FrostByghte - Conference will begin in a bit....please head to #ultima-online for chatting
Glamdring - Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's Open House.
Glamdring - Tonight's chat is considered General Discussion and the FYI section of www.owo.com and as such we will accept questions of any topic relating to UO.
Glamdring - I will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions please /msg or /query Jerrith, Romeo or Milamber.
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 - *Banstyle* Is there any chance we might see some added boat security in the near future?
SunSword - There is a chance. If you'd like to express your opinion on what should be done with boats, please send us your comments!

Milamber - *ImaSupa* Will the availability of magic weapons/armor be investigated for reduction? IMO, a level 1 chest/SOS should yield only ONE magic item, a level 5 chest should yield 5. Treasure maps and SOS's have flooded the shards with countless items as a result.
SunSword - Loot spawn is always under revision...
SunSword - Again, please send us your comments

Glamdring - *Scipio* Any future plans to further specialize warriors, like mages have been? Maybe have ones skill in their opponents weapon help them to hit/defend, then all weapon skill will be useful to pure warriors.
SunSword - After the accessibility update, there's a great deal of possibilities. Expanding the options for melee combat is an interesting possibility...nothing is nailed down at the moment.

Glamdring - *Lem* Would it be possible to have some sort of vague ETA on the Aug. 10 patch?
SunSword - It's in Beta now
SunSword - As we fix the problems we find, the publish gets closer
SunSword - The entire team is in crunch right now (working extra hours)
SunSword - So we hope to get it published soon.

Glamdring - *raistlan* Hi - are there any current plans for being able to have different macros assigned to different characters, rather than having global macros for all characters?
SunSword - We've seen some interesting 3rd party programs that do this, but there aren't plans to do it right now.

Glamdring - *Arent-DotL* Is there anything in the works for a new land/addon like T2A (only larger and containing areas suitable for housing)?
SunSword - No
SunSword - There currently arne't plans for a new cd or anything that large
SunSword - We are ready to move on to frequent updates with bug fixes and new features, but there are no immediate plans for a new continent or new CD

Glamdring - *Pandora_of_the_CoD* currently public castles are nearly impossable to ban trouble makers from, is there a possability that we could get more castle security? perhaps you could flag all the steps of the castle like the front steps...
SunSword - I've been looking at the issues with castle security for a while now, it's going to take some more work, but it is something I've been looking at. No ETA at the moment.

Glamdring - *raistlan* Hello - I was wondering what the status is of implementing the tinker-style menus for other crafts, such as Blacksmithing?
SunSword - That's the kind of thing that we will try to do when we go back to frequent updates (after the accessibility publish). So, as for the status...it's one of those things we are waiting on.

Glamdring - *xog* Do you have an ETA or any details for any type of skill management?
SunSword - currently there is no ETA, and unfortunately I cannot comment on the details. I am willing to discuss it in other forums, however.

Glamdring - *Wysp* I probably ask this every time, but any chance we'll ever get to see more color in our world? more items, and more decorative things? new artwork?
Glamdring - Romeo sorry
SunSword - We know you're sorry, Romeo
SunSword - Wysp, we always make an effort to add little things to the crafts during the frequent update cycle. We are likely to continue doing so.

Glamdring - *Adimar* Are there plans to revamp some of the under-utilised skills like forensics, veterinary, begging, camping, cooking, herding, tracking, etc? If so any particulars for us? :)
SunSword - Adimar, as you know, we're always looking at ways to work with the under-utilized skill...I don't have particulars because I'd be shot if I gave them, but take for instance, the arrow we are using for newbie quests, perhaps it could be used for tracking? We'll see.

Glamdring - *_HellMngr* Any comments on the new OSi online games and why they are hiring coders from the outside for it?
SunSword - _HellMngr, well, no specific comments other than I'm looking forward to playing them :). As for the hiring, new games = new coders. Because UO is an online environment, we can't move people off of it for a new game without replacing them, and because we're ramping up our development
SunSword - we have had the need for more employees...

Glamdring - *Steroid* What is the current status on quests?
SunSword - Newbie quests are in Beta Test now
SunSword - The underlying code seems to be working well, so hopefully we can move over to more complex quests that are more interesting to advance players.

Glamdring - *Jerrith* What's the best way to be considered for one of those new coder positions, SunSword? *smiles*
SunSword - Apply.
SunSword - =)

Glamdring - *Cathos_Saiteth* Currently on SP, all (i think) ROT skills go up at only .1 every attempt, even at the very begining stages (0.0) and go up .1 at the very high stages (like 85 hiding) even when you fail, any eta on a fix for that?
Runesabre - The advancement curve is based off of time intervals, so rather than adjusting two variables I would simply adjust one...
Runesabre - That being the time interval. As of now I am happy with how the system is working.

Glamdring - *Tazcid* Is it possible to add a ban feature to ban every non friended player in a house for added security?
SunSword - Possible? yes. Not likely, however. Houses continue to be more and more secure.

Glamdring - *xog* Sunsword : you just made a comment that you're ramping up your development, and i assume that you're referring to UO. Since you've recently lost the senior members of the old dev team to a new project, are you adding new members? Even if you're not, does this comment imply that we'll be seeing even more new systesm than the much ballyhooed Necro and Alchy patches?
SunSword - The ramping up comment was referring to the fact that we are moving to online only and have other things in the pipe
SunSword - as for Necro and Alchemy, we haven't fogotten about them...

Glamdring - *raistlan* As one of the people beta testing the new client, I have had some fun playing. The question is, are all new characters going to be stuck with "young" status, or will the player be able to opt out of it when they start?
Runesabre - Currently, all players that start a new account will be considered a "young" player.
Runesabre - We have discussed allowing a player to opt out but for now there is no such functionality for that.

Glamdring - *Omniversal* The skill gain with the newbie quests seems a bit big -- not counting the really big increases that are a bug. What is the skill increase *supposed* to be?
SunSword - 5 points
SunSword - (that was easy)

Glamdring - *Lotus* when can we see the hero/evil system... come in place its been a long time since it apeared on abyss can we be expecting it with the accessibilty update?
Runesabre - The hero/Evil system will not appear with the Accessibility update.

Glamdring - *Counselor_LordJim* Hi there :) Do you have an ETA on the locking of the patio door on a large house with a patio? (door that leads to room before going behind the counter)
SunSword - Well, first, may I note that I'm unlikely to be able to give you real ETA's on anything at the moment. I have a solution for that problem, and would like to get it in, but it depends on how much we can do at a time after the current update.

Glamdring - *Jektal* Since everyone has all the GUMP artwork on their computers, any plans to add simple T2A items like the new options menu to the older non-upgraded client version?
Runesabre - In fact that is exactly the plan. Both T2A and the original UO clients will get updated.

Glamdring - *Counselor_LordJim* Is there anything in the works to help a player find his or her lost boat? currently only a GM can do this.
SunSword - We are currently discussing ways to deal with this, nothing set in stone at the moment.
SunSword - sorry, technical problems.

Glamdring - Okay all...I'm sorry but we're going to go ahead and call it a night
Glamdring - I would like to thank everyone for coming
Glamdring - Thanks to Sunsword, Runesabre and Calandryll...we really appreciate it
Glamdring - don't forget to join #ultima-online for continued discussion