halygon
Grandmaster
I am not sure how accurate this is. Here are the old patch notes: http://web.archive.org/web/20120424122259/http://update.uo.com:80/oldpatch.shtmlthe no magic in town phase back on OSI is basically what spawned the whole concept of dexers. town fights were actually super fun with no magic IMO, turned into huge battle royale with everyone in their invuln plate charging into the melee or archers on the tops of buildings sniping, etc
was a different kind of fun compared to insta dying to 2 mages mana dumping you
I can tell you that before Order & Chaos (Junes 1998), there was a system of "Virtue Guards" - this could be mage or dexxor - could fight in town or out of town without being flagged criminal BUT had to always wear either the Order shield (Then known as Silver Serpent shield) or Chaos shield to be able to fight each other -- this is the era of roach mages - mages who could wear a shield and cast at the same time.
As far as I know, not being able to cast in town was just a UO Beta thing.