Fripp - Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's Open House.
Fripp - Tonight's chat is Anything in Development or Testing, please try to keep questions along these lines.
Fripp - I will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions please /msg or /query Marduk, |Ffil|, Niobe, Jerrith, or Coldrain with questions.
Fripp - 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 or--these questions will be ignored.
Fripp - 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.
Fripp - 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.
Fripp - Thanks for coming, everyone. We will now begin accepting questions.
DD - Actually, before we start taking questions, I'd like to celebrate something.
DD - With this chat we start on the SECOND YEAR of House of Commons chats.
* Marduk puts on his pointy party hat
DD - I think that deserves a cheer.
DD - Except that the channel is moderated.
DD - So it'd be a very quiet cheer.
* Rainman cheers
DD - Worth celebrating though--I think it is very cool that a player-run institution like this has this much longevity. It's been great participating.
DD - Now let's move on to the questions, unless everyone would rather talk about how unfair it is that Lum hasn't updated his page since 2:45pm. That's way too long to go without laughing (or at least snickering).

Fripp - *Ibn_Shaun* The changes affecting healers are impressive! I have two questions though. First, why wasn't multiple interruption from spells (2X) and beast-fire (3X) corrected? Second, is there any future for veterinary apart from giving healing an additional disadvantage wrt magery.
DD - As far as the first, because it wasn't specifically on the list of changes players sent in, or it didn't make the cut. Remember, this update is made up almost entirely of player-requested changes and fixes. I don't remember that one being on the lists I got, which is probably why it slipped by. Definitely one to address though.
DD - As far as a future for vet, yes, there is hoe for a future for vet. We came VERY close to disallowing magical healing on animals in this update, and in the future we'd like to add capabilities like pet resurrection to it.

Fripp - *Picky* with the upcomeing tweaking to SoS can you tell us what the better rate for it will be and make it not have to be GM to get them?
DD - The code on TC right now has a fivefold increase in frequency, but still requires GM. It may well change to being just a threefold increase, though, depending on how testing goes.
DD - That works out, btw, to a .05 percent chance to catch an SoS.

Fripp - *Dr_Adam[GL]* I went on TC the other day to check out the new menu and it wasnt there, will tinkering become like the other skills, difficulty based? and i would like more on this menu too, thanx
DD - The new menu is there now, but not working completely properly yet. Yes, it does make the skill difficulty based. You have tabs for pages for different categories of stuff, and one choice is "make last item" which will just make whatever you made last time.
DD - The tabs work like the house sign tabs do...
DD - We added a few more things to tinkering as part of putting in the menu, as you know from the In Testing page...

ColdRain - *FinkPloyd* Do you plan to make it so healers with higher skill aren't interupted as much as someone with lower skill? Much like how MAgery is with wrestling..
DD - We don't have any specific plans for that just yet. We definitely do want to make healing more viable as a skill and are looking at ways of doing that. It may well take reducing the effectiveness of magic healing somehow to really make it work...

Fripp - *cenedra* Isn't there some alternative to the Bard's LOS changes? Such as a much broader LOS? Or Just no provoking through walls? Or Skill-level based? Or longer Peacemaking? Some kind of compromise or other means of acquiring the goal?
DD - We have indeed been discussing compromises to it. The effect of LOS is largely exactly what you said, no provoking through walls, though there's also places where it affects provoking onto ledges and the like. We do recognize that bards are due for a skill overhaul sometime soon. But there's no time to get anything else into this update....

Fripp - *Braveheart* Hey, you've done some stuff for smiths with the ingots and all, can you start throwing in different types of woods? (Like ingots?)
DD - That is something we plan to do eventually. It's trickier to do than the ingots was, though, because ores you can fake, whereas you can see the different types of trees on screen. :)

Fripp - *Eagawk* Will we ever be able to place forges on ships again?
DD - No. We're going to be making boats into nothing more than cargo vessels and a means of transportation. There are just too many cluttering up the landscape. I realize that this means greater difficulty for the miners and the like, but boats are just plain out of hand.

Fripp - *Arth* Has any thought been given to improving theives by giving them a new skill? Backstab? Feign?
DD - No plans for that right now. To be honest, we don't have ANY specific plans for specific skill upgrades just now because our plates are full with several other things, including email and the starts of the new quest engine and various other things.

Fripp - *Wildfire* With the new changes that will let us get more then just ribs when cutting up animals, could we also be able to get such things as "dragon ribs"?
DD - Not yet. :) More interesting than dragon ribs for me is dragon hides, so that we can work that into leathercrafting and armor and stuff. So we have vague plans on that front. Who knows when though. :)

Fripp - *LumTheMad* There hasn't been much said about the planned faction system other then what's been done on the Abyss. Is there any plans to migrate this to the regular shards, and is any further development planned for this?
DD - The faction system that is on Abyss was specifically a test case for a faction system for the main shards. The idea was that we could build the infrastructure on Abyss in a more "gamelike" environment, then use it for roleplaying factions on the main shards.
DD - So yes, this is still an active area of development. Evil/good was part of that project as well, but we split it off so that it didn't use factions per se. We still intend to put factions into the main shards once we feel we have a good fictional basis for it and have elements
DD - to it that are not just "gamey" like on Abyss, but are fictionally significant.
DD - EG, Order/chaos would become factions, and we'd add other factions for anything from rebellions to villains, etc...

Fripp - *Jade-}{R-Cats* my question: can we get new housing types like the resident houses in East Britain, would this be possible with patches to the art files? and when interior doors become locakable (when will this be?) will they be lockable on public buildings?
DD - No plans for new house types right now. Interior lockable doors do work on public houses--that was kind of the point of doing them, so that shops could have private back rooms--and are in this update, so you can try them out on TC right now.

Fripp - *Duskwalker* What is the next major project we should expect to see work on following this update? Are Necro, Alchemy, and/or Good/Evil around the corner?
DD - Probably the next big thing that you'll see done is email. That's because email was actually contracted out, so it didn't affect our dev team's schedule, it was done in parallel. Email is kind of a bonus because we got it as a side effect from upgrades we're doing to the GM paging system that are mostly invisible.
DD - But I think you mean game system stuff. :) On that front, necro and alchemy are upcoming, yes.

Fripp - *Unknown_Player* DD is there going to be the ability to soon duel or have the ability to fight others with out came or karma loss? It is hard for people like myself to run events when there is such massive loss to fame and karma. perhaps a stone that can be placed for people to fight in a certin area with out stat loss
DD - Dueling is a pet project of SunSword's. I'd be surprised if he wasn't pushing to ge tit moved up in the schedule to be going in in maybe the update after this one... we'll see. It's definitely high on the list though.

Fripp - *Moon_Maniac* What are the plans for placing houses? Do u have anyplans to make it so u can place in T2A, i have hear losts of rumors about this.
DD - We do not believe placing houses in T2A is going to solve anything in regards to housing. When we do open T2A tohousing, we want to be sure that we have housing under control so it doesn't end up turning the Lost Lands into the Suburban Lands. So T2A housing is not likely to show up until after we develop a house auction system, and probably after we add house maintenance.

Fripp - *Commander* Wont "make last item" just make it easier for people to macro?
DD - We believe it will make it easier for people to MANUFACTURE. Remember, it's only half the functionality. We also plan to add "make multiple" which just uses up the whole stack at once, making as many items of that type as it can.
DD - The idea is to remove tediousness from crafting and reduce the number of clicks so people feel less desire to macro.

Fripp - *Dr_Adam[GL]* What can we expect for new house add-ons, personaly i would like to see a fireplace, not a oven :) and maybe carpet and bookshelfs with books :P
DD - Don't have any specific list of new house addons at this point. Suggestions welcome. :)

Fripp - *Damsel* With regards to housing issues. Many players would like to safely trade for homes that are placed with the current space shortage. Safety during such a transaction is relative right now. Is it possible to page a counselor to witness such a transaction to deter scams and such? Would they consent and would it be possible to make it more than just a deterrant?
DD - Got me if you can page a counselor. I'm out of the loop on that front. But I can tell you that the house auction system is in fact designed to allow completely secure trading of houses.

Fripp - *Valenda* Will Miners ever gain the ability to mine gems, making another way to obtain them other than Earth Elementals?
DD - at some point, I am sure they will gain that ability :)

Fripp - *Joshua_Rowan* With the new tinkering items being created with quality based on skill, would it be possible to allow Arms Lore to determine quality? Otherwise it will be difficult for a GM Tinker to prove that his exceptional shovels REALLY are exceptional.
DD - yes, this is definitely something that is needed. I don't think we can get it into this update though :(

Fripp - *ImaSupa* Any chance for Dermott's "Floortiles" idea being implemented? Basically, NPC Architects would sell floortiles at an extremely high cost, so as to give players with exhorbinant amounts of gold to spend money on other than hording reagents?
DD - Floortiles would be too much of a database hog and could cause lag--it'd be tons of individual items laying all over the actual floor. We actully prefer Joshua Rowan's Nobility Titles proposal...

Fripp - *Methos* Would it be feasable to make it possible to knock people off horses, to make them less effective in running from battle
DD - No plans forthat, sorry :)
DD - Oh, and Joshua, go post your Nobility Titles idea on UODR at Stratics. :)

Fripp - *Devon* When will we see house maintenance put into Testing?
DD - We don't know. In terms of databse concerns, we actully see boats as a bigger problem just now than houses, so we'll probably tackle them first.

Fripp - *Drockarius* In light of the Order vs Chaos system are there any plans to add Balance as well?
DD - Definitely a possibility with factions

Fripp - *Moon_Maniac* How is the house auction system going to work, will it be a board where ppl will place bids on houses that ppl are selling?
DD - basically, though you'd also be able to do it at the house proper.

Fripp - *Commander* What is the reason behind Email? Don't most people with ISP accounts already have EMail? Or will it become an almost empty void like CHAT?
DD - First off, email will be on a CHARACTER basis. So you can get email uniquely for each of your characters. Secondly, it's internal to UO and we can and will use it for things like sending out newsletters, update information, etc. Right now, the majority of players don't keep an accurate email address updated in their acct info...
DD - Lastly, it will kinda work like ICQ in that you trade "greeting cards" to be able to send someone mail. You can also revoke permission for someone to email you, so it's great for in-character and in-game communications.... eventually we can add things like guild mailing lists or buddy lists and so on
DD - But as I said, we got it as a freebie kind of, as we were updating the backend stuff behind the GM paging system. We had the email capability, so we figured why not add a front end to it and let you use it. So it didn't really cost us much to add (especially since that backend stuff was contracted out) and it' a nice thing to have
DD - I have to go afk a moment, my kinds are flipping out on me here :)
DD - er kids

Fripp - *Devon* When the Abyss Shard is made final, will it be wiped? And if it is wiped could there be something implemented to keep people from going to the purple stone and getting plate to sell in town to put houses up all over the place?
Runesabre - The Abyss shard will be wiped when it goes permanent. As far as people taking stuff from the NPCs...
Runesabre - ... and selling it off, as it stands only Faction players can use the equipment NPCs and stones. Doubt there will be anymore restrictions though.
Runesabre - We do plan on only allowing larger houses on the Abyss to cut down on the number of houses and help keep lag down.

Fripp - just an fyi to everyone asking for Joshua Rowen's site, you can read up on it at http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Fortress/7581/Noble.html

Fripp - *Picky* can you give us a broad outline of the boating changes? also will there be a way for the placer of a boat to get it back after being tossed to land without GM assist?
DD - We're still discussing boat changes, because we want to end up with what causes the leastdisruption for the most gain. Basically, though, the goal is that boats not actively being used should be docked. There wouldbe some easy way for yopu to get to boats you were tossed off of, such as recalling off the boat key.

Fripp - *Skul_PAC* Is it true you must have 0 murders to become evil or hero? (0 40 hour counts, and 0 8 hour counts)
DD - Right now, we believe it requires 0 murders, but keep in mind that everything about evil/hero is up for grabs as we redesign it.
Runesabre - I believe the current form of the Evil/Hero system requires a player to have 0 murders... of course that is not to say such requirements won't change in the future.

Fripp - *Dr_Adam[GL]* Can we expect any type of mass trasportation, like ore carts for ore, or wagons? and what about horse armor?
DD - no plans for those right now

Fripp - *Cuchulainn* Have you considered a 'charter' system from gaining the right to place houses in specific locations? Remapping regions of control, could make a base for charter granting, the old AL home and resource distribution, and even lend to the town and region control idea.
DD - Yes, we have indeed discussed such systems. They're pretty complex to implement, thoguh, and it would be hard to adapt current houses to it... there's also the question of how you grant the charters... but it is indeed something we have discussed at length.
DD - OK, my son just dropped popsicle down the front of his shirt so I fear I hgave to call it an evening, but the questions I believe will continue with answers from others. :) Sorry to duck out on you... my kids are totally flipping out here. :P
DD - bye all!

Fripp - *Mazrit* When bandages are cut will it use all the cloth in a pile to make bandages immediately as per making arrows.
Runesabre - Currently, bandages will be created one at a time. Course, they will auto-stack in your pack now. :)

Fripp - *Nimue* Are there any plans in development to implement a more plausible way to roleplay things like orcs and drow?
Runesabre - We have discussed having player races but there is nothing in the works in the near future. Would definitely be a nice feature in the long-term though.

Fripp - *Ashran* While I am looking at the uohoc chat, I don't see as much people as usually, myself has canceled the uoaccount (which could make some of the developers really happy :), but is UO dead?
Runesabre - I started playing UO when first came out in Sept. '97.
Runesabre - Few months later I started posting on some of the boards at the time... COB, UOVault, LaWiz.
Runesabre - Even Jan. of '98 I read several posts about "UO is dying".
Runesabre - If it were dying I wouldn't be working on it night after night like all the others on the Dev Team.
Pandemonium - Theres a ton more we can add, the engine is definitely not reached its full potential
Runesabre - UO has been and will continue to be for a long time a great place for people to come and be a part of a vibrant world.
* Rainman chuckles... we always have 150+ in here..
Runesabre - I realize for some, the magic may have died but for many others the journey is just beginning.

Fripp - *BiNKy-PAC* Are there any plans for parrying coming soon? I know that spell reflection was one idea. Are there any other ideas? When can we expect to see it all come in?
Runesabre - Parry is definitely on the list of skills to fix and improve... no actual time I can give as to when Parrying will be addressed.
Pandemonium - We are aware that its not as useful as it should be :)

Fripp - *Drockarius* Will it be possible to "go good" again after having been evil?
Runesabre - Most likely, once you have turned "evil" you will not be able to turn back to good.
Runesabre - Again, though, the design for the evil/good system is still being worked out.

Fripp - *Cuchulainn* Are there plans to let higer skilled posioners be more resistant to being poisoned?
Runesabre - If we allowed more resistance to poison it would probably be thru some other skill... poisoning is already useful as is.

Fripp - well everyone, it looks like we are about out of time
Fripp - I would like to thank everyone for coming, especially Runesaber, DD, Dupre, and Pandemonium
Fripp - the log will be posted shortly
Fripp - have a great night!