DenDragon - Welcome to the First UO HoC Open House.
DenDragon - We will begin this session in just a moment,
DenDragon - please remember to refrain from changing nicks
DenDragon - and everything will go smoothly ;).
DenDragon - Gasper will be our moderator for this evening...
DenDragon - Thank you for the patience, let the meeting commence.

Gasper - Hello everybody
Gasper - I'd like to thank you for being here and I'd also like to thank DD, Stormwind and the GMs for taking the time to join us
Gasper - To submit a question, just type /query Gasper 'question here' and I will post them to be answered

Gasper - From Maik:Will non-combat skills be addressed? Will players be allowed to make colored armor . Can stores only sell lesser quality items so that it drives player economy ?
Gasper - From Maik: Might miners find gems and gold while mining as well? Might OSI put in more levels of armor/weapon quality so that there is more of a difference between levels of smiths?
DesignerD - That's more than one question :)
GM_Grond - Woah! A lot of questions and a lot of people. Let's hold it to one question per person.
Leawood[LS] - pick one DD :)
DesignerD - Yes, we do plan to address non-combat skills over time. Specifically on the list of things we'd like to do are colored armor and gem mining. And (since it seems to be so popular), the making of true black dye :)
DesignerD - The main reason to have shopkeepers in there at all is ti supply the needs of new players reliably, since players cannot be relied on to drive the economy at 3am. ;)
DesignerD - We are very aware that everyone wants a mor eplayer driven economy and hope to continue moving in that direction
DesignerD - Next question?

Gasper - From Galifax: what is osi going to do about black dye
DesignerD - We're going to fix the method that made it. And we're going to look into giving the ability only to master alchemists and tailors, or something.

Gasper - From RGB|Shido: Are there plans to make potions stackable in the near future?
GM_Lint - k
DesignerD - We hadn't made any such plans, but it's certainly feasible

Gasper - From LockJaw: What is the official policy conerning gating/trapping monst ers, and can this be posted on www.owo.com ?
GM_Grond - Gating monsters into town is just not a good idea. We try to remove the monsters from any houses and ask that players not do this.
GM_Grond - If they continue to do so, we may need to penalize them.

Gasper - From Damios:What about healers? Will they bea able to heal more than a Great Heal and possibly ressurect at master levels?
DesignerD - It's been under discussion as part of enhancing non-combat skills.
Gasper - Also from Damios:Will there ever be an easier way to place furniture? I always have a *very* hard time placing it.
DesignerD - Do you mean getting it to point in the right direction?
DesignerD - If so, the trick it it is simple. It points in the direction you dragged it
DesignerD - If you drag down to the left, the seat of the cair will be down to the left
DesignerD - er, chair

Gasper - From ChesterK: Will a toggle be put in to stop AllNames from showing guild abbreviations and titles? They take up a LOT of space on the screen.
DesignerD - We hadn't made any plans for it. It's theoretically possible, but not drop dead simple. :( We'll have to think about it

Gasper - From Xavier_be_Rosa and several others: Will there be a response to the call for more Counsellors?
GM_Grond - Yes. We are still adding more counselors
GM_Grond - and we will continue to keep bringing the accepted in for the next two weeks... To limit the ability of or even discourage becoming "tank mages". What is the current plan, to weight skills against each other towards the cap? Or to weight their overall effectiveness? Basically I want to know what plan is in favour with you guys at the moment.
DesignerD - For those who are wondering what the background of that question is, basically, it's about trying to channel players to specialize more.
DesignerD - There's a lot of concern however about simple tactics like lowering the skill cap (which we aren't planning on doing) because some professions require more skilsl than others
DesignerD - So the method we have been discussing is to make some skills weigh more against other skills. So trying to do magery and fighting simultaneously would be a lot harder than trying to do, say, magery and alchemy at the same time
DesignerD - Implementation of anything like this is not anytime near, however. We figure we've got plenty to keep us busy for the next two months at least
DesignerD - We have a couple of large systems getting ready to go in (reputation, and then house ownership) and we don't want to tackle too many major things at once :)
Gasper - should I continue or did someone else start asking
DesignerD - We also want to make sure we don't do anything that cripples a profession of course. UO is a classless game, and we want to preserve that, but we do feel more specialization helps diversity and encourages player cooperation
DesignerD - next question?

Leawood[LS] - ok ill ask one
Leawood[LS] - From Malachi: Does OSI plan to put up more shards? 90,000 users 9 shards.
Leawood[LS] - 10,000 people per shard?
DesignerD - Well, that's a more complicated question than it seems.
DesignerD - For one, it doesn't divide nicely out that way, because of peak times, what part of the world we have what amount of users, etc
Leawood[LS] - UGH
DesignerD - More shards as different requests come in (like the European server petition) are of course always under consideration
DesignerD - But we are not currently seeing a problem with how many players we have per shard

Gasper - From McFinn:How is the house situation for limiting and converting the old coming?
Stormwind - Good. It is planned for the update after the reputation system update.

Gasper - From BrotherCyrus: Will Wrestling be improved in the new Melee balancing?
DesignerD - No, we only addressed melee weapons. We do know that many would like to see wrestling improved, and we have discussed some things, but nothing is close to implementation yet.
DesignerD - next q?

Leawood[LS] - here I got one, mind gasper?
Gasper - go for it
Leawood[LS] - From Killashan: I had a question for DD :) Is there anyway we can make the "bark zone" around
Leawood[LS] - Escortees smaller? So they don't spam us? and also, could they maybe re-state their destination? Perhaps like this
Leawood[LS] - "I am being led to Trinsic", something like that?
DesignerD - Sure. :) Tell you what, I can do that RIGHT NOW. :) Next q?
Leawood[LS] - :)

Gasper - From Merauk:In a previous UOHOC session you indicated that there may be a change to the use of mana in a failed scribing attemp. Will this ever happen
DesignerD - We considered it, but we're fairly happy with it costing something at failure.

Gasper - From C_Trojan:What kinds of furniture items will PC's be able to make in the future? Specifically, Looms/Spinning Wheels, Stoves, Forges, Beds, etc?
DesignerD - And I have limited escort responses to 3 tiles, and they will tell you where they are going now :)
DesignerD - Looms, forges, spinning wheels, pentagrams ;) and more
Leawood[LS] - ooh pentagrams
Leawood[LS] - ;)
Stormwind - ankhs too
DesignerD - And ankhs

Gasper - From smokey to DD:what are you gonna name your kid? ;)
DesignerD - I THINK it's going to David Charles. But I have to check with my wife first. ;)
DesignerD - If the doc is wrong and it's a girl, we have NO clue. :P
Leawood[LS] - haha

Leawood[LS] - heres one
Leawood[LS] - From LOTOS: question to dd and stormwind: what is being done on pagan magic..any
Leawood[LS] - development at all? any ideas?
DesignerD - It's sort of been put on hold while we do other things that were deemed more important, like house ownership....

Gasper - From Drax:Will there ever be more armor colors? There are many other shades that work for armor that are not currently used.
Stormwind - ...but we do have plans for things such as animating corpses.
DesignerD - Yes, we are indeed looking at more armor colors. Our current thinking is to make it so only expert miners have the ability to find the rarer metals, and possibly gems as well, and then only expert crafters can work with the rarer stuff.

Leawood[LS] - From MystDragn: Do you currently have any plans for house security? If so, what? Can we expect
Leawood[LS] - something that will zap an intruder dead on the spot?
DesignerD - We do indeed have plans. We don't know which of the following will come to pass, but some of what we are looking at:
Stormwind - We have some ideas: stronger house traps, house guard deeds, improved pet guarding, owner ejecting unwanted players from their house
DesignerD - We want to balance the house secutiry issue with the possibility of later adding house ibvasion, castle sieges, and cool thievery things, though
DesignerD - so we are looking at each of those very closely
Leawood[LS] - ooh

Leawood[LS] - From Raistlin: What about the furniture change (locking down, new furniture like training dummies, forges to
Leawood[LS] - buy for existing houses)..?? Will it be implemented soon??
DesignerD - a good plain start of course is solid house ownership, with lock changing. Lock changing is guaranteed to be in the first set of house ownership things
DesignerD - next q?
Leawood[LS] - lesee

Leawood[LS] - From Kilan: What will prevent guildmembers saying "I resign from the guild" while
Leawood[LS] - fighitng, wont this cause the other guild to gain a murder count against them?
DesignerD - On the furniture question--that's all planned for the update after eputation
DesignerD - On the resign while fighting--it'll have a delay on it or not work while in combat

Leawood[LS] - From KoR|ZymDragon: Is it possible to allow us to toggle our professions on the paper doll? If
Leawood[LS] - not, is another way for us "tradespeople" to show our titles? Many of us don't fight at all.
Leawood[LS] - there ya go
Stormwind - BugKiller says that case (resigning while fighting) is handled, and is in the reputation FAQ
DesignerD - We've been discussing ways to do this. Once solution that sounded interesting was tying it to what NPC guild you joined. Nothing ahs been decided yet though

Leawood[LS] - From Nosfentor: Are there plans to prevent macroing, such as a pc stands in the same spot for 8 hours arms loring a weapon?
DesignerD - There's only so much we can do about that. You can set up the macro so you are not idle. We can also add costs to every skill, so it limits you.

GM_Lint - From CuChulian: please ask if war axes will be poisonable. Thanks :)
DesignerD - We can also limit the advancement in skills over time, so that you cannot advance a lot by doing something over and over in a short span
DesignerD - CuChlian, we are indeed looking into it
DesignerD - obviously, poisoning only on some weapon types makes those very powerful. We are also looking at karma losses for making poison, poisoning things, and also using poisoned weapons
DesignerD - next question?
Stormwind - The fuse black dye thing won

Gasper - From Paul_Buny: Will we ever see gms on 24hrs / 7days a week ? (i live in europe so getting support is HARD to say the least)?
GM_Grond - Right now we are looking at all aspects of support...
Stormwind - The fuse black dye thing will be fixed next update, and DD said that we are looking into letting advanced tailors able to make black dye
GM_Grond - I wouldn't rule it out in the future.. :)

Gasper - From Nicodemus_Muir:Will there be ANY incentive to being a pure mage (such as ARMOR RESTRICTIONS FOR SPELLCASTING) or will Tank Mages continue to plague the lands?
DesignerD - Yes, we are indeed looking at that sort of thing, Nicodemus

Gasper - From Tempra-CC:when you say remove the method to make it will you take all of the black clothes and tubs that are around now? or just stop them from being made...
DesignerD - Just stop them from being made

Gasper - Here is something from d1sc0 but also has been brought up concerning other skills as well: Why is Inscription 8 times harder to raise after the patch? Were tweaks made to the advancement curves?
Stormwind - We are looking into updating old weapons with the weapon revisions
DesignerD - We haven't made any changes to skilla dvancement in the patch--only to stat advancement.

GM_Lint - From MikeTwo: What about quests? Will they be adding PRESET ques
DesignerD - MikeTwo, we don't have nearly enough staff at all of OSI to add preset quests fast enough for all the players of UO. :)
DesignerD - Instead, we are looking at developing a quest engine that generates quests

Gasper - From X21I know the new monster loot changes are supposed to reduce item count, but I find it very hard to find magical items unless I am in a dungeon. Dragon and Drake loot in Wind is also horrible. Any chance of fixing this?
DesignerD - It is intentional. We want magic items to be scarcer.

Gasper - From southwind:when will discounts be back in?
Stormwind - Discounts: planned for next update

Leawood[LS] - From keeg: i have a question :) we have a newsgroup guild in progress and we want to have custom shields
Leawood[LS] - is this sort of thing possible to get done?
DesignerD - We cannot add custom artwork, sorry :(

Gasper - From Gnome:Somebody point out to DD that with his new item repair system a sword just repaired which has 100 HPs and a sword just repaired which has 5 HPs will both say "brand new" when arms lored. Adding another modifier to the Arms Lore skill (this item looks extremely sturdy =100+ HPs, looks very weak = less than 10 HPs etc) is completely necessary for us to buy and trade fairly.
DesignerD - We're aware of this, Gnome, and plan to have a change to armslore very soon

Gasper - From Dante:will necromancy be a seperate skill then magery? will the two types be mutually exclusive?
DesignerD - we haven't gotten that far with it yet :)

GM_Lint - From Colbey: Can we be allowed to drink potions while holding a Halbred or Bardiche when not in war mode? Archers can do it either way.
DesignerD - we'll check into the poisons thing :)
DesignerD - er potions, I mean :)

Gasper - From Solamar:Will the dragon bug be fixed? That is where they permanantly stop fireballing if their target recalls?
Stormwind - Haven't heard about that one (dragon fireballing), will check it out

GM_Lint - From Illusion: instead of custom artwork for shields, why not have a master smith be able to select from a bunch of designs to place on a shield when made?
DesignerD - Because the way adding hues works means that we can color existing designs, but not layer on new ones. :(
DesignerD - A q I just got: how about trash cans?
DesignerD - And the answer is, we're going to adding trash cans to your paperdoll, so you can throw stuff away there

Gasper - This is from Folker and I'll rephrase it, are there 4 or 5 possible levels of poison to make by the player
DesignerD - There are FOUR levels players can make. Then there is a fifth level that only monsters have,
Stormwind - Trash cans are planned to be in the same update as the house ownership changes
DesignerD - PLEASE do not msg me with questions! Direct them to moderator!

Gasper - I cant find who asked it but will arrows and war axes be able to be poisoned
DesignerD - Already answered it--yes, we are checking into that, since we don't want only swords and piercing weapons to be powerful in that way

Gasper - From DrDoom: when will ship claim tickets be bankable?
Stormwind - We are looking into the ship claim ticket in bank think

GM_Wile_E - From GanOn: I think the new notoritey system is totally going to ruin pking with this stat loss upon death. You seem to be changing the game to be anti-pk. What are your comments on this?
DesignerD - We feel that PKing is rampant and badly needs to be restrained. Our intent with the new reputation system is to channel those who wish to engage in pk towards guilds and other forms of "legal" warfare where they do not prey on innocents
DesignerD - Those who do prey on innocents will get very very harsh penalties, intentionally

Gasper - From Bauble: Any idea when a character Bio button will be made available? This would tremendously improve Role-Playing in the game. That little UO book on the paper doll is perfect for it, too...
DesignerD - As it happens, Bauble, we are planning on doing this after house ownership. :) We're looking at an editable bio that you can read on other players, attached to your paperdoll. And also probably a section of rspecial achievements that serves as a "character history"

GM_Lint - From Zarn: are there any plans for magic items being made by players ?
DesignerD - It's been proposed many times, and players have sugegsted some workable systems. We're still a bit leery of it though. Not anytime soon.

Gasper - From TM|Magika: Will Magery be weakened by adding a patch to make it that you can only cast spells with teh spellbook armed? And that It will help from multiple skilled mages who use archery or other melee to fight?
Gasper - From Cable Guy: What do you plan on doing about Lockpicking Skill? Could We ever be able to lockpick houses?
Stormwind - We are looking into restricting tank mages and fighter-mage combinations
Stormwind - We would like to make lockpicking more useful, such as allowing master theives to pick house locks.
Stormwind - But we need to balance it with the need for house security

Gasper - From Riastlin: Will the NPC escorting to Bucs Den evfer be fixed? NPCs just won't leave there (perhaps it's them missing the protection zone..??)
Stormwind - DD says: you shouldn't trust people who want to go to Buccaneer's Den :-)

Gasper - From C_Garet: Could it be possible if you could make it so karma or fame (Whatever) is lost when the caster of a gate leads unowned monsters through the gate, Or maybe even make it impossible for monsters to go through gates? To stop things such as dropping dragons and balrons in front of Kazola's tavern, for example.

GM_Wile_E - From Vir: Will we ever see other weather events than snow and rain and the moving fronts that were talked about?
Stormwind - We are looking into allowing monsters to get around movable items
Stormwind - More weather would be very cool, but there are no plans
DesignerD - We do still want to have all the weather that was discussed in the past, including things like real effects for weather, including stamina cost for slogging thru snow, etc

GM_Lint - From LOTOS: any remote plans for an expansion?...
DesignerD - Sorry, LOTOS, can't comment

Gasper - From Alexander:what is the ETA on the implementation of Necromency?
Stormwind - No ETA currently, probably a ways off

Gasper - From Drakus: On The Skill of Bowcraft/Fletchery if you have a high level Bowyer could it be possible in maiking him able to make exceptional quality bows etc.?
Stormwind - Bowyers: that would be part of the skill revisions planned
DesignerD - We're trying to slowly go thru all the skills and enhance them.

Gasper - From Eleonora:There are plans to reduce houses, what about the boats spamming the coasts and especially the harbours?
DesignerD - In the case of bowyer, we'd like to have yew bows, recurve bows, etc, adding more variety
DesignerD - Most everything you hear applied to houses will apply to boats as well

Gasper - From Blackhand: Are there plans for doing something useful with furs?
Stormwind - Boat ownership changes will be part of the same update as the house ownership changes
DesignerD - Yes, that would be part of a tailor revision :)
DesignerD - We'd like to make it tie into weather, eventually, so you have to wear fur clothes to stay warm ;)

Gasper - From Xerxes and on a lot of people's minds:When will abusive players be dealt with rather than warned?
GM_Lint - If a player is being Verbally abusive, or Harassing you, call a GM and we will assess the situation and deal with the player in a manner we feel is correct.

Gasper - From Elsyium: Will something be done about the fact that someone can have upwards of 15 escorts at a time? I mean, I were a noble, I sure wouldn't want to be dragged to Skara Brae, then Occlo, then Yew, then Serpent's Hold, along with a bunch of peasants :)
DesignerD - We don't have any such plans rightnow, but we've been getting a lot of requests for it, so we may add it to the list :)

Gasper - From DrakeMarsten:With the new trend in player goverments such as the Council of Honor, will OSI help these groups in there tasks at improving the cities and encouraging Roleplay
DesignerD - We are planning on giving them the ability to better decorate and furnish their cities, and of course house ownership will help a lot. We've also been discussing methods of player government with various interested players for a long time now

Gasper - From Bethinna:When are the guildstone problems going to be fixed. Our guilds name was changed by the bug where anyone could controll the stone. The name was fixed but old members didn't get fixed, only new members get the correct initials.
DesignerD - It's fixed on Test Center 2 and will be fixed next mini-update, which is planned for Monday.

Gasper - From Taniwha:What are you going to do about the 'useless' skills (i.e. Begging)
DesignerD - Again, part of the task of going thru every skill and enhancing it :)

Gasper - From Wildfire:There are alot of broken/usless spells, such as the poisen feild and mindblast, when will they be fixed?
Stormwind - We will check those spells
Leawood[LS] - Folks, just so you are aware, we are going to be wrapping up in about 15 more minutes.

GM_Wile_E - From Crawdaddy: What is OSI's possition on "outside" gaming such as UOX or FUSE? Will projects like this ever be added to the official list of shards and be sponsered by OSI?
DesignerD - Crawdaddy, we've been in touch with MANY authors of utilities and servers and the like in the past. We're quite aware that UO does not exist in a vacuum, and wish to encourage players to create interesting utilities that exist alongside UO. At the same time, of course, we do not look favoriably upon hacks, cheats, or servers which mihght go to on see commercial use, thus making use of our intellectual property. So the nswer would depend on the software

GM_Lint - From Gospadin: "What are the exact requirements (minimum, and chance of success) for making exceptional platemail tunics? I've got a smith with 90 strength and 100 skill who has never, ever made one... I feel like a whole section of smithing is unavailable to players because of this, and how common 'of defense' platemail is..."
DesignerD - I don't actually know the exact numbers offhand, but of course I got a flood of msgs saying that it is not possible. :) We'll investigate

Gasper - From archfiend: are there plans to remove the monsters from outside the dungeon walls where we cant get to them,so that people will be able to hide?
DesignerD - We don't have any plans to add more code than what we have already--monsters do clean themselves up after a time

Gasper - From ESP:Have you thought of putting criminals in jail for a certain amount of time depending on the crime commited, making criminal actions less attractive and making things more realistic?
GM_Wile_E - sorry... answering. :)
GM_Wile_E - WE had thought of having lelves of safe areas in the towns, such that a minor offense would warrent jailing, attacking would be death, etc. This is still something we are looking into, but there is not firm plan for it as of yet.

GM_Lint - From Lotharr: What are you, as Game Masters, going to do about the ones who tend to lean towards favortism on players they are friends with? I hear a HELL of a LOT about how Game Masters wrongly subjected an innosent person to "God" powers and let "their friends" have at them (ie, PK them). These are serious accusations which are being made by more than one person. What is going to be done to address this SERIOUS issue?
GM_Wile_E - This is a serrious issue, but one that is a rumor only. GMs don't show favoratism towards any players, regardless of how we feel about them persoanlly. This is a job, and as such we have to act the same towards all players. If this was not the case, there is no way we could adequately support the game. Besides, it would not be fair to all the other players.
GM_Lint - This is the Last Question
DesignerD - GMs have nothing whatsoever to gain from showing favoritism. As your nicks show, even the rumor of it leads to a lot of acrimony. Therefore, that sort of behavior isn't tolerated.

Gasper - okay, again with antisocials as it is big now, this is from verence: what is in the works to help us deal with anti-social players, and what does OSI plan to do about the problem directly?
DesignerD - First off, we are of course enforcing the rules against harassment. We also are going to try to educate folks a little about the tools like the ignore filter and the obscenity filter that they arelady have... we've found a lot of folks didn't know they had them. Beyond that, we are also looking at ways to enable players to control each other more, via clearer reputation, harsher penalties for over-the-top pk (as in the rep system), and better protectio
DesignerD - We'd very much like to explore means of providing player governments ability to police better, and the like. We do not want to end up as Big Brother, and n the long run feel that players need to develop a society without a Big Brother type. But of course we will also do all we can to promote the development of that society, including policing breaches of the Terms of Service.

Gasper - I think we are done here now, I'd like to thank all the guys at Origin again for dropping by
Leawood[LS] - Well I think we have come to a close
Gasper - Oh, I'm sorry about questions missed, I still cant see all of them I have sitting here :)
GM_Wile_E - Bye all.... thanks for coming.
Gasper - but bring them to the next chat
DesignerD - Good night everyone... thanks for coming
Stormwind - Bye all, thanks for the QA session.