DenDragon - Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's Open House.
DenDragon - Tonight's chat is considered General Discussion and as such we will accept questions of any topic relating to UO.
DenDragon - Glamdring will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions please /msg or /query Aphrodite, Fallo, Troll, Uziel.
DenDragon - Please /msg different question-takers at different times, in order to balance the load and speed this process up. Do not msg anyone from OSI, myself or Glamdring--these questions will be ignored.
DenDragon - Remember that OSI may not have the opportunity to answer all of your questions. In addition, some questions may not be answered if the Dev Team feel that it is not appropriate or that it has been better answered through some other question.
DenDragon - In addition, please do not submit any questions that have already been answered during past conferences. We encourage you to read the logs of the previous Open Houses, which are available at http://uohoc.stratics.com.
DenDragon - Thanks for coming, everyone. We will now begin accepting questions. DenDragon changes topic to "/msg Aphrodite, Fallo, Troll, Uziel - General Discussion"

Glamdring - *Tesla* Its about guild abbreviations. Many guilds out there had four letter abbreviations and have had them for as long as guildstones have been around. But those of us with guildstones in tents when we moved them were forced down to three. Some of us had very distinctive abbreviatons (using only four letters) and that is now lost. Guilds whose stones are in houses are not faced with this. Is there any chance of getting back to Four letters
DesignerD - Yes, it's a possibility. Hasn't come up in a while, but it's certainly possible. Also, we're seeing more and more guilds come in, so we're starting to run out of decent 3 letter abbreviations too. :)

Glamdring - *C-Prompt* Designer Dragon stated that the deterrent against a murderer collecting his own bounty is stat loss. Murderers now macro away their murder time as ghosts and receive no penalty. What is being planned to offset this imbalance?
DesignerD - Well, we don't have concrete plans yet, but we are fully aware of the blue PK problem. What red murderers have done is make time the penalty instead of the actual stat loss, by macroing instead of bitting the stat loss bullet...
DesignerD - I've got a laundry list of possible tacks to take up on my whiteboard at work. Some of the ones listed:
DesignerD - 1) Stat loss on death 2) murders counting not just for you but for all guild members too (the peer pressure approach) 3) longer murder atrophy times
DesignerD - 4) atrophy times scaling based on the more murders, the insanely longer the itmes (exponential scale)
DesignerD - 5) stat loss or atrophy based on a tally of murders committed ever, instead of current count
DesignerD - 6) skill delays on snooping and stealing
DesignerD - 7) aggressor flagging thieves and snoopers
DesignerD - You get the idea... many of these are bound to be unpopular. Many might seem like mana from heaven for others...
DesignerD - So I'd like to see discussion of this topic, and what are good solutions. Basically though: the commitment from the dev team is that we WILL do something about blue PKers.
DesignerD - On the flip side, we recognize that we need to make order/chaos warfare more fun and robust too :)

Glamdring - *Aragorn_Tnk* Are there any plans to help fishers with chooping fish steaks? As is now, you have to unstack them and chop them individually.
DesignerD - To be honest, it hasn't even come up recently. :( It's fairly low on the priority list at the moment. Sorry! :(

Glamdring - *Hiro* I've heard combat skills like magery and swords will require different Lore & Knowledge skills, Will we be seeing any change to the skill cap? because it will be really hard to make a multi occupation char when they need extra Knowledge skills.
DesignerD - No, we will definitely NOT be increasing the skill cap. The intent is to make a rock-paper-scissors structure, whereby warriors can specialize in different types of combat, and have weakness versus other types... and to this end, we want the master warrior who actually masters everything for fighting to be damn rare
DesignerD - So we want players to specialize, and thus diversify. If we expand the skill cap, all we'll accomplish is keeping everyone the same--everyone will spend the new points in the same ways

Glamdring - *Duskwalker* Hello. With the lockdowns now in place and players wanting to make their soon tb publich shops/taverns as nice as possible, Can you add items to vendors which can be used to decorate houses? (i.e., candles, candleabras, etc.)
DesignerD - We do intend to keep adding to the list of craftable items. This first pass which adds large furnishings is just the beginning.

Glamdring - *SorrowHarvester* hi DD, fellow Austinite and Game developer(Iguana :)) here : could you tell us if Necromancy is still a great possibility??
DesignerD - Can I get some free games? :) Yes, necromancy is still a possibility. A likelihood, even, though we are in the fun position of having to pick and choose between a bunch of fun stuff on what to add next.
DesignerD - We've got a bunch of things we'd like to tackle right after Xmas... and we have to pick and choose between systems to add. Party system, or races, or necromancy, or quest engine, or what? :) Fun place to be in though!

Glamdring - *Rick_Sampson_LS* Will our vendors that are still in operation need to be deeded soon? I have one still selling and would HATE to loose all his gold and items.
DesignerD - Any vendors that are not in valid locations will stay where they are--until the next time you go to collect gold and items. Then they will redeed automatically. This code will stay in there indeifnitely, basically... so you can take as long as you like to get around to moving him. IF he can affrd to stay in operation, of course :)

Glamdring - *Aiden* When the house patch is completed and you can add guarded zones to your housing area, will it be possible that murderers will die when they run in front of the house with the guarded zone?
DesignerD - No. We are committing to preventing that from happening. The guards in public buildings will ONLY deal with events in the buildings, or attacks directed at the building from outside.
DesignerD - We're very aware that otherwise it could become a big problem. :)

Glamdring - *Melk* DD, despite the recent release of T2A and the hard work OSI does at improving UO, it's hard to believe (at least for me) that this version of the game will last to celebrate its 2nd aniversary - specially if we consider that new games with better technology are poping up here and there. Could you tease us with any speculations about how long UO will last, what will happen with our characters (will they go "poof" or be transfered to "UO2")?
DesignerD - Well, that's a loaded question! :)
DesignerD - First off--we do welcome competition in the genre. The general public's awareness of this kind of game is still fairly limited, and the more people in the arena, the larger the audience for all the different games in the genre.
DesignerD - When UO came out, M59, Realm, and Simutronics subscriptions actually went up, for example. :)
DesignerD - SO we think there is room for more folks in the genre.
DesignerD - Secondly, we also think that there's plenty of life left in UO. Not only do these games tend not to die (Gemstone on Simutronics has been running for 8 years now) but UO is also a very very flexible piece of code.
DesignerD - We can and will continue to do enhancements to UO for as long as it makes sense to do so. And the sky's the limit with those enhancements. We could easily redo the entire client, if we so chose.
DesignerD - Lastly, though, the great strength of UO is that unlike most of the forthcoming games, it's more of a virtual world than an online adventure game. UO offers a breadth and a depth of experience that is currently unmatched, and which I personally will remain unmatched for quite a while.
DesignerD - So I'm not worried about it going away anytime soon. :)

Glamdring - *Nova_* What logic do you follow with regards to parrying as a valid defense against magical attacks? Personally I myself feel that it should have some effect on missle-like attacks such as fireball, magic missle, and energy bolt as they are generally pure forms of energy directed at an individual. It does not have to block them entirely but at least absorb some damage.
DesignerD - The logic we fillow is that parrying is misnamed. :) It's currently based off of shield usage, so we want to go by the guideline of missile attacks being something you can deflect with a shield. So a lightning bolt fromt he sky, you couldn't parry, but a fireball thrown at you could indeed be blocked.
DesignerD - Of course, someday, we could make the wooden shields catch fire when you get hit with fire... ;) the underlying resource system has the capability for lots of stuff like that which we currently don't have active in the game :)

Glamdring - *Airc* Can we get an option so that locked down items no longer highlight yellow under our curser? Makes my house look kind of cheesy...
DesignerD - Unfortunately, no. Not at this time.

Glamdring - *grendl|SSP* 1) Craftables are a very cool idea, I was wondering if it would be possible for skilled TAILOR/TAMERS to create a saddle, that when placed on a horse, automatically tame it??? And/or, a tamer of some skill could craft a pack to place on an already tamed horse to make it a packhorse??? This would help to build the plater drivin economy.
DesignerD - This has come up several times. Love to do it, I like the idea a lot. :)

Glamdring - *Sonnet* What about the red moongates to crossconnect the shards? Will they ever appear?
DesignerD - DOn't expect red moongates anytime soon, if ever.

Glamdring - *Kharn[Atl*> Hail all, DD and company, any more information with channeling? Have you chosen a skill to center this on? In addition will there be any spells added if you all plan to make all summoning elementals/daemons a single spell?
DesignerD - Channeling is renamed to Meditation. It is currently on Test Center, tied to Spirit Speak, but it will be a skill of its own when it goes in. We haven't made any decisions on 8th circle spells yet...

Glamdring - *Taunis* Will other skills such as Carpentry, Tinkering, and Alchemy, recieve the Maker's Mark. I think it would be usefull expecially with the Craft patch coming.
DesignerD - They may, but I'd like to find something nice that can be done with exceptional quality goods, so that it makes sense for them to have a maker's mark. Like, for chairs, making the seats dyeable would qualify. :)

Glamdring - *Rompy* there are plans for skills such as anatomy and eval intelligence to be boosted to make them more useful, Are there any plans for other skills to be improved as well? eg arms lord spirit speak, item id, taste id etc
DesignerD - Anatomy has already been made to assist healing, and soon will assist combat as well (on TC now actually). Eval int will help cancel out an opponent's magic resist (also on TC). We're looking at arms lore helping with weapons crafting & also with combat.
DesignerD - Haven't got concrete plans for the others, but we have some ideas. :)

Glamdring - *Sonnet* Will players be able to target across server boundaries anytime soon?
DesignerD - No; that's unfortunately a pretty low-level limitation of the UO architecture :(

Glamdring - *Rainbow_king* In the last chat you noted down a suggestion by a player: pet-stones (private stabling) .. Can we expect this soon? (I'm asking because it's impossible to stable in t2a now :(
DesignerD - Right now, I am thinking that maybe it could be a type of house addon (like, you run a public stable attache to the side of a public house). But it's not on the front burner yet.
DesignerD - Tell ya when it'll have to go in: on the day we make pets gain skills as you train them up. Which WILL happen sometime... then we'll NEED the stabling space. :)

Glamdring - *Kharn[Atl]* Hail again, is it possible to make a daily paper available in-game? I would like to use my webbroswer as little as possible and add to the roleplaying if maybe you could subscribe to a daily paper and have it delivered to your door 8'D In addition, is there still a plan to have a mail box and/or will the ability to put a newsboard on a house be available?
DesignerD - We've been talking about mail a fair amount lately. Dunno when we'll have it, though. We are torn between doing a smallish system that is house-to-house, or a larger system that is based on player accounts.
DesignerD - If we do the latter, we'll probably start stuff like sending update reports straight to you that way, so you get them when youy log in. :)
DesignerD - As far as a newsboard, maybe.

Glamdring - *biasucci* if i go perma gray to someone who i steal from, why doesnt someone who murders me go perma to me?
DesignerD - The intent was that instead, they eventually went red, of course. But we're looking hard at the flagging for thievery as part of our work on the blue PK problem

Glamdring - *Senseless* Anything comming for tinkers? With trap business gone, pretty well all are unemployed.
DesignerD - We do want to resurrect the tinker profession, but we'd like to do it in such a way that they aren't a PvP class. :) Love to see tinker ideas posted on webpages!

Glamdring - *Mahler* Are you guys going to make blacksmiths able to make different color armour?
DesignerD - yes, we are. But we just got done giving blacksmiths maker's marks & stuff, so we'd like to shift focus to other professions for a bit, so they don't feel neglected

Glamdring - *CaSh_DuDe_LS* Any plans that tailors can make carpeting for houses?
DesignerD - We'd like to do carpets as part of the expanding capabilities to furnish houses.

Glamdring - *SirRobin* Any plans on when the "test claims" server will be available???
DesignerD - I'm not running that, Runesabre and Faceless are... so I don't actually know what the story is. I know the LS test claims period was very successful and useful.

Glamdring - *Australis_1* How many Australians will be needed for our own server?
DesignerD - I can't give you a firm number. :( It's really not my department. All I know is that we need many thousands to be able to justify opening a server there.

Glamdring - *SirRobin* Will guild alliances (i.e. they are, say, purple to you and can be attacked, as if you are on friendly terms or against a common foe) be allowed?
DesignerD - We've been looking at guild allianes, but kinda want to fix the problems with guilds with over 150 members first :)

Glamdring - *Brimstone* Is there any plan for new races that you could pick ?? (Or maybe some new monsters or rideable animals?) And if so would these be put on an expansion cd?
DesignerD - Player races is one of several things on the plate (and BTW, Brad MCQuaid has been needling me about adding them ever since I mentioned it! :P) We have to decide whether we want player races first or something else... if we did player races we'd try to find a way so that it did not require a new CD.

Glamdring - *Valek* how about some kind of clairvoyance spell, that you could use on a rune, so you could check what was going on at a certain point without going there
DesignerD - That was actually a spell we wanted to do back at the beginning of development. It'd be anice candidate for a new spell, for sure. I also like "familiars"--you'd basically possess your pet, and your body would stay behind (vulnerable of course) while you explored with your pet.

Glamdring - *^Drew^* Tailors can dye leather boots, but not leather armor... and it would add to the great diversity of players looks if leather armor could be dyed. Is this possible on a programming level?
DesignerD - Well, I promised not to ruin the holiday surprise... but one of the holiday gifts is deep green leather armor. :)
DesignerD - We don't plan to make leather armor dyeable to any color, though, because the artowrk wasn't originally with that in mind, and doesn't look real good with many colors. So we will probably trickle it out with special colors from time to time, or make it a special ability with limited color ranges only for GM tailors, or something.

Glamdring - *[eLD]Ydor* will there be any display cases to furniture public shops, like in npc-shops can be found?
DesignerD - No display cases just now, they are a pain to make usable for players, because you can't actually easily drop things into them as a regular player :(

Glamdring - *Dugall_McKangis* Would you be willing to add more specialized buildings? ie I plan on designing a large arena (using the castle footprint) which would be ideal for places such as Oasis. Would I just be wasting my time?
DesignerD - Actually, we'd like to progress to the point of letting master craftsmen actually build buildings wall by wall :) But that's a ways off. We are indeed willing to add more specialized buildings.
DesignerD - BTW, the larger footprint for houses is partly so we can reserve space for gardens, yards, stalls, and possibly animal pens attached to houses.

Glamdring - *Rainbow_king* Will we be seeing a last target button soon like you promised way back?
DesignerD - Yes, you will. Again, a matter of what we do first. Right now, all our energies are focused n housing, pretty much.

Glamdring - *GoldenDragon* DD, When will you fix the problem of Bolts of cloth not auto stacking in packs or bandages?
DesignerD - As it happens, I assigned that bug to Toad TODAY, so hopefully soon. :)

Glamdring - *Rmageddon* Can NPC barbers be made that give you the hair style selection menu?
DesignerD - Expect a way to change hairstyles before the month is out. :) DON'T expect it to be totally widely available to everyone though. You'll see...

Glamdring - *Oddbird* Hello DD, It seems with the changes proposed for snooping and theiving, not to mention the fix for "tab tab hide," you are going to severly cripple thieves in UO. In the future what role do you see theives playing?
DesignerD - I see them in the role of adventuring thieves, more than anything. Locked or trapped chests in dungeons. Traps that are randomly appearing in dungeons... etc.

Glamdring - *Azaroth[LS]* Will we get trade windows anytime soon for pets?
DesignerD - No plans for it just now. :( I know many people want it, but it's actually a tad tricky to unexploitably.

Glamdring - Okay all...that does it for tonight
Glamdring - Thank you all for coming and having some good questions tonight
Glamdring - Thank you once again DD
DesignerD - Sure :) Sorry I was late!
IronWill - Good day all and thanks!
DenDragon - thanks for coming everyone :)