As previously announced, the Taming Updates are now live! PS: Bake Kitsune's combat is re-enabled now as well. :)

Update: Skill loss applied to creatures when they become tamed has been reduced from 30% to 10%, or when affected by the Paralyze spell the loss will be 14% (we have ideas in motion to add more depth to this area in the future as well)

Taming changes overview:

When taming creatures, you will earn 0.5 passive taming points for every skill gain that you get in Animal Taming, up to a maximum of 5 points.

These points can be used by killing monsters with your pets. Chances of earning a gain from killing a being is based on the beings difficulty, the more difficult the beings you kill with your pets, the higher the chance you will gain passively. Your pets need to do damage to beings in order for you to earn a gain.

The Active Gain system is used to limit the number of passive gains you can obtain per day from killing monsters. If you have reached your daily limit, you will receive a message indicating that you have exhausted your daily gains for passive taming.

Each creature contains a maximum pool of available points which can be cumulatively earned as skill gain to the totals shown below:

We've corrected some issues regarding the SoB Launcher:

• fixed an issue logging into some characters or accounts while using the SoB launcher but you still get disconnected after a short time
• fixed an issue with a Cloak icon and tooltip explaining you will be disconnected, becoming stuck at the top of the screen after logging in, in some cases

We're working on tracking some trending issues with the SoB Launcher and will update this post to include any additions or changes:

• Clicking the Back button from Character Selection will go to a blank screen for several seconds until seeing "Login Server Disconnected," after which clicking OKAY will take you back to the login screen
• Sometimes after logging out or closing the game, and then attempting to log in again later, or even on your first time using the SoB Launcher, it may go to a blank screen for several seconds until seeing "Login Server Disconnected," after which clicking OKAY will take you back to the login screen
• Double-clicking the SoB Launcher in the system tray restores the window but the window appears in the background or minimized forcing you to click the taskbar to re-focus the window again
• Launching the game client directly from EXE with the SOB Launcher running may cause issues, make sure to run the executables as administrator if needed

Currently on Test Center for public testing is the Outfitter system for Duels & Faction events, with the following updates.

Resource/Durability Consumption:

• Resources are no longer consumed in duels, including potions (now includes faction pillars), but players will still need to carry resources in order to use them
• Durability is no longer consumed in duels

Outfitter:

• Players can invoke the /outfitter command at any time to open the Outfitter menu, where you can manage the Outfitter system
• Enabling the Outfitter system will attempt to use the selected custom skills & stats temporarily during Duels & Faction Events, for a small fee

What to test:

• Test consuming/using resources both IN and OUT of duels & events. Ensure resources still consume when they should, and not during the events. Also, ensure you don't get free empty bottles in return for using potions.
• Test the Outfitter system for BOTH duels & faction events, please!!! (see notes above)
• Test trying to use custom skills & stats in ways other than intended. For example, crafting & harvesting should ignore custom skills & stats, and you should be prevented from doing anything that you could benefit from while your skills are transformed.
• Test durability loss during duels & faction events

How to test:

• Connect via test.uo4.life:5002
• A Faction Event Test Stone has been placed at Britain Bank. Double click when ready to start the Vraal's Mausoleum faction pillar event, which can be triggered once every 20m

If you need anything to help test, encounter an issue, or have a question please reach out to #🐛test-duel-faction-outfitter

The server is coming online now. A few points to note:

If you had the client and launcher open already, please close the client (the launcher will auto-close when you do) and start again from the launcher. A small update will download and you'll be good to go.

For anyone wanting to multibox, please refer to https://shardsofbritannia.com/play for details. We are working to improve the method to launch multiple client instances and will advise further when that's done.

Thank you all for your patience once again.

During our next maintenance window (9am UTC), we will be introducing our new launcher that we posted about recently. For instructions on how to use it, please refer to https://shardsofbritannia.com/play - those instructions will be updated to include the new launcher approximately 5 minutes prior to the restart.

Please note - the server will be offline for up to 3 hours during this maintenance window in order to implement the changes required. It may come online sooner than this, please watch #news for any updates

This launcher is the start of a longer project that will enable us to expand on our current level of client access, add new features, distribute custom sound and music, and also lets us more easily and flexibly troubleshoot issues as they happen.

Please note, as previously mentioned, our launcher is NOT compatible with Steam-based accounts (i.e. accounts that you are currently logging into using Steam). Options for Steam players will be in the new /play page when it is updated.

If you have any issues with the new launcher, ideally log a ticket in #support in Discord, or send us an email at [email protected]

If you are an Animal Tamer and have Bake Kitsune's please stable them immediately. Combat for these pets is now prevented temporarily, but they will still be able to follow you. Sorry for the inconvenience, we will return them to normal behavior ASAP.

If you're reading this, the news bot is back online. Yay.

We are working diligently to address the recent lag issues which causes stuttering and freezes in-game from time to time. We hope to have the issues improved very soon and appreciate your patience through the rough patches!

This is a reminder of our House Vacation Hold policy. If you or someone you know is unable to attend the game for an extended period and you own a house, please contact us. We will be happy to consider your request to put the house(s) on Vacation Hold to prevent decay over a longer time frame.

Out of growing interest from the public for the team to do a Q&A or AMA, or a live discussion, we've setup this forum to organize questions and answers: https://qa.shardsofbritannia.com

Communicating there will be more manageable since everyone can engage in their own time. Given the volunteer nature of the team, plus the fact that our community is entirely global, there is no need to worry about schedules with this format.

Please write your questions about the project there and the team will try to answer when we have time. Read more: https://qa.shardsofbritannia.com/d/2-questions-answers-guidelines

There appears to be an unexpected outage with the Legends of Aria login server, preventing players from logging into the game currently. We've alerted Citadel Studios and hope the issue is resolved quickly, thanks for your patience!

We've fixed an issue preventing skill gains when practicing combat with Training Dummies (if you still have issues, log out and back in to receive the update)

If you still play the game from Steam, we need to hear from you. Please see the news article and fill out the mentioned form: https://shardsofbritannia.com/news/requesting-information-for-those-affected-by-steam-migration-still

Part of the lag source has been identified and resolved, and a hotfix has been deployed. Please log out and back in to receive the updates. We will continue to monitor for lag and work on any remaining issues that should occur. Thanks again for your patience through the rough patches!

If you play Shards of Britannia from Steam and have either:

1. not yet migrated your LOA Steam account to a standalone account where you log into the game with your email address and password instead of Steam
2. have attempted to migrate your LOA Steam account but have had issues or it is incomplete

If you meet either of the above conditions, please fill out this form https://forms.gle/gMkPMmFS8fw2ep4r8 and we will help assess any available options to try and assist you.

Please Note: You will not hear from us immediately after submitting this form, but we will reach out after we've had time to assess the situation, determine what options are available, and what the best course of action would be. We appreciate your patience!

Faction Town Stones & Faction Base Stones have been reset to try to resolve issues with capturing towns. Please let us know if you still experience issues with this

We're aware of ongoing lag issues, particularly in the Britain region. Please bear with us while we work through identifying the root cause and hopefully finding a fix ASAP. At this time, leaving the affected region and returning ~15 minutes later should result in a better experience in most cases.

Thank you for your patience.

• Creatures inside the Britain sewers now drop loot

• Three new faction mounts have been added to the faction shop (one for each faction).

• All MOBs in Deceit now have a chance to drop rare loot.