Kehleyr - Good evening everyone, thank you for coming to tonight's Ultima Online open house. This Stratics House of Commons chat is a direct connection between you the players and the designers and programmers of Ultima Online.
Kehleyr - This chat will be in a moderated format. To ask a question of the developers, please /msg or /query the question takers that will be listed in the topic of the channel. These question takers will then present the questions to the Ultima Online development team here with us this evening.
Kehleyr - Our question takers are: Zorn, Serephina, Stonegate and Dariuas
Kehleyr - and the programmers (from prophet)
Kehleyr - I will be our moderator tonight...I will post your question into the House of Commons chat channel and the Developers will answer those that they can. Please /msg or /query different question-takers at different times, in order to balance the load and speed the process up.
Zorn - Again please do NOT message our OSI guests, they have their messages turned off :)
Kehleyr - Please remember that your question may have been asked previously or may not be able to be answered in a public forum. Please do not message or query myself or anyone from OSI, these questions will be ignored. We encourage you to read the logs of the previous Open Houses, which are available at http://uohoc.stratics.com.
Kehleyr - Enjoy tonight's chat... the topic is open to all general questions.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Sub_Zero* QUESTION: Vet Rewards: When? I want an answer, not an estimate please.
Prophet_ - Veteran rewards is going to be on a public test center tomorrow morning.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Dreoth* Will Ultima Online be ported to Linux?
Prophet_ - We have no plans on porting either UO clients to any other platform. We simply do not have the resources to do it.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Rollergirl* Is anything in the works to fix the "moongate pvp" problem with factions? People hang around moongates in Fel, and jump to trammel in the middle of the fight even if they started it
AdrickOSI - I will be addressing alot of faction issues - that is not a bug but an issue of gameplay - I cant make any promises but I will be addressing bugs, balance issues and some gameplay issues with the factions
AdrickOSI - over the next few weeks

Kehleyr|Stratics - *mingot2* Question: Any chance at looking at the skill advancement rates for cartography, snooping, poisoning, provocation and some of the others that are extremely difficult to raise at high levels. AND any chance of looking at those that are too easy like the combat skills?
Sage - In my opinion we need to review all skill gains. Yes there are plans to do that, but that is closer to a four month task that something we could fix right away. We want to look at skill gains as soon as possible, but it won't be a part of the next two publishes.
Sage - I can't give any more specific dates than that.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Talbot* Is the philosophy of Ultima Online as a role-playing game still on the list of things to consider when the developers are supporting/expanding the game? Of late we have seen very little in the way of continuing the tradition of providing a game rich in role-playing content (lore/history/meta-story)...can we expect this to change "officially?" Or is the task being left to the players to fill in the creativity beyond co
Calandryll - UO is still most definitely a role-playing game. With the newly formed content team, we hope to provide content into the game that has a context (ie: a story)
Calandryll - that context will allow players to have a sense of a world, an atmosphere, and will help facilitate role-playing quite a bit!

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Coranthe* When will the $5.95 maps only offer be made for beta testers?
Leilo - We will be posting a link to the $5.95 maps tomorrow.

Sage - Back to the question of roleplaying, I would like to add something. Every person has a different concept of roleplaying. Some people feel they need the same story that you might get in a single player game, while other could care less about an overarching fiction.
Sage - What we will do will likely not please everyone. It will be a compromise of the best of both worlds. That compromise will likely not be seen as deep to some, and others will see it as too deep.
Sage - We feel, however, that it will be a really great experience for most of the community. Really in the end though, it won't succeed without people getting in there and making the most of it.
Sage - I think it is the one of the best things to come to UO in awhile, and I think Cal, Gromm, and Augur have done some terrific work already.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Pseudo-Monkey* In UO:Third Dawn, whenever I open up the game, everything works... but as soon as I open my paperdoll, it hangs... everything just freezes... what do I do?
Sage - I recommend contacting technical support. They can forward issues to us so we can address them. It may be specific to your computer, or it may be something else.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Grishnak* Will you please reduce the spawn at the Yew Orc forts for the Role Playing Orc Guilds
Sage - That is one possible answer... there might be a better one. :) We are aware of the issue, and we are addressing it.
Sage - And that's all I have to say about that.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *battlemaster|ykz* Early in factions gating town guards out of thier towns and killing them provided that town with premanent silver loss per day for upkeep. This was fixed but in a partial manner as some towns still have loss to this day (Magincia - LS, the loss doesn't show on the finance screen, it says its making money but never does ). Will it ever be completely fixed?
AdrickOSI - Thats an issue - faction towns not reporting the correct silver income - its on my plate and I hope to have town finances working as designed

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Twithead* Waah! What be happen to shardwide events? Be there going to be more events now that UO2 be cancelled and more resources be available?
Calandryll - Yes. The purpose of the content team is to create shardwide events that lots of players can take part in.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *evenstar* question: are there plans in the works to change the situation where thieves can steal in Fel and then jump into a Moongate to Tram to escape?
Sage - Yes. Not in the next publish, but the one after.
Sage - At least, that is the current plan.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Talbot* Can we expect to see more "community" oriented developments and policy, i.e Townstones, community bulletin boards, town crier links, usage of BNN, enforcement of the RoC 1 & 18?
Sage - Yes. We would like to continue to enhance community tools.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Ash-GL* are there plans for any more gold sinks the two that are in now are nice but with the hair dye vendors they where only used once by everyone
Vex - Yes. Floor Tiles will be going into testing soon. Furthermore, we'd like to find ways to add gold sinks that are recurring. I don't think the items already in and Floor Tiles will be the last.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Wolf-BiH* What will happen with exsisting rewards ?
Prophet_ - We aren't going to be doing anything about previously taken rewards.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *CiP* Are there any plans on removing the ability to use moongates when in the heat of battle?
Sage - Good suggestion, but there are no current plans to do so.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Mowbray[BSC]* Will the aforementioned floortiles take up a lockdown space in houses?
Vex - Yes. We still have to be careful of item count in the game.
Vex - I'm looking at the possibility of making them not highlight when locked down, though.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *LionHeart_CrS_Sonoma* Are there any plans to change the no Recall for aggressors? Many faction members are falling victim to attacking an opposing factioneer, defeat
Sage - Nope. Don't start something you can't finish.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Mowbray[BSC]* Is there anything (please, anything at all) in the works that may add culture/community to the game that is not fighting related? (and not uo3d as a whole)?
Sage - Yes. Absolutely.
Vex - More specifically, we're planning on some new things for crafters. I can't give away any specifics as yet, though. Sorry.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *SC_Lost_son* Will their be anyChanges to Find out if a house that is going to fall is proply placed or not.
Prophet_ - We have no plans on changing the information on decaying houses.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Lyria* When will the seas be given a review (spawn, ships, UO3D effects et.c.)? I'm concerned that the sea is stuck in a bad circle; small audience leads to no enhancement, which leads to no new audience and no new enhancement...
Vex - We have some improvements for ships in the works for the publish after next. We plan on addressing shoreline blocking, boat security, and several other issues.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *LionHeart_CrS_Sonoma* What are your primary concearns at the moment as a Development team?
Sage - Veteran Rewards, the new scenarios or "events", making the game more easily understood by incoming players.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Daylight* When veteran rewards come back online, will the people who have taken a reward get another set of reward or will the system "remember" what they took ?
Prophet_ - The system will remember the rewards you have taken previously. You will not be able to take any more rewards if you have already selected all the rewards available for your account age.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *BA_Barrackas* My Questions: Would you consider adding a more diverse range of colors to the Special Dye Tub to make it a more viable option as a vet reward, eg, shadowlord black, dull ice-white etc
Sage - Not at this time. We are more concerned with getting the rewards out to the public than revamping them. We also believe that many people like the special dyes, though we understand it isn't for everyone.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *PK-HQ_Baconius* I pay my ten dollars as everyone else. But just because I am a PK, I love 20% of my skills when I die? Can stat loss be removed or altered, in such a way to not harm my lifestyle so much?
Sage - Actually, if you wouldn't die and you got some real skills, that would not be a problem.
Sage - Just kidding
Sage - Stat loss is likely not to change any time soon.
Sage - There has to be some viable alternative to stat loss. I have seen the game without stat loss, and it wasn't pretty.
Sage - When there is a good system in place to get rid of stat loss and make combat easier for everyone to understand and be involved with, we could possibly consider removing it.
Sage - Still, I don't think that is on the horizon for the near future.
Sage - This is actually a huge subject, and one I would be happy to go into more, but it would take a long time to explain. Please feel free to drop me a line though at [email protected]

Kehleyr|Stratics - *PK-HQ_Balith* are there any plans to bring back a shard much like Abyss?
Melantus - shards like that usually get overloaded, take quite a bit of time to set up, and havent really been as exciting as one might think....
Melantus - if we ever did do something like that again, it should be more interesting then just anarchaic killing and mayhem...
Melantus - right now there arent plans to make more shards like that, but the bottom line is making things fun for the players
Melantus - we can do that in much better ways

Kehleyr|Stratics - *LionHeart_CrS_Sonoma* Some years ago it was mentioned that UO would get player races, has that become a possibility again with the cancelation of UO2?
Sage - Player races are very, very, very unlikely to come out in the next two years. Past that point I cannot see.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *Jeg* Speaking of item count, do you know how many less items would be in the game if you fixed the paralyze spell so that people woudlnt need all those pouches? Paralyze should be resistable and last a set amount of time (much shorter than now)
Hanse - Paralyze is currently resistable. The duration of the spell is halved when you successfully resist it.
Hanse - It is being looked at, though.

Kehleyr|Stratics - *C_Talanithus_UOLS* Name Change deeds... the old argument against them was that they could be used to "impersonate" someone, but with today's accelerated skill gains you could do the same thing with a week's worth of training. So what is the delay? It cant be fear of vulgar abuse... that already exists when you name your characters in the first place. So what's the story?
Sage - Name change deeds were another concept that never made it into development. There are no plans to put name change deeds into the game.

Kehleyr|Stratics - Well everyone, I would like to thank everyone for coming tonight.
Kehleyr|Stratics - I would like to thank everyone from OSI for taking time to be with us tonight as well
Melantus - thanks all :) see you on the boards

Kehleyr|Stratics - Sorry if we did not get to your questions, but we had many :)
Kehleyr|Stratics - The logs will be posted at http://uohoc.stratics.com
AdrickOSI - good night everyone
Serephina - Feel free to join #ultima-online for further discussion