DesignerD - carpentry is about to get looms and spinning wheels and abunch of other stuff makeable

Payool - anything planned for bards?

DesignerD - Well, if UI can talk Stormwind into the embedded MIDI sequencer...

Stormwind - You know what I'd like to see: weighting of skills in relation to one another, such that magery would count much more towards the skill cap than tasting for instance

* DesignerD has wanted that for a really long time now

DesignerD - Actually, the thing I favor is skills in relation to each other. Magery counts a lot more towards the skill cap if combined with swordsmanship. But not if combined with say, alchemy

Stormwind - Writing music in the game would be cool...

DesignerD - the problem is building a table of 45x45 values:)

Stormwind - I like that too

DesignerD - Would you believe I raised it today as an idea and they started worrying about copyright issues?:P

FrostB - Stormwind, I agree with that. Skills perhaps should develop a relationship also...magery,alchemy,resist ,inscribe all work more for each other...but throw archery in the mix..and you start to lose out.

Stormwind - A little complex for the casual player, tho

DesignerD - With the new gump stuff, J, I bet we could make a decent interface for it

DesignerD - Painting is still on my list too

DesignerD - Of course, then we get the problem of all the sicko drawings people will make. :P

Payool - can I throw in a question here?

Payool - there's a lot of really succesful vendors out there, that are an integral part of the world

Payool - but with the item limits

Payool - things like reagents are almost impossible to sell

Payool - I know one person who has to restock 4-5 times a day

Payool - is there any chance of allowing stackables in vendors?

Payool - so you don't have to make little bunches of 5-10 reags

FrostB - if a building vanishes, and the vendors are still there, will a GM remove them?

DesignerD - You can't use stackables in vendors? *boggle*

Payool - heh

* DesignerD hates to look so out of touch... :P

Payool - I mean, you can't buy 10 reags out of a pile of 100, like in the NPC stores

Payool - you can only buy the whole pile

DesignerD - Ah

Stormwind - I thought vendors were supposed to go byebye if their house goes byebye. Wait, I wrote that.

DesignerD - Yes, i see what you mean

Kirandria - the old vendors dont, only the new ones

FrostB - Yes, I thought they were too. Will a GM remove vendors that are not attached to a dwelling? :)

DesignerD - Jason, should be possible to pop up a text entry window for the quantity when buying a stack, yes? I don't know what function vendor buy flows thru though

Stormwind - I could probably make old vendor attachment to buildings automatic pretty easily... Would mean disappearing old vendors, tho

DesignerD - Yeah, we should do that anyway, on general principle, Stormwind. :P

Firethorn - I have a question about harassment...

DesignerD - hates tracing BugKiller's code...

Stormwind - Many things we should do on general principle are shot down because of unpopularity with players

Firethorn - Just HOW are you guys going to deal with harassment?

Stormwind - ... and he hates tracing your code. :-)

DenDragon - like what?

DesignerD - Looks like we can trap the stackables purchasing in vended.wxx in the trigger message("purchase") Jason...

DesignerD - Like what?

DesignerD - Oh, how about...

DenDragon - Uh, popularity vs. principle :)

Stormwind - Nope, I'll automate them going away if allowed

DesignerD - lower skills cap, greater stamina costs, recall changes, death penalties...

DenDragon - OK, just curious ;)

Stormwind - Increase game balance and long term fun vs. keep imbalance and short term fun

DesignerD - I don't thin kmy code is THAT bad... :P Not the newer stuff anyway

DesignerD - His erratic spacing and line breaks and commenting drive me bats

Payool - Guys, what's up with seer applications?

DesignerD - Not a clue.

Stormwind - Who handles that stuff DD?

FrostB - I understand your troubles. I don't think you would get a lot of frantic players by doing that though. Plus you would reduce LAG. :)

Stormwind - Seer stuff I mean

DesignerD - To quote what I said in the chat on Sunday, I don't know how they are picked, I don't know when they are picked, I don't know why they are picked, I don't know by whom they are picked...

DesignerD - I found out about the apps from the Vault :P

FrostB - wow...you not in the know on that eh? :)

DesignerD - Nope

FrostB - Good thing.

Kirandria - *hopes they start doing something about harrasment*

DesignerD - They started doing something about harassment already

DesignerD - the order is out to crack down, and they have been for the last few days

DesignerD - But it being a public statement, they are of course dithering over how to SAY they are doing so

* Kirandria nods

DesignerD - I intended to push them to prelease a statement today, but I was in the seminar all day

Payool - do you keep logs of what characters say in the game?

* DesignerD laughs long and hard

DesignerD - Payool, do you even want to take a wild guess as to how much data that is? :)

Payool - one thing that keeps coming up is with harassment in GM off-hours though

Payool - or when it takes too long for a GM to respond

DesignerD - Yeah, we know that is a big issue

DesignerD - There are things we can do about tracking better even for off hours stuff

DesignerD - But if I discuss them with you, I'll get in trouble :P

* Kirandria nods

DenDragon - Alright, what are your plans for combat-balance?

DenDragon - (between Archery, magery and melee, that is)

DesignerD - First off, we've got the revision of weapon damages almost done. That "un-nerfs" the weapons

DesignerD - we're pretty happy about the balance between archery and magery, got a bit of rock/paper/scissors going there

DesignerD - Wrestling however, is still the forgotten stepchild crying in the basement

DesignerD - don't look for too many changes there just yet

DesignerD - but we think the new weapons damages will be good. Fencing is now VERY viable

DesignerD - with a fast one hand fencing weapon, you can potentially do more damage than ANYTHING

DesignerD - of course, against a heavily armored opponent, you may not get thru

DesignerD - Anyway, expect those next update.

DenDragon - So you're going to release the new damages before thinking of any changes to Archery/Magery, right?

DesignerD - we actually had it ready to go in this update, but felt it needed extensive testing

DesignerD - correct

DenDragon - Alright, goodie

DenDragon - Next update?

DesignerD - Next update is the rep updatate

Kirandria - oh, talking about weapons. Do exceptionally crafted ones do more damage at all?

DesignerD - we're trying to slow down the update pace to get better testing and more useful stuff in them

DenDragon - Are you going to release the new weapon scale on TC first?

DesignerD - Yes, always on TC first :)

DenDragon - (obvious question :)

DesignerD - Yes, exceptional affects weapon durability, AR, and damage

DenDragon - OK, what are the chances of implementing new stat-related variables in combat (like making DEX more important)?

DesignerD - Well, I am personally not sure why people don't think dex is important :P

DesignerD - weapon attack speed is a HUGE factor right now

DenDragon - Well, in PvP combat, it really isn't

DenDragon - Even in PvMonster combat

DesignerD - PvP combat meaning, vs archery or magic :P

DenDragon - Well, STR has HP and INT has Mana

DesignerD - That's true

DenDragon - those are the two most important stats

DenDragon - DEX's bonuses are nice, but people don't like it because it takes away from the 2 most important attr.

Payool - have it add to your chance of hitting?

DesignerD - it already does, I believe :)

DenDragon - I think a dodge factor would work out when figuring ranged attacks

DesignerD - Lemme dig thru the combat code a sec.

DenDragon - could help DEX and solve some of Ranged weapon's over-balancing factors...

DesignerD - OK, peeking at the combat code, maybe we can make dex count more in blows

DenDragon - Any chance of a dodge capability ?

DesignerD - The answer to the last one was, we will look into making dex count more in combat

DesignerD - (and then get yelled at for only making cobat fixes) :)

FrostB - that's the way of it.

DesignerD - Next?

DenDragon - OK, DD top 3 things you plan on doing for the Recall/Gate situation. :)

DesignerD - Current plan is not to do anything. But beyond that, my preferred plan is to do mana based on distance

DenDragon - (Feel free to jump in too Stormwind ;)

Stormwind - Different plans I've heard:

Stormwind - Mana and/or reagent costs increase for distance or type of location

Stormwind - One use recall runes

Stormwind - Umm

Stormwind - # of charges in a recall rune

Stormwind - multiple locations on one rune, but I don't like that one

DenDragon - What about making runes stackable, and include a text menu that'd pop up when you d-clicked on the stack?

DesignerD - It'd actually be easier to do multiple locs per rune than that, I bet :P

Stormwind - My favorite is the increase in cost for distance and type of location

FrostB - I had a quick question..are the new vendor changes going to result in key that are not on a keyring having a price?

Stormwind - I like the 1 location = 1 rune thing... Means you need to carry more to have access to more locations

DesignerD - Yes

DesignerD - In fact, you can open a keyring in a vendor and take the keys :P

Kirandria - hmm, will they have a price as soon as the patch is done?

Kirandria - so like the first people who get on after the patch can like rule the land? :P

DesignerD - I believe the way the new vendor code works, first time you look at an item in the vendor, it updates it to the new method of pricing

DesignerD - No. Everyone has had warning, they should move their stuff out of vendors :P

DesignerD - It DOES say this on the Update Center, if you go look :) Hopefully not everyone ignored it

DesignerD - next q?

Kirandria - Currently potions do not tell you if they are lesser, normal, or

Kirandria - greater. This makes it difficult for Alchemists to sell potions and

Kirandria - impossible to tell them apart unless you use it. Would it be possible

Kirandria - to make potions tell you what type they are when you clicked on them?
Kirandria - ie:

Kirandria - a lesser yellow potion, a yellow potion, a greater yellow potion

Kirandria - that would also help with the different levels of poison since there will be 5

DesignerD - Yes, it would be possible.

Kirandria - any time soon? ;)

Stormwind - Good idea, I like it. We'll see if we can. Yikes, I didn't even know UO had different potion strengths.

DesignerD - BugKiller added it. Except for the poison, EvilJohn did that

* DesignerD once again tries to trace BugKiller's code to figure out the alchemy stuff for potion names...

Kirandria - also, on potions

Kirandria - when you sell a greater in the shop

Kirandria - it sells for the same as a lesser or normal one

Kirandria - kinda weird when a lesser explosion takes a minimum of 3 ash to make and a greater takes 10 yet they cost the same to sell :)

Stormwind - We can make them have different amounts of magic resource, that will change their value

* Kirandria nods

Stormwind - Can we move on while we look at alchemy?

FrostB - I have another quick question....

FrostB - any chance of extending the life of 8th circle summoned creatures? Also..polymorph?

DesignerD - I think a simple lookAtText with potions[0] in fillBottle() would do the naming thing, am I right?

DesignerD - I am looking into ways to play monster races instead, how's that? :)

DesignerD - that seems to be the intended purpose behind longer poly times...

FrostB - that would be nice. But summoning still has a problem. Well, extended polymorph would allow some covert missions..a lot of players will ignore a chicken by the side of a road. :)

FrostB - I use all my mana to bring forth this mighty creature that vanishes before I can do anything with it. :)

DesignerD - Whoops, I meant potions[1]

Kirandria - that would make a LOT of alchemists happy :)

FrostB - extended polymorph would have a useful function. And summoned creatures would be more useful if they had extended durations.

Kirandria - you mean summoned daemons, no one really uses the rest except to spar or to get resist

DenDragon - Being able to change your name would also increase P-morph's value.

DenDragon - (changing name upon casting, of course :)

DesignerD - msg stormwind er, in alchemy,wxx

Payool - there's a good question... could elementals have some advantage over daemons?

Payool - like longer duration, etc

DesignerD - They could, sure :)

DenDragon - Possibly combine the Elemental spells into one spell (menu-based) and allow for one-three elems to be summoned per casting (depend. on skill)...

DesignerD - Den, that's a very popular suggestion, actually

DenDragon - that would allow for a few more useful 8th Circles and increase Elem-Summs. :)

DesignerD - OK, potions will have proper names now.

Stormwind - I also think fewer people would be mages if they couldn't use weapons or armor as well as they can now. That is probably related to too high of a stat cap, tho.

DenDragon - not nec. too high a stat cap--no incentive to use related skill groups

DesignerD - Alternatively, a table of dependencies between skills would help

DesignerD - say, give enhanced combat to warriors who learn anatomy and armslore, give enhanced magery to mages who study animal lore or whatever, etc

DenDragon - Could have armor influence chance of disruption, among other things.

DenDragon - You could also bring NPC guilds into play in that regards

DenDragon - You could group skills by the classic Ultima professions...

Stormwind - Was that Wyrd that came up with the skill matrix idea? I remember something about a matrix between skill groups as a way to make it simpler.

DenDragon - Tinkers, Mages, Paladins, etc.
DesignerD - and I thought, what if when you hit 90 skill, you had to find a teacher to removed your "barrier" from advancing further, and certified you as the next stage up

DesignerD - skill matrix, skill group matrix, same thing, just one gives finer control

DenDragon - DD, that could help with atrophy due to a skill cap as well, if players had a choice whether or not they wanted to bypass certain levels for certain skills.

Kirandria - good point :)

DenDragon - That'd give them an indirect ability to choose how they'd like to develop.

DesignerD - Well, early on, I wanted to use the method of spending "practices" which were hard to earn, to get basic ability in a skill. But the lead designer then overrode me

DenDragon - Well, I'd say go with the traditional 8 guilds and group skills according to them.

DenDragon - DD, as long as you mak it as "non-artificial" as possible, it'd be cool. :)

Kirandria - I've had a lot of this sort of question

Kirandria - lots of people are a bit upset about the new rep system

Kirandria - and how it affects a lot of spells

Kirandria - like Blade Spirits, Energy vortex, fire fields etc

Kirandria - how they can be abused by others

Kirandria - but if you want to use it to say kill monsters

Kirandria - a person can still run though it or whatever

Kirandria - just to be able to kill you

* DesignerD nods

Kirandria - they were wondering if it would be possible to give the make a bit more control

Kirandria - over the spells

Kirandria - like being able to cancel them somehow

DesignerD - Like, make the things pets?

Kirandria - that would work

Kirandria - that way you could release it

Kirandria - as it is there are a # of spells you have to be really careful with

Kirandria - or cant even touch if your a "good guy"

Kirandria - ie: earthquake

DesignerD - Well, wall spells wouldn't be able to work that way of course :P Not as pets, I mean

* Kirandria nods

Kirandria - spirits and vortexes could maybe get a limited pet control, though not the more advanced commands as telling a vortex to follow would be gross :)

DesignerD - Well,we can look at the spells, but I suspect that changing them will be difficult, because it'd entail either radically altering how they work, or removing what makes them special

* Kirandria nods

Kirandria - I suppose we'll see when the rep patch hits how everything falls into place :)

Firethorn - Are there any plans to add any kind of awards or medals to the game? Either guild given or

Firethorn - Lord British given (perhaps to go with the new reputation system). What good is being a Knight

Firethorn - without showing off that Knight's Cross?

DenDragon - Honorary or rewarded titles would be nice too...

Stormwind - No plans I know of, but it would be cool

DesignerD - Actually, Stormwind, as a result of today's seminar... ;)

DesignerD - We are looking into adding both a "bio" button to your paperdoll, and the bio could have on it a history that would include things like GM/counselor/seer granted titles

DesignerD - as well as a big ol' editable history for your roleplay background

Kirandria - that would give the strategy button a new home ;)

DenDragon - Anyone else have anything thay'd like to bring up?

Kirandria - I do

DesignerD - I WILL make ships cooler, I promise.

DesignerD - I still like the idea of a script attached to tillermen that occasionally creates sea serpents whilst the ship is sailing :)

Kirandria - how about having larger more expensive ships have bigger holds :)

Kirandria - when you put in the fame part of it

Stormwind - That would be cool. Right now I think all containers have the same fixed limit, but we could change that.

DesignerD - Did you put up that alchemy change, Jason?

Stormwind - checked in, need globals.wxx and alchemy.wxx

DesignerD - globals? why globals?

Stormwind - added a setLookAtText() function

DesignerD - heh, you programmers. Never do in one line what you can do by adding a function. :)

Stormwind - not that reason

Stormwind - The function encapsulates one specific behavior... That way if we ever change how that is implemented, we only have to change that one function

Stormwind - Rather than searching for hundreds of setObjVar()s

DesignerD - Instead, we have to search for hundreds of setObjVars to make them use that function now ;)

Stormwind - Maybe think of it as a subset of the abilities of setObjVar()

DesignerD - does showNameAndTitle() use lookAtText? Or alternatively, is there any way to change a name on a player?

DesignerD - No, actually, it will only change newly made ones

DesignerD - as you might guess from what function names we toss around, what we did was make it so that when a potion is made, it sets an overloaded name on the bottle

Stormwind - Not sure if player name lookup checked for lookAtText overriding

DesignerD - I'll check. I am intrigued by adding player families. :)

Stormwind - That would be neat

DesignerD - Official marriages, that sort of thing

DesignerD - that entails parsing the name, and allowing you to stick in a last name in it

Kirandria - hmm, how will this patch affect say magic armor that people have on their "storage vendor"?

Kirandria - that isnt priced

DesignerD - It will be free

DesignerD - "All existing not-for-sale items will be set to a price that matches their appraised value."

* DesignerD just adds the alchemy fix to the update center too

DesignerD - I guess I am going to reiterate the vendor stuff on the front page then :)

* DesignerD just posted about vendor changes on the what's new page...

Kirandria - so keys cant be kept on a vendor like before anymore?

FrostB - with a keyring

DesignerD - I didn't do any special case code for keys.

FrostB - but you said something about unlocking it right?

DesignerD - They act that way because keyrings are containers. :P

DesignerD - The keyrings act exactly like any other container, as described by the other bits