House of Commons from 2009-08-19

House of Commons from 2009-08-19

Zephenia	Welcome everyone to the Stratics Ultima Online House of Commons chat with the Developers and Staff of Ultima Online! The chat will start momentarily- but first introductions!
Chrissay	Hi everyone I'm Chrissay the Community Coordinator for UO
Draconi	Hi! I'm Tim "Draconi" Cotten, Lead Designer on all things UO'ey. Great to see you all out again for our latest HoC!
Kestrel	Jimmy here. I test stuff and make inane commentary.
	*Uriah poots on his IRC noob hat :P*
Uriah	puts too
Draconi	And there are more of us... I promise...
	*Kestrel snickers.*
Draconi	But they're... pooting?
Draconi	>.>
Kestrel	I'mjust saying, don't step in anything.
Zephenia	<thegrayghost> Are there any plans for additional stable slots for players with the new tamables in Stygian Abyss? </thegrayghost>
Sakkarah	Oh yeah stables. Now that you mention it, we are planning on offering 2 additional stable slots for all accounts with the SA upgrade.
Draconi	*sweet*
Sakkarah	Also, the Chicken Coops were created specifically to allow players who want to take part in that mini-game to be able to raise as many chickens as they want without using up their stable slots.
	* Kestrel oooohs and aaaaahs.*
Sakkarah	hmmm chicken...
	*Draconi 's chicken can take on Sak's chicken*
Sakkarah	Oh no you didn't!
Kestrel	UO Chicken: Tastes just like...raptor?
Zephenia	<joo> I noticed the new artifacts are still in testing. Are these planned to be gained Doom Style? Will they be on par with Doom artifacts? </joo>
Draconi	Aha! So you saw that eh?
Draconi	There are quite a few new artifacts in testing - currently you're thinking of the Gargoyle versions that we're adding (perhaps more later?)
Draconi	These will be available in mainly three ways:
Draconi	* Stealables: Yes, we've already added some deco stealables to the Underworld dungeon, but now we're adding actual Equippable Artifact stealables to various points of the Stygian Abyss dungeon
Draconi	* Doom-style Point System: We've made a (somewhat) kinder drop system for other Equippable Arties that you can get while fighting monsters in the Stygian Abyss
Draconi	* Boss Monsters: Each of the new boss monsters (including the Champ Spawns) have a certain set of Arties you can get from them. Your chances of getting them are related to your place in the "Top Attackers" list. The more damage, the better the chance
Zephenia	<thegrayghost> Are there any plans to add pact instincts to Raptors, if not why? </thegrayghost>
Draconi	Yep!
Kestrel	Yes, we bred raptors. NO, NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG WITH THAT.
Draconi	Wait, Kestrel, BEHIND YOU! IT'S OPENING THE DOOR!
Kestrel	OH NO HOW COULD WE HAVE FORESEEN THIS
	* Kestrel is mauled. Messily.*
Zephenia	<gvp_ ches]=""> Can we have more details about the Gargoyle pet, deco, and the number of Garg-tokens from SA expansion incentive? </gvp_>
Chrissay	There will be 3 Tokens of alteration for those who purchase during those few weeks after launch, We are also planning some community-centric promotions during that time
Chrissay	We do plan to offer the tokens separately at a later date.
Zephenia	<ansatsu_sonoma> First Thank you for your work on the expansion.. Everything i have seen has been extremely great. My question is this.. The Imbuing material are obtained by unraveling.. But do they also spawn on monsters as well?? -AND- <xevei_gl> Will there ever be a crafting use for: Blackrock, peerless items (dreadhorn horns, tained mushrooms, parx sweat, glob etc) and other items? Pretty please? </xevei_gl></ansatsu_sonoma>
Draconi	Oooh, double trouble, but related questions.
Draconi	We are seriously considering expanding out the ingredient list for imbuing, and making the variety of imbuing ingredients obtainable in more interesting ways that touch more playstyles
Draconi	Right now, it looks like it's going to sort out best as three groups of ingredients, one group for each major "value" group of item properties
Draconi	So imagine the list of all possible Imbuing item properties, now imagine it sorted by "relative value to the player"
Draconi	Then say "hey, here's some ingredients that make since for each of these, and can now be easily obtained (for the easy ones), and less so for the more difficult"
Draconi	The tradeoff being that the "punishment" for failing an Imbuing check would be dropped quite a bit, so you didn't lose your ingredients at an unacceptable rate
Draconi	Because... I like being alive, I really do.
Draconi	For example, let's say you wanted to Imbue one of the Skills onto an item
Draconi	That might require a certain amount of "essence" + a piece of blackrock
Draconi	We'll have more details soon :)
Draconi	Oh, and I should mention that the ingredients would be obtainable through quests, crafting, hunting, and bosses
Zephenia	<tazar> Will the new champ spawns be available in a tram rule set like the current champs? </tazar>
Sakkarah	The two new champ spawns are exclusively Felucca ruleset. There are no plans to make them available in Trammel at the present time.
Zephenia	And Folks - keep those questions coming to [QT]Kiminality and [QT]Dor - do NOT let them get bored.... that is bad.
	*[QT]Dor snickers*
Kestrel	And don't feed them after midnight.
Kestrel	We're chattering.
Chrissay	I fed you after midnight and you see what happened!
Zephenia	<joo> I noticed the new champ spawns were very open. Is this a conscious effort to get away from chokepoint grinder style defense or just a coincidence? </joo>
Draconi	Yes and no, really.
Draconi	One the one hand, we're doing things with these two Champ Spawns that we haven't done before - interactive elements, special attacks, etc.
Kestrel	Things. Shiny, shiny things.
Draconi	However, if we remove the chokepoints completely, it's unbalanced in favor of the Trammel side fighters, who could simply walk out the "door" to the "relative safety" of the normal Stygian Abyss dungeon (which is a Trammel ruleset)
Draconi	The Champ Spawns are still having some additional worldbuilding work done. The next version will include tunnel style entrances branching off from the main battle area to the Trammel exit, allowing a chokepoint for chasing down cowards
Draconi	We're considering a randomized teleport-in entrance, though, to deal with insta-ganking
Draconi	Additionally, the Felucca entrance to the Champ Spawns all link to existing Anti-Virtue dungeons, so they have a built in danger area they can be chased down in if they flee the Champ Spawn
Zephenia	<ty> There's no plans to ever offer a simple disc to order for SA like KR had? Even if it's just a burned disc we won't care. What's the downside? I'd be paying $30 for SA + $5-10 more for the disc. </ty>
Chrissay	currently there are no plans for mailing out disks. However, in the next Open Beta survey we will include this as one of the questions.
Chrissay	based on the requests for this feature we will consider it as one of the types of distribution.
Zephenia
anon5104	What sorts of new things are in SA for fishing? I got a red herring the other day, was very cool! </anon5104>
Messana	there are other things, but we don't want to give too many spoilers
Messana	And btw have you tried mounting it?
Uriah	LOL
Uriah	nice
Draconi	Wait. For the translators, "mount" as in... put up on a plaque on the wall. Right? RIGHT?
Chrissay	what else would we be thinking?
Draconi	I dunno. I remember something about pies.
Draconi	Someone asked me to look at some pie code at some point.
Kestrel	Nom nom nom pie.
Draconi	<.<
Chrissay	stop distracting us with pie
Kestrel	Fun fact: One member of UOQA was born on Pi Day!
Zephenia	<thegrayghost> Regarding the new constructs, will they bond and are there ways of healing them outside of the mysticism spell healing wind? </thegrayghost>
Sakkarah	The new craftable pets will be repairable by a tinker, same way as golems and will require iron and/or bronze ingots.
Zephenia	<justin----case> Can we sacrifice Virgins to the Volcano when SA goes live? </justin----case>
Kestrel	Uh.
Draconi	While trying to maintain our T for Teen rating, here are our responses:
Kestrel	Hee.
Kestrel	Hee hee hee.
Uriah	Why would you wanna sacrifice Virginians??
Draconi	#1: "Wait, Justin, you're asking if we can let you jump into the Volcano?"
Draconi	#2: "Whoa, you think you can find one somewhere in UO?"
Kestrel	So, I can't think of a better way to anoint the Stygian Abyss than in an orgy of fiery, gratuitous death.
	* Kestrel edges away from Draconi.*
	*Draconi pushes Kestrel in. Ha, edged to the right when you shoulda left*
Kestrel	AIIIIEEEEE!!
	* Kestrel melts.*
KaenjiNiiice
Sakkarah	pushes Draconi in and stealths away*
Draconi	Well, I guess that'd be a great shortcut through the Underworld level.
Kestrel	Barad-Dur crumbles in a plume of smoke.
Zephenia	<joo> Im a big fan of mysticism. However I feel like bombards stun chance is lackluster against targets with little or no magic resist. I also am concerned that players with no magic resist can break the effects of sleep with a simple tinker trapped box. Paralyze being broken by damage is understandable but with sleep you can move and mount or use items. For it to be so easily broken seems unbalanced. </joo>
Draconi	*blinks slowly*
Draconi	That is a very... detailed explanation of your concern
Draconi	I wish my answer were so eloquent, but I fear it can be summed up thus:
Draconi	It's broken :(
Kestrel	:(
Draconi	We're going to look at it
Draconi	:)
Draconi	*turns his frown upside down!*
Kestrel	MINE IS STUCK
Kestrel	HALP
Kestrel	:(
Kestrel	:)
Kestrel	There we go. 'night.
Uriah	Bye all! Drive home safely.
Messana	Good night everyone, see you soon!
Sakkarah	waves to everyone*
Chrissay	Night all it was fun!
Zephenia	Well that's it everyone! Thanks for coming and we will have logs posted shortly on the UO Stratics site. All unanswered questions will go to the Devs for future chats and FoF sessions! Thanks again!