House of Commons from 2002-11-07

House of Commons from 2002-11-07

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 our 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...the topic is Housing
Lord‑Xanthor	Tonights Topic is General Discussion
Lord‑Xanthor	Please /msg /query [QT]Elfiwolfe, [QT]Presient, [QT]Rhayde.
Lord‑Xanthor	*BigT[Cats]* Will we be able to use the house deeds we have now in Malas?
Hanse	We'll have a FAQ on our website for the Age of Shadows release. Until that's up...we don't have specific information regarding Age of Shadows.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Newman* Many of us on the UO message boards were doing research and trying to isolate the cause of the 0 damage magery bug... Were these tests helpful in any way and what is the status on the bug?
Hanse	It's always helpful to get information about issues so we can reproduce them.
Hanse	Although, this bug was very well buried. :)
Lord‑Xanthor	*Tanador* Will there be any upgrades to the neglected skills such as cooking, archery, lockpicking etc?
Hanse	Possibly... :)
Hanse	How soon, I don't have a good estimate...
Hanse	Although, there are changes in AoS that we'll have in our FAQ for you to peruse... :)
Lord‑Xanthor	*C_Mike_GL* why is there a 7 day waiting period on house transfers. i have sold my house and now im homeless with all my stuff for a week. i understand having 1 house per account but trying to sell a house is like finding a needle in a hay stack. Also once house decay comes back will the decay status be put back on house signs?
Sannio	The waiting period was required to keep people from "juggling" houses.
Sannio	What some people would do was exploit the housing system by continuously placing houses, and own a number of houses that were codemned.
Sannio	We don't have any plans to put the decay status back on the house signs once decay is reactivated.
Lord‑Xanthor	*GreyPawn* Are there any plans in place to allow for the development of existing cities? I mean for instance adding street signs in Moonglow, like Britain has. Or revamping the Counselor's guild halls into something more useful?
Hanse	We're not focusing on the cities, currently.
Hanse	We have ideas, but whether they get on the schedule or not hasn't been decided.
Sannio	We did recently improve the Counselor Hall on Great Lakes' Skara Brae in Trammel, but that was for a one-time event.
	* Sannio whistles a familiar tune *
Lord‑Xanthor	*Newman* You have already stated that there will be no work done on factions anytime soon... Yet, AoS was billed to be a big PvP expansion... care to explain?
Fertbert	I've mentioned in several of my posts on the UO message boards that we're adding a lot more options for PvP and PvM...and we are. :)
AdrickOSI	sorry Im late but just in time it seems
AdrickOSI	factions is a pvp system yes - in aos we chose to expand and improve the underlying methods to pvp
AdrickOSI	we hope this will improve all forms of combat and as a result improve the level of enjoyment participating in factions
Lord‑Xanthor	*Ghosty* With the new housing code going in, how do you expect the lag to be? I am currently playing TSO, and the owners have to be on the land for anything to load, will there be anything like this with the new housing developments?
Fertbert	We are tuning that code now... and implementing various lag counter-measures. We are doing our best to ensure lag-free performance for all.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Suzanne* Since all of our knowledge of AOS depends on this FAQ, how soon will it be up?
Sannio	The AoS FAQ should be available later this month. Until recently we believed it may have been available already, but we need to make sure that we don't reveal any of the neat bits that AoS will bring prematurely.
Sannio	That being said, we've still let a tidbit or two sneak out about AoS now and again. ;}
Lord‑Xanthor	*Newman* When you say Malass will be a "limited PvP" land... How limited do you mean?
Hanse	Speaking of FAQ's... :)
Hanse	That should be in the FAQ. :)
Lord‑Xanthor	*Gladwyn* Will it be possible to customise houses "upwards" - that is to say, increase its combined square surface and possibly the number of lockdowns - without needing to expand the surface area needed? As an example, think of the difference in placement requirements for a villa and a log cabin (same number of lockdowns/secures, but log cabin makes more efficient use of the space by having an extra level)
Hanse	Another FAQ question! :)
Lord‑Xanthor	*Phaedrus* Are there any plans for a 120 Poisoning scroll, and being able to create level 5 poison?
Hanse	We're not considering adding powerscrolls for poisoning any time soon.
AdrickOSI	level 5 poison :) :)
Lord‑Xanthor	*Nero[OSS]* Question: Would it be possible/probable to create a roleplay-specific shard? Similar concepts are done for other MMORPGs but UO has yet to pick up on the idea, and I know alot of roleplayers would jump at the chance to play a roleplay-specific shard.
Hanse	Our current shards all foster roleplaying.
Hanse	The systems implemented (such as crafting, housing..) are great bases for roleplaying.
Hanse	Although, some folks have wanted more tools... you'll always want more... :)
Hanse	We are not considering making a specific role playing shard.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Coop* It has been said bugs are worked on constantly. Why are the ones the players want fixed and post about on the boards not given more attention and fixed once the problem is found? Why wait until AoS to fix the GM+ music bonus for peacemaking, for example.
Hanse	We have a process that evaluates bugs and their priority.
Hanse	If we have a game breaking bug or an issue which keeps players from playing at all, those get highest priority.
Hanse	So, yes, we constantly are fixing bugs, but they're usually at a level that sometimes is transparent to our customers.
Hanse	Although, we did ert out the tailoring bulk order fix. :)
Lord‑Xanthor	*godski* I've been running some busy vendors latly and there are a lot of things I wish were changed with vendors. Both from a customer and shopkeeper perspective. Any player vendor changes in the works? Increasing the item limits, interface upgrade, more automated like the barkeeper.. etc?
Sannio	The vendors will be staying as they are for the time being. We don't have any plans to change them.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Bayard* With AOS coming out and the ability to "Recreate" your home what is going to happen to items like stretched hides/Colored Anvils (items that can be placed but can not be redeeded) are there plans to allow the owner to redeed these items when they rebuild thier homes? Or are they going to be lost?
Hanse	All house addons will become deedable.
	* Hanse winks. *
Lord‑Xanthor	*Newman* That phone survey that was talked about on the boards... Any info you can give us on that? What is actually being done at this time?
Sannio	The phone survey was one of several marketing techniques we use to gather information from our players.
Sannio	Sometimes we may have something in mind we'd like to ask about, other times we create questions to get a better feel for things not already in the works.
Sannio	That survey mixed both types, but it's too early to discuss what our results were and where they answers may direct us.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Paxicon[CF]* Will a re-evaluation of the stat gain during GGS be done soon? I have managed to create multi-GM characters with "newbie" stats several times, by now.
Hanse	We're not looking into GGS any time soon, I believe.
Lord‑Xanthor	*perianwyr* Will we have the once and future promised alchemy addition in AoS? Will there be cows involved?
Hanse	In lieu of monkeys?
Hanse	Alchemy wasn't included with the magic changes we're making in Age of Shadows.
Lord‑Xanthor	*hector* regarding the phone survey, wouldnt it be easier to make a screen with questions pop up when you log on one of your character than calling people?
Sannio	Well, it's certainly an option. But setting up something like that would take up resources outside the scope of the marketing team, specifically in the realm of the Developers. There's a certain appeal to the convenience of a phone survey (or e-mail survey, or snail mail survey, etc.).
Sannio	For this survey, we felt it best to use the phone survey option.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Gladwyn* Will the changes to PvP in AoS require changes in the style of play only, or will we see changes that make new templates interesting and old templates obsolete?
AdrickOSI	the changes will make available many new templates and options
AdrickOSI	however in making the changes we specifically looked at existing templates as to attempt not to make anyones current character obsolete
AdrickOSI	thats all I can say for now :(
Lord‑Xanthor	work* If an account is deactivated, how long does it take for the houses to go into a decay state once the 3rd phase of housing has been implemented?
MrTact	Your account will be in a state of grace for 10 days.
MrTact	Sometime after that 10-day period, a process will pick up your account and set your houses inactive
MrTact	If you reactivate within the 10 days, it takes your name off that list, so nothing ever happens to your houses.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Mocker* Why are items stolen by thieves now temporarily blessed? This allows thieves to keep stolen items after ressurecting, ensuring 100% success for a play style which involves 0 risk. They can even call guards on themselves. Was this intentional, or is it a bug?
Helios_OSI	It was an unintentional feature that we decided to keep in the game. It gives the Thief an extra plus.
Helios_OSI	Which isnt all bad.
Lord‑Xanthor	*C_Mike_GL* Since Theifs are soo limited to where and what they can steal, will there be changes of the theiving skill?
Helios_OSI	I wouldn't retire my thief just yet - that's all I'll say about that for now. :)
Lord‑Xanthor	*Newman* It was said Beta Testers for AoS have already been chosen... When was this done and how where the testers chosen? Any certain requirements or anything like that?
Sannio	During the various stages of testing, the earliest stage often only allow for a seclect few people. Our AoS testers were chosen from such a list.
Sannio	I have no information for you on a more public test period, but should such a thing occur we'll certainly post about it at UO.com
Lord‑Xanthor	*godski* Could you do more to get the fiction from scenarios into the game rather than having it on the web page? Maybe make use the library in britain and add some books telling the histories of everything and what is going on in the world?
MrTact	This very idea surfaced on the boards recently and there was some discussion among the dev team about doing this, though we haven't really made any plans to do so yet.
MrTact	So the answer is "maybe."
MrTact	I can tell you, however, that we have just started a development cycle on improving our patching client, which will let us make some of that information available while you are patching . . . .
Lord‑Xanthor	*Suzanne* Please for the love of god answer this: When is PHASE 3 being activated?
MrTact	We have been delayed entirely too long on deploying Phase 3, I have to take a mea culpa on that.
MrTact	Most recently it was because Sakura went live and the players there CRUSHED the housing server under load.
MrTact	We are past the worst part of that, but the engineering team is currently combing through our database, profiling and looking for optimization opportunities
MrTact	The intent is to prevent what happened when Sakura launched from happening AGAIN when Phase III rolls.
MrTact	They have asked for 2 weeks to do this, after which WE ARE DEPLOYING PHASE III.
MrTact	Incidentally, based on our learnings from the Sakura & Lake Austin launches, we are making some additional mods to the housing server, to further optimize in the interest of preventing these kind of problem.
MrTact	Those features won't be deployed in time for Phase III but they should be very helpful around the time AoS is launched.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Newman* Whos the better PvPer... Sannio or Hanse? ;)
Sannio	I die more often each day than most players do in a virtual lifetime.
Sannio	I'm pretty confident that Hanse would take me out fairly quickly, although I'd do my best to make sure he had a hard time doing it'and that would probably mean running away and making him chase me.
	* Sannio winks *
MrTact	I think Adrick would probably pwn you both
Sannio	I'd be happy as long as Hanse left my stuff for on my corpse.
AdrickOSI	evocare is the pwner - Im just his lacky
Hanse	Seeing as only Helios has ever tied me at PvP on the current dev team (everyone else fell before me in the arena)...
	* Sannio pokes Hanse with a pointed stick *
Hanse	I'd have fun chasing Sannio down. :)
Sannio	You'd have several long minutes of fun, Hanse!
	* Fertbert *dooks* *
MrTact	Heh the only way I could win at PvP would be to get someone to open a trapped box. I suck.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Mocker* Is the 0 damage spell bug ever going to be fixed? Do you have a target date for the fix?
MrTact	Yes, we have found the elusive 0-damage spell bug.
MrTact	It was fixed once, but then QA found some cases where it was still broken, and another fix was done.
MrTact	This fix hasn't been tested yet, AFAIK, but assuming that it passes (and I feel pretty good that it will), we should see this deployed within the next week or so.
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
Sannio	Thanks everyone for coming!
Lord‑Xanthor	the log will be posted shortly at http://uohoc.stratics.com
	* Hanse tells his blaze mongbat's to "mush" as his sled rides off across the tundra. *