Glamdring - Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's Open House.
Glamdring - Tonight's chat topic is "In Testing"
Glamdring - I will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions please /msg or /query Jerrith, Serephina, Arithon, Destiny or Rainman.
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 - *Saravok* I like what's happening with the factions, however, are there some considerations being given to prevent a snowballing effect of everyone joining a single faction once it has taken power?
SunSword - Yes, the first counter measure is that the more members you have
SunSword - the more money you need for upkeep
SunSword - that means that very large factions will have a much harder time paying for their improvements like vendors and guards
SunSword - now that the faction system is getting relatively stable, we'll be looking at other automatic balancing mechanisms like those used in the color wars, but only if necessary

Glamdring - *Rockie* When will the trammel portion of the UO:R patch be released?
SunSword - UO:R includes trammel
SunSword - once testing is done, it will be released along with the rest of the features. It's on TC now

Glamdring - *Theowyn_Dinner* 3 Questions: 1. Will old land deeds be usable in the new lands? 2. Any word on new house designs? 3. What is being done to handle the land rush? multile stages of housing allowed, etc.?
SunSword - 1 yes
SunSword - 2 very close to being on TC (reviewing the desigs now)
SunSword - 3. staged = castles and keeps, everything bigger than a small foot print, everything
SunSword - I also cover this in my pending comments from the team (submitted, almost there!)

Glamdring - *Mupp252* Fishing was told to have an "issue" when can I expect my character to be able to gain skill again?
SunSword - It'll be in the UO:R update

Glamdring - *Mianoumi* I afraid that so many changes at once to PvP will unbalance the game, are you going to gradualy introduce them or throw them all in at once?
SunSword - They're in testing now. If you're concerned, I highly recommend you jump in and test 'em out!

Glamdring - *Rockie* Certain items spawn once per server birth. Will these items re-spawn in the trammel lands when they first come out?
SunSword - Currently, I believe the answer to that question is yes.

Glamdring - *ASRC_Sassy* Given the rapid casting time of monsters on test center, a mage is unable to cast back , even with 100 wrestling. Will this be toned down some?
SunSword - Yes, Monster AI is currently being modified. They'll be toned down.

Glamdring - *SC_Zax* How will non-young players be kept out of the new player city, Haven?
SunSword - No teleporting, gating, moongating, moon stone gating, boating, or recalling to haven by regular players.

Glamdring - *Darketower* I am confused as to the final state of the Tinker Trap changes. Are they still being adjusted (as in, making locked boxes accessible)? Or are they in their final form?
SunSword - Tinker trapped boxes will be made accessbile by the owner. That's a bug.
SunSword - accessible...

Glamdring - *From the Web Site* Will the new lands be tailored for housing, i.e. more open land without rocks, flowers, ect?
SunSword - Not at this point.

Glamdring - *Theowyn_Dinner* Follow up: Will deeds for the new house designs be available in the old lands prior to the opening of housing in the new lands so we can pre-purchase them?
SunSword - No.
SunSword - We'd like to, but there's no time...

Glamdring - *Belsaros* ask if companions will be able to get into Haven
Sage - Definitely. Companions will be integral to Haven.

Glamdring - *Al_Bundy* this one is from all the tamers out there, will wyrms/dragons heal/cure themselves after they're tamed?
Firedog - Tamed creatures will still have many of the abilities that they exhibit in the wild...
Firedog - The will, however, rely more upon their new companions to take care of them.
Firedog - (That's part of the deal you make...) :)

Glamdring - *Xanthor-Pacific* Its not mentioned in the update info, but is this patch going in also where other playors cant loot your kills?
Sage - Yes. That is currently in the plan. We will be posting more information on this soon.

Glamdring - *Aabman* You made metion of the land rush being handled in stages... so the castles and keeps will be allowed to place first, then others? Also how much time will be put between the stages.
SunSword - yes in stages, as I mentioned before. The amount of time will vary. The first stage will probably only last a few days, there's only room for a handful of castles on each server. I imagine more like a week for the rest

Glamdring - *LordDevil* Why did you divide the good and the evil into two worlds? Wasn't the criminal system of UO that which made it different to the boring games like AC and EQ? I changed from AC back to UO cause of the danger and heartbeat i get if I see pks out there... I am afraid that this never happens again :( The game looses a bit of realism or?
SunSword - Well, there's a litany of material already written on this, but here we go. If you like the danger of being pk'd, continue to play as you do now.
SunSword - For those who aren't interested in being preyed upon, we now have a land that let's them explore and interact in a way they never could before (without a nasty interruption)
SunSword - It also allows us to give real world consequences to the pvp systems without affecting those who do not wish to participate
SunSword - I have a fairly indepth discussion on this coming in "comments from the team"

Glamdring - *Wyrmschlacter* Since we are looking for more specialization of characters, is it possible to make reflect a target type spell so that fighters could maybe even drop magery?
Sage - Making reflect a target spell allows it to be more exploitable. Reflect is being balanced so that mages will actually be able to reflect spells with greater effect than warriors.
Sage - If it was a targeted spell, this would be lost.

Glamdring - *From the Web Site* What is the nature of the rumored new house types? Will these new house types be small only? or will there be larger new houses too?
SunSword - We're currently considering house designs of serveral types, not all of them are small.

Glamdring - *Vilia* Can you tell us about ranks in the faction system? How do you gain them, and how many are there?
SunSword - There are 10 ranks, you gain them by killing opposing faction members, the sigil carrier, or capturing a sigil
SunSword - the bigger the difference between you and your opponant (in a postive direction) the more points you get towards your rank
SunSword - The ranking is done on a relative sliding scale
SunSword - and the points decay at a rate of 10% a day

Glamdring - *Saravok* right now on TC the poisoning changes seem a little extreme the corrosion seems much to fast for upper level poisons and using the mage poison spell it's possible to keep somebody poisoned through out an entire battle thus keeping him from ever healing. will this change?
Sage - The poisoning changes were done so a decision really had to be made to use a poisoned weapon. Clearly, there is no reason not to use a poisoned weapon
Sage - However, the poison spell is resistable
Sage - I would not consider any changes final at this point, but I will say that I have been happy with the results so far in the disparity for using deadly poison on a blade
Sage - There is simply a greater cost to doing so

Glamdring - *Blazer* What's the scoop on parrying? What changes are planned to be made? Absorbing more damage is kind of vague, will there be other advantages to parrying added?
Runesabre - Here is how the new Parrying will work:
Runesabre - First the amount of damage absorbed will be based partially on the shield you are using as well as scaled somewhat by your Parry skill.
Runesabre - So Heater shields absorb more, bucklers less, and everything else inbetween.
Runesabre - Actually Chaos Shields are the best. :) Anyways...
Runesabre - To make all shield types useful in PvP and not just the biggest, the chance to parry is determined...
Runesabre - By the inverse of the shield rating. So the more absorbing shields parry less often than the smaller shields.
Runesabre - The idea is if you want to parry more consistently you use a small shield but don't absorb as much damage per block.
Runesabre - If you want to absorb more damage you use a bigger shield but parry less often.
Runesabre - Some numbers...
Runesabre - A Heater Shield with GM Parry will absorb roughly 33 damage points and have a 54% chance to Parry whereas a buckler will absrob roughly 10 damage points and absorb about 10 damage.
Runesabre - All the other shields scale in between.
Runesabre - Oh, that last statement should have said a "buckler will parry about 86% and absorb 10 damage"

Glamdring - *deVoca* any progress on making the patch-up process easier for fresh-reinstalls? =)
SunSword - Yes, we've got a system for reducing the overall patch size

Glamdring - *From the Web Site* With the new combat additions, will mages still use their wrestling skill if attacked even if they hold the spell book in their hands?
Runesabre - Yes, the wrestling skill is still used even with a spellbook in hand.

Glamdring - *TAK-Sath^* The faction system sounds like something that could possibly destroy the hero/evil system, or take over the role that it has. What will be done to try and prevent that?
SunSword - The Faction System has very little implications on the hero/evil system. It is a larger and more inclusive system.
SunSword - If you're wondering when hero/evil will go on the regular shards, it is not planned at the moment.

Glamdring - *Blackheath_THB* Back in January, magellan suggested that treasure chests be "keyed" to the treasure hunters party so that a0 the chest would be secure against anyone not in the party or b0 anyone not in the party is criminal flagged for standard amount of time when they loot from it. The Dev team seemed to like the idea, are there plans to include it?
SunSword - Not at the moment

Glamdring - *Gwenn* Will Player Vendors be allowed in the Newlands??
SunSword - You bet

Glamdring - That wraps it up for tonight's chat. Please join #ultima-online for continued unmoderated chat. The log will be posted on the website
Glamdring - I would like to thank Cal, Sunsword, Runesabre and Sage for coming tonight
Glamdring - oh!
Glamdring - and Firedog
Glamdring - and thanks to everyone who came to the chat
Glamdring - Goodnight all