Glamdring - Good evening everyone, thank you for coming to tonight's Ultima Online open house. This Stratics House of Commons chat is a direct connection between you the players and the designers and programmers of Ultima Online.
Glamdring - This chat will be in a moderated format. To ask a question of the developers, please /msg or /query the question takers that will be listed in the topic of the channel. These question takers will then present the questions to the Ultima Online development team here with us this evening.
Glamdring - I will be our moderator tonight...I will post your question into the House of Commons chat channel and the Developers will answer those that they can. Please /msg or /query different question-takers at different times, in order to balance the load and speed the process up.
Glamdring - Please remember that your question may have been asked previously or may not be able to be answered in a public forum. Please do not message or query myself or anyone from OSI, these questions will be ignored. We encourage you to read the logs of the previous Open Houses, which are available at http://uohoc.stratics.com.
Glamdring - Enjoy tonight's chat...the topic is "Ultima Online Third Dawn and General Discussion"
Glamdring - *Tsan|AFK* will there be any PvP changes along with Third Dawn?
Sage - There are no changes planned specifically with regard to PvP for Third Dawn.

Glamdring - *IndWk* I am wondering if there is any plans to allow housing in the new lands of Third Dawn.
Sage - At this time there are no plans to allow housing in Ilshenar. It will be a landscape for adventure for now.

Glamdring - *Lion_CrS* Hi joey, in regards to UO:3D how is the dev team doing in regards to staying on target for the production date? Do you foresee any delays? When do you expect to have it released?
Sage - We are doing a very good job keeping to our internal schedules. The team is showing incredible dedication to releasing a quality product in a timely manner.
Sage - We don't see any delays looming right now, but we are keeping our eyes open for potential problems. We expect to release the product when QA says it is good to go! :)

Glamdring - *GrimFasthand* Will thieves be allowed to steal from other players in UO:TD?
Sage - No, they will not be allowed to steal from one another. The ruleset will be similar to Trammel with regards to theivery.

Glamdring - *Falcon* Are there any plans to support cartographers better?, it's near impossible to GM and even harder now dragons and daemons appear to have stopped spawning maps) and also there's no way to tell what level a map is which makes buying them risky also.
FierYiCe - I have been in the process of analyzing all of the skills in the game to determine which ones are too easy or too difficult to gain in. I am well aware of the problem with cartography but do not currently have a time table for fixing it.

Glamdring - *Lysanh* will you be able to go to the new land by boat?
Sage - No. You will only be able to access Ilshenar by moongate.

Glamdring - *Zev* what prompted the move to a 3d landscape? Was this in response of popular demand on the message boards?
Sage - Ultima Online has a great look that we like. The game is very deep, but we felt that the going to a 3D engine allowed us to update in ways we have not been able to do before.
Sage - We believe that 3D is really going to allow us to continue growing significantly over the next few years without giving up the things people love about UO.

Glamdring - *SC_Tarenessa[Cats]* Will there be any new spell circles or character classes added to the existing game, so that those who do not buy the CD may still interact with the world in a way that is balanced for the game?
Sage - There are no character classes per se in UO. Right now we will not be adding new skills or spell circles.

Glamdring - *Sawtooth* Will any of the existing shards be mirrored to the beta test server?
Sage - It is part of our publish process to bring a public shard backup on the test centers so we can test legacy code, so yes. This will happen.

Glamdring - *Tristam* Are there any plans to increase the number of Interest team members to help introduce the new lands?
Calandryll - At this time, there are no plans to open the seer application. There will be tons of backstory and information about Ilshenar on the web-site though.

Glamdring - *C_Mint_Baja* Will there be anything for thieves in the new lands (ie ultra hard monsters with stealable loot or anything that is helped by the stealing skill in particular?)
Sage - There are no plans to target the thieving skills specifically with the introduction of Ilshenar.

Glamdring - *Lion_CrS* Hi there, with the release of UO:3D are there any plans to allow housing to go into T2A? T2A was actually designed to house communities and such. Are there any plans to allow players, guild and such to take advantage of the landscape of T2A and start forming communities?
Sage - No. We have no plans to open up the T2A lands for housing.

Glamdring - *Shen* What is the OSI viewpoint on the utility/utilities alleged to be currently being employed for 'fast walk' and to speed up spellcasting beyond its natural speed? Do you accept their existence? If so, what are the plans to get rid of their users?
Sage - We take every comment about cheating in the game seriously. Our policy on the use of illegal third party programs is clear.
Sage - The use of such programs could be cause for the termination of your account with Ultima Online.

Glamdring - *Guest2003347* hi, i was wondering if they are going to allow faction characters to wage war against each other in the new lands
Sage - There will be no faction wars in Ilshenar.

Glamdring - *Dariuas|ac* Will the way conversations are held change?
Sage - Only if you speak with different people. :) No changes that we can think of.
Sage - And of course gestures will improve the conversation.
Melantus - The gestures are pretty cool. If you are in the Third Dawn beta you should try them out.

Glamdring - *Kang* What will be included in the Beta testers package?
Oaks - It includes the UO:TD Beta CD. That's all. =)

Glamdring - *Tchrin* IS there anyway, from within the game to tell whether someone is using the 3D client or not? Otherwise doing the gestures maybe pointless if you're using it and unknown to you the person you're talking to isnt.
Sage - Not currently. That is an excellent question though and food for thought...

Glamdring - *Glass* i ordered ou beta cd's and have not recieved an email is there an issue with that at the moment?
Melantus - that has been asked on the boards a lot today
Melantus - some have received their email. You should be getting yours soon if you signed up.
Melantus - Be patient and you should receive it by tomorrow I would think. If not then let me know

Glamdring - *Conner_PoD* After TD what are the plans then ? Do you fill the empty dungoens with live ? For Example Caves of Bucs Den or Wrong Lvl 3 ?
Melantus - note that the ones that got their email didnt get it until late today
Sage - After TD we will be more active in the community gathering feedback. One of the things you can be sure we will be working on is bug fixes.

Glamdring - *Conner_PoD* How long does OSI support the old client version after release of TD! Or have we all to buy a new computer ?
Sage - The Renaissance install is currently part of the Beta CD. So we are still supporting that client.

Glamdring - *Namkap* Are there any plans to support custom skins for the models in uo:3d?
Sage - Not at this time.

Sage - Order / Chaos will be enabled in the new lands. The interactions are going to be very much like Trammel.
Glamdring - the all knowing and wise Sage has fortold the question
Glamdring - =)
Glamdring - *RayAlton|CG* Will Order/Chaos be enabled in the new lands? Also will there be consequense for flagging criminal?
Sage - Sorry. Answering a bit early. ;)
Prescient - Sage is prescient, like me :)

Glamdring - *Arithiel* Will the new lands be exclusively "felucca", or will it be split in to tram/fel just as the current shards are?
Sage - There will only be one iteration of Ilshenar.

Glamdring - *Lysanh* Are there plans to implement player-vendors who buy from other players to improve economy between players?
Sage - This is something we have considered. We have no plans to do it at this time, but we like the idea. I am concerned about removing player-player interactions, but I think this idea has merit.

Glamdring - *Sub_Zero* I've seen screenshots of some type of dragon claw glove on the paperdoll, is this a new weapon
Sage - Yes. Apparently it is a claw of Photoshop +6.
Sage - No. Just a rumor.

Glamdring - *IndWk* Previously there were duel competitions etc. run by Dupre and other GM's / Seers. since duelling is now nerfed, and with the introduction of new gestures / dancing, will there be Dancing Competitions, "UO-Bust-a-Move" Perhaps? :-)
Eidolon - Great idea! Though we don't have any plans for that specifically. Though I am sure ... very sure... players will hold such things. Which is neato.

Glamdring - *Blain* What are the plans for Siege Perilous with the introduction of the new lands, or will Siege be omited from having them?
Sage - We don't have specific plans for Siege at this time, so we are still locking that answer down. Keep looking in our updates section for more on that Q.

Glamdring - I would like to thank everyone for coming tonight!
Glamdring - Thanks to the UO team for agreeing to come visit with us tonight
Eidolon - NEATO!
Melantus - Groovy, thanks all :)

Glamdring - For continued unmoderated NEATO chat
Glamdring - join #ultimaonline
Milamber - its #ultima-online hehe
Glamdring - eeep
Glamdring - wrong channel
Glamdring - hehe
Glamdring - sorry
Glamdring - =)
Glamdring - the log will be posted shortly