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 General Discussion
Lord-Xanthor - Please /msg /query [QT]Gallahan, [QT]Abombpk, [QT]Nuke, [QT]Rhayde.

Lord-Xanthor - *Hemisphere* Is anything going to be done about the current vendor lockdowns situation? It is hard enough for me to run a decent shop in my 18x18 if I want to store any items, I would imagine it is pretty bad for people with smaller properties.
Vex - Yes, as a matter of fact. Check out http://update.uo.com/design_439.html
Vex - Sannio just put up a new In Concept post this evening. :)

Lord-Xanthor - *Balron* Hi there...Any chance we can get a clarification on the AOS rewards claiming? Have a friend that's in Iraq, want to know whether to choose his rewards or not.
Vex - In order to be able to claim your gift, you must *log in* the character between now and Publish 19, which is slated for early July.
Vex - Once you have logged in and gotten the menu to claim the gifts, you will get that menu on login forever, until such a time as you actually claim the gifts.
Vex - With Publish 19, no new characters will be given the menu to receive gifts, but all who had already logged in and gotten the menu will keep it until they use it.

Lord-Xanthor - *Bender* Will Juka bows ever spawn again? Good bows are extremely rare compared to other weapons and these spawning again would be very appreciated by archers.
Hanse - They spawn now...
Hanse - It's just that their descriptions are not showing up.
Hanse - Also, there's a bug where you cannot get slayer effects from combining them with gears.
Hanse - This is fixed in publish 19.

Lord-Xanthor - *]GoG[* Are skill jewelry supposed to work like mining gloves and ASH's in that they take your skill over your cap? Like I am GM Mage, if I wear a ring of +10 magery will it take me to 110? Though it doesn't work now.
Hanse - Unless you use a powerscroll to raise your skill cap, those magic items will not exceed 100 skill.

Lord-Xanthor - *Aiden* What is the priority of guildstone fixes? They have been broken for a *very* long time, when can we see a fix coming?
Vex - It is on the radar. It's not currently on the schedule for a particular publish. All I can say is we really really really do want to make some much needed fixes to the guildstone interface and make at least some small tweaks to the guild stone in general.
Vex - We *do* intend to work on it this year. Hopefully sooner rather than later. But I can't be more specific than that right now, unfortunately.

Lord-Xanthor - *ghyde* Recalling off a runebook with a Malas location set as the default still doesn't work - when can we expect this to be fixed?
Hanse - Uhm...
Hanse - That's news to me.
Hanse - We'll enter it into our bug database and get it fixed!
Hanse - I'm not sure when to expect it, tho.

Lord-Xanthor - *Darlene* T-Huntin isn't very interesting for most people at the moment and nothing has be done in general for T-Huntig in a long time now. What do you think about adding Powerscrols for Lockpicking and Catho AND adding Level 6 and 7 Maps in a future Publish to make it more interesting again?
Hanse - Neat idea!
Hanse - I got smacked by management for putting in more treasure map locations after a feature lock date earlier this year. :)
Hanse - Cuz we didn't have enough QA time to test the locations...
Hanse - We'd like to do more mini-quests such as treasure maps in the future. I believe we'll see more changes like that not too long from now. :)

Lord-Xanthor - *Neutral_Galad* Can we expect a toggle switch for guild titles sometime soon?
Hanse - Well, we currently have a bug for guild titles.
Hanse - I've been talking about getting them back to being displayed with allnames...
Hanse - We're looking at guild titles tomorrow, I believe.
Hanse - No "switch" is being added, though.
Hanse - Although, there is a flag you can set on a guildstone to show your title or not, already.

Lord-Xanthor - *scarreddefiance* Is Use Best Weapon Skill on archery weapons going to be fixed, or was it an unintended property on bows?
Vex - It is a bug -- Use Best Weapon Skill isn't supposed to show up on bows at all. We feel that having that property on bows and working would practically negate the entire Archery skill. The plan is to remove that property from all bows it appears on, and replace that property with an alternative.
Vex - I can't say with any precision right now when we'll actually be able to do that, though.

Lord-Xanthor - *Nos* Hey, will there be any new tamable animals? Something stronger than a steed? (they die too fast and aren't that strong)
Hanse - Any new tamable animals?
Hanse - Well, we've released many new tamable animals over the past few years.
Hanse - I'm sure we'll see more of the same trend of new creatures/tamables in the future, as well.
Hanse - We don't have a design to announce today, tho.

Lord-Xanthor - *Bender* Will the requirement that archers must stand still from firing an arrow until it hits ever be removed? I can understand having to be still to fire, but once the arrow is loose you should be able to move without an automatic miss. This was added a long time ago and really isn't necessary anymore.
Hanse - There is a special move "Moving Shot" that you can use with some bows. This has already been addressed. :)

Lord-Xanthor - *Bender* Since AOS, both PvM and PvP fights are much shorter but bandage healing times have not changed. Often times a fight does not even last the 12 or so seconds needed for a bandage to work, leaving you dead or running. Is there any chance we will see a reduction of time needed to apply a bandage?
Vex - Actually you can get much nicer bandage times by increasing your dexterity.

Lord-Xanthor - *scarreddefiance* With hit area effect on bows, does the area effect take place where you are standing, or where the creature is standing?
Hanse - Ah!
Hanse - All hit area effects center around your current target you're hitting.
Hanse - Although, your target is not affected.

Lord-Xanthor - *Bender* Will armored swamp dragons ever give resistance bonuses to their riders again?
Hanse - I looked at that today.
Hanse - QA says it doesn't work and I say it does, although it doesn't display the resistance.
Hanse - I'll be looking at swamp dragon armor
Hanse - tomorrow again... :)

Lord-Xanthor - *mikey|afk* Has there been any talk of opening a New Pvp server to attract all those who quit with the introduction of Item Based Pvp?(AoS) UO is the only game out of any mmorpg that ever had a balanced 1v1 dueling system.
Vex - Let me be frank -- right now Ultima Online is not in a state where we can give serious consideration to opening new shards with different rulesets. There are a lot of reasons why we can't afford to do that right now. Next year? Maybe, but I'm not making any promises.
Vex - That being said, each publish is bringing more tweaks and balance adjustments to PvP. It is still possible to have a fair one-on-one duel, if you elect to exclude magic items altogether. And, we do have long-reaching plans to fix and improve PvP systems in general.
* Hanse never thought he'd see Vex act like Frank. *

Lord-Xanthor - *FrostMerchant[Pac]* Tailor rewards are now in an over abundance with the mixing up of when to get them (i.e. tons of CBDs, and Stretched Hides) yet smithing was not mixed up to make easier to get hammers and anvils. will this be fixed?
Hanse - We're looking at BOD tweaks in the near future. That's really all I can say about that. :)

Lord-Xanthor - *Orion5* What about bringing back Abyss or making Test Center Permanent (the latter is extremely useful to those who want to experiment with skill/class combos, not just pvpers)
Hanse - Everyone cringes whenever I mention color wars. :P
Vex - I am fond of the idea of a more or less permanent test center. So is SunSword, and so are my fellow designers. It *could* happen. No promises! But we definitely hear you on that one.
Vex - Now -- about bringing back Abyss, I'm not sure if that's even possible, because the system was last developed on so long ago that it is bound to be horribly broken due to modifications to the game server code base done over time. I'd say it's pretty unlikely, but not impossible.

Lord-Xanthor - Just a friendly reminder
Lord-Xanthor - Please do not message the dev team or other staff members other then the people with [QT] in their name. TOnights Qtakers will be [QT]Gallahan, [QT]Abombpk, [QT]Nuke, [QT]Rhayde.
Lord-Xanthor - *Minotaur2k* Question:Will OSI be adding in anything major in the next year for Roleplayers?
Hanse - You're referring to tools to allow roleplayers to make their own scenarios or what would you consider major?
Hanse - We'll be adding more content to the game... but as far as anything "major"...we don't have anything to announce today, I'm afraid...
Hanse - But we're committed to giving more tools to folks to use to customize and play the game how they want to play it.. :)

Lord-Xanthor - *Blackstream* What kind of quality improvements can we expect to get from the rate hike. Looking for specific things like "Hiring more GMs" or "Getting new servers" or whatever.
Vex - I'm afraid I can't be very specific about our budget -- that's classified Super Secret and whatnot. But, I can say that we do have an increased budget for the UO Live Team this year as a direct result of the rate increase. You will see things come as a direct result of that. I'm just not allowed to say what exactly they will be.

Lord-Xanthor - *Sphyr* What kind of changes to treasure chests can we expect in Pub19 as was hinted in last month's UOHOC?
Hanse - Treasure chests in dungeons that spawn randomly will start spawning magic items.
Hanse - That's the only change in Publish 19 for treasure chests.

Lord-Xanthor - godski* How is the work coming on vendoring? I'm looking forward to some change in the system. Any thoughts about adding specialized vendors like auction vendors or vendors the players feed resources to and the customers can pick what they want made?
Vex - We have done quite a bit of work on vendor changes already. The In Concept posting I referred to earlier doesn't contain much detail. I think I can elaborate a little bit on it...
Vex - One of the most important features is the vendor contract system. This is a way for a house owner to rent a specific number of lockdowns to another player, for a specific fee and duration.
Vex - That implies that once the contract is made, then there must be a *guarantee* that it will be lived up to. I'll leave it to you to speculate on what that might mean...
Vex - Now, we don't have plans to do auction vendors or vendors that buy back stackable items or any number of suggestions not mentioned on the In Concept post. We hope to do some work along those lines in a future publish.

Lord-Xanthor - *Mike_Angelo* Are there any concrete plans to introduce bulk order deeds for other crafts?
Hanse - No...
Hanse - We're still ironing out other details with the BOD's before continuing on to other skills.
Hanse - For example...BOD books... :)
Hanse - We have a complaint on the table of players using all their available storage space just to store BOD's.
Hanse - Much of Publish 19 is to fix that complaint. :)

Lord-Xanthor - *Farquhar* Can you make Deer Masks and Bear Masks repairable? I found the artifact "Hunters Headdress" from the doom gauntlet, and I'd like to be able to repair it if I use it
Vex - -- Yeah, next it'll be people using all their storage for bod *books*, and then where will we be? ;)
Hanse - in a better world?
* Hanse hides. *
Hanse - actually, Sunsword asked me to fix masks
Hanse - so they're repairable...
Hanse - and I didn't write it down...I'll fix them tomorrow...thanks for the reminder
Hanse - hmmm, I think tinkering should do the job.. :)
Vex - Re Farquhar's question, I have it on good authority from a little birdie that pretty much every magic item type that isn't repairable will end up repairable as part of our round of bug fixes to go with Publsih 19.
* Hanse flaps his wings. *

Lord-Xanthor - *godski* I like the tool bar across the top of the screen, but being an old type player I already have macros assigned for that sort of stuff. Any chance making it customizable or making special containers that use a similar display? Something like a quick 8 slot reg bag that shows you their amounts when expanded. A potion belt that shows you how many you have all stacked in the belt and usable with a defined hot key.
Vex - We currently have an initiative going to make improvements with each publish to improve the UO game interface. We have a collection of ideas like that going, and each publish we are going to take a few and implement them. While I can't specifically say that we do intend to do what you describe, it's safe to say that something similar to it is likely to happen over the next year.

Lord-Xanthor - *Pikachu* Will you ever create a mongbat God?
Fertbert - Hanse is the mongbat god!
Hanse - Dispute that at your peril!
Fertbert - Thanks for joining us for this chat!

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