Jerrith - Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's UOHoC.
Jerrith - Tonight's chat topic is Factions and as such we will accept questions related to this topic.
Jerrith - Jerrith will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions, please /msg or /query Destiny, Kehleyr, Serephina, Tsolyani Jerrith changes topic to "UOHoC - Topic: "Factions" - Please /msg or /query Destiny, Kehleyr, Serephina, Tsolyani your questions. - UO World Faire: www.uo.com/news.html"
Jerrith - Please /msg different question-takers at different times, in order to balance the load, and speed this process up. Do not msg anyone from Origin--these questions will be ignored.
Jerrith - Remember they may not have the opportunity to answer all of your questions. In addition, some questions may not be answered if they feel that it is not appropriate or that it has been better answered through some other question.
Jerrith - In addition, please do not submit any questions that have already been answered during past conferences.
Jerrith - We encourage you to read the logs of the previous UOHoCs, which are available at http://uohoc.stratics.com
Jerrith - Thanks for coming, everyone. We will now begin accepting questions.
Jerrith - *Lugh* How will perpetual kill of 2 oppsiing faction characters [2 accounts, same owner] to generate endless silver be combated?
Evocare - Players will not be able to get silver from the same opponent multiple times over a short period of time.
Evocare - It will take a while before players can get silver from the same person again

Jerrith - *Priam* Will there be fictional support(i.e. seers involved directly) for factions? If so, how extensive will it be?
Sage - There are no immediate plans for OSI sponsored fiction when factions launch. We hope that players will drive fiction of their own, using the faction system as a tool.
Sage - In the future factions may be incorporated into more detailed plot development, but there are no current plans for such action.

Jerrith - *Zeitgeist-and-Teriieroo* How do you think the faction system will fair with the pvp community in general compared to the old system?
Adrick-OSI - the faction system will bring more into pvp beyond killing players in combat
Adrick-OSI - things such as merchants
Adrick-OSI - political struggle
Adrick-OSI - and actually influencing through town control
Adrick-OSI - we hope this will be well received by the pvp community and merchant/political playstyles as well

Jerrith - *Lugh* Will faction monsters aggresed to opposing faction members be guard killable in town? And has the ability to control/tame friendly faction monster been considered?
Evocare - Faction monsters will be attacked on sight by guards. They will not be tamable.

Jerrith - *Lugh* What is your best estimate as to when factions will be available on a test server?
Adrick-OSI - Test Factions is up now with most of what is in the doc on the website

Jerrith - *godski* Will faction craftables, such as a faction-crafted gnarled staff, be usable by non faction participating characters?
Evocare - Players that are not in a faction will not be able to equip faction items. Anyone with even the lowest rank in a faction can, however, equip 4 faction items
Evocare - Due to the fact that faction rank atrophies over time, players who are very inactive will eventually be reduced to the lowest ranks, and thus be less-able to equip many faction items

Jerrith - *Zeitgeist* how do you plan on creating a role for just about everyone, such as lets use a tailor for example, what rolls would non-warrior classes play in the faction system?
Adrick-OSI - tailors, smiths, bowyers, scribes and carpenters all can make faction items
Adrick-OSI - the tinker can make traps
Adrick-OSI - the thief with remove trap can remove these traps and steal the sigils
Adrick-OSI - faction items are important because they are blessed for a period of 3 weeks
Adrick-OSI - the gnarled staves can be charged with faction scrolls - such as greater healing and lightning (the spells you see on magic staves in the game currently)
Adrick-OSI - so merchants/crafters will play a large part in the struggles

Jerrith - *RayAlton* What about all the players who will join and not participate? Alot of people believe this will mess up the load balancing feature.
Evocare - It's statistically likely that non-participating players will be pretty evenly distributed among the factions, thereby not causing a particularly bad imbalance in one faction. However, if this does end up becoming an issue, there are additional steps which we could take if need be. =]

Jerrith - *DTM|Mocker* Are any provisions being made to allow murderers and evils to participate in factions on SP? Over half of the shard's PvPers are red and factions will be crippled there if they're not allowed full participation.
Evocare - We're very aware of Siege's unique population. When changes for Siege are announced, it will become more apparant how that issue is going to be addressed.
Sage - We are looking at Siege very carefully right now and evaluating how Factions will have the best impact with relation to SP. Many ideas have been forwarded, but no definite conclusions have been made.

Jerrith - *Ashran* How will factions affect a normal player?
Sage - It is important that factions be attractive to a "normal" player, which in this case I assume means non-PvP for the most part. I believe the system now supports a wide variety of professions
Sage - as well as giving meaning to combat. However, we were very careful not to force players into factions, as we realize some people will be unsure about it.
Sage - I believe that as time goes by, more people will be willing to experiment with PvP, and factions will be the natural alternative.
Sage - For those that don't, factions will be much like a great voyeuristic experience.
Evocare - In terms of clear-cut game mechanics, factions will only affect those non-faction players who choose to shop in faction-controlled cities in Felucca with altered store prices

Jerrith - *CleptoJoe_S\S* Will thieves be able to hide/stealth when carrying the sigil?
Adrick-OSI - indeed but there is a one hour timer - stealthing the entire way in some cases will be impossible
Adrick-OSI - in one hour if the sigil is not delivered it pops back to the last place it was stolen from

Jerrith - *Zeitgeist* how do you plan on stopping res killing? Or is there a place the faction member is transported when he dies?
Evocare - We feel the deceased player is in control of their ressurection destiny. If there are enemies nearby, or if the enemy has placed any of the various floor traps in your local healer's shop... we advise against ressurecting in that location.
Evocare - One of the keys to success in the faction system will be having a network of teammates who can ressurect you safely.

Jerrith - *wintermute* Could factions in the future be changed to become player made factions? Several guilds have spoken up against the lack of control of whom they will be fighting with
Sage - I think this is an excellent question. Eventually, I believe the trend for all systems will stem from the community. It allows for more ownership within the community, and a greater ability to choose your friends. However, when delivering a system of the magnitude, it is sometimes necessary to "bootstrap" it.
Sage - This is the phase we are currently in. It is hard to predict the future, but my philosophy personally, is that tools should be given by the development team, and the functionality, within limits, should be given to the community.
Sage - So I really, really like the idea that factions would stem solely from the player base, but I don't think that we were at the point to give players the correct tools yet.
Sage - Thanks for the question!

Jerrith - *CleptoJoe_S\S* How will a Smith,Tailor, etc. be able to join factions when they usually have no way to defend themselves?
Adrick-OSI - an interesting dynamic will be factions will have to guard and protect their merchants who cannot deffend themselves
Adrick-OSI - faction items can only be made in a town controlled by the faction
Adrick-OSI - so if the warriors want items
Adrick-OSI - they will have to work with the merchants or they probably wont have any items unlike the factions who protect their merchants

Jerrith - *IronChef|Sosaria* why not have felucca be 100% faction affected, people who want to be left alone can spend their time in Trammel?
Evocare - While we feel the faction system will be a system which finds its home and purpose in Felucca, we don't feel that Felucca exclusively meant for factions.
Evocare - It is important that each system play its part in the world as a whole, but that no single element becomes overbearing.

Jerrith - *ghyde* Why is one faction not getting a magic-casting monster, when the other three all have magical monsters? It disadvantages one faction from the others in that their monster can't use ranged attacks.
Evocare - Actually, two factions do not have spellcasting monsters... and of the two which do, one of them isn't an "agressive" monster.
Evocare - Each of the factions are different in a variety of ways, and we feel these differences will contribute to the depth of play.
Evocare - As the faction system continues to develop, these differences will manifest themselves more clearly and become part of the personality of each side.

Jerrith - *Zeitgeist* What are the looting rights? Is it free for all who gets there first, or you'll go grey for looting a orange you didnt do enough damage too? Also will people be able to heal members outside of their factions, like to factions gainging about against one faction in a struggle for conquest!
Adrick-OSI - on looting
Adrick-OSI - you will be able to loot any enemy you did damage to
Adrick-OSI - when the enemy heals all the way up the list is cleared
Adrick-OSI - also if you place a faction trap and it does damage an enemy you will be allowed to loot as well
Adrick-OSI - on blue healing
Adrick-OSI - it will not be possible to heal a player who has taken damage to a faction or guild enemy
Adrick-OSI - however
Adrick-OSI - you will be able to heal a faction member who is say in a dungeon and not being attacked by enemy faction members

Jerrith - *DTM|Darkstar* Has any thought been giving to allowing the faction controlling a city to set whether or not the npc healers will rez enemy faction members?
Evocare - We feel the dynamics of ressurection are interesting as-is. Factions do have the potential to "control" the healer shop through force or subtlety, so we don't want to simply code it into an absolute.

Jerrith - *DTM|Mocker* Any plans to lessen the imbalance presented by tamers with wyrms and dragons in PvP? They were able to wreak havoc on Order/Chaos and they're likely to do the same in faction wars.
Evocare - We are aware of taming being an incredibly powerful force in large-scale combat.
Evocare - We're looking into it. ;]

Jerrith - *Zeitgeist* Will factions to be able to trade items with other factions, such as one town specific supplys, and they must form stratic alliances, to get something they might have value for, to take over a enemy town
Evocare - Currently there isn't any kind of built-in trade system specifically designed for the faction system. Players can trade their silver to each other since that will be a common currency.
Evocare - However, the system will not support the direct transfer of money from the faction treasury to other factions.
Evocare - The potential for temporary alliances still exists (and is encouraged) despite the inability to "pay" another faction using the faction treasury.
Evocare - There are many forms of payment in Ultima Online. ;]

Jerrith - That will conclude our chat for tonight.
Jerrith - Thanks everyone for coming.
Jerrith - In particular, thanks to Adrick, Calandryll, Evocare, fieryice, Hanse, Maleki, Melantus, and Sage from OSI. :)