Lord-Xanthor - 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.
Lord-Xanthor - 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 and have [QT] in front of their names. These question takers will then present the questions to the Ultima Online development team here with us this evening.
Lord-Xanthor - 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.
Lord-Xanthor - Please do not send the same question to multiple question takers, those that do will be ignored. Thank you =)
Lord-Xanthor - 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
Lord-Xanthor - Enjoy tonight's chat...Tonights Topic is AGE OF SHADOWS! =)
Lord-Xanthor - Please /msg /query, [QT]Elm, [QT]Nuke, [QT]Rhayde
Lord-Xanthor - *Moridin* With Age of Shadows, will the wrestling skill alone allow you to both stun and disarm, assuming you are of a sufficient skill level, or do you need the anatomy skill to perform these actions?
Adrick-OSI - all you need is wrestle skill high enough and the required mana for these moves

Lord-Xanthor - *innocent* Would you really consider creating powerscrolls in facets other than Fel? I believe PScrolls to be the only incentive for Trammel players to cross facets.
Antarion - got it
Evocare - no, we dont expect to place powerscrolls on trammel facets
Evocare - there are other neat things to find in dungeon doom that can't be found elsewhere though, so i expect lots of players to engage in interfacet travel =]
Evocare - I also have a correction regarding the wrestling question above...
Evocare - you will in fact also still require the anatomy skill for stun punch, and arms lore for disarm
Evocare - sorry for that confusion =]

Lord-Xanthor - *TheSickness* Is the AoS statloss removal set in stone? A lot of us are looking forward to Felucca being returned to the Feluccans.
Evocare - We definitely plan on removing stat loss from Felucca. I'm pretty certain we've heard all the arguments on all sides of the fence many many times, so I don't expect we'll suddenly hear new information that would change our decision. ;]
Evocare - Stat loss was left in UO for a long time for various reasons, some of which simply won't be an issue anymore once AoS is published.
Evocare - As a result of the changes in AoS, it became a good time to re-evaluate its need and role in UO.

Lord-Xanthor - *Thomas* The Virtue system is one of the highlights of Third Dawn that many old Ultima enthusiasts looked forward to. Will we see any of the remaining Virtues brought in game when AoS launches, and if so, which one(s)?
Evocare - Actually, it was a highlight of LBR. ;]
Evocare - Although we aren't introducing a virtue in the AoS server publish itself, we certainly don't have any plans to discontinue the phased introduction of the virtues.
Evocare - We will be introducing the remaining LBR monsters into the game in the AoS publish, however.

Lord-Xanthor - *Alexis-* 5) Will we be able to buy house deeds still when AoS comes out?
Vex - No. :) House deeds won't be sold on NPCs any more. Instead, they'll just sell the handy dandy niftaroni House Placement Tool, which is basically a land survey tool and a swiss army house deed all rolled into one.

Lord-Xanthor - *Thomas* Will there be a price to pay for learning the arts of Necromancy besides being unable to learn/use Chivalry effectively on the same character? (Karma loss? More than that?)
OaksOSI - No. Although the scrolls cannot be created with inscription (for now), so compiling your Tome of Necromancy could be a bit of a challenge.

Lord-Xanthor - Just a reminder, only send questions to the following qtakers. Anyone else will be ignored. Please /msg /query, [QT]Elm, [QT]Nuke, [QT]Rhayde
OaksOSI - Just to clarify, there are no other "payments" required to learn Necromancy.
Evocare - To add, the paladin abilities do require a high degree of karma to be at their most effective.
Evocare - Since necromancy spells significantly lower the caster's karma, it becomes very difficult to be a paladin/necromancer
Evocare - ... although not impossible.

Lord-Xanthor - *Chy* Will you be adding any new mounts for people with no taming? As in, different hued horses and the like?
OaksOSI - Animating a dead horse will create a skeletal mount that may be ridden by the Necromancer.
OaksOSI - All animated creatures cannot be stabled, and they die slowly over time, so they are more of a temporary (and evil) ride for the Necromancer.
MrTact - You mean decay, right?

Lord-Xanthor - *DrEviL[J-D]* Question: How will the Siege Perilous Shard be affected by AoS, will we get the new land and the new PvP stuff. If it is up to the player base will Siege have a say or will it be all the Asian Siege shards getting the say again?
Evocare - We're still in the process of considering the best way to handle the differences between normal and siege ruleset shards as of AoS, so that decision hasn't yet been made. We are, however, quite cognizant of the issue.

Lord-Xanthor - *Cosis* Is Luck a New Stat like Strength or Intell ? How or what is it based on?
* Savant is now known as Guest59605457 *
Hanse - As lucky as a six toed mongbat, my father used to say...uh...wait... that's not something we've discussed yet! it'll be in a future update on our AoS minisite... :)
Hanse - It won't count towards your 225-250 stat cap, though.
Hanse - Blah!
Hanse - More info, then...you get luck from magical items...there...I said it
* Hanse grins. *

Lord-Xanthor - *|Keiron|* With AoS luanch looming, do the imfamious Sea Horses of Ish planning on making an apperience?
Evocare - No. Unfortunately the sea horses ran into unforseen technical problems that made them prohibitively costly (in terms of development time) to add to the game.
Evocare - We don't have any plans to add them at this time. =[

Lord-Xanthor - *Freeman^* Will the virtues play any part in being a paladin?
OaksOSI - The Virtues will not have any game effect for a paladin.
OaksOSI - However, the Shrines of Virtue are where a paladin tithes his or her gold to invoke their spells, so they are somewhat linked to the virtues, in spirit at least.

Lord-Xanthor - *Dolgorath[SG-ATL]* Will house placement be open right when Malas opens, or will there be a delay like there was for Trammel?
Vex - That hasn't been decided yet. I wish I had a better answer!

Lord-Xanthor - *Tarnipuss* Will reds be able to use item insurance? And if so how as they currently only have access to 1 town - Buc's Den (that is assuming it is something that must be purchased from a town)
Adrick-OSI - its not purchased in town and yes they can insure items same as blues
Evocare - Insurance sages simply don't discriminate... they're very greedy. ;]

Lord-Xanthor - *Gladwyn* In the past, new versions of Ultima Online have been optional - though not purchasing the new game would lead to missing out on some new features, gameplay would not be impaired. What degree of backward compatibility will exist with AoS? If a patch happens, what is a rough guestimate of its size?
Evocare - The degree of backward compatibility is roughly equivalent to that of UO:T2A
Evocare - That issue will be addressed in more detail on the website within the coming weeks! =]

Lord-Xanthor - *George_Z* Will the paladin profession have a complimentary skill with it (like eval to magery, tacts to weps skills etc) and if so how important will it be to paladins
OaksOSI - Karma is the biggest complementary player statistic for paladin abilities. Of course, the majority of the their abilities are directly related to combat, so a paladin will need to be well-versed in the ways of weapons and tactics.
OaksOSI - Only the penitent man can pass.

Lord-Xanthor - <Sedah> Will we have 4 new resist skills for each element or will our resist to a element depend on our overall magic resistance skill?
Hanse - Resistances are not skills.


Lord-Xanthor - *Jimmy* Will the necromancer always have a skull face or will he have a regular one?
OaksOSI - The Necromancer will have a skull face only when in Lich or Wraith form.
OaksOSI - To clarify, the lich form makes you look like a lich and wraith form makes you look like a wraith, and they have skull-like faces in their models. =)
Evocare - The screenshots you've probably seen on the AoS site are merely those of a player wearing a bone helm (the new 3d wearables version).
Evocare - They were not meant to imply that you would *have* to look like that to be a necromancer. =]

Lord-Xanthor - *Nostradamus* What will the required skills be to learn Necromancy, and become a true necromancer?
OaksOSI - A true Necromancer will master both Necromancy and Spirit Speak. They would be wise to have some way to regain their mana as well. Also, the Necromancer can cast spells while holding a weapon, so their other skills can vary greatly.
OaksOSI - The Necromancer can only cast *Necromancy* spells while holding a weapon, by the way. Magery spells still require that the caster's hands be free of anything other than a spellbook.
Evocare - Unless, of course, they're weidling a weapon with the "spell channeling" property.
Evocare - But, that's a question for another day. ;]
OaksOSI - *winks*
Adrick-OSI - hes such a tease =P
* Hanse cackles. *

Lord-Xanthor - *phen0mena* Where will we find Necro Regs???
OaksOSI - Necromancy reagents can be found on vendors and monsters.
OaksOSI - Any vendor that already sells reagents will sell the new Necromancy reagents.
Hanse - There are also a couple other things such as treasure chests that have them, too. :)

Lord-Xanthor - *FatalAngel* How much mana will the special moves use up? If it depends on the move, give an example.
Adrick-OSI - thats a question we struggled with for many days - short answer there is a base cost for each move which can be lowered by having more skill points in weapon skills (parry is considred a weapon skill) or magic items that reduce mana costs

Lord-Xanthor - *Thomas* What are the advantadges of a skeletal mount as opposed to a normal horse?
OaksOSI - Not only do they look cool, but they require no taming for a Necromancer to acquire one. Simply kill a horse, and animate the corpse. It's easier than baking a pie.
OaksOSI - They are also tougher than a normal horse, but they are somewhat temporary because their bodies decay.
OaksOSI - And buffer horses make buffer skeletal mounts.

Lord-Xanthor - *Freeman^* how will silver effect necromancers and the things they turn into?
OaksOSI - Silver weapons will indeed hit transformed Necromancers with great fury. However, the damage increase that all "slayer" weapons do versus players in "monster" forms has been lowered compared to what it does versus real monsters.
OaksOSI - Silver weapons are considered slayer weapons in reference to that last statement.

Lord-Xanthor - Tarnipuss* Will the chances for the special moves Crushing Blow/Paralyse/Concussion Blow still be based upon the Anatomy skill?
Evocare - Nope.
* Hanse notices his mongbats are getting a little edgy. *

Lord-Xanthor - I would like to thank everyone for coming tonight!
Lord-Xanthor - And thanks to all of the OSI folks for spending their personal time talking to us
Lord-Xanthor - Please join #ultima-online for continued, unmoderated chat
Lord-Xanthor - the log will be posted shortly at http://uohoc.stratics.com
Lord-Xanthor - THANKS
Evocare - Thanks everyone, and Sunsword says "hello!"
OaksOSI - Cold rippin' it up!
* Hanse unchains the fire mongbats, mounts up, and herds them towards the homestead. *