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, programmers and community staff of Ultima Online.
Kehleyr - This chat will be in a moderated format. To ask a question of the OSI Staff, 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 evelopment/community/programming team here with us this evening.
Kehleyr - Our question takers are: SpectralRunner, RJO and Bronco <-- so bug them with questions
Kehleyr - I will be your moderator tonight... I will post your question into the House of Commons chat channel and the girls (and guys) will answer those that they can.
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 - Tonight's topic is open to General Discussion :)
Kehleyr - *SpikePac* why is it that only gm's get to use new crafting?
Calandryll - Because masonry and glassblowing are skills that require a grandmaster to understand the books. It is sort of akin to why only high level smiths can make a platemail tunic. Some skills just require a great deal of learning and mastery.

Kehleyr - *Lord_Archemedes<UBB>* gone are the days of single room/floor housing, i was wondering if there are any plans to change house addons such as the stove to be able to be placed on ground floors in housing?
Evocare - It's something we can consider
Evocare - Can't say that we have any concrete plans to do it right now
Evocare - but I wouldn't rule it out. =>

Kehleyr - *AdmiralRuffie* First thing - It's been a great year for UO, you guys have done a lot of great things...of course, not every part of the game has had attention. So looking ahead, any word on fixes for ships, new content at sea, seahorses, or fishing improvements? Please?
Evocare - Thanks, we hope next year will be even better! However, it's a little premature for us to start disclosing plans for next year since we haven't even shipped LBR yet! ;>
Evocare - However, we are looking at a wide spectrum of our long-standing "todo" list and figuring out just what we need to hit in the near future

Kehleyr - *Epoch* Is there any chance that some of the damage done with the implementation of localization towards the atmosphere of the game will be corrected?..Specifically the "fluff" phrases and responses that the NPC's used to generate when asked keyword questions?
Helios - Since the advent of some new technologies we have made major advancement in the localization area. Many of the issues reported by players have already been addressed, many more may be looked into for the future.

Kehleyr - *Verak* Is there any plans to make etherals rideable for players of 1-2 years old? Alot of players are asking of this that have been perviously banned - or computer errors?
Evocare - What the heck, veteran privileges for banned players? Get this man out of my sight! \
Evocare - =>

Kehleyr - *Bfly* Is stackable granite still a possibility or has that idea been shelved? If it has been shelved are there any plans on making a stackable end product from them?
Vex - Making the granite blocks stackable has technical issues with it that we'd rather not get into. Calandryll and I have come up with a solution to the granite problem that will allow players to toggle the mining of stone on or off.
Vex - Scheduling difficulties are preventing us from implementing that solution immediately, but it will appear soon.

Kehleyr - *Baja_Person* When can we expect to see GGS go live? Also, are there any plans to fix the pet invis bug? (ie in 3D you will crash if you have your pet's halth bar up and it casts invis)
Evocare - We definitely won't see GGS until after LBR ships. However, beyond that, we'll be trying to work it in. As far as the pet bug goes, we definitely have plans to fix crashers we learn of, including the invis variant.

Kehleyr - *<dY>* i would like to ask this : Speedhacking stil exists. It seems there is a new version of the program that's currently not detectable. Any plans to tackle this problem ?
Prophet - Who say's its not detectable?
Prophet - Regardless yes we know about it and yes something is being done.

Kehleyr - *Mowbray* Is it possible or in planning to have the cooking skill made skill-based (items being tiered as to when they can be made, instead of all at once)?
Vex - Right now, we have no plans to do that.

Kehleyr - *Piggy<LmA>* when will house refreshing be turned back on?
Prophet - We have plans to re-activate housing decay in the new year as planned. We may re-activate decay for condemned houses before the new year but not by much.

Kehleyr - *Mowbray* any plans on activating (useable) the mailbag or ultima messenger?
Evocare - nope
Calandryll - We are replacing the mailbag on the paperdolls with a button to access the virtue gump

Kehleyr - *jediman* Will we be able to play different races in the future?
Evocare - Surely a jedi's can forsee the answer?
Evocare - Sorry, no beans to spill on that front right now. =>

Kehleyr - *Dryzzid{OES}* Question: Any hints on our pwesants this year!? :-D
Vex - We're bringing back the ever popular piles of snow and holiday trees. In keeping with the collectability theme from last year, the snow globes and the bells are being replaced by two new collectibles. Sorry, no hintage on exactly what the new items are. :)

Kehleyr - *<z>eus* I heard rumours that golems no longer spawn on Oceania or any of the shards, what's the truth?
Calandryll - They should be spawning on all shards that got the scenario.

Kehleyr - *Palinor* does OSI intend to offer other mounts in the future and if they do will they be possibly added to the etheral list
Evocare - Yes and maybe.

Kehleyr - *SpikePac* it seems like miners have pref treatment - sand granite valorite - but it takes two the three times as long not to mention an ungodly amount of boards to be a gm carpenter, why?
Vex - We've done a lot for metalworkers recently, between the scenarios and other new additions. We're likely to see more improvements for other crafting areas in coming months.
Vex - Regarding carpentry skill gain, I am currently particularly interested in this. The new crafting system should make carpentry skill gains just a tad more frequent, and I need to know if people are still having problems getting to GM in that skill.
Vex - Please send me feedback about it to [email protected]

Kehleyr - *Captain_Crunch* Hello, any Plans to make the special Moves for Melee skills setable with Hotkeys ( crushing blow for maces like stunning blow for Wrestlers )
Evocare - Well, that's sure been on my (and Adrick's) wish-list for some time now, since oh, about the time the system was being implemented. =>

Kehleyr - *Epoch* Is the "undocumented feature" of releasing a tamed animal and then retaming it at the "base" difficulty intentional, or should honest players avoid using it untill the system behaves as advertised w/difficulty + posttame modifier?
Evocare - It's a bug, we intend to fix it.

Kehleyr - *Xuri* What are the chances, if any, of there ever being player-owned townstones (for player-run towns) in UO?
Evocare - Hard to say just what the chances are, but they're certainly higher then zero.
Evocare - They aren't on our schedule as of right now, but never say never when it comes to UO. ;>

Kehleyr - *BrownPants* will you ever gonna be able to bring your char to a different server in the future?
Evocare - Well, judging by your name you have more to worry about then transfering characters. ;> However, it is something that we'd love to be able to do, but it requires more backend work then we've had to spare unfortunately.

Kehleyr - *DarkWing* are they gonna allow Smiths with 0 mining to smelt the armor they made?
Vex - It is a bug that skill requirements for melting down colored armor were switched from Blacksmithy skill to Mining, and we intend to correct it in a near future publish.

Kehleyr - *freeballingbo* has it ever been thought of to make horses cost alot more? say like 10k? so people on foot would be more common?
Evocare - While I agree that there are serious balance issues regarding horses, I honestly don't think higher gold costs will be of any significant help.
Evocare - I suspect it'll just make it more of a nuisance to compete in pvp, and not really solve the problems.
Evocare - We are looking into ways to actually solve the problems with horse movement speeds and their effect on combat, but that kind of fix isn't something we can just squeeze into any ole publish. =<

Kehleyr - *Sparrowhawk* Last time you made mention of a possible way to expand/stretch the map... any news on this?
Evocare - Well, we aren't actually expanding and streching, but we have actually *changed* the "static" map.
Evocare - We're evaluating how well our Haven map modifications are going, and we're expecting to do some more soon.
Evocare - Presumably, if everything pans out, we'll look into more applications for the technology. =>

Kehleyr - *JohnnySwell* As a relatively new player, 6 months in, I've noticed the design of the backpack and bank boxes to be extremely difficult to navigate, to the point third party vendors are writing programs to address it, is there any plan to do something to make it less confusing?
Oaks - The design was originally intended to be "immersive" and admittedly suffers a certain lack of functionality. We are constantly working on improvements to our interface to lessen the learning curve for new players and thank you for the feedback, as always. What exactly we have planned, I can't say right now. =)

Kehleyr - *James-SES* Question: Why don't we just go back to teh way Ultima was a few years ago?
Vex - Um, no.
Evocare - sure np, lemme just flip this switch here... Seriously, many people love UO the way it is now.

Kehleyr - *Xuri* If you were stranded on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere, which COMIC BOOK would you bring with you, if you could bring but one?
Sannio - Sorry, can't pick one. ;> The first issue of the Fantastic Four. X-Men 137 (the "Death of the Phoenix" issue). Issue number 12 of the original run of Alpha Flight. Any of The Authority while Bryan Hitch was on it. Any Usagi Yojimbo.
Evocare - The new UO Comic in the LBR box! (shameless plug)
Oaks - Marvel Swimsuit Issue... *drool*
* Calandryll agrees with Evo *
Prophet - which year though oaks?
Hanse - are there any comic books about mongbats?
Adrick-OSI - I would go for what oaks said only he would probably buy out all the copies :)
Oaks - Well I suppose that answers Prophet's question as well.

Kehleyr - Thankyou everyone for taking the time to attend tonight's HOC and a special thankyou to everyone at Origin for being here to make it possible, as always we are grateful :)
Kehleyr - The logs will be posted at http://uohoc.stratics.com
Kehleyr - Feel free to join #ultima-online for further discussion :)
Oaks - k thx bye!
Sannio - Oh! Add in any Excalibur by Alan Davis and Mark Farmer!
Sannio - Wait, my comic list isn't done!
* Sannio laughs *