Glamdring - Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's Open House.
Glamdring - Tonight's chat topic is "In Testing and In Development"
Glamdring - I will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions please /msg or /query XenaDragon, Serephina or Niobe.
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 - Off topic questions will not be answered
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 - Jerrith will be msg'ing you after your question is asked
Glamdring - to see if the answer from OSI fully answers your question

Glamdring - *Bad_Magic{EE}-GL* with the coming of moonstones into the uo plotline many players wonder which level of creature they will be found on
Sage - Although we can't say much about moonstones, you should look for them on a variety of creatures of all levels.

Glamdring - *GoKu* With the purposed new system of secure house trading how will it be handled... what will stop people form Pking the person and just taking what they were going to use for payment; How will this be any safer from currant house trading methods?
SunSword - It won't stop people from pk'ing, but it will remove a large amount of the motivation
SunSword - It will allow players to use the tradewindow to transfer items in return for ownership of the house
SunSword - We are also experiementing with bank checks that will make it easier to trade larger amounts of money for items
SunSword - These changes, along with the badly needed tradewindow fixes, should help facilitate the trading of houses in game...

Glamdring - *C_Citern* "monster treasure revamp" = less treasure on monsters, more or just different ?
Firedog - Well, "revamp" may be a bit of an overstatement of the situation.
Firedog - For now, the changes will mostly matter to our newer players,
Firedog - as creatures will be carrying some smaller treasures that they weren't carrying before.
Firedog - More random potions, random scrolls, fewer backpacks, etc.
Firedog - And, of course, the Holy "A Scroll" has been kidnapped, so no more of its evil children will be appearing in the game.

Glamdring - *OneList Question* A few weeks ago, SunSword mentioned the possibility of having multi-story 1-room homes. How is this proceeding, especially in regard to how you would get to each floor?
SunSword - It's still in the design phase. We have the tools to build additional houses. I've gotten lots of great feedback on how players would like to see the new stories added, everything from ladders to teleporters.
SunSword - I'd like to put some ideas and pictures up on in concept in a few weeks and get your feedback.

Glamdring - *Stark* Has the addition of many concepts and designs that were not initially planned at the beginning of the "6 month plan" made it so that the UO:R release will be delayed?
SunSword - The plan is right on schedule. We haven't had many unplanned concepts or designs at all actually. The six month plan out lined our biggest changes, but we've been working on those incrementally along the way.
SunSword - I'm pretty happy with our progress actually.

Glamdring - *Hythlodaeus* Is there a possibility of making pure mages something more than tank mages minus weapon skills? The only way for magic reflect changes to be balanced is if pure mages have more magery skills than tanks, and if those are figured into the chance of dropping reflect. Pure mages would then be better mages than tanks, as it should be.
Sage - I think the proposed change takes that into account. Your tank mage is usually 100/25/100. If this is the case, the reflect spell will not be as effective for them.
Also see a few lines below...

Glamdring - *deciB3l* Can we get an explanation as to why someone cannot be healed if they are poisoned? *Especially* with spells, magic, of all things, should surpass that.
Sage - Right now, that is In Concept. We wanted to get feedback on it. However, it adds several new shades to PvP, and it falls more in line with the healing skill. Who is to say how *magic* works? :)

Glamdring - *C_Justinius-baja* the spawn change has been fantastic.Since the patch there has been a 5 times increase in spawn.Will this stay in effect?its what players have been wanting :)
SunSword - Glad you like it. I think the whole team is pleased about the changes.
SunSword - I would expect the spawn to stay as it is.
SunSword - It also nice that these changes came while improving server performance

Glamdring - *Ren* what is the status of the name change deeds?
SunSword - They are on hold for the moment.

Sage - Many people are messaging about the 100/25/100 and correctly pointing out that I was referring to dex monkeys and not tank mages
Sage - This In Concept idea was not directed at evening the balance between tanks and pure, but it is not the only set of changes we are considering.

Glamdring - *Btriad* will be all of houses types allowed (2-story, towers etc.) to be build at new lands or only new types?
SunSword - There's only one piece of interesting news I can think of on that subject: If we come up with a good multi-room house with the same footprint as the small house, I'd be tempted not to allow the placement of the original small hosues in the new lands
SunSword - There may be some temporary restrictions on the types of houses that get placed in the new lands, to allow for large structres to be placed, but t hat's still under debate and will be presented on "in concept"

Glamdring - *Aegean_LS* Is anything planned for the insta-hally hit? Is it supposed to skipp the delay?
Sage - Yes. We are currently looking at the insta-hally hit, and considering its removal.

Glamdring - *ONELIST* Have you considered adding descriptions to ALL Moongates? In other words, if a Player casts Gate, then you can single click on it and get the description (the same as is used to default-label runestones) of the destination.
Sage - No. We considered it, but decided that a mage wants to keep his destination private. We can respect that.

Glamdring - *Zeitgeist* What are some of the changes that are going to be made with NPCS?
Firedog - The majority of changes to NPC's are going to be small tweaks at this stage of the game,
Firedog - although they, too, will benefit eventually from some AI changes.
Firedog - The most important things you'll see involve NPC's training you.
Firedog - NPC's will have different, more appropriate skills, and they will only train you in them if they are
Firedog - at least journeyman level in the skill.
Firedog - You'll also see some minor differences in NPC equipment and treasure.

Glamdring - *Ren* any plans to convert the Smith and Carpentry menus to the new Tinkering style, I find last object very easy than wading thru sub-menus
Sage - There is nothing in the plans right now. However, this is a future change I would like to see implemented shortly after we reach the end of our six month plan. I know tOAD had talked about this as well.

Glamdring - *Web Page Question* I would like to know when the blacksmithing skill difficulty will be addressed?
SunSword - the fix is on TC right now
SunSword - so, now...

Glamdring - *Zeitgeist* What about the colored sandles problems?
SunSword - I assume you mean the problem with shopkeepers being killed for their sandals?
SunSword - If that's what you are referring to, then you'll be happy to know I'm working on some changes on the behaviours of shopkeepers, and also the spawn pattern for dead ones
SunSword - more to come later

Glamdring - *|Ka|N|* According to the poll on Stratics, the majority of the players would like to see pre~casting put back into the game. Since this seems to be popular demand, are there any plans to have it returned?
SunSword - According to a poll on stratics...everyone would like 10,000 gold in their back pack too....seriously, we've been monitoring the situation carefully. Magic users are still able to kill everyone.

Glamdring - *Btriad* do you think that escorting changes work well? Do you consider to make some corrections there? So many escorts stand there and the only they offer is lag!
SunSword - Yes, we're seriously considering bumping it down to 5 minutes.

Glamdring - *DaMaN* I think Housing restrictions in the Land will make people less motivated to do well in game, because they cannot have something specail to show for it, Like a castle or tower. not to mention to have more room. Why make it almost impossible to get larger homes?
SunSword - We wouldn't.
SunSword - And we aren't.
SunSword - There are over 5,000 houses on most shards
SunSword - We're about to seriously increase that number.
SunSword - Combined with one house per account, that's a lot of players with a lot of houses.
SunSword - one house per account per shard
SunSword - btw

Glamdring - *Exe_* "BTW, great changes lately, the game seems livelier than ever. Archery Question: Is there a reason you decided to increase the firing rate as opposed to decreasing the equip delay? IMO it's the equip delay which makes the bow practically useless in pvp and the reason most people choose not to use it."
Sage - Excellent point. Rune and I were discussing this earlier. This is definitely something we need to address. Should we go ahead with these changes, it will be. Excellent question. Thanks.

Glamdring - *Joshua_Rowan* What ever happened to that blue healing patch? (ie. you take on the flag of the person you heal)
SunSword - There were so many ramifications to play style that it's still being hotly debated. It may be easier to implement once we have the pvp consent decisions divided up geographically.
SunSword - i.e. "on hold"

Glamdring - I would like to thank everyone for coming and having excellent questions tonight. Thanks to Calandryll, Firedog, Sage and Sunsword for coming tonight as well. For unmoderated chat, please join #ultima-online. The log will be posted shortly
Glamdring - oh, and that Lord Pall guy who jumped ship =)