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 the 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...
Lord-Xanthor - Tonights Topic is Age Of Shadows
Lord-Xanthor - Please /msg /query [QT]ELM, [QT]Flippie, [QT]Rhayde.
Lord-Xanthor - *Arcanus_Caligo* I think I read something about players being able to populate the Malas cities Luna and Umbra; is this true? Can players build their new homes within the walls and void of the cities (inside the guard zone)????
Hanse - Yes.
Hanse - The landmass was crafted to allow interesting house placement.
Hanse - Luna has walls around paved roads to allow you to place inside the walls (not in a justice zone, tho).
Hanse - There's a large orc fort for you to place your houses in, as well.
Hanse - Umbra does not have interior house placement, though. There are large areas outside that city to place at.
Hanse - Also, there are snowy and sandy plateaus to place on. :)
Hanse - So, you can place your house inside a mountain range.
Hanse - Also, some areas are accessible by caves...to get to the location to place a house.

Lord-Xanthor - *godski* I didn't notice any mention of invis or tele items in the item properties info. Will we be able to craft them? Are you changing them to work like the way Night Sight items are going to work? (about time on the night sight btw)
Hanse - Teleportation and invisibility items will not spawn with AoS. The old items will keep their charges, but once you use them up...they're used up.
Hanse - :)

Lord-Xanthor - *Guest1* what happens to all the current magic weapons when aos comes out? will they still have vanq...etc modifiers? or will the change to the aos system? for example could you have a "rare" pp vanq after the change?
Hanse - Current magic items will be converted to the new system.
Hanse - For example... vanquishing items do extra damage in combat.
Hanse - A vanquishing sword would convert to a 35% damage bonus (this could change, I am still working on those numbers).
Hanse - If the item was crafted with a valorite runic hammer and is exceptional, it would get an additional 10% damage bonus.
Hanse - That's just one example of how we're converting magic items.
Hanse - But the current damage, durability, defense, accuracy items are all being converted.
Hanse - As well as some of the hit attacks, such as magic missile, fireball, etc...

Lord-Xanthor - *Saulo* How big is Malas in terms of something easily measurable, such as tiles or screens? Approximations are acceptable =]
OaksOSI - Bigger than a breadbox.
Hanse - Sorry, was disconnected
Hanse - The landmass is quite large.
Hanse - It's roughly equivalent to the left half of britannia...about 1/3 the size of the main world
Hanse - A little larger than Ilshenar.

Lord-Xanthor - *NyquilDragon* With the recent additions of the new skills Necro/chivalry will we be seeing an increase to the base skill cap to accomodate those characters whom are "capped-out" to take have the ability to train these skills?
OaksOSI - There is no skill cap increase with Age of Shadows. You'll have to figure out how to optimize your character and what to give up if you want to become a Necromancer or Paladin.
OaksOSI - The skills are designed to work well with existing character templates... you may drop healing for Chivalry, for example.

Lord-Xanthor - Just a reminder to please only send questions to the question takers with [QT] in their names and who are opped =)
Lord-Xanthor - *Garion* When I turn a current house into a dirt plot everything falls into a special container. Is their a weight limit/item count to it, can things only be removed, and their their only a certain time frame that it stays?
Vex - The Moving Crate is a special container: It cannot be picked up, and no items can be placed into it. Items inside it count toward your house secure limit. The idea is for you to unpack items from it and immediately lock them down or secure them.
Vex - We're taking great pains to make sure the Moving Crate can't be abused. :)

Lord-Xanthor - *godski* There have been some interesting discussions on crafters dying as a player class. Could you discuss a point or two on how crafters will play key roles in AOS?
Augur-OSI - Well, crafters should play a large part in the post AoS world, building from the ways they do now.
Augur-OSI - We start off with the conversion of Special Materials (colored ingots and leather types) from adding base AR to adding resistances and other effects
Augur-OSI - This will be a big deal for starting up the AoS run - because if you run into battle with no or little resist in AoS, you'll be in trouble.
Augur-OSI - With the vastly expanded magic system, it may seem like people will only want the magic items
Augur-OSI - but crafters will be able to make magic items now as well. This works through Runic Hammers
Augur-OSI - instead of adding a base bonus when you create an item with a Runic Hammer, you now get random magic properties applied to the item if you successfully craft it
Augur-OSI - The better the hammer/sewing kit type, the more properties it can possibly add, and the greater average strength of added properties.
Augur-OSI - Beyond that, blacksmiths and tailors can Enhance items.
Augur-OSI - This is basically like adding in the Special Material after the fact.
Augur-OSI - So if you find, say, a magic sworrd you really like, with lots of properties that fit exactly what you want
Augur-OSI - you can then take it to a smith and have him try to smith some Valorite into the already existing sword
Augur-OSI - thus adding the Valorite properties to the sword, making it even better.
Augur-OSI - Enhancing is really pretty risky though, to balance that out. So it will be a high level game.
Augur-OSI - There's also some other improvements (repairing ability and repair contracts for every skill, etc.)

Lord-Xanthor - *Saulo* Can you give details about how lockdowns/secures will work with the new housing plot system? Is it a set amount depending on the physical size of the plot?
Vex - Basically, yes. The exact amount you'll get is still up in the air. We're looking hard at server memory usage in terms of the extra space custom houses take up, and we won't know for a little while yet exactly how many secures we can safely allocate per house.

Lord-Xanthor - *Thomas* Some items will have the chance of giving bonuses to skills. Will the potential list of skill bonuses be similar to the skill list used for power scrolls? Will the skill bonus allow you to exceed your cap for a skill?
Hanse - The list of skill bonuses is similar to powerscrolls.
Hanse - The skill bonuses on items will NOT allow you to exceed your skill cap. Only ancient smithy hammers will allow that (for blacksmithy).

Lord-Xanthor - *Thomas* The new magic item system completely changes how runic hammers will work. My question though, will you still need the appropriate metal for the appropriate kind of runic hammer?
Augur-OSI - No, you no longer need to match metal to runic. Also, I forgot to mention that material hue always copies over to the item now, you don't need a runic hammer to make colored swords for example. We've also added a DO NOT USE HUE option to the crafting menu, so you can choose to use the material but not use its color.
Augur-OSI - Since you may want various materials for their effects on different items, but not want the crazy color mishmash ^_^

Lord-Xanthor - *Lyria_Lurking_AFK* What changes are in store for thieves and rogues in AoS?
Helios_OSI - While I wouldn't to spoil any goodies from an upcoming AOS FAQ site update, I would say that the most important thing for a thief is *what* he steals - Not so much how he steals it or who he steals it from.

Lord-Xanthor - *Ash* Hey guys, I remember new clothing, weapons and armor where going to be added in with Third Dawn however we haven't seen any of them in game yet. Are you planing on putting them in with AoS?
Hanse - We're not adding those items with AoS.
Hanse - However, we are adding totally new weapons to AoS. They are visible in both 2D and 3D, if you purchase the expansion.

Lord-Xanthor - *doubleshot* Why did the UO dev team decide to make such derastic changes to an already great housing system? Why take such a big risk?
Vex - I'm not sure what you mean by risk. We have a lot of heads working on this system, and if there was any reasonable doubt about our ability to add in customized housing it never would have gone on the feature list.
Vex - I'm glad you think housing as it is now is great. Hopefully you'll think the new and improved housing as stupendous beyond words. :)

Lord-Xanthor - *Guest1* can you give us any hints as to what type of items will only spawn in doom, or be obtained from doom?
Helios_OSI - Some of the most powerful and most elusive items can be obtained throughout the corridors of Dungeon Doom.
Helios_OSI - Items that will appeal to many playstyles. even the non-adventuring types.

Lord-Xanthor - Just a note, questions that were sent to Flippie, please resend to the otehr question takers. Thanks =)
Lord-Xanthor - *JiG|* What will be the required skills to ensure maximum potency from a Necro character and likewise with a Paladin character?
OaksOSI - Spirit Speak is required to maximize most of the Necromancy spells. Necromancy is used to determine your success in casting. There is even one spell (wither) that does extra damage if your karma is exceptionally low.
Augur-OSI - Likewise, Chivalry is the main skill used for determining success for using Paladin Abilities,
Augur-OSI - but high/positive karma greatly increases the effects of the spell (like healing more damage with close wounds, for example)
Augur-OSI - Battle Focus will most likely be a very useful skill to have in combination, for the stamina and mana regeneration

Lord-Xanthor - *C_Jarel{Oceania}* How come you're so opposed to increasing the skill cap? You're adding a lot of new skills and options for players. But making it harder and harder to combine them in a manner that suits themselves (for example for rp purposes) and not Game Mechanics. This is especially a problem for veteran players who've already maxed out their skill cap and are satisfied with it?
OaksOSI - The skill cap is very important for skill balance as it has been considered a static factor for many years of development. It does make choices hard, but a difficult decision for the player is a success, especially when they are all equally good.
OaksOSI - Role-players can always can more easily adapt to situations, of course, because it's more of an art than a game mechanic.

Lord-Xanthor - *Dominatria{MTC}* if you do not purchase the expansion, what do you see in place of the new weapons?
Adrick-OSI - as close to the weapon as can be represented given the current art
Adrick-OSI - so a lance will probably be a spear

Lord-Xanthor - *ne0* Will the shrouds given as a reward from purchasing AOS from ebgames.com have any special properties?
Augur-OSI - The property of looking kick ass.
Augur-OSI - No, there's no special armor bonuses or anything unbalancing like that
Augur-OSI - but they do look really cool
Augur-OSI - I mean, who doesn't want to run around with a black death shroud and a scythe!?

Lord-Xanthor - *Solidarius* will the current special attacks attached to 2-handed melee weapons (crushing blow, paralyzing blow, concussion blow) be removed to make way for the new mana-required special moves?
Adrick-OSI - in their current form (on two handed weapons only they are removed yes)
Adrick-OSI - although the three moves mentioned still exist - with some slight modifications - and of course the mana cost
* Hanse whips his mongbats into a frenzy. *
* Sannio frenzies his mongbats into whips. *

Lord-Xanthor - *StoneDuck* will we be bale to combo special attacks? like acctivate more than one to be performed at the same time?
Adrick-OSI - cant combo special moves
Adrick-OSI - but....
Adrick-OSI - nothing says you cant evil omen and armor ignore or concecrate weapon bleed
Adrick-OSI - :)

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
OaksOSI - Don't forget the insane combos: Create Food/Strangle -- you can finally choke to death on an apple!
* Hanse throws on his pure mongbat fuzzy ears longcoat and strides away to the magic item vault for more tinkering. *
* [QT]Elm is now known as Elm *
Gromm - REESES PIECE! I found a reeses piece on the floor! Gotta go, bye everyone! :)
Fertbert - 'night all