly believe we found one that works. Let's be honest - the standard Britannia map is just too big for a game with niche appeal in 2013. Ultima Online is no fun if you never run into other players outside of hot-spots or dungeons -- one of the most quintessentially awesome MMO experiences is running into a fellow traveler in the middle of no where. This custom map is no guaranteed panacea, but it does structure housing in such a way where the majority of plots are right on the road. Combine that with a faction system that necessitates traveling by foot (described below), and you're bound to have a world where running into random people on the road is commonplace again.
Crafting Changes
Crafting in Ultima Online has captured a spirit of freedom and entrepreneurship that few games can come close to replicating. Sanctum desires to continue this tradition and place more power and interaction into the hands of crafters. Crafters on Sanctum will have even more depth and interaction with the community. Magic items no longer sporadically appear on monsters as loot; instead artifacts can be obtained in their place. Utilizing these artifacts crafters will be able to imbue their properties into the goods they create. These artifacts may be applied to anything appropriate; carpenters may apply accuracy artifacts to quarterstaffs, tailors may apply hardening artifacts to leather gloves, blacksmiths may apply an artifact of silver to a halberd and so forth. No more disappointing cleavers of vanquishing (unless that is, you actually want one) and crafters will gain additional importance within the world.
Combat Changes
Combat on Sanctum is the fruition of fifteen years of Ultima Online, evolving into various states and on various shards, doing some things right and a bunch of things wrong.
Please consult the melee combat or magical combat subsections of our site for further and more detailed information.
General combat mechanics are in large part similar to those that would be known as “T2A” mechanics. Players accustomed to the tank mage will feel right at home. Those that prefer some of the mechanics featured in the UO:R patches will also be appeased; the “pure” mage, warrior and hybrid are all viable. Our goal is to provide, at the core, the remarkable PvP environment that only Ultima Online is able to provide. When looking at the various types of combat paths a player can go, the tank mage will still be one of the premier templates and favored by most duelists. The burst damage of a tank mage is virtually unrivaled and unchanged on Sanctum. What has changed is that other play-styles are both viable and fun. Previously, players were essentially punished if they attempted to PvP with a template other than the tank mage.
Towns, Politics, and Ministers
Sanctum has implemented its own version of "player government". Players are free to become citizens of several different towns, and each citizenship (depending on the town's military power) will carry certain bonuses (for all players, not just members of the militia). Citizens may elect their town's Minister, who has the power to choose which bonuses the town offers, the guard level (i.e. some towns may permit murderers to roam free, others may instruct NPC guards to kill them on sight), and appoint the commander of the town's militia.
Militia Warfare
Each town has a militia that is in perpetual war with all other towns. Players may join the militia of the town they are a citizen of. Unlike citizenship, joining the militia will not make all your characters member of the militia. Only the character that joins the militia will become a militia member. Joining the militia allows players to freely fight members of opposing militias, enter opposing militia strongholds, attack and capture opposing heroes and participate in Vorshun world war battles. Players enrolled in the militia are able to earn silver by capturing heroes and killing opposing militia members. This silver may be spent on special town-associated clothing dyes, unique clothing items, armor dyes, banners, rare items and other special items.
The core concept of this system is that each town has a stronghold where their NPC hero resides. Militias gain silver by capturing enemy militias' heroes, which they can do by essentially laying siege to the enemy stronghold. The best part? Capturing a hero requires physically escorting the hero to your town's stronghold (i.e. no gating there). So essentially, breaking into the enemy stronghold is the easy part -- you have to then fight your way back to your hometown on foot. It's basically capture the flag (in layman's terms).
Bounty Hunters
Bounty boards are back! Revamped, of course. Bounty hunters can collect a reward and impose temporary stat-loss on murderers by turning in their severed heads. We've made some tweaks to reduce the incentive of exploitation (i.e. reds killing themselves to collect the bounty). This will help ensure there won't be any senseless grieving, but it won't be enough of a deterrent to eliminate murderous activity.
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Among all of these exciting new features, we have introduced a variety of smaller features sure to be of use and/or interest:
The list goes on and on! We have a competent, driven, and professional Staff team that seeks to create and implement new in-depth content on a consistent basis. All of our services (sites, wiki, VoIP, etc) are simply unmatched by any other community. We sincerely hope that other cookie cutter servers out there haven't killed off everyone's "itch" for UO. Sanctum has been expressly designed to breath fresh life back into Ultima Online in a creative fashion, for just that reason.
Open BETA is currently live, and everyone is welcome. Feel free to check out our website and forums.
UO:Sanctum is, for all intents and purposes, Rel Por 2.0.. back, and better than ever. Sanctum is administrated by a completely different team, and seeks to revive Rel Por, with a twist. So if any Rel Por junkies are reading this, check out Sanctum and get your fix again! Sanctum recently launched into Open BETA (mentioned at the bottom of this post), and the official launch is a mere two weeks away. Don't waste your time on knockoffs, trumped up "year-long closed beta" one-liners, and over powered cookie cutters that downloaded everything from RunUO's release section.
Gorgeous, new custom map, diverse player ruled towns, perpetual militia combat system, world wars, crafting improvements, new monsters, anti-railing, guild and player stat tracking, two client limit and more. Enjoy Ultima the way it was meant to be.
What is Sanctum?
Sanctum is a new, fresh take on "classic era" UO. The core elements of old-school UO are still intact: PKs, thieves, tank-mage templates. But there's also a whole body of new material to fix the things about UO that are broken or don't hold up in 2013. You can check out more elaborate descriptions of those features at our site (UOSanctum.com); continue reading for a brief explanation.
Custom Map
For years, players have been skeptical of custom maps on free shards, but we truly believe we found one that works. Let's be honest - the standard Britannia map is just too big for a game with niche appeal in 2013. Ultima Online is no fun if you never run into other players outside of hot-spots or dungeons -- one of the most quintessentially awesome MMO experiences is running into a fellow traveler in the middle of no where. This custom map is no guaranteed panacea, but it does structure housing in such a way where the majority of plots are right on the road. Combine that with a faction system that necessitates traveling by foot (described below), and you're bound to have a world where running into random people on the road is commonplace again.
Crafting Changes
Crafting in Ultima Online has captured a spirit of freedom and entrepreneurship that few games can come close to replicating. Sanctum desires to continue this tradition and place more power and interaction into the hands of crafters. Crafters on Sanctum will have even more depth and interaction with the community. Magic items no longer sporadically appear on monsters as loot; instead artifacts can be obtained in their place. Utilizing these artifacts crafters will be able to imbue their properties into the goods they create. These artifacts may be applied to anything appropriate; carpenters may apply accuracy artifacts to quarterstaffs, tailors may apply hardening artifacts to leather gloves, blacksmiths may apply an artifact of silver to a halberd and so forth. No more disappointing cleavers of vanquishing (unless that is, you actually want one) and crafters will gain additional importance within the world.
Combat Changes
Combat on Sanctum is the fruition of fifteen years of Ultima Online, evolving into various states and on various shards, doing some things right and a bunch of things wrong.
Please consult the melee combat or magical combat subsections of our site for further and more detailed information.
General combat mechanics are in large part similar to those that would be known as “T2A” mechanics. Players accustomed to the tank mage will feel right at home. Those that prefer some of the mechanics featured in the UO:R patches will also be appeased; the “pure” mage, warrior and hybrid are all viable. Our goal is to provide, at the core, the remarkable PvP environment that only Ultima Online is able to provide. When looking at the various types of combat paths a player can go, the tank mage will still be one of the premier templates and favored by most duelists. The burst damage of a tank mage is virtually unrivaled and unchanged on Sanctum. What has changed is that other play-styles are both viable and fun. Previously, players were essentially punished if they attempted to PvP with a template other than the tank mage.
Towns, Politics, and Ministers
Sanctum has implemented its own version of "player government". Players are free to become citizens of several different towns, and each citizenship (depending on the town's military power) will carry certain bonuses (for all players, not just members of the militia). Citizens may elect their town's Minister, who has the power to choose which bonuses the town offers, the guard level (i.e. some towns may permit murderers to roam free, others may instruct NPC guards to kill them on sight), and appoint the commander of the town's militia.
Militia Warfare
Each town has a militia that is in perpetual war with all other towns. Players may join the militia of the town they are a citizen of. Unlike citizenship, joining the militia will not make all your characters member of the militia. Only the character that joins the militia will become a militia member. Joining the militia allows players to freely fight members of opposing militias, enter opposing militia strongholds, attack and capture opposing heroes and participate in Vorshun world war battles. Players enrolled in the militia are able to earn silver by capturing heroes and killing opposing militia members. This silver may be spent on special town-associated clothing dyes, unique clothing items, armor dyes, banners, rare items and other special items.
The core concept of this system is that each town has a stronghold where their NPC hero resides. Militias gain silver by capturing enemy militias' heroes, which they can do by essentially laying siege to the enemy stronghold. The best part? Capturing a hero requires physically escorting the hero to your town's stronghold (i.e. no gating there). So essentially, breaking into the enemy stronghold is the easy part -- you have to then fight your way back to your hometown on foot. It's basically capture the flag (in layman's terms).
Bounty Hunters
Bounty boards are back! Revamped, of course. Bounty hunters can collect a reward and impose temporary stat-loss on murderers by turning in their severed heads. We've made some tweaks to reduce the incentive of exploitation (i.e. reds killing themselves to collect the bounty). This will help ensure there won't be any senseless grieving, but it won't be enough of a deterrent to eliminate murderous activity.
--------------------------------------------------
Among all of these exciting new features, we have introduced a variety of smaller features sure to be of use and/or interest:
- Resource Order Deeds (similar to Bulk Order Deeds, but for resources)
- In-game Private Messaging (hardly a novelty item, but sure to be of use without a global chat system)
- Revamped fishing system that includes named treasure chests, unique spawn, and a variety of retrievable rares.
- Fully functional water taxi system. These taxis will transport players to and from various locations around the world.
- Unique dungeon barrel system. "Special" barrels can be found throughout various dungeons that have a chance to spawn creatures, loot, rares, etc when "chopped" open.
- Variety of in-game events, including: Battle Chess, Skullball, Bomberman, Paintball, and plenty more.
The list goes on and on! We have a competent, driven, and professional Staff team that seeks to create and implement new in-depth content on a consistent basis. All of our services (sites, wiki, VoIP, etc) are simply unmatched by any other community. We sincerely hope that other cookie cutter servers out there haven't killed off everyone's "itch" for UO. Sanctum has been expressly designed to breath fresh life back into Ultima Online in a creative fashion, for just that reason.
Open BETA is currently live, and everyone is welcome. Feel free to check out our website and forums.