Glamdring - Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's Open House.
Glamdring - Tonight's chat is considered General Discussion and as such we will accept questions of any topic relating to UO.
Glamdring - Glamdring will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions please /msg or /query Fripp, Niobe, Jerrith or XenaDragon.
Glamdring - 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 myself--these questions will be ignored.
Glamdring - 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.
Glamdring - 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.
Glamdring - Thanks for coming, everyone. We will now begin accepting questions.
Glamdring - *Grellinstone* my question is about skills capping out and the skill loss you very often get at 100. Is there a way for you to stop the skill loss at 100, maybe a lock on a few skills, or a way that will enable a fisherman or smith to remain at GM status to reap the benefits while still being able to play the game?
DD - We've often discussed skill locks and better skill management. We still want to get this in there--however, we ALSO believe that atrophy is very very very important, and that there must be a requirement to keep working at a skill, or at the very least other tradeoffs, to keep it at grandmaster level. So I guess the answer is that yes, we hope to have better skill management, but don't plan to make it so you can simply set it to whatever you want and never suffer any atrophy at all.
Glamdring - *Hythlodaeus* Why do energy vortices do more damage to smarter characters? It seems odd that high stats should be a liability.
Faceless - Actually they do the same amount of damage to characters of different int. They do have a propensity to attack smarter creatures however.
Glamdring - *ImaSupa* It has been noted that preliminary versions of Last Target, Target Self, and Target Health bar are working and in private testing. Any word on how these might function?
DD - Well, they use configurable macro keys. And there's more than just those. :) But you will have to wait and see. It's much nicer than any 3rd party stuff available. :)
DD - Like, much nicer. But I don't want to give too much away. Uhh... let's just say that if you have problems targeting things with the mouse, you'll be very happy.
Glamdring - *Coen* Roleplaying is becoming more and more an organized activity. From people becoming orcs and living in the fort near Shame, to being pirates on the open seas, using nothing but pure brute force in numbers. What's the possibility of creating a shard designated as a 'roleplaying primary' shard for such groups to meet, and influence a world of their own?
DD - Sure. I hereby declare Atlantic, Catskills, Chesapeake, Great lakes, Lake Superior, Pacific, Sonoma, Napa, Baja, Hokuto, Asuka, Yamato, Europa, and Drachenfels as roleplaying primary shards. :)
DD - Did I get them all?
DD - Abyss can be the non-roleplaying shard for now :)
DD - Oops, I missed Wakoku :P Roleplaying also! :)
DD - I guess the underlying serious point there is that every shard could be a Catskills or a Great lakes or whatever shard people feel is "rp heavy". It just takes organizing and making it happen.
DD - I'd say the influence of groups like Shadowclan, SBR, or in fact ANY organized group can be immense on their home shard.
Glamdring - *Muiy* DD has teased Dragonscale armor - are there solid plans for it happening? If not, are there other plans to make becoming a GM Tailor more useful?
DD - Nope, it's still just teasing, sorry. :(
Glamdring - VaulOfAtl* Are there plans to make parrying a warriors skill for extra defense against magery?
Faceless - There's nothing definate yet, but we are still talking about it. Adding a change like that would require spending time re-balancing combat somewhat,
Faceless - which is something we don't have time to do right now. When we get back to combat, we'll bring it up again.
Glamdring - *SRC_Damsel* Hi :) Might tailors get to make backpacks, pouches and such? and will little pouches and leather goods ever be dyable?
DD - Nice ideas, both of them. We'll see if we can add it to the list for any future tailoring revisions.
Glamdring - *Joshua_Rowan* 1) Does the Dev Team have any immediate plans to address the problems with After-Market House Selling? Maybe even just a simple interface directly on the House Signs to help the Owner Transfer ownership that also allows the Buyer to exchange gold pieces? I ask because Scams and Housing Shortages have become a major issue for a lot of players lately.
DD - A house auction system or other method of secure house selling is indeed a very high priority. So yes, we do have plans to address this as soon as we can.
Glamdring - *Beans* Any plans yet for adding alliances to the guild system?
DD - No plans just now, we've got a bunch of stuff on the plate right now.
Glamdring - *Cedric* Has any consideration been made to provide any sort of special abilities for healers that have obtained grandmaster status? Reducing the self healing delay is an idea for instance.
DD - Currently we don't have additional plans for healers just now--not ruling out more stuff later, but right now we're trying to pay attention to some other professions...
Glamdring - *Estraven* Is there a possibility to create such thing as intershard portal? It could allow for safely moving an evolved chracter to another shard (for whatever technical or personal requiring a big amount of money and perhaps even some quest element (say, it appears only once in a while in some place you have to find out about)
DD - We are not going to allow character transfer from shard to shard. We feel that it is too disruptive to the culture and community of specific shards.
Glamdring - *Joshua_Rowan* 3) The new UODR
over on Stratics seems to have some very good ideas on it. Is the Dev Team consulting
this board to help determine new things to put into the game? Some of the best
ones (restrains himself from plugging his own idea) are Rune Books and Resmelting
Armor/Weapons, IMHO.
Pandemonium - I like the idea of resmelting items for ingots and custom floor tile idea.
DD - Yes, we visit the Ideas board, and yes,
there are some nice ideas on it. Both the ones you mentioned are pretty old
ones, in fact--they've certainly been floating around the dev team for well
over a year.
Faceless - we were actually talking about those two items today
Faceless - Both very good ideas for reducing item count
Glamdring - *Jet* What is the current state of Necromancy/Alchemy?
Faceless - Alchemy is farther along the design phase. We revamped the research design so it works more like a puzzle. Because alchemy is farther along, I would expect to see it in testing before necromancy, whose design is not finished.
Faceless - I would expect to see the alchemy in testing in one of the next two updates. With necromancy, I can't say for sure yet. Maybe we'll have more by next chat.
Glamdring - *Grellinstone* Is the new Swedish servers going to just be T2A add ons or is there going to be another European server coming up on the 24th???
DD - We are launching formally in Europe--you may have seen the press release about it. What this means is local support, and the game available normally at retail in Europe.
DD - As always, if demand merits new servers, then we'll certainly look into opening them.
Glamdring - *Kman* Could you give the current status of the projects being worked on currently by the DEV Team?
DD - Well, we just covered some of it a question or two ago... a quickie rundown:
DD - - alchemy has some potions done and is likely to enter testing in the next two updates
DD - - necro has further to go
DD - - you've been seeing the client stuff that Pandemonium has been doing--there's more of that you haven't seen yet (and not just done by him either, lest you think that he's hogging the code. ;)
DD - - the harassment logging thing just went in, so you know about that--that took a while
DD - - email system is in testing internally, basically done
DD - - we've been doing lots of stuff you can't see (infrastructure stuff, both client and server)
DD - - lastly, we mentioned at the player luncheon here in Austin that we were working on revamping the newbie experience, making it friendlier,adding quests, etc... we're chugging along nicely on that and starting internal testing pretty darn soon
DD - plus the usual bugfixing, etc. All in all, though, it sure seems like a lot...! No wonder we're here so late these days... ;)
Glamdring - *DDH-Tef|wind* when u get hit by magic while applying bandages, ur fingers still slip twice, wasn't this going to be fixed last patch?
DD - Yes, we have seen the reports, we're just going to have to look at it again. :) Thanks to Ibn-Shaun and others who have sent in and posted reports with details, it'll help a lot to track it down.
Glamdring - *Blackheart* Hey, a big problem in PvP these days is that people can run away on horseback so easily. Are there any plans to limit the use of horses (perhaps requiring a skill in horseback riding or something)? Thanks!
DD - Nope, no plans to change that at all right now...
Glamdring - *Xillin* How bout making it where you can give people access to your dead body. I mean why should they be flagged criminal if they are helping you? Maybe saying "I grant thee access to my corpse"
DD - The really right solution for that is probably tied into having a party system. :( So it probably won't happen until that's ready to go.
Glamdring - *Cass* Is housing maintenance going to be put in or are we at a happy state with housing the way it is??
DD - I view it as very likely that housing maintenance will need to go in.
Glamdring - *Fade* Is UO ever going to end? I mean, with UO2 and U9 coming out, how much longer will UO be available?
DD - As long as enough of you keep playing, there is no reason that UO has to ever go away. People predicted its demise with Baldur's Gate, with Starcraft, with EQ, and probably will keep predicting it. MY prediction is that they will always be wrong.
Pandemonium - Its far from dying, there is so much more that can be done
DD - And by the way, we're NOT losing players despite what fans of other games would have you believe. We have grown since launch and I expect that we'll continue to do so indefinitely.
DD - We strongly believe that UO is the richest, deepest, most flexible online game out there. No reason for it to fade away. :)
Glamdring - *DeGodefroi* How will you make sure that popular and well known players and seers do not get: "Welcome to Ultima Online: You have 1432 messages waiting."?
DD - You can only receive in-game email if you give a "greeting card
DD - (think of it like giving an ICQ number)...
DD - So you can't get unsolicited email. You can also revoke a greeting card from someone, so if they annoy you, you can simply take your address out of their address book and they cannot email you again.
Pandemonium - email is handled on a seperate server so your game will not 'lag' because of the new email feature
XenaDragon - I'd like to thank Designer Dragon, Pandemonium, Faceless, Runesabre and the people working behind the scenes for todays chat. The next chat will be in two weeks. Take care.
DD - Night all!
At that point the official chat was over but Pandemonium stayed a while longer to answer some more questions.
Leafbeach - Pand: Any chance of modifying the stable system? As it is now, you get all your pets even if you just want one, and have to restable the others. A sytem like menu from tracking where you select a creature would be nice.
Pandemonium - If we could add a scrollable claim menu or something that would be best i think
Pandemonium - sort of like the buy/sell interface
Hythlodaeus - Stabling should be like you did with boats
Hythlodaeus - where they become miniaturized
Hythlodaeus - and you can put them in your backpack
Hythlodaeus - Pets could be traded securely then too
Pandemonium - Well we need secure trading for pets so we can test some other ideas like training up monsters and being able to res them
Ibn_Shaun - You can't give pets vulgar names can you?
Pandemonium - the name filter needs some work
WildfireMT - Pandemonium:Have you had any luck tracking down the ghost graphics in the client?
Pandemonium - i found some mem leaks that are getting fixed
Pandemonium - the ghosts seem to be related to the 800x600 mode support code
Pandemonium - since noone reported them before 37a
Kicksome - Pand: Are there any plans for more house addons in the near future?
Pandemonium - The floortile idea seems to be very popular, i'd like to see that one get done
Pandemonium - But right now im just working on client fixes
Pandemonium - the additional visuals are put on hold until them
XenaDragon - Pand: Since you're working on fonts; any chance there will be a change of font for the in-game Journal so all colors text will be actually readable ?
Pandemonium - the journal text i'll need to outline in black or just make them darker
Ibn_Shaun - Pand, why didn't you make the unicode font gradient? .. that is the one that is hardest to read in the journal
Pandemonium - the font stuff isnt done yet - thats why its a beta client
Kicksome - Pand: My client slows down very badly after about 1hr + of playing... is this a known problem?
Pandemonium - kicksome: yes its a very old bug with a memory leak problem, im eliminating them slowly
Cuchulainn - How about being able to have a skill window gump according to the character loggin in with.
Pandemonium - the skill and macro settings i want to save based on character name
Pandemonium - right now they save based on the character slot # 1-5
Ibn_Shaun - Pand, they really do? I have only one macros.txt file
Pandemonium - i was referring to the desktop files, the macros i want to make based on character name like Pandemonium.mac
Pandemonium - so if you have a sell macro, it can use the same keys but say something different for each player
Sechana|SSP - Pand: are there gonna be any updates [ever?] to make cooking at least slightly more useful then camping?
Pandemonium - Cooking needs some work, i know - i've tried the skill, its not very profitable compared to something like tailoring
Pandemonium - Maybe magic cake baked with daemons blood :)
Pandemonium - hehe
Kicksome - Pand: could you PLEASE look into the way that Spell shortcut buttons are saved to the desktop? They never stay put when I relogin!
Pandemonium - yes ill check the icons saving problem
Brainfuzz - Pand: Is the new client gonna have a key shortcut to bring up an ignore target? That'd be really nice...
Pandemonium - I can see about adding that
Jalloppie - Pandemonium: Will necromancy be a skill or new thing like Magery with a book and all? If like magery, will it use spells from the previous Ultima games? Like Pagan?
Pandemonium - Its up for debate whether it should just be new pages in eveyones existing mage book or something else
Pandemonium - I lean more towards adding new sections to everyones mage book, to keep item count down (but thats just my current opinion)
Mind - Pand: Do you plan to change the way Night Sight works? And also days and nights? Colored lightnings are just useless during days or when Night Sight is casted. :(
Pandemonium - Nightsight kinda spoils all the atmosphere of a dungeon, I have been experimenting with it making it work like infra/ultravision instead
Pandemonium - so things are dark and moody, and all monsters and players are outlined
Pandemonium - I sort of lean towards having an option to outline your targets like baldurs gate/diablo instead of coloring them totally like it is now
Pandemonium - that way stuff like stone harpies and the other colored monsters keep their coloring
Rainman - I hate seeing ettins turn grey
Pandemonium - yeah its not too pretty, i'm working on it :)
Pandemonium - As for the lighting im trying to balance it so its dark enough to be moody but bright enough people forego using nightsight in its current form
danek - Pand, will there be anything done for those of us who kill something, and then some guy comes and loots it, so we dont' waste and lose money? It's a big problem in many areas like the terathan keep. is there anyhting being done to stop this kind of thing?
Pandemonium - looters are a pain i know, i'm not sure how to address that, its not my area of expertise really
Pandemonium - Party system is something we want to have, its just not at the top of the list right now
Swift|SSP - Pand: Do ya think they could ever put in all the things that are on the CD? Like the outfits that were never put in?
Pandemonium - Theres alot of art that isnt used yet, we'll eventually use it all
C_Sluggo-Son - Pand: With the addition of seasons, will there be a set calender?
Pandemonium - Its up for debate how long seasons should last
Pandemonium - my feeling is 2-3 weeks per season
Pandemonium - so players dont have to wait forever to see them all
Thanatos - hey pandemonium, what about skill control options, besides the "upcoming" potions?
Pandemonium - Well the skill control options have to be discussed, whether we implement locks or something like that