House of Commons from 2003-09-04

House of Commons from 2003-09-04

Gallahan	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.
Gallahan	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.
Gallahan	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.
Gallahan	Please do not send the same question to multiple question takers, those that do will be ignored. Thank you =)
Gallahan	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
Gallahan	Tonights Topic is "Publish 20"
Gallahan	Enjoy the chat!
Gallahan	Excalix: are any change to the healing skill coming in the future?
Vex	I'm sure it's safe to say "yes" to that one. Sooner or later, something will change about healing. Other than ongoing efforts to tweak combat balance, we don't have any specific plans for healing.
Gallahan	<[DJ]psycho> Question: Will we ever see pvp balanced again? thinking off FasterCast, bugged tamers, cheating programs, house hiding/moongate hiding, mage artifacts, Factions bugged, the list is too long to mention all. thanks
MrTact	Some of the issues you mention are being examined for a forthcoming publish.
Gallahan	*sunF* with the new vendor changes, both home owner and vendor owner need to be there, is there some alternative for people with 2 accounts and 1 pc?
Vex	That's actually a specific situaion I don't think we thought about when designing the vendor updates. One workaround I can see would be to simply run the vendors from the house owning account, and use secure storage in the house to transfer items between accounts.
Vex	We can consider alternatives that might allow someone to create and accept a contract like that solo. I'm open to suggestions, and you can email them to me at [email protected]
Gallahan	*Vulcin* I remember you saying you hired some new artists...when will see improvements in the proportions of the 3D avatar wearables?
MrTact	Well, we haven't actually FINISHED hiring them yet.
MrTact	As in, we haven't extended anyone an offer yet. We are still in the interview phase.
MrTact	Once we actually HAVE hired them, we have some interesting plans for them.
MrTact	We hope to be able to share these plans with you soon.
Gallahan	Thomas: Will Publish 20 contain any undocumented additons or changes to content (new items, new Doom stealables, etc.) to be discovered or is everything shown in the Update Center docs?
Vex	We haven't posted details on *all* of the bugs we fixed in Pub 20, because some of them are exploits and as a rule we don't give out details about those until we have the fix in place.
Vex	There aren't any easter eggs or any other non-specific content changes. If, for example, there were any new Doom rares we would have probably posted the fact that there were some, but maybe not have given out any of the details until some time after publish.
MrTact	I would like to add to that that there are a couple of bugs that didn't get mentioned in the initial announcement because . . . um . . . I suck at email.
MrTact	I will be getting these to Kerowyn and Sannio to update in the next day or so.
Gallahan	Calculon: I'm curious as to why these new events are not announced in advance. The scenarios were a good idea because they lingered on beyond the initial moments, but with these new events unless you sit at a bank all day or get really lucky you will not even know one is happening.
Sannio	There are a number of plusses and minuses to announcing events well in advance. On the plus side, obviously players can plan a bit ahead in how to participate in such events. On the minus side, the more people in a given area, the greater the lag.
Sannio	We're trying to find some balance that allows close-to-the-event announcements without overwhelming the event areas with overwhelming crowd scenes. Our Event Moderators are also performing the events across 15 shards.
Sannio	We'll try to spread out the times and manage the locations to allow for a variety of players to participate, and continue to try new things to help more players become involved without also adding in any minuses, if possible.
MrTact	Let me chime in (again!) and add that we are not obilivious to the issues folks have raised concerning the events.
MrTact	oblivious, even
MrTact	We are working with the events crew to brainstorm some tools that we can give them in a future publish to help cut down on the lag & make the annoying people a little less annoying.
MrTact	No eta on those yet, though.
Gallahan	*Goldenblack* Has the Dev Team been simultaneously developing both publish 20 and the next expansion?
Vex	Next expansion? I cannot help thee with that.
MrTact	;-)
Gallahan	*Raiden* Will Publish 20 be adding any new tameables or is that saved for a future update if ever?
Vex	No, we aren't adding any new creatures at all in Pub 20, sorry. As a general rule, we can't answer specifc questions about plans for future publishes, either. It could happen. It probably will, sooner or later. But there are no solid plans about it that I can speak about right now.
Gallahan	Darlene: Any News about the planned modifications for skill gain in general?
MrTact	No, and in this case, no news is NOT good news.
MrTact	The likelihood of being able to do everything we want to will skill gain in the NEAR future is looking bleak.
MrTact	On the upside, I consider this sufficient incentive to bite the bullet and go dig for the Siege-related skill gain bugs.
MrTact	We may also have a chance to go after the "can't gain past 25" bug, as well, but that one is less likely since there's a (not too horrible) workaround.
Gallahan	*zole* it was stated there would be something for vets to be excited about. was this just LB's return or is something changing?
Vex	That comment (on SunSword's part, I think) was directed more at nebulous plans about the future rather than anything specific in Pub 20.
Gallahan	Alarin[TSE] Can you tell us more about the ongoing fiction concerning Lord British? Will we be seeing more scenario's involving invasions and the like? (Example : Juo'Nar's invasion of Trinsic)
Sannio	Like authors, magicians, and dungeons masters, we can't give away too much about the plans we have in store for you. But, suffice to say that the action has just begun escalating, you'll continue to see more exciting chapters of the "Lord British Returns" storyline.
Sannio	The current storyline should continue on for several weeks.
Gallahan	zole: Any chance pub 20 will fix the teleport bug? The one which you can cast in certain sub servers and it transports you to a small island in the sea. people have been using it to escape fights and its extremely annoying
Vex	Pub 20 fixes miscellaneous issues involving various means of long-distance travel allowing instant escape from combat, yes.
Gallahan	*Pagan* Are there any plans in the works for archers, such as runic bows?
MrTact	Nothing as dramatic as that at the moment.
MrTact	We do have plans to create a new item property specifically for bows to replace the worthless UBWS that is on some legacy bows.
MrTact	(FYI, since this is one of those bugs that didn't get posted: UBWS will no longer spawn on bows after pub 20.)
Gallahan	Creed: currently on LS, in factions players are blocking entrances with a undecaying box with literally dozens of barrels, is there anything being done about this?
Vex	Not in Publish 20. However, Adrick has collected a laundry list of Factions bugs and problems, which we're going to take a real hard look at for the next publish.
Gallahan	Skyler: Question: Can you try and put a stop to the increasing 'demand' at events for artifacts... I'd rather people attended events for enjoyment rather than to get a free artifact...
Sannio	We agree with you Skyler, but to a point.
Sannio	Many players need to have anobjective reward for the participation in an event, and we believe that satisfying such a desire can be a good thing.
Gallahan	.Quick Reminder: Please try to keep all questions related to Publish 20! .
Sannio	However, we also recognize that loading up one "boss monster" villain with uber-loot isn't the way to go.
Sannio	As we procede with these current events, we're going to try to mix it up a bit. For example, in a recent orc-based event, a number of "unique" rings were found by some players on a very small number of orcs that they fought & killed.
Sannio	This more moderate pay-off seems to be working better, and we'll try and continue improve the event rewards as we go.
Gallahan	ghyde: I notice the BOD books have had a considerable impact on the BOD situation, I notice a lot of people have been asking for something to be done about the seed situation - what exacty is stored in a seed's info?
Vex	The amount of data that defines a seed is actually pretty small. It's much smaller than a bulk order deed.
Vex	One of these days it would be nice to have a BOD Book-like solution for plant growing.
Vex	One thing to keep in mind, though, is that systems like that are not cheap to develop and so must be carefully justified.
Vex	There are a LOT more BODs in the game than seeds, and we could make a clear-cut case for improving how BODs are stored in the game in terms of short and long-term benefit to the game.
Vex	For seeds that will be a little harder. Quite frankly there are better places for us to spend our development time. Perhaps we will have seed books or something similar one day, but right now there are no plans for them.
Gallahan	<Red_Falcon> Is Phase 3 still planned for release with Pub 20?
MrTact	Yes it is.
Gallahan	<C_Talanithus_UOLS> As the semi regular publish is stabilized, are there any plans to take a step back and finish off the Virtue systems that have been primarily ignored for the past year?
Vex	Completing development on the last four virtues is a goal we set for ourselves early in the year. Right now it's looking like we aren't going to reach that goal by the end of this year.
Vex	Some work has been done on two of them, but our decision-making and work done along those lines isn't far enough along for me to talk about at all.
Vex	Best I can say for now is just: Keep your eyes and ears open for future announcements! Whatever happens, it will be extremely cool. :)
Gallahan	Jhaelyrr: Is there any possiblity in the future to have the Serpent Pillars reopened for travel to the T2A lands, and if so, maybe expand on that to include travel between facets?
MrTact	Sometime after pub 20 goes out, if I can wrangle a TC away from QA . . .
MrTact	I am planning to make that TC public with some special debugging code to help us find the problem with the Serpent Pillars so we can fix it.
Gallahan	Vulcin: Could you at least post what happens for those of us who miss your events? I haven't seen any specifics about what has happened in the recent events? At least the old scenarios had articles and reports about the events!
Rea	Regarding Phase 3 ...
Rea	I think we ought to mention that it might not come out exactly with Pub20,but near Pub20.
Rea	They are not directly related but the timing falls around the same time frame.
Gallahan	Vulcin: Could you at least post what happens for those of us who miss your events? I haven't seen any specifics about what has happened in the recent events? At least the old scenarios had articles and reports about the events!
Sannio	That's my plan, to try posting more about the latest OSI events. One way I hope to do this is to begin using our BNN fiction section again. Embarassingly, I'm not an expert on how the BNN publishing system works, but I was able to make a bit of headway on using it today--just before this UOHoC, in fact.
Sannio	If you go there now (http://town.uo.com/bnn/), you'll see the Lord British Returns FYI has been added, and the Fall of Blackthorn articles from a couple of months ago as well. I'll be working with the event team to try and gather some more articles for inclusion in the BNN section.
Gallahan	BC> I have spent many hours in doom and jut got looting rights on my 100th dark father last night without an artifact. I wear tons of luck while one of my guildmates got one after 5 minutes in doom wearing 120 luck. Will there be any fixes to the artifact drop code to make it more equitable?
MrTact	OK, so let's clear up one misconception:
MrTact	Luck has *zero* impact on looting rights
MrTact	The ONLY think that affects looting rights is the amount of damage you do.
MrTact	To get rights on a dark father, you have to do 1/16 of the damage done by the person who does the MOST damage.
MrTact	That's it.
Gallahan	-W-> What is the drink of choice around the OSI office? as a closer?
Sannio	I'm a big fan of Dr. Pepper, myself.
	* Sannio grins *
Vex	Coffee for me. Unhealthy amounts of coffee.
MrTact	Some days? Hemlock.
Fertbert	Water
Vex	But I quit smoking last week, cold turkey! So I might live another decade anyway!
MrTact	We are all liars. It's beer.
Sannio	You smoke beer?
Gallahan	Thanks for coming to this evening's Ultima Online House of Commons chat!
Gallahan	Logs of this chat should be posted shortly on http://uohoc.stratics.com! Thanks for coming!
Sannio	Thanks everyone for coming!