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 - I will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions please /msg or /query Niobe, Xander 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 - *C_Blackblade* are there any plans to lower the minimum skills required for blacksmiths to make items, since they were raised with the resmelting patch?
SunSword - We're seriously investigating the issue
SunSword - We realize that there appears to be a change in the difficulty of blacksmithing
SunSword - We haven't arrived at an acceptable solution yet. But we will.

Glamdring - *Malik_Yagova* Are there any plans to encourage assassins to utilize the poisoning skill other than relying on secondary characters for their poisoning services? Possible suggestions: a bonus to poisoning damage, better chance to poison a victim, allow more poisoning attempts for the assassin, or possibly poison resistance? Right now, any warrior can wield a poisoned blade with equal proficiency as an assassin who has mastered the poisoning skill.
Firedog - Well, the short answer is "yes".
Firedog - I've seen and heard a lot of good ideas for expanding the assassin class,
Firedog - and I have a few more of my own.
Firedog - What will actually appear, and when it will appear, is currently unknown.
Firedog - But everybody knows that I like to enhance every skill.

Glamdring - *ghyde* With the skill management system in, why not allow players to see at a glance which skills are marked up? It's a bit tiring scrolling through a list, and having multiple characters means we can't always put them in a group by themselves.
SunSword - Well, we're off to a good start, I hope
SunSword - We will be looking at ways to enhance the interface in the near future, I know everyone would like to be able to save their interface settings per characer/per shard
SunSword - That's certainly an idea worth considering

Glamdring - *Eddie* How about changing the way you dismount/mount so that it is a command, or at least a macro? It seems it would help with many annoyances with how it is at this time. Would it be hard to add a feature such as this?
SunSword - That's a very good idea...
Sage - I could be wrong, but I think the mount and dismount option usually works pretty well. It is a good idea, but not something I think we are going to focus on any time soon.
SunSword - Perhaps one of the things we'll look at a few months down the line.

Glamdring - *CJ* With the addition of meditation, wouldn't it seem more reasonable to allow spell disruption to be based on meditation skill and not wrestling? A pure mage really shouldn't need to have a fighting skill.
SunSword - Not likely to change any time soon.

Glamdring - *GwAr|Napa* Any thoughts on making runebooks newbie items? Right now they are pretty much worthless due to loss
Sage - I would disagree with that assessment. I keep one in the bank for storage, and one on my person. I don't believe we should make runebooks newbie items if runes are not also newbie items.
Sage - Like anything else, you have to be prudent with the equipment you carry around. I think if runebooks are being used as a way to carry around sixteen runes, you should be prepared to lose them. :)

Glamdring - *Ibn_Shaun* In the original plan for the healing skill, health would be restored for all successful healing attempts -- an additional check for a cure would only be applied if the patient was also poisoned. No one complained because, at the time, monsters were not poisoning and the poison spell was 100% resistable at even low levels of resistance. This flaw is now exploited to the point that healing has no value in PvP.
Firedog - I agree that healing probably doesn't work in exactly the manner that we intended it to...
Firedog - And that it is being used against healers.
Firedog - So, yes, I'd say that it's something that I will be looking at in the future.
Firedog - Again, the timeline for changes of this nature is unclear.

Glamdring - *web question* There has been a lot of talk on the boards about using pre-placed housing for the expansion lands. Has OSI read on this topic? If so, what are your thoughts?
SunSword - Indeed, we've considered the option from the beginning
SunSword - It's a possibility, but not something we're decided on. We'll be talking in a lot more detail over the next few months about what exactly will happen with housing in the new land.
SunSword - I'm sure you're all ready to start hammering it out :)

Glamdring - *Z|ggy* Have you ever thought about removing the "I wish to honor thee" or make it so that it doesnt give others karma...its rather annoying for the few Dreads out there to have someone ruin your titel =)
Sage - Yes. We wil probably have a solution for this soon.
SunSword - just say we need to add a confirmation
SunSword - Heheh

Glamdring - *Lietgardis* Would it be possible to remove the [exceptional] tag from GM-crafted items? It's obvious it's high quality already. "Platemail made by Stella Maris [exceptional]" really doesn't look good at all.
SunSword - Yes
SunSword - Look for info on the update center in the next few days
SunSword - we'll be fixing several issues that came up with the last patch

Glamdring - *SRC_Hamlet* This may be a silly question, but will christmas trees be made placeable again? :)
toad - Yes.
toad - So, yes.
SunSword - two in a row..

Glamdring - *tRaoul* New features such as a housing expansion, party system, etc. were said to arrive in February. Does this still hold true?
toad - So, yes.
SunSword - We are still working to meet those on target
SunSword - Our goals have not changed on that front.
SunSword - Although I don't think we ever said specifically february
SunSword - The features you mentioned are still under development

Glamdring - *Cestle* are there any plans to look at the bard class and expand with a few new skills so we can have a true bard instead of someone that has provacation and largly relys on fighting skills...basicly get them more away from fighting like it was done with mages
SunSword - Not at the moment.

Glamdring - *Fake_Lord_British* Are there any plans for some "Millenium" gifts to ring in the new year?
SunSword - No, the new millenium isn't for another year, so it would be a little premature...
SunSword - as for the new year in general, we should see..

Glamdring - *web question* Currently, it is impossible to use recall scrolls on with Rune Books that have been locked down, as in a public Rune Library. Are there any plans to fix this?
Sage - I think this is something we could add. At the time, the feature was left out because I did not see the value for allowing people to use charges from locked down books. However, if you bring your own... So sure. This is probably something we will address and smack me for being short sighted

Glamdring - *SoulFly* Are there any new colors coming to mining like the dragon color that was on abyss and when will smiths be able to craft magical items?
SunSword - Not on the horizon folks. We have a whole slew of new features coming your way as it is.
SunSword - If you remember, enchantment and magical items was a little pet project of mine, but I've had to backburner it for now.

Glamdring - *Vanquished* Will the Nightmare/Ostard blocking bug be fixed anytime soon? Also give any thought about readding silver and dark steeds to regular shards as tameable creatures?
Sage - I think we need to evaluate blocking on a much larger front than Nightmares and Ostards. Such as the fact that ghosts can block as well. Definitely something we want to address, but we have to do so carefully to avoid other issues.
Sage - The silver and dark steed will probably not be looked at until after the new lands open up. :)
Sage - Actually, the spawn blocking is currently being addressed. Sorry for giving the answer to another issue.

Glamdring - *Eddie* Why do tinkers and poisoners get murder counts for trapping player-made chests/box or poisoning food, when both of these cases it is the player that actually got killed that did the killing (he took it upon him/herself to do the action that ultimatly killed him/her). I wouldn't think this would effect anything but make everyone a bit more cautious of food or boxes.
SunSword - Poisoning and trapping are underhandded ways of killing other players (underhanded in the fiction context)
SunSword - Because the system cannot clearly determine the intent or context of the exact situation, we have to err on the side of the killed player
SunSword - I've seen and considered several alternate systems that would allow the system to evaluate the context of the action more clearly
SunSword - but until we get around to it, the current system will stand

SunSword - In the lull
SunSword - One of our newest programmers has been working on the container crash bug
SunSword - we've put up a test client
SunSword - check it out at ftp://ftp.owo.com/pub/uo/client/containerfix
SunSword - and thank Jalek if it works :)

Niobe - *Marduk* Have you guys moved forward with any additions to making leather armor an actual benefit to any shard other than Siege? I know that many have proposed ideas such as bear hide armor, dragon scale armor, ophidian hide armor, etc...
toad - At the moment we don't have any plans to change the way armor is working on any of the other shards, though we have all (I'm sure) seen the requests and ideas.
toad - This may be something we give more consideration to sometime in the future.

Niobe - *DarkHand* My UO CD is from right after the beta. Everytime I reinstall I have to wait for over an hour to update! Any possibility on having an executable we could, say, download from uo.com that would update your client to the current version?
Sage - We are currently looking at some ways to shrink the patching.
Sage - So that is something of which we are aware.
Sage - Would you like a copy of T2A? ;)

Niobe - *web question* I know you hear this question all the time and GM's get bothered by it constantly, but do you ever plan to address what EXACTLY is 'legal' and 'illegally' placed? Houses can make or break people in UO, and the longer you wait the more people who will be scammed by purchasing illegal houses.
SunSword - Yes we do. We are aware that the situation has become a bit distressing to those. Before we take an actions to deal with these houses, we will make sure to give clarity to the situation, and let everyone adjust.
GM_Rock - As far as the GM's are involved,
GM_Rock - we do get asked constantly about houses.
GM_Rock - We as GM's aren't directly involved in this process, but do report suspicios houses to be examied by the development team.
GM_Rock - It's really not necessary to page a GM about houses at this point, because we aren't deleting them, or making people move them unless they are REALLY extreme... and then it's usually already in the works. :)

Niobe - *Elendale* Is there any plans on implementing a secure housing transaction system?
Sage - Absolutely. I think everyone on the team considers this a high priority right now.
Sage - Keep watching In Concept.

Niobe - *web question* When exactly do you plan to fix the Perma check exploit. Currently people with 0 steal (skill locked) can check for thieves, making Forensics more useless then it is.
SunSword - One second.
SunSword - First, as you are probably well accustomed to, I'm not going to be able to give you an exact answer
SunSword - It's not high on the priority list, at the moment, so I wouldn't expect it to happen any time soon.

Niobe - *Elendale* Did the plans for boats in the in-concept get taken back to the drawing board? Or will be seeing something on boats soon?
Sage - Yes they did. It was a good example of how In Concept works. We just felt it was not strong enough, and so we had to reevaluate it. Thanks to everyone who responded BTW.

Niobe - Thank you for joining us this evening.
Niobe - Please come back in 2 weeks for our next UOHoC. In the meantime, logs of this chat will be posted on http://uohoc.stratics.com/
Sage - As always Big Thanks again to all the UO volunteers!

Niobe - Please join #ultima-online for continued unmoderated discussion
* SunSword watches Sage do a "shout out" *