House of Commons from 1998-11-19

House of Commons from 1998-11-19

DenDragon	Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's Open House.
DenDragon	Tonight's topic is: "House Ownership", and includes the sub-topics "Vendors, Guildstones, Tents and Boats". Please phrase your questions accordingly.
DenDragon	Rainman will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions please /msg or /query Ssendam, Blastaar.
DenDragon	Please /msg different question-takers at different times, in order to balance the load and speed this process up. Do not msg anyone from OSI, myself or Rainman--these questions will be ignored.
DenDragon	Remember that OSI may not have the opportunity to answer all of your questions. In addition, some questions may not be answered if the Dev Team feel that it is not appropriate or that it has been better answered through some other question.
DenDragon	In addition, please do not submit any questions that have already been answered during past conferences. We encourage you to read the logs of the previous Open Houses, which are available at http://uohoc.stratics.com.
RVogel	howdy all
DenDragon	Thanks for coming, everyone. We will now begin accepting questions.
DesignerD	BTW, I hope that everyone has read the essay on our proposed housing plan that is available at the Update Center at http://update.owo.com
DesignerD	Because we're probably going to skip questions whose answer is available in that essay...
DesignerD	On with the questions. :)
Rainman	*Santiago* Instead of objects in our containers, if bank boxes, player vendors and house chests used NPC style shop lists, would that help the item count server conjestion that the Dev team is trying to cut down? If so it might be a compromise players could live with.
DesignerD	Well, actually, even NPC shops, it's still a container with individual items in it. The only difference is how the items are displayed. We track every item because every item is capable of having unique values associated with it.
DesignerD	It is true that item congestion is a concern of ours, but right now, our chief angle of attack on it is reducing houses. Houses account for a HUGE amount of the objects in the world.
DesignerD	Not just the components that make up the house, but the actual pieces and tiles--the floors, roofs, and walls of houses.
RVogel	I would like welcome everyone to chat tonight.
Rainman	*Citern* Will it be possible to see from the outside if a building is public ? how ?
DesignerD	Yes, the sign will probably give an indication of whether it is public.
Rainman	*Mitragorn* Hail, is there any plan on using proposed 5 tiles area around house for decorations or such? Also, dont you think that making small 2-story house could sort a bit of space/storage problems? thank you
DesignerD	We'd like to do this someday--gardens, maybe grow flowers, maybe have fenced in space for livestock, whatever. But not in this particular housing update. The main focus of this update is just to get ownership in.
Rainman	*DreamWind* Well we be able to deed existing buildings and then sell them back to NPCs if we are over the 1 house limit as opposed to just destroying them?
DesignerD	Unfortunately, no. :( We can't let people sell back houses before ownership is established. We were able to get away with it with tents because most tents are not compromised.
DesignerD	But many houses are compromised, and we wouldn't have any guarantee that the right person was selling back the house.
DesignerD	So we have to go thru the claiming process, which means all the excess houses just go away
DesignerD	However, you can work around it by getting a friend to claim it, and then having him sell it back after ownership is in.
DesignerD	Now, AFTER ownership, you will indeed be able to transfer ownership, and demolish buildings (which "sells them back")
DesignerD	demolish your own building that is, not other people's :)
Rainman	*Pladium* what about having the ablity to "trade in points" when meditation comes out so that we can effectivly elminate tank mages, by being able to "trade" say 100 points of tactics for 75 points of meditation so it would help ppl decide if they want to be a mage, or warrior?
DesignerD	Nope, no trading in points. Just start using it, you'll lose points in something else anyway...
Rainman	*Pheonix* About Craftable Items in Houses (Looms etc..): Will one specific skill craft all of them or will it depend on the Items (Say Looms,) and how will it work ?
DesignerD	I haven't checked the code too recently, but I believe that it is carpentry for most of them. I also believe that they sometimes require more than just wood--so you might need stone or ingots as well to make certain things.
DesignerD	As far as how it works, you choose it off the menu, then you get to place a "ghost image" like when you place a house. Once it is placed, you can't get rid of it though.
Rainman	*Aja* I didn't see any mention of how boats will be affected by the upcoming changes. Will they be considered houses?
DesignerD	Boats are unaffected by this process. we
DesignerD	we will tackle them later.
Rainman	*Tarin* There seems to be some confusion regarding Secure Chests, exactly what will be required to place and/or open a "Secure Chest"?
DesignerD	OK, it works like this PRE-OWNERSHIP: you have your house key. You double-click the house key and target an item in your house.
DesignerD	If it is not a container, it tries to lock it down in place. This succeeds if you haven't got too many items locked down already.
DesignerD	It then tells you something like, "You lock down the chair. You can lock down 22 more items in this house."
DesignerD	If it is a container, then it does that, then it tries to make it secure.
Rainman	*C_Shalomar* Are public buildings going to become 'guard zones'? I know this was suggested as a possiblity, but will it happen?
RVogel	you will have the ability to hire guards in public houses to protect you
DesignerD	If it manages that, then you get a message saying, "You have made this chest secure, you can have 2 more secure containers" or some such.
DesignerD	To get into the chest you must have the key in your possession.
DesignerD	Now, POST-OWNERSHIP: you still use the key as an interface.
DesignerD	But--to get into the chest you need to be the house's owner, or a friend of the house.
DesignerD	So it'll kinda change behind the scenes, over to the new ownership model.
DesignerD	OK, now, on the next one that got posted prematurely--owners of public buildings will be able to choose to have those buildings be guard zones. It will be optional, and it may or may not cost a fee.
DesignerD	I say may or may not cost a fee because if we don't do maintenance in the first pass, we'll have to decide how we handle that.
Rainman	*tails-* How are you going to cut down on the exploit of "vendor deeds" i.e. I fill my vendor with 1000's of regs or plate, turn it into a deed, and put it in my bank...
DesignerD	I assume you mean with the vendor transfer.
DesignerD	The vendor turns into a deed as soon as you say their name. So you can't do very much with them. Yes, you'll be able to store stuff away this one time during the transfer period, but eventually you
DesignerD	will need to place the vendor again to get the stuff out. :)
Rainman	*SkyDemon* Is there a table for actual maintinance costs at the moment?
DesignerD	Currently, maintenance is the most controversial part of the proposal. So we're going ahead and implementing everything else in the proposal, since everything else was received very well.
DesignerD	The tentative numbers we proposed for maintenance were around 250 boards for a small house, scaling up to 5700 or so for a castle. That's per week.
DesignerD	But those numbers were very tentative, because we also wanted to charge ingots and stuff...
DesignerD	BTW, I hope to post the full table of quantity of lockdownable items and secure chests per building soon.
Rainman	*phoobnahr* Are there any plans for larger boats? If not, you may want to consider very large boats with deck that you can also go underneath, and since it would be so hard to dock, give it a small docking raft that can only go so far away from the main boat. I would also like to say that if you are going to make larger boats, and they will be like the one at the docks in papua, dont. it only has about as much usable space as a l
DesignerD	No plans for larger boats at this time.
Rainman	*Bill_Alric_WIK* Bill Alric-WIK from Great Lakes are you going to be to charge people who have a vendor in your public house? Since you did pay the large amount of money and they are just buying a vendor.
DesignerD	You can charge them, if you like. We don't currently have plans for anything formally coded to handle "subletting" like that. But if they don't pay up, you can just remove them from the friends list, and then the vendor suddenly can't stay. :)
Rainman	*Pheonix* About public Houses: If a larger house is made public - does the "entire" house become public, or can the player lock off the 'back' portion or the upstairs or such?
DesignerD	We do not have any plans for being able to declare only part of a building as public. :( We know that it would be popular, but it turns out to be technically difficult. So for now, anyway, the entire house must be public. If we can find a way to make it happen somday, then e'll see if we can do it
Rainman	*Kianne* After ownership goes in, can the need to carry keys around to open doors and etc. be eliminated by being an owner or friend to the house (and/or a guildmember)?
DesignerD	We do not intend to have "keyless" entry. You will still need keys. Keys will still be able to be stolen. The locks can be changed, but an enterprising thief who cases you, steals your key, and uses it to get into your house befor eyou change locks will still be able to do so
DesignerD	Of course, everything you have of value will be locked down or in secure chests, right? :)
Rainman	*Spillage* Could we make it so that non-owners/friends must 'steal' the contents of locked-down containers? I'm not talking about the 'secure' containers.
DesignerD	We could... hadn't really thought about it. It would encourage thieves, I suppose.
Rainman	*Cobra* What would happen here: player A placed a smithy on top of his tower and gave the smithy to player B, now A & B are enemies and player B knows player A will claim his tower and won't let B get to his smithy to which he has both masters...this is REALLY my situation (im player B) ;(
DesignerD	OK, you will be able to claim by getting to the house sign, so if you can see that, you'll be able to claim. We can make a point of not having line of sight checks on the use trigger for it.
DesignerD	As far as the keys... if you don't have the master keys, then you don't own it, as far as the code is concerned. But if you do, then if you can get to the house sign, you can claim it and you'll get to keep it.
DesignerD	What good it will do you, up there if A won't let you up there, I have no idea. :)
Rainman	*Ogodei* Will there be a chance for tents to stay/return (maybe for a higher price) or to get them through IGMs to make them available for roleplayers (i.e. a nomad tribe)?
DesignerD	Tents will probably return in some fashion, yes. Their use by IGMs is almost a certainty. They may only be available as a special roleplay option or something. We don't know yet.
Rainman	*Gilgamesh* "Diplomat, Hitsquad, Great Lakes. Does this mean that a stolen or looted key will only gain entry? Could a stolen or looted key be used on secure chests?"
DesignerD	PRE-OWNERSHIP, a key will be usabel to gain entry to secure chests. POST-OWNERSHIP, it won't help, since you have to be the owner or a friend to get into the secure containers.
DesignerD	Similarly, pre-ownership, any house key for that house will be usable to lock down items. Post-ownership, only owners and friends can lock down items. They need a key to do it, but keys won't work for anyone else.
Rainman	*Nittany-OCT-* Is there a possibility of having a strong box in a house or castle sort of like the banks.. In terms that you can hold unlimited gold in for donations or tithes a guildmember pays to a guild?
DesignerD	You're describing something like the contribution box we planned for maintenance. If we do maintenance, then this will exist. if not, then we don't know.
Rainman	*Pheonix* About House Upkeep: Will an owner be able to build a hoard that the server automatically deducts the upkeep cost (items?) from on a regular basis? If so, where would it be kept?
DesignerD	If maintenance happens, you will be able to prepay. Probably not an infinite amount though. Like two weeks worth or something. You wouldn't need to keep it--you'd just apply it to the house, and it would increment its timer.
Rainman	*SteelRain* If this has been asked before I arrived, I apologize, but I just got here a few moments ago. With the secure containers going in, will the locks on houses be able to be picked by high level lockpickers?
DesignerD	No plans for that at the moment.
Rainman	*Leafbeach* DD: Is it possible to add your other characters to the "friends list" since you wont be able to target with the owner in the game?
DesignerD	We're not going to add special interface functionality to help people use mules, if that is what you mean. There's tricks to manage it just like now, and that's how we're gonna leave it. :P
Rainman	*C_Shalomar* slightly off topic, but will we be able to hire NPCs for functions in public buildings, such as a StableMaster, or InnKeeper?
DesignerD	Not in this pass, but maybe someday. It sure would be cool! :) You know, originally we wanted servants to actually start spawning in player castles, and have them just show up one day starting to work, demanding their pay. :)
Rainman	*phoobnahr* is there any chance of adding some new designs to already existing buildings like castles and keeps? I know I was vastly impressed by some buildings at http://www.viking3d.com/uodesign
DesignerD	Yes, there are indeed good odds of that happening sometime.
Rainman	*Darius* What is the designed rate of decay on the mainenance system and how would we know what if for example the house needed ingots.
DesignerD	To repeat: maintenance is currently kinda on hold. We are proceeding with implementing everything else, since everything else was pretty non-controversial
DesignerD	So I don't really have any better numbers than the 250 logs per week I floated a few days back
Rainman	*^PiTT^* Earlier stone was mentioned as a material for housing Upkeep. How would this be obtained?
DesignerD	That would be ore. :)
Rainman	*entropy* A vast part of UO world are its seas. It would be very nice to utilise some part of the oceans for housing. there are many FUSE and UOX-created models of such sea dwellings. Have you considered this?
DesignerD	I have not seen any of these models, but would be curious to. Maybe someone will put up a web page? I wouldn't rule it out for sometime. I'd love to find a way to let new islands show up, actually, but... :(
Rainman	*Sav* I find it unfair how new servers skills rate is nearly 10x faster than normal shards, I spent 1 year getting my skills while the new shards get the same skills in 1 week, it takes 7 months to hit GM Smith on a normal shard, 3 days on a new shard. Call me stupid to call that unfair. Will something be done?
DesignerD	That accelerated rate only lasts a brief while, until the proportions of usage on the skills settle into their real values based on player skill usage. * DD wants whoever is trying to send him fils to STOP, right now. :P
DesignerD	It actually helps kickstart the player economy on the new shard...
Rainman	*Carnivus* Would it ever be possible to create an npc that for a high price could collect the materials for upkeep for you?
DesignerD	No.
DesignerD	If we do maintenance, we might very well have the ability to pay it in gold, but at a premium rate, though
Rainman	*Rahl_DWinter* Why are we only getting 10k compensation when you guys start deleting tents? Most of us payed 22k for our tent.
DesignerD	A lot of you also bought it for 4k. We picked 10k as a compromise value.
Rainman	*Pison* DD: What do you think of hitching posts to stable pets? Created like guild stones. Only people with keys to the house may use it. And only 1 pet on it at a time.
DesignerD	Nice idea! I like it. Duly added to the wishlist. -Savster- (wallX/#uohoc:Aja) J'ai une solution au problème de maison - attendez everquest attendent alors toutes les maisons pour se délabrer! =)))
Rainman	Please do not message me or any of the other ops... Only /msg or /query Ssendam, Blastaar, or Kazola... I must ignore all requests thank you
DesignerD	Pfui, EverQuest n'y'a pas des maisons... et je ne parle pas bien le francais. :)
Rainman	ok, what DD's saying here is... "Bah, Everquest doesn't even support player owned/built housing...." and "I dont speak French well."
DesignerD	I said it because someone sent a message to ops that said "J'ai une solution au problème de maison - attendez everquest attendent alors toutes les maisons pour se délabrer! =)))"
Rainman	*Pheonix* If a player is unable to 'pay' the upkeep - Says he's out of town for a month, and the other player forgets to do it for him or something - What happens to all the stuff in the house (vendor/crafted items/etc...)?
DesignerD	Similar to what happens now. Goes poof when the house does, or falls to the ground, etc. Secured and locked down items become unsecure and unlocked as soon as you look at them.
Rainman	*Bainite* Will the "house condition" messages remain the vague statements that they are now, or will it become more like vendors, specifiying exactly the days left and cost per day?
DesignerD	Probably it would give days. If we do maintenance.
Rainman	*sezjojo* Would it be possible to allow gold to be smelted. OT I know but had to ask. So gold armor could be made :)
DesignerD	I bet you just wanna smith gold coins. ;)
DesignerD	Seriously, though, colored armor will happen sometime. And gold-colored armor would be possible when that happens. But it is probably not happening until after Christmas.
Rainman	*colban* Any plans on including 3 secure chests min. in a small house? 1 secure chest isnt very much space for a open public shop
DesignerD	No, at this time, we only plan one.
DesignerD	If we don't do maintenance, though, we might give extra storage space o public buildings instead.
DesignerD	As an icnentive to have a public building.
Rainman	*Galvie* Will craftable items only be placed inside houses or can you place them within the required radius around the house too?
DesignerD	Only in the house. The radius is BLANK space. You can't lock down in it, you can't place in it, and it has to be as free of stuff as the current house placement space is.
Rainman	*txbarker* Have you considered game-generated wandering vendors stocked with random items to replace the convenient remote player-owned vendors?
DesignerD	No. We fully expect there to still be lots of convenient remote player-owned vendors.
FrostByghte	Thank you for coming to the UOHOC. We hope most, if not all of your questions have been answered. A log will be posted shortly at http://uohoc.stratics.com/. Enjoy your evening.
DenDragon	thanks again, everyone!