House of Commons from 2004-02-12

House of Commons from 2004-02-12

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]XenaDragon, [QT]Lyle, & [QT]Nadia
Lord-Xanthor	*WillX* Is the Dev team aware of the Siege "can't raise above 90" Resist problem, and if so, when can we expect a fix?
Evocare	yes, we are... Mr.Tact was just informing me yesterday that he had found what causes the problem
Evocare	we do want to fix it, but I don't know offhand what publish it is scheduled for
Lord-Xanthor	<Joshua Rowan>Do the Devs feel that the fact that pure-ish mages have no need for Dex, and
Lord-Xanthor	thus no need for stat balance, an issue? Why or why not? If so, what have they
Lord-Xanthor	considered to encourage more balancing? (Tie FC/FCR to dex?)
Evocare	Optimally, i'd one day like to see mages have a use for dex, much like warriors now have a use for mana
Evocare	however, it's not likely that we'd implement it in such a way that it would require you to have more dex to use something you already have (like fc items)
Evocare	players tend to view this as an outright "nerf", and we like to avoid that unless we simply can't
Evocare	(believe it or not ;])
Lord-Xanthor	<Simon[asleep]> Hello - a mage can trigger of his/her wrestling special moves through the use of spell damage, is this likely to be fixed in the near future so it is only wrestle damage that driggers off the special moves? Thanks,
Evocare	Yep, we're aware of this, although we haven't made a final decision as to whether we should leave it as-is or change it.
Lord-Xanthor	Judas-Deceit> Is there any new information about release of the character transfer system and any rock solid information about any new rumblings from the dev team for UO especially pvp, Any firm numbers for the limits on casting speed and or combat modifiers i.e. hci,dci,regen,lmc, etc.?
Evocare	I don't have any new information regarding character transfer... however i can comment a little more on the combat balancing
Evocare	We are indeed planning on putting some caps on various magic properties
Evocare	although the final numbers are still being discussed, and won't be made public until we're pretty satisfied with all the numbers as a whole package
Evocare	We certainly understand that putting caps on some of these properties can cause ripple effects on other properties, so we're proceeding with it as holistically as we can.
Lord-Xanthor	Just a reminder to please only message the Question takers. Messaging myself or the dev team will be ignored.
Lord-Xanthor
Salt	The question I want to ask is "Is it possible to remove guards, or allow reds in the Faction Towns in Felucca so that reds can participate in both Champs and Factions? Thanks."
Evocare	It is possible, and it is worth consideration.
Lord-Xanthor	*SirFist* Can't you tell us anything about the big plans for UO's future? Come on, even car companys let you see concept cars, some of which never make it to production! :-)
Evocare	Not yet. :P
Evocare	Believe me, as soon as we can, we will!
	* [QT]XenaDragon tries to peek in the kitchen and fails *
Lord-Xanthor
Ghostface	Do you guys plan on doing anything about rampant speedhacking/house hiding/ teleport bug using, the pvp is at an all time low as a result of these things.
Evocare	Yes, yes, and yes.
Evocare	Speedman is tackling the speedhacking problem (how appropriate), we plan on fixing the teleport bug, and we have some ideas about how to curb lame housefighting
Evocare	Well, more like we've heard some of the good ideas you guys have had about how to curb lame house fighting.
Evocare	Either way, it is something we want to address. =]
Lord-Xanthor	*Adamantyr* Since you guys seem to be taking the tough questions tonight, how about this: Is the EM program going to continue? And if not, are there plans to bring back scenarios?
Lord-Xanthor	*Wicked* Any news on the EM's? We've heard nothing since before the holidays. :(
Lord-Xanthor	[21:26]
Fertbert	can someone verify his IP and invite him
	* [QT]XenaDragon chuckles *
	* Sannio chuckles *
Sannio	There's no plans to reintroduce Scenarios in the foreseeable future. As for the Event Moderators, they haven't officially returned yet, but things are still looking good toward that program returning at some point in the future. We'll keep you updated as the situation progresses.
Evocare	relatively near future at that =]
Lord-Xanthor
WillX	It was stated in the Stratics Tailor Forum some weeks ago that pub 23 would see changes to Runic Sewing Kits, such that the exceptional bonus would be equal to a regular sewing kit. Is this still scheduled for pub 23?
Hanse	I don't remember the exact wording.
Hanse	I think the issue was that the low-end runics are not as valuable as crafting with exceptional bonus.
Hanse	There are a couple ways to balance this issue out. One is to raise the minimum intensity values for the low-end runics and squeeze the ranges of the ones above.
Hanse	This would allow for more interesting items with the lower runics.
Hanse	It's possible we may take a look at how good (insane?) the properties would be with the additional exceptional bonuses that normal crafting tools give, as well.
Evocare	Offhand I don't think there are any runic tailoring changes in pub23, most gameplay changes got moved to pub24.
Evocare	=[
Lord-Xanthor	*Ashen-Shugar* I heard something about making Artifacts cursed...true or not? And will there be a limlit on how many one can wear?
OSI_Speedman	There are no plans at this time to make artifacts cursed
OSI_Speedman	however
OSI_Speedman	Fertbert and I have been tossing around a few ideas to make insurance make more sense for better items
OSI_Speedman	(i.e. charging more to insure more valuable items)
OSI_Speedman	Of course, i'm not sure when or if this will be included
Lord-Xanthor	*Zorm* I was wondering what programming language the "scripts" for the NPCS/Items/etc. are written in? I am a programmer and interested in UO so making programs for Ultima Online is fun, any ideas on what to make?
Evocare	It's a proprietary scripting language called "wombat" used only on UO.
OSI_Speedman	mmmmm wombat
Lord-Xanthor	*Flutter* How possible is it we will be seeing sticky pet health bars in the near future? And party health bars staying on screen when we die?
Fertbert	We're looking at short and long term solutions to those issues. Short term I hope we can address keeping health bars around when you die, long term I hope that we can improve their organization and management. As always noting is certain however.
Evocare	I'm quite certain Fertbert also wants to put jewelry slots on the 2d paperdoll *nudge nudge*
Fertbert	:) OK, I'll confess, I'm already scheduled to look at some of the health bar issues in not so distant publish
Hanse	quiet, you're supposed to be done... ;)
Lord-Xanthor
SirFist	Any plans to look at the bod rewards again? Filling bods has gotten boring since the last round of changes.
Hanse	Uhm... I'm sure there are many systems that folks have grown tired of. :)
Hanse	The rewards have been tweaked a bit over time though, for balance issues... So, it may have kept the system "fresh" for you, though.
Hanse	I'm not sure when we'll be able to look at rewards for the system. Rather, a new system would probably be a priority, if we get a schedule for it.
Evocare	I think he means a new BOD system
Evocare	for other crafting skills.
Hanse	Of course... :)
Lord-Xanthor	*Du_Hast_Cooper* Are there any plans to improve the party and/or guild systems?
Fertbert	We have some high priority fixes tentatively scheduled for pub 24... we intend to make guild maintenance easier by improving the guildstone interface a bit....
Fertbert	We're hoping to address the problems with removing/promoting members of large guilds, and also make it easier to manage large guild alliance lists.
Lord-Xanthor
Dozer	Any date for new plants for gardeners?
Evocare	New plants need dates with gardeners?
Evocare	hoho ok not so funny
	* Hanse groans. *
Evocare	Anyways, no current plans for new plants, sorry =[
Evocare	It's not for a dislike of plants, it's just a priority issue atm.
Lord-Xanthor	*SirFist* Why no more scenarios? It's nice to be able to enjoy content like that on your own schedule as opposed to the EM events where you have to be there at a certain time or miss them.
Evocare	Well when we had scenarios we were told it was nice to have real people running the events. ;]
Evocare	At any rate, the scenarios we once ran aren't likely to happen in their old form.
Evocare	The development and testing costs seemed prohibitive.
Lord-Xanthor
Sausage	Is there any chance of getting PBD's for new characters on SP, or are they all reserved to being substandard fighters?
Fertbert	We're all pretty much in agreement that such a change would have a net positive effect, it's just a metter of scheduling priorities at this point. I'm pushing to get PBD out to everyone on siege in one of the next couple publishes.
Lord-Xanthor	*Eddy* Are you planning to do anything about lvl 1 and 2 treasure maps? As they are worthless right now?
Hanse	They have less items, true.
Hanse	But they have chances to spawn very good items.
Hanse	Remember, the chests are still worth harvesting for low-level treasure hunters. Maybe you should graduate up to higher-level maps and sell the lower ones? :)
Lord-Xanthor	*Vulcan* Why is dragonscale armor so hard to make for being the worst armor you can have? Why not make it so we can meditate in it and increase the gold scale armors luck up so it's useful?
Hanse	We're aware of this issue.
Hanse	We have it logged in our database to be fixed in the future.
Evocare	Dragon armor definitely could use some love...
Evocare	=]
Hanse	but not over Valentine's
	* Hanse smirks. *
Lord-Xanthor	*Coop* When you guys actually put a limit on combat modifiers for pvp.. will this also effect pvm? I personally have never heard a dragon complain about my casting speed.
Evocare	Unfortunately some of them will affect pvm.
Evocare	However, rest assured that i get daily complaints from those dragons about your casting speed.
Lord-Xanthor	*Arislan-TC* I have an archery question. Right now in pvp combat and otherwise a bow animation does not insta hit like a melee weapon does. Any comments?
Evocare	This is probably the least popular aspect of archery, and we would consider changing it if we have a satisfactory solution.
Evocare	I've heard a few pretty good solutions that we will probably consider, but I can't give any assurances on it right now.
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