Kehleyr - Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's Ultima Open House Chat.
Kehleyr - Tonight's chat is focusing on "General discussion and the UO World Faire: www.uo.com/news.html"
Kehleyr - I will be our moderator for this evening :)
Kehleyr - In order to submit questions please /msg or /query Aesop, Serephina or Starbuck. Please /msg different question-takers at different times, in order to balance the load and speed this process up.
Kehleyr - Do not msg anyone from Dev. Team or myself--these questions will be ignored.
Kehleyr - Remember that the Dev. Team 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.
Kehleyr - 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.
Kehleyr - Thanks for coming, everyone. We will now begin accepting questions.
Kehleyr - *Videric[-C-]* Have you considered veteran cloth awards to be other things like masks, lanters or such with special hue. Those would feel more special than the current robes and cloaks which are very close to existing NPC clothing colours.
Sage - Right now the program will ship as is. We are listening to player feedback, much of which has been positive.
Sage - We understand some concerns exist about clothing, but we feel good about the current system.

Kehleyr - *Shen* Are there plans to reactivate wrestling gain while holding a spellbook? With skill locks in, it's redundant and annoying.
Sage - There are no plans for that at this time.

Kehleyr - *Donovan* Hail All! How about making vendors able to direct deposit cash into the bank or give bank checks. I make a huge amount of money on my vendor and its a pain to try to get it to the bank
Sage - Yes. We have considered that and may add it in the future. It is not currently on our plate, and may not be for some time, however.

Kehleyr - *zero2* Many previous areas that had no spawn are now high spawn areas and puts strain on many house owners. Why was the it felt to adjust the spawn in these areas?
Hanse - Those areas actually did spawn, but were spawning too low for you to notice. No new spawning areas were created.
Hanse - The reason why those areas started spawning more is linked to the fixes we made for Dungeons. The populations increased as the dungeon's harder creatures were increased and the "trash" creatures were removed.

Kehleyr - *juno|UoHoC* Follow up to sage's answer: When saying that, that means no ice cloth or true white clothing ? They have been rumoured to exist on TC
Sage - There are no plans to have either of those hues exist in the game at this time.

Kehleyr - *Grayhorse* Why not deal with some of the crazy spawns. IE, 12 liches at covetous level 3 entrance when you first walk in the dungeon.
Hanse - Dungeons had most of the creatures that were annoying removed in order to make room for harder creatures.
Hanse - At the first couple levels of the dungeon, soloing is easier than the lower levels.
Hanse - Some levels require groups of players to clear them out. Covetous is one of them.
Hanse - The spawning of the creatures may seem too fast, but with larger populations of players clearing they will slow down.

Kehleyr - *ImaNnoying_LSR* What do you believe the current state of communication between OSI, and us, the players is? Some say that it is horrible, that you do not listen, while others (like myself) believe that it is at a high point, that OSI is listening to the players more than ever.
Melantus - that is something we are always trying to improve. There has been some improvement, but we can do better. The key is getting word out to more players, and listening to feedback
Melantus - when players know that they are being heard, we can really get moving toward even better communication.
Melantus - feel free to come to the UO Boards and discuss things :) I also post on other boards as well

Kehleyr - *Galahad_KoA* Designer Hanse, the jungles southwest of Trinsic have always been devoid of any kind of real spawn. Two years ago this was a admitted problem, but it has never really been fixed. With all of the recent spawn changes, are there any plans to add spawn to this large part of the world?
Hanse - That area of the continent does have a spawn in it. It is just spread too thin.
Hanse - There are many areas of the game that are spread too thin or not "themed" well.
Hanse - Currently, no schedule has been made for re-theming the overland spawn, though. We are focusing on "hot-spots" of the world, at the moment.

Kehleyr - *Videric[-C-]* Any plans to give more furniture in near future, such neat things like fireplace, rugs, carpets, bookcases(with books on them) are at many house decorators wish list.
Sage - Giving players more ways to customize their personal belongings is very important. Certainly additions such as these have to be added very carefully, as would any craftable item, or NPC sold item.
Sage - This is definitely something we would like to add in the future.

Kehleyr - *Donovan* Ive been reading the Rares thread and have noted some great ideas coming in about ways to deal with rares. What is the general sentiment at this time?
Melantus - yes a lot of good feedback has been getting posted and sent in about rares...
Melantus - Rares are a good thing within UO. It's not something we can immediately start to change really, but the ideas are there. I have kept them and hopefully at a later time we can look into it further. there is potential there for lots of good things

Kehleyr - *Len|Napn* My account is currently at 28 months, can I wait til July next year when it will be 36 months to get the 3 year rewards or do I have to use it straight away?
Sage - You can get your rewards now, and when you are next eligible for an award, you will be asked if you wish to select a new reward. The choice will be up to you.
Sage - You can hold and not pick, however.

Kehleyr - *Ravilicus* Have you considered the tremendous imbalance the blessed deeds in Player Rewards will bring to PVP especially with Faction war having temporary stat loss? A 100 dex new character with a Supremely Accurate Blessed katana of Vanq will be able to kill a veteran character all too easilly.
Evocare - Currently we feel that a combination of the fact that weapons dont last forever by any means, bless deeds will still be a very rare item, temporary skill loss, and factional control over strategic locations such as healers shops will help prevent this from being a serious issue.
Evocare - I feel confident in saying that pvp isn't generally decided by a few fancy weapons. =]

Kehleyr - *ImaNnoying_LSR* Melantus - What do you think are some ways that you can get the players to understand that they *ARE* being heard, and not ignored? A lot think that OSI just brushes off their comments and sugestions, while you have stated more than once on the MyUO.com boards that OSI is listening. Still, some players refuse to acknowledge this.
Melantus - well the best way to show players we listen are through our actions. Actions speak loudly...
Melantus - of course when we have a full plate of work, we certainly cant get to all the great ideas right away...
Melantus - but our responding to the players and letting them know they are being heard, even discussing the topic with them shows that we are listening. We are open to ideas and comments. Even open to complaints :)
Sage - Sometimes the problem is that we don't have time to implement player suggestions. Time is definitely our rarest commodity. One of the things we are trying to do is be proactive about our listening and read between the lines.
Sage - Sometimes when we get too specific with certain feedback, it doesn't play to everyone's needs.
Sage - So we have to get in there, and try to find out what the majority want, and sometimes that includes the silent majority that never make it to boards and the like.
Sage - Dialogue is great for this, but sometimes we have to distance from dialogue for short periods of time while we work on the accumulated knowledge from past sessions.
Sage - Honestly, as was said before, we do a great job sometimes, and miss it every once and awhile
Sage - I think Mel and Cal do a great job with it currently.

Kehleyr - *Nightmare* The nightmares spawn spots are now extremely easy; the 95% of monsters have been removed from that place in trammel. That took away the hardest (and funnier) dungeon and made nightmares a total joke to tame .. any plan to bring back the fun down thre ?
Hanse - Certain areas of the dungeons were spawning double to triple the amount of creatures than originally intended.
Hanse - When the bug was fixed, they returned to their intended amounts.
Hanse - Players prior to this were used to the overspawn population, though. Currently, we have not decided if this will be corrected or not.

Kehleyr - *Archon-S-* Why dont you guys take some of the spawns in felluca cause people in felluca are more for the PvP then the PvM and if they want PvM then there is trammel for that.
Sage - I think there is some truth to this, but I think the right way to approach it is to make Felucca more interesting to a broader variety of people. We don't want to add more load to Trammel, although there are ways to help this.
Sage - Factions is going to ease a lot of people into Felucca again who are willing to try it out. As for me, I like the added danger of Felucca, and I am a monster basher every once and awhile.
Sage - I don't feel comfortable with saying Felucca is the PvP facet. I think Felucca is a great monster bashing facet, and our goal is to make it more attractive.
Sage - Good question.

Kehleyr - *Seibh* any plans on making bows and xbows repairable and perhaps adding some unique resources for the trade skills? such as dragon leat
Sage - Not sure about leat. Right now there are no plans for making them repairable.
Seibh - hmm, should say dragon leather and yew logs :)
Sage - Okay. No plans for either of those at this time either.

Kehleyr - *Drake_Wds* As a person who doesn't like horses and who also roleplays an Ork on Great Lakes in Bloodrock, is there any chance we'll get to choose an etherical ostard as a reward?
Sage - There were no ostards roaming the ethereal plane when we were making the rewards. Sorry.

Kehleyr - *Drake_Wds* whats the time line for implementation of factions and the rewards system?
Sage - When it is passed by QA "factions" will go public. It is currently in test. The rewards system is scheduled for Catskills tomorrow.

Kehleyr - *Shen* Talking of ostards, are there plans for ostards to be allowed into the old Britannia, with the free UO:R cds being sent out to people who haven't upgraded to T2A?
Sage - Yes, and soon.

Kehleyr - *Donovan* On the Glacial Staff, I only know of two commands that will work with it. Are there more than two?
Evocare - maybe
Melantus - :)

Kehleyr - *juno|UoHoC* I remember a comment from Calandryll on the CoB dev board around UO:R's introduction that you cannot heal players who are in a guild anymore because of the blue healer problem. But now you still can heal them in felucca where the pvp is, and not in trammel where there is more rpg and where it is needed, why ?
Evocare - Due to the fact that retribution against blue healers is impossible on trammel, the anti-blue-healing measures there were a must. However, we like to refrain as much as possible from dictating the rules of combat on Felucca. That being said, it will be impossible to "blue heal" faction members (even on Felucca).
Evocare - If it appears that the blue healing solution for factions is both successful and popular, it is something we could consider for guild warfare on Felucca too.

Kehleyr - *Grayhorse* Does the Dev Team plan on making smelting of items back to ingots a more easy process, say like a menu system similar to buying items off vendors, so you can smelt multiple items at one time
Sage - Not at this time Grayhorse.

Kehleyr - *Starbuck* The Stealing skill page states that there are two ways to steal from another player. One is to be in the thieves guild, the other is to be an opponent in a guild war. We have tried this between our two guilds, both on Fel and Tram, but is doesn't work. The Renaissance FAQ page cooroborates the information. What is the actual issue/situation?
Sage - You should have to be in the thieve's guild to steal from any player. We will check the documentation.
Sage - Placing apostrophes is hard...

Kehleyr - *Galahad_KoA* Id like to add on to Shens question concerning the T2A upgrade. Will we also soon be able to recall freely between the T2A lands and Britannia?
Sage - That's the plan.

Kehleyr - Ok guys
Kehleyr - That concludes our chat this evening.
Kehleyr - Thankyou everyone for coming
Melantus - thanks all for coming :)

Kehleyr - I would like in particular to thank Melantus and Calandryll from the Community Team and Sage, Evocare, Fieryice, Hanse and Vex from the Dev Team for taking the time to answer all our questions tonight.
Kehleyr - The log shall be posted at http://uohoc.stratics.com
Kehleyr - Everyone, please feel free to jump into #ultima-online for some chat :)