Niobe - Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's Open House.
Niobe - Tonight's chat is focusing on "General Discussion"
Niobe - I will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions please /msg or /query Fripp, XenaDragon, Destiny or Tigger
Niobe - 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.
Niobe - 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.
Niobe - 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.
Niobe - Thanks for coming, everyone. We will now begin accepting questions.

Niobe - *Mr_Bester-DC* Why has a stat control been left out?
toad - Stat control isn't part of the current design of Skill management, though it may be something we consider later. We do still want player to have stats associated with the skill they're highest in.

Niobe - *Pyrates* I remember when the housing plan had an idea for a "front yard", where tiles in front of your house were going to be used for things like gardens, hitching posts(what ever happened to that Idea?), ect. Is there any chance of this happening anytime soon??
toad - For right now we want to maximize the amount of space we currently have for houses themselves, and not use that space for something extraneous like front yards.
toad - Plus one of the problems with houses has always been the cluttered landscape and the inability of people to walk form place to place without getting stuck between two houses
toad - And putting front yards in front of everyones houses (especially if you can ban people from them, or kick people out of your front yard, which is likely to be something else that players will want to go along with that) will keep that problem from getting better.

Niobe - *Skull_* This evening a large amount of people have experienced account blocks due to unknown reasons, is OSI aware of this?
toad - We are aware of the problems with accounts, and are working feverishly to correct the problem as soon as possible.

Niobe - *Nikademus* Are there any plans to ever fix the communication problems when large groups of people are present at a location?
toad - At the moment that is not something that we're working on, though we are aware that there are problems with it.

Niobe - *Thandarian* On your house menu in the test center what does it mean when it says, "this house is of modern design"
Firedog - This message is used to indicate a house that was
Firedog - placed before major housing changes happened.
Firedog - This insures some degree of security for house
Firedog - purchasers who want to know that it's a "safe buy"

Niobe - *PolluxBaja* Hail and good evening all.. I was just wondering how the skill management system is coming along and how far off it is.
toad - Currently skill management is in the final stages of testing and hopefully you'll see an announcement about it before Thanksgiving.

Niobe - *Prescient* Do you have any idea what has happened with the smithing skill requirements yet?
toad - We are aware of the reports of problems and we are aggressively investigating the issues with it, as of this moment I can't say much more than that.

Niobe - *Daerin* Player-written books have a lot of potential, but really aren't utilized in-game nearly as well as they could be. Any chance of a way to "lock" text in a book, and perhaps fix the skill timeout delay bug when copying books with the inscription skill?
Firedog - We like to look at every profession as we go
Firedog - through the development process.
Firedog - And we're constantly trying to improve upon them.
Firedog - However, that process is a very long one,
Firedog - so don't expect changes any time soon.
Firedog - Still, we'll look into it.

Niobe - *Xanthor-Pacific* Tigger, About treasure maps, is there any possibility in the near future that maps like 5th level ones spawn same monster types that they come off of instead of easy ones. For example, a black Daeman colector of Souls should spawn same type, not the easy red ones. More harder the monsters, the more fun the maps.
Lord_Pall - Currently there are no immediate plans to change the way treasure maps spawn monsters..
Lord_Pall - BUT
Lord_Pall - at a later date, we will be doing a major overhaul of our monster AI. This will cover all aspects of monster creation..
Lord_Pall - So expect to see some new and interesting changes.

Niobe - *ONELIST* With Storage becoming an issue in the next couple updates, would you consider allowing players to create addition storage types so that we can add variety to our home d�cor? For instance, some containers already in the game (but non-player created) are Dressers, Vanities, and Full Size Barrels.
toad - We're certainly not against adding new things for players to craft, particularly things that already exist in the game (especially in large quantities) but at the moment it's not one our major priorities.
toad - So it's possible that we'll do it, and I'll certainly consider when we can do it, but probably not for a little while at least.

Niobe - *C_Kollrick* Exactly how does anatomy factor into damage in combat? And does it add to archery damage and spells?
toad - It gives a bonus to damage in melee and with archery, but evaluate intelligence is the skill that affects magery damage.
toad - I can't give you the exact calculations that it does though, sorry.

Niobe - *Fearless_Freep* Would it be possible to have your characters on an account be able to access each others bank boxes?
toad - Well, the short answer is that yes, it's possible. Will we make it possible? The answer to that is probably no. It's not something we've sat down and discussed before, but I dont think it's a change we'll be making anytime soon.

Niobe - *Chaos66* Can't there be done something about the monster spawning, as it is now, monsters spawn in impossible to reach places, spawn confined in hideous numbers (South Serpents Hold comes to mind) and lahs up the area horrible. I have often had to call GM's to free totally stuck spawn because everything has spawned inside a mountain or on an inaccessiable ledge...
Niobe - Can't you optimize the spawn engine so it spawns in more controlled numbers and places
Lord_Pall - well we are currently closely looking at the monster spawn.
Lord_Pall - we're discussing a couple of different spawn methods to solve not only this issue
Lord_Pall - but also the abundance of unpopular creatures in the world.

Niobe - *Fly19* when will phase 2 be inplemented into the game?
toad - I can't give you a specific date on that right at the moment, but we are currently working to make sure that it goes in as smoothly and cleanly as it can and as soon as possible.

Niobe - *OneList Question* When you brought in a new Quest Engine a few months ago to help out Newbies, it was assumed that you would also be using this same engine to create quests (via NPCs, Monsters, etc) for Intermediate and Veteran players as well. What's the deal? Quests would add a lot of spice and be a nice reward for us players that have dedicated so much time to the game.
toad - We have looked at doing just that, but I'm not sure that we want to use that exact system for advanced quests until we have more functionality available to it.

Niobe - *Darketower* During the summer, you had mentioned that the "Party System" would not be worked on till at least the later half of the year. Well, it's certainly the later half, so I have to ask...
toad - The party system has been looked at extensively by several members of our team, and currently we're trying to put together a good proposal that combines all the good ideas that we've gotten from players and had for ourselves. I can't say when we'll be done or when it will go in the game, but it is something that we're working on.

Niobe - *Ibn_Shaun* It is highly peculiar that when a healer with "superhuman dexterity" slips, he incurs the same penalty to healing as someone who is "rather clumsy". Considering the horrific performance of pure warriors in PvP -- who would, if any indeed exist, rely exlusively on healing skill, targetting this absurdity would be an effective first step at bringing more diversity to PvP.
Firedog - I agree with this statement.
Firedog - And, in fact, I'd like to look into this possibility...
Firedog - Of course, there are plenty of other things going on,
Firedog - but it's something that I'll try to get to.

Niobe - *Batir* With the newer multi-skill and multi-items being added in the (fairly) recent past, what are the chances of reworking some of the older items so that, for instance, a halbred actually takes wood to make the handle. Possibly as a seperate item made by carp's, or just using the wood as you smith...
toad - So, it's possible for us to do this, at the moment, we're not working on it.

Niobe - *spac3* How do moongates actually work, and why do they keep taking you to the same place over and over sometimes? Why not add more moongates around each one, and have them to specific towns, and when single clicked, it'll tell you which town it goes to. It would be much easier to travel without being able to recall, they are really troublesome and annoying.
toad - The moongates are really a part of Ultima History, for many of us who played the older ultima games, this would be sacrilege, to have multiple moongates in one location, with names no less, that lead you to wherever you wanted to go. :)
toad - Honestly, though, they could be made a little friendlier, without such a drastic change being made to them, and I'm all for doing something about it.

Niobe - *Eddie* Is there any plan on fixing the cure potions so that the higher cures are needed to cure the higher poisons? Right now lesser cures have a large percentage to cure even deadly, and magic cure can cure all of them way too easily, making poisoning pretty weak.
Firedog - Yes.
Firedog - Yes there is.
Firedog - Soon, hopefully.
Firedog - Should be a part of early phases of the new alchemy stuff.

Niobe - *Lupio41* When you put a "stop" on a skill, under the new skill locks, will you still gain points, until you've eaten up all your bonus points from your stats, or will you not gain anything in that skill, bonus or regular?
Runesabre - When you lock a skill, it will no longer gain in that skill.
Runesabre - Your stats could change which might change your effective skill level, but not your "real" skill level.

Niobe - *Arthur-LoD* is there ever gonna be ocean combat? ships are a waste of space at the moment, and could really do some good pvp. maybe new boat types... like a battleship, 2x as wide and capable of holding cannons... and make the masts have colored sails to go with guild colors. and make them boardable if there are no living enemies on an enemy boat.
SunSword - CANNONS!!!!
* XenaDragon hides *
SunSword - I'd love to do ship combat.
Lord_Pall - ohdear
SunSword - Is it going to happen anytime soon? No.
SunSword - Unfortunately there are a very many number of things that we need to take care of in the next yet.
SunSword - But given the popularity and longevity of this game, I certainly hope that one day we can expand the horizons of the naval world

Niobe - *Dartagne* Toad, why do u say "So," at the beginning of sentences? :P
toad - It's a bad habit I've picked up from Tyrant. :P
toad - (I am so fired.)
Runesabre - *laughs*
toad - Good night!
* XenaDragon chuckles *
* Destiny Giggles *

Niobe - Time is up for this edition of the UOHoC. Thank you all for attending and thanks to our question takers, toad, SunSword, Firedog and Lord_Pall for attending this evening.
Niobe - Please join #ultima-online to continue with unmoderated chat
Niobe - and lastly, congrats to Joshua Rowan, November winner of the Lord British Award for Excellence in the Community. Please join him and the rest of the Golden Brew crew
Niobe - as they perform The Wizard of Oz. Saturday 5pm PST, Sunday 2pm PST on the Shard of Baja. Gates will be provided at the Sturdy Bow in Yew 30 minutes before each performance.