House of Commons from 2003-04-03

House of Commons from 2003-04-03

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 moderating 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...Tonights Topic is AGE OF SHADOWS! =)
Lord‑Xanthor	Please /msg /query, [QT]Grandpa, [QT]Nuke, [QT]Rhayde.
Alai	Wha...? I thought it was recipe night...
Lord‑Xanthor	*SmokeSerp* Is Luck affected by something other than each character's individual Luck? Is there a limited "loot pool" for all characters over a period of time or some other factor involved?
MrTact	Luck is only calculated on an individual character basis.
MrTact	Whoever gets the credit for the kill has their luck applied.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Vulcin* Will the 3D art that we saw over the last year ever be put into the game or is AoS what we are going to get?
Alai	The art in AoS IS the art you saw over the last year. Sadly, the reality of putting that art in game means we have to reduce the poly count and texture detail of the art.
Alai	We're going to be tweaking that art in the near future to improve it, you can look for those changes coming in the not-too-distant future.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Vulcin* The stat loss of pets causes pets to spiral down in ability fast. Are there any plans to either make the deaths of pets less harmful or make them be able to take damage better?
Lord‑Xanthor	*Vulcin* Because of the greater amounts of damage over a shorter amount of time, golems have become practically useless to those who invested in being a tinker mage. Are there any plans to re-balance golems so they are worth the skill needed to create them?
Hanse	We're not currently looking into changing pet stat loss, at the moment. This may be changed in the future, though. Pet changes are not being looked at right now.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Shadow* Will the artifacts in Doom be changing to other artifacts, such as perhaps, spiderwebs, studded sleeves, and if so what is the time frame on that..thanks
Hanse	We'll be looking at changing/adding artifacts in the future. Although, we're not making changes in any immediate publishes.
Lord‑Xanthor	SmokeSerp* Fertbert: Are we getting the "dial-up fix" tomorrow morning on all North American shards?
Fertbert	Yes, indeedy!
Fertbert	And more to come in a future publish as well.
Lord‑Xanthor	Akachaki* Fishing is getting repetitive, Is there going to be any addition to this skill in the futur release/scenarios ?
Hanse	All skills may be modified in the future. That's how persistant worlds with supporting development teams work! :)
Lord‑Xanthor	*calculon* Are there any plans to ever let Paladins and Necromancers mark runes without magery? Letting Mark work when in Lich Form, like Recall does in Wraith Form. And maybe let Paladins cast Sacred Journey on blank runes to mark them?
AdrickOSI	no plans atm but Ill put it into the pot to consider
Lord‑Xanthor	*Gladwyn* Many consider the "Resisting Spells" skill far less useful than pre-AoS. Seeing that the skill took so long to raise, are there any plans to make it more wortwhile again? If so, what are some of the ideas that you are considering?
Hanse	Resisting spells is valuable to avoid paralyzation entirely (reduces duration) and lowers high stat debuffs.
Hanse	Many items had their strength requirements raised and will unequip automatically when a debuff is cast.
Hanse	Also, it can lower your int/mana enough to impair your spells and combinations.
Hanse	We're not looking into making resisting spells affect elemental resistances, either.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Coop* With all the problems that occured with champ skulls always being obtained by the "fastest conn/looters" and later changed in AoS to be put in a random players pack.. why make the same mistake again with the Doom Gauntlet Boss artifacts?
Hanse	AoS was developed and we took issues as we got em.
Hanse	Although, while artifacts are a valuable item, they are not required quest items.
Hanse	We may change it in the future, but we consider them as "loot" items, currently.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Sr_Dano* When are the new rewards comign out, and have there been any recent changes to the lineup?
MrTact	There is a new first-year reward being worked on . . . not sure whether we've let that cat out of the bag yet . . .
MrTact	That will definitely go out for the sixth anniversary
	* Sannio tries to grab the cat *
MrTact	As for higher rewards, well . . .
MrTact	We haven't started planning for the sixth anniversary yet. It's still up in the air.
MrTact	I will say that SunSword didn't like any of the excuses we gave him for not wanting to do sixth-year rewards. Take that as you will :-)
Lord‑Xanthor	*Noxy* Hello, I was wondering if there would be an option for switching back to 3rd Dawn Avatars over the Aos, and also if there is a fix to the item descriptions staying screen with 3d AoS. Thank you
Alai	The old 3D avatar art isn't even in an AoS installation. If you're really fond of it, you can play from a UOTD or LBR CD, but you won't have the new terrain art. There's probably way you could work around that, but I'm not going to tell you how to reverse engineer our software ;)
Alai	As far as the item property bug, submit all the details you can to uobugs and we'll look into it ASAP.
Lord‑Xanthor	*calculon* It was mentioned either on the AOS website or on the UO.com boards before AOS shipped that bowyers would be able to enhance bows. Will this ever make it into the game or has it been abandoned?
Hanse	There currently are not resources to enhance bows with (special wood that lumberjacks collect). It may be considered in the future (the same with BOD's for bowyers). Currently, this is not in development.
Lord‑Xanthor	<Jennae_Kynn_OTW> A lot of people in warring/roleplaying guilds are having an extremely difficult time now that the titles have disappeared from players. While you may be hilighted with one, it doesn't mean you're at war with them. The lack of titles has caused a lot of problems. Can we have them back and lose the numbers that fly off us when we're hit? Also, when are the guild pages going to be updated? It's incredibly difficult to k
MrTact	As I mentioned on the boards, we are not going to announce what bugs have been fixed in a publish until the publish is close to being ready to go.
MrTact	I will say that for Pub18 we are focusing on fixing the bugs that the player base seems to find the most annoying . . .
Lord‑Xanthor	*Aerowyn* Is there any chance of getting more music for the current instruments... other than the repetative music we get currently?
Hanse	Well, the newer client installations do have individual notes installed for custom music.. but we have not developed custom music for the game. It's something we may do in the future, though!
Alai	Genearlly improving the sound in the game is something we're *very* interested in doing if at all possible.
	* Alai lykes to mke up werds. *
Lord‑Xanthor	*Xorakk* Are they thinking of rescinding any of the special moves, so that some of the skills will be as they were, pre-aos, EX: Poisoning, resist?
Hanse	No, we will not be regressing moves to pre-AoS. Although we are making tweaks to the current moves to balance them in PvM and PvP.
Lord‑Xanthor	*NyquilDragon* A question on item insurance. If I buy an insured item from a vendor, lets say I buy several items that are insured and I die before I can get them safely secured, are all of those items going to be charged to my bank account? or the vendors? or not at all?. Is it whoever insured the item, or is it who the item is with?
Hanse	Insured items would remove gold from your bank box up to your gold limit (if the amount exceeds your limit). So yes, you would be charged, if it is possible.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Anika* Are you going to be addressing the issues involving lances, and being so over powered, when it comes to pvp? Thanks =P
Hanse	We are making tweaks to special moves and combat in the next few publishes to balance PvM and PvP, as previously mentioned. :)
Lord‑Xanthor	*Gladwyn* Based on Hanse's reply, is the only benefit to a mage from Resisting Spells to counter paralysis? If the mage wields neither weapons nor armour that has strength requirements and has sufficient Intelligence (125) not to have to worry about even the heftiest debuff, Resisting Spells is something of a luxury to keep in one's template, correct?
Hanse	Resisting spells impacts your derived stats, as well. A mage can get a larger combo off at 125 mana, a warrior has more strength, a dexer has a faster swing rate... Resisting spells does make a difference.
Hanse	Asked for a little more clarification on that last question. :)
Hanse	A curse affects three stats. Strength, dexterity, and intelligence...
Hanse	which in turn affects HP, stamina, and Mana.
Hanse	This affects your ability to last longer against a large combination of spells (damaging spells) through higher HP.
Hanse	Or affects your swing rate (dexterity and fencing is referred to as a "dexer").
Hanse	Or your ability to cast larger combinations of spells due to higher mana.
Hanse	Resisting Spells reduces the penalty that a spell negatively affects your stats.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Argronan* Is it possible to Buy Upgrade codes to AOS just like we Did with LBR? Thank you.
Sannio	Not right now. You can still buy LBR upgrade codes, but not AoS at this time.
Sannio	For those of you looking or more information on those LBR codes, here's a link for you: http://eamembers.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/eamembers.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?=&p_faqid=3582
Lord‑Xanthor	*SmokeSerp* Why the decision to grant so many boosts to leather armor? Spined is common as dirt, while golden is a mid-level ore, leather is only one resistance point weaker than iron plate, tailoring runics are easier to get, etc.
Hanse	We balanced the armor types to make them interesting to each crafter and to balance them for their functionality.
Hanse	Now, instead of blacksmiths dominating the armor market, tailors have a viable armor type to craft for combat.
Hanse	This was a move to balance two crafting classes (blacksmiths were much more popular prior to Age of Shadows).
Lord‑Xanthor	*Mat* in the event of an attack by iraq how well protected are the uo computer servers?
MrTact	In the event of an attack by iraq, we'll all have a lot more to worry about than that!
MrTact	(We keep off-site backups, don't worry :-)
Alai	'sides - if you were Iraq, would you want UO players pissed at you?
Lord‑Xanthor	*Fonzo* are you guys gonna be adding a stable for murderers anytime soon
Hanse	We may modify Buc's Den in the future, but it's not on our plate, currently.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Colloid* QUESTION: why did you folkes wreck sp (siege perilous) with AoS?
MrTact	Uh, AoS isn't even ON Siege yet, last I checked!
Lord‑Xanthor	*Oceania* when will the main bugs be fixed? such as recall spell bug, plant bugs and the lag?
Hanse	We have not posted a definitive schedule on our bug fix publishes (which we're doing next) yet. We'll post information to our website when it's available!
Lord‑Xanthor	*Ardsheal* Why ISN'T AoS on Siege yet?!??
MrTact	At the time we launched AoS, there were still several outstanding bugs relating to the Siege rulest.
MrTact	As some players have speculated, it came down to launching AoS without Siege or not launching AoS.
MrTact	Perhaps in retrospect, we chose wrong on that one . . .
MrTact	In any case, Siege *IS* the primary code set that is in testing now.
MrTact	We have one emergency publish that should have virtually no noticeable impact to players, then Siege.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Nadia* Are there any plans to make currently non-repairable weapons such as clubs and black staffs repairable at some later time?
Hanse	We added in more repairable items through crafting skills in Age of Shadows. We may expand this to other skills in the future, but it's currently not on our development plates.
Lord‑Xanthor	Vulc* Are there any fixes being instituted for bouncy recalls? and stuck locations in oceans and mountains, I rezed at a shrine and got stuck there.
Fertbert	Yes, those are definitely things on our radar to be fixed... some fo the work that I'm doing for publish 18 make smooth out some of the bouncy recalls.
Fertbert	*make=may
Lord‑Xanthor	*SmokeSerp* When are Dark Mongbat Lords going to make it in-game?
Hanse	When I can fit more mongbats into my catapult...
MrTact	Right after we finish work on rideable sea horses
MrTact	== never :-)
	* Hanse gasps. *
Alai	Hey now.
Alai	The Dark Mongbats are bigger anyhow... can't get as many in the 'pult.
Hanse	I almost have ridable mongbats, btw...
Hanse	that's not the same as "rideable"
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