House of Commons from 1998-07-02

House of Commons from 1998-07-02

DenDragon	Hello everyone!
DenDragon	Thank you for attending tonight's conference
DenDragon	You can look above at the title bar for tonight's Topic:
DenDragon	"Reaction to the Reputation System and other Misc. Things"
DenDragon	In order to submit questions please /msg or /query Aphrodite, Fot, or Fallo.
DenDragon	Let the meeting commence!
FrostByghte	or Glamdring :)
DenDragon	*Borric* Fame loss upon death has to go. There is no PvPer that can maintain the amount of Fame required to be in an Order/Chaos Guild. And that is where OSI wants the PvPers. You are trying to limit pking, yut murderers are cropping up because fame cannot be maintained... When are you going to correct this?
DesignerD	We are indeed looking at that. It's a concern. We do find fame loss at death a valuable mechanic though
DesignerD	it fills the need we saw for death to have meaning, without damaging your character's abilities. So we like it
DesignerD	But it is true that the order/chaos issue is a problem. I don't have an answer right now, but possibles are:
DesignerD	1) removing or lowering the fame req for order/chaos
DesignerD	2) somehow trying to detect order/chaos death and not applying the penalty (abusable, this one, of course)
DesignerD	3) lowering the fame loss (which we don't wanna do)
DenDragon	*Bowrest* When will the Rep. System be considered implemented and we get along with other patches like the house patch?
DesignerD	You the Bob Bowrest of the shop? :) We have just a few issues to resolve with the rep system, as you know:
DesignerD	1) the whole "change name" exploit, which we have been completely unable to reproduce :(
DesignerD	2) problems with criminal flagging when doing things across guild lines (looting for example)
DesignerD	3) a few other small things.
DesignerD	We plan an update that will cover stuff on Coming Soon and rep system issues before we get to house ownership... it'll be a few weeks though
DenDragon	*Wisdom* Any chance of putting the same kind of stat loss for murderers on theives? They can ruin ones game as much as a murderer. Right now there is no risk for a theif.
DesignerD	Not currently being considered
DenDragon	*Sera* Ever since the rep patch, a lot of people have been gating tough monsters as a form of pking. Are there any plans to either get rid of this or have some sort of in-game consequences for gaters (victims reporting them as murderers, karma loss, etc.)?
DesignerD	We are very concerned about this. We are simply going to have to prevent gating of monsters
DesignerD	So expect that change in the next update. We realize it will break fight nights and people who make dungeons and the like
DesignerD	but they can and should contact Seers about getting help for those things.
Stormwind	illl take it
DenDragon	*Smith_Kender* My question: It has been said that vendors without a house will be removed. When will this happen, and is there any way to make an exception for popular vendors?
Stormwind	Yes, vendors that are not attached to houses will be removed unless they can attach themselves to a house owned by their owners. We have no plans for making exceptions since it will be an automated process, sorry.
DenDragon	*RainmanTDA* what is going to be done about looting and hiding... ppl just run up to corpses, hide, and loot and you can not fire field because the person may be blue. I believe that when a person removes a item from a corpse they should become unhidden...what do you think?
DesignerD	We agree with you. Looting will unhide people.
DenDragon	*Trigelion* Can you comment on the new monster AI mentioned at luncheon?
Stormwind	We plan to generally improve the monster AI. Better fighting tactics, able to pick up and move items out of their way, stuff like that.
DenDragon	*Rahl* Will there be a way for players to become a Glorious Lord/Lady other than being a mage? I mean only mages are able to kill Ancient Wyrms and Balrons. Any non mage players cannot kill or attempt to kill monsters such as those. Is the reputation titles based soley on mages? For they are the only ones who can get the greatest title.
DesignerD	Groups can also kill those monsters, and the karma and fame goes to the person who lands the final blow...
DenDragon	*Cryph* What are the plans on determining house ownership once the house patch comes into effect?
Stormwind	The plan: you will be able to turn in a key using the new multi (ship and house) interface to claim the house. At the end of a fixed period (7 days?), the house will be awarded to either the person who turned in the master key or the first person who ...
DesignerD	(Master key defined as the one you got when the house was built)
Stormwind	...turned in the normal key. All noclaimed multis will then be destroyed. Afterward multis will have strict ownership (one owner) who will be able to make keys, change locks, and transfer ownership.
DenDragon	*Maxium* Under the new system, when someone has a bounty on there head could they have a (bounty) flag over there head?
DesignerD	Never seen the idea before... they could, i suppose. I wonder how much it would affect spontaneous attacks, rather than careful bounty hunting though?
DesignerD	I'd prefer bounty hunters to pick targets from the board, and hunt them down, not kill any bounty they see walking by
BugKiller	Better fictionally that way as well.. :)
DenDragon	*Mantis* Why dosn't it ever rain in Britannia? The ability is already in the client, just never used.
Stormwind	We plan on using the weather effects better and more often.
DenDragon	*shamino* Archery is way too strong, fencing on the other hand is fast but the damages it does are way too low to harm even a rat... swordsmanship is good only with halberds and so on... What do you plan to do with the combat system? Like Rahl said only Mages are able to kill great wyrms and the like, BTW the new rep system rocks =)
DesignerD	We plan on making the melee weapons mor competitive, finding a way to make archery less powerful (probably greater penalties for hit and run or some such), and maybe making dex matter more if we can
DenDragon	*Mephisto* What about giving split karma to all that damaged the creature youre group/guild just killed? And what are you going to do about people gating npcs gaining a ton of karma and fame?
DesignerD	We've talked about this, but haven't made any plans to put it in effect. As far as the gating, we'll reassess how much you get for doing it
DenDragon	*Solor* It seems that under the new reputation system there is no penalty for having low karma (slightly or greatly low) and very litte benefit to having high fame and karma (other than Order/Choas Guild). Why is this? Wouldn't it be beneficial to reard those who follow the way of the Virtues?
DesignerD	We don't actually regard karma as "the way of the Virtues." We are still looking at different ways of getting the Virtues into UO.
DesignerD	Fame DEFINITELY has nothing to do with Virtues.
DesignerD	There is actually some penalty to low karma, but we regard karma as mostly a roleplay tool.
DesignerD	As far as benefits to fame--fame is ayardstick fo ryou to measure your character's achievement. That's pretty much all it is.
DenDragon	*Dryac* I've heard from people that murderer bounties are being exploited, quite badly, as well -- Here's an example : Bob the killer raises a considerable bounty then has his friend Will kill him and return the head; they then share the profit. What do you have to say about this?
BugKiller	Bounties are intented to be mainly for role-playing, and secondarily as an incentive to make sure the murderer dies... thus taking the stat hit. We can't really enforce who does the killing.
FrostByghte	Please use irc.stratics.com or irc4.stratics.com to connect...we have been having trouble with irc3.stratics.com today :)
DenDragon	*Drusus* Has the dev team decided whether to leave combat in towns or take it out, and if combat is left in town will offensive spells ever be enabled?
BugKiller	Thus far, we haven't seen that much problem with combat in town. And given the option, I like the freedom that it gives players. Regarding magic damage... I made a promise that it would be enabled, and I keep my promises. It's just a matter of when.
DenDragon	*CoconutMonkey* Hey, what're the chances of having a sort of "thieves' forest" or something in UO Gold where PvP combat can occur between all, regardless of guild affiliations, and no penalties are incurred?
BugKiller	Originally, Buckaneer's den was intended to be a penalty-free area, and that's still something we're entertaining. But even that's not something that could be put in lightly.
DenDragon	*Troll-LotD* When will monsters be more aggressive towards thieves in dungeons?
DesignerD	On monsters and thieves in dungeons: we can look at making the monsters angrier at people who steal from them
DenDragon	*PainPills* Why do underpowered monsters such as orc mages and bone magi give more karma and fame than drakes and liches?
DesignerD	on the "out of scale" creatures--we will check.
DenDragon	*Costanza* Can an innocence query similar to a notoriety query be added? I can not distinguish between a 2 minute criminal and a life criminal, and one time guard-died because someone turned innocent right when I clicked to attack, though their highlight was grey.
DesignerD	We don't have any plans for an "innocence query"
BugKiller	Unfortuately, the query, in it's current implementation is done on the client, so if a player does change colors during the .07 second brain delay, plus your .3 second lag time, you may hit them at the wrong color.
DenDragon	*Zippy-* Any ETA on when we will be able to loot enemy as well as fellow guild members in town? Also, what if anything, is going to be done?
Stormwind	The guild member looting thing has been fixed and will be part of the next publish. We looked at things to do about the healers but every solution opened up more holes so we decided to leave it as is for now.
DenDragon	*a_mongbat* DD said 'fame is a yardstick to measure your character's achivement', well a non combat GM smith hasn't achived jack then? How about a GM alchemist or scribe or tamer? Isn't there anyway to allow these trades to gain fame from their hard work, which often times takes ALOT more than blade spiriting some stuck drake for 5 minutes? -Cethwyn- thank you.
DesignerD	Well, i should have said that fame measures a particular sort of achievement. :) But there were plans at one point to grant fame for skills other than combat, just none of those plans have come to fruition yet.
DenDragon	*TialoDragon* Any chance of removing fame gain for killing with BS and EV's? Make people actually earn their fame...
DesignerD	no plans for removing that right now
DesignerD	But most monsters who can cast spells will be able to dispel EV and BS after the next publish. They will bepretty smart about it too
DenDragon	*Bornhald* Have you guys thought about instead of being able to master in two skills allowing one to "devote" themselves to a single skill and be able to bring it up to 200 or give them advantages like giving a devoted mage special spells or a devoted smith superior smith work?
DesignerD	No, haven't ever thought about it. Not sur eth skill system woud support that without severe imbalances.
DenDragon	*Player* I got a question: Dev team, what are your favorite wish list features you'd like to add to the game? :-)
DesignerD	Weather, and that matters (cold, snow accumulation)... more dynamic environment (digging, etc). Ability to compose music int he game. Ability to draw pictures in the game. Necromancy. Player races.
BugKiller	I'd like to give players greater control over their environment, and reduce some of the limits we've got in the game and put in place more realistic physical constraints and balance. I'd also like to see a complete skill system revision.
DesignerD	Oh yeah--redo every skill, expand and detail it and everything. Schools of magic. Illusions.
Stormwind	Dynamic self generating world modifiable by players though game rules. Climate model. Plants growing. More modular player housing. Being able to customize home interiors more.
Stormwind	Farming and druid like skills.
DenDragon	*pacFalc* will the ability to create fences as opposed to placing of tents as courtyards be available to players?
DesignerD	That's come up many times. We are however a little concerned about the day some guild fences in, say, Trinsic.
DenDragon	*DarkW0lf* Something very minor, but how bout being able to equip musical instruments. Mages get to equip their books, so why can't I equip my lute.
DesignerD	We were able to add mages equipping spellbooks because the 3d animations for that were already on the CD. But there are no 3d animations for the instruments
DesignerD	Adding the 3d anims would be around 6 megs of download per instrument :(
DenDragon	*Crazey* Is it possible for a temporary shard wide quest somthing with a storyline for those of us who like to role-play? I have talked to many people and they agree that putting a shard wide quest would be great fun!
DesignerD	I suspect you underestimate the difficulty of writing a shard-wide quest that actually involves everyone without being tissue-thin in terms of plot. :(
DesignerD	One of the most difficult things about UO is that there are so many people wanting quests, but a good quest can't involve too many people, or it breaks down
DenDragon	*Wu* Would you consider making Archery as Magic so you have to click on the target each time you want to fire at them? It would solve the problem of people running and healing and being way too powerful with archery.
DesignerD	That is one of the suggestions that we have looked at, but it's not how we'll probably handle it.
DenDragon	*GrayMouser* Weren't Grandmasters supposed to have their "career" visible at all fame levels? Currently, it's only visible at "Illustrious" or above.
DesignerD	I am not sure under what circumstances they were supposed to be visible, but we'd like to find a way for people to display the title they want to
DesignerD	possibly with UO Gold's profile feature
DenDragon	*ArchMage* Will UO ever be ported to the mac???
DesignerD	There are currently no plans for a Mac port. I myself am a Mac person, and would love to see it happen, but it's not currently happening. Sorry.
DenDragon	*Vamphyrie* what is going to be done about firefield/blade npk'ing and guildstone namechange exploit and when?
DesignerD	We have not been able to track down the name change problem--haven't even been able to replicate it. :(
DesignerD	As far as the NPK'ing... we are aware of it, but our tack is more along the lines of finding alternate spells that we can make so there are other choices beyond the damgerous ones that exist now
DenDragon	*Soaren{GSV}* Why doesn't parrying attacks keep you safe from arrows? Cant you parry an arrow? Parrying should be far more powerful, you should even be able to block magic with the shield.
DesignerD	Parrying blocking archery is indeed something we have on the list.
DenDragon	*Chemical* DD, since everyone is using mark/recall and gating, will you be deleting ships all together to create less lag? And will doing this cause any new bugs to be implemented?
DesignerD	No, we like ships. :) And there are (believe it or not) a lot of folks who don't have the recall spell yet. Mostly newbies. ;) Lastly, we don't implement bugs purposely, unless they involve llamas.
Stormwind	We also plan on making recall less powerful, such as making its mana cost based on distance travelled (gate travel too).
DenDragon	*AlphaSoul* Are there ever going to be red gates? I remember hearing about intershard travel a *long* time ago but nuttin ever came of it.
DesignerD	There won't be intershard travel.
DenDragon	*Nox* It seemed like we saw some really cool AI on test center, that was grouping monsters around leaders (I watched some orcs while dead)... Are we ever going to see this AI in the game proper?
DesignerD	We do have some AI like that in the game now, but groups don't tend to last long enough for it to matter. :) I am not sure when you saw the stuff on TC,
DesignerD	but there's also the concern about too much AI being too expensive given the thousands of creatures we are running at once, too.
DesignerD	We have had to pare down AI in the past because of that. :(
DesignerD	Improving AI as mch as we can remains a major goal
DesignerD	Particularly, I'd like to get some of the A-life based stuff back in.
DenDragon	*RandUOVault* OSI, why did you choose to create a system where the adverse effects of murdering can be reversed by macroing all night?
DesignerD	Rand, basically we could make a system whereby you redeemed yourself over time, with a particular action, or never redeemed yourself at all.
DesignerD	If it was with a particular action, the murderer would be back on the streets in minutes.
DesignerD	If it was never, we'd fall below a certain threshold of quantity of murderers. And we feel that we DO need to have a certain amount of them in the game.
DesignerD	(Note how many complain now that there are too few).
DesignerD	That left doing it over time.
DesignerD	which is what we chose to go with.
DenDragon	*Kropotkin* What do the designers think of their Rep system, now that it has been put to the test?
DesignerD	So far, we're very happy with it. Some people don't like it, but way more like it a lot. Some people quit over it, but WAY more decided to stay, came back, or reactivated because of it. From our point of view, it's not only a success, but I think it's actually a significant development in online gaming.
BugKiller	I've seen complaints from a few groups of people, but overall I'm pretty happy with it. I've seen more complaints from people who miss murderers, than from victims.
DesignerD	It's actually a a system where things aren't "yes/no" but have shades of gray, and players have more control over policing the environment.
DenDragon	*Magn_s* Do you ever plan on making a potion that will restore mana?
DesignerD	No plans for it
DenDragon	*Vamphyrie* Why was a system of voluntary pk/npk not implemented a la EverQuest?
DesignerD	Long answer coming, be warned. :)
DesignerD	First off, said systems tend to break down. They generally only trap direct aggression, meaning A attacking B.
DesignerD	Anytime they have to track something more complex, like A hires B to kill C, they result in "exploits"--ways to get around the system.
DesignerD	For example, say I am not pk-enabled, but I hate Stormwind, and he IS. So I hire Den Dragon, who is PK eabled, to kill him.
DesignerD	Stormwind's only recourse is to call an admin. This drastically increases admin costs.
DesignerD	Now, on a small game, you can handle this. After all, you have a really great admin-to-player ratio, usually. And you tend to know your players
DesignerD	personally, so you can figure out who is telling the truth and who is lying.
DesignerD	But in a really big userbase, this breaks down badly.
DesignerD	Plus, as we all know, if people find an exploit or a way to abuse the rules, they will do so. A lot.
DesignerD	And a system that is inherently abusable just causes headaches for the admins then, not only because of calls,
DesignerD	but because the flaw in the system causes the players to lose faith in the admins.
DesignerD	So from that side, a PK flag system is problematic.
DesignerD	It's also problematic from another side... it's a paternalistic system. Basically, you are relying on the "gods" of the game
DesignerD	to maintain order in a really fundamental way--by altering the laws of physics around some people.
DesignerD	Under this system, you basically trust in the code and the admins (when the code fails) to handle problems for you. There is no
DesignerD	burden or responsibility on the player.
DesignerD	From the beginning, UO was intended as a living, breathing world that could develop into new and interesting
DesignerD	societies online. And if the game is doing too much handholding, that cannot happen.
DesignerD	I think the many player cities with player militias and player governments that have developed are evidence that we made the right choice.
DesignerD	Basically, a "simple" system is trying to put a bandaid on a problem that is NOT simple (social control and government),
DesignerD	plus it would lead to HUTGE admin headaches, making the game more difficult (and expensive) to run
DesignerD	plus it is actually much harder to code because of the loopholes, and would take way too much programmer time.
DesignerD	So the short answer to "why didn't you use this system" is "bcause we think it's a bad bad bad idea."
DenDragon	*NoVaH* Will there be a brief period of time where those who have named their characters with silly/offense or otherwise un-medieval names will have the chance to rename their characters to something more appropriate? A one time only offer might allow those new then that are now experienced to get more involved; starting with a new name would be nice.
DesignerD	no plans for it at the moment.
DesignerD	But it's a nice idea, so we will -- ready for this? "add it to the list." :)
DenDragon	*FancyPants* How about karma not going down for healing negative karma people, just for healing criminals?
DesignerD	next update, you will never lose karma for casting a beneficial spell, no matter who you cast it on. You can only gain from it. If it would have lost karma now, it'll just not do anything to karma instead
DenDragon	*ElowynOfMoonglow* Currenty if you poison yourself with a lesser poison, you get immunity against greater poisons, will this be changed in the future ? ie, if poisoned by a Poison Elemental its poison will over-ride any lesser poison in your system.
BugKiller	That's been fixed. It'll be updated when everything else is :)
DesignerD	I have to go now, but the other folks on the dev team will still be here for a little longer. :) Good night!
DenDragon	*Mephisto* How about adding a msg similar to the snooping/stealing msg relating to trapping and looting, ie: you notic bob trapping a chest, or you notice bob taking items off of tim's body?
Stormwind	Neat idea. We'll ... add it to the list. :-) -Pretender^- Any chance of fixing the VENDOR BUY BANK GUARDS bug?
DenDragon	SoB* What about 2 guilds at war. If one gets in over there head they can just quit whenever. There should be some sort of penalty for doing so. If 2 countries are at war one cant just quit for no reason and not have anything happen to it.
BugKiller	If you can attack the guildmember before he quits. They will still appear gray to you. Unfortunately without placing strange restrictions and conditions all over the code regarding when you can enter or leave a guild, it's not an easy problem to solve.
Stormwind	Guild warfare was designed to only be usable by two consenting groups. If one of the groups no longer consents then the warfare should not occur. If you don't like a group who withdraws from war when they start losing, don't war with them again.
DenDragon	*Stevens* I'm a Dragon tamer and before the rep patch it was hard to control , but with the patch each time the dragon attack by it's own i get flagged criminal and everyone attack me. Plan to do something about that?
BugKiller	Perhaps dragons should be a bit more controllable. However, currently when tamed, they are still more wild then most. And if someone takes a wild animal into a crowded area (even on a leash), and it bites someone. It's still the fault of the guy holding the leash.
DenDragon	*Zarak* I would like to ask what is going to be done about thiefs snooping and following poeple about until they steal from a person then recall away. You can not go anywhere without being stolen from now days.
Stormwind	We are considering several ideas to make stealing harder. One idea currently under discussion is for bankers not to accept deposits from criminaly flagged players.
DenDragon	Well, that's all for tonight...
DenDragon	Thank you all for coming!
DenDragon	The log will be posted within 20 minutes at http://uohoc.stratics.com
Stormwind	Thanks for coming!