Storm Chat from 2003-12-18

Storm Chat from 2003-12-18

This chat was originally posted at the now-defunct IanStorm.com .

TrinityX	Welcome to the 11th UO StormChat! Thank you to everyone for joining us tonight!
TrinityX	This chat will be moderated, general chat can continue during in #ultima-online. To submit a question, please /msg one of the question takers listed in the channel topic. Please do not message myself, or anyone from EA: Origin, they will be ignored.
TrinityX	Our question takers tonight are: Peaches, Silverfoot, and Malkes Talren. They are easily recognised by the [IS] in front of thier names.
TrinityX	Tonight's topic will be: Publish 22. All inappropriate questions will be ignored!
TrinityX	We will also being taking General Discussion questions
TrinityX	So send in your questions folks! ;)
TrinityX	*Kurgan* With the recent changes made to pets. Will we ever have the ability to train other parts of the pets? IE resistance, I think this would make a great addition to those like me who love to train pets.. Or would this be considered to over powered?
Vex	Anything's possible. I can't say that right now we're planning specifically to do that.
Vex	I'll make sure that suggestion gets included when we next discuss Taming changes.
TrinityX	*The_Traveler* Will the paladin gate on TS be fixed to give higher STR and will we see a thief gate added?
Vex	The advancement gates on Test Sosaria exactly match the advanced character templates that can be purchased on regular shards.
Vex	I'll double-check the Paladin gate next time I'm logged in there and make sure it has the right value for STR.
Vex	If the value is correct and you feel the Paladin template just needs more STR, then email that to [email protected] as a suggestion and I'll forward it to those responsible.
TrinityX	*DancesWithWolfs* I just want to compliment you all a fine job you are doing @ osi I know you musttake lot grifeform players@ times but i must say thank you such a wonderful game
Sannio	Although that's not really a question, on behalf of the team: Thank you. We'll try to keep on producing a game that you enjoy. Expect to continue seeing improvements, updates, and additions in the next year. :]
TrinityX	*Krrios* Question: in the last client patch, there were two versions of both snowflakes and poisnettias. From what I've seen, however, the gift packages contained only one fixed version of each. What were the others for?
Vex	The alternative snowflake and poinsettia were added in for future expansion. Right now we haven't planned exactly when or how they'll appear. :)
Vex	Just to clear up any rumors or doubt, those items don't appear as gifts at all. They aren't rare -- they just don't exist yet at all.
TrinityX	*FatManDancing* Any plans on making pvp timing based again (based on the players timing with spells or special attacks)? In other words like it was pre Uo:R (not asking for a pre UO:R rule set here but a pvp system that is timing based like it was). It was like a sport back then, you needed practice to be good. Right now you just need items and money to cover those items.
Adrick-OSI	Ive been reading the boards and see questions like this alot - as vex said anything is possible :)
Adrick-OSI	right now though no plans to do this
TrinityX	*Minotaur2k* Will the EM program be extended? Some of us really would like to know sometime soon.
Sannio	It has not yet been officially confirmed whether or not the Event Moderator program will continue. Once the official thumbs-up (or thumbs-down) occurs, we'll be sure to let everyone know with a news post at UO.com.
TrinityX	*Minotaur2k* Since there was few to no changes and improvements to PvP in P22, can we expect a bunch of them in P23? Maybe a fix to factions? Capping of properties?
Vex	The next two publishes are going to be 1> A normal six-week bug fix and minor feature tweak publish and 2> Character Transfer, as discussed on In Development. Right now are plans are to dedicate the Character Transfer publish solely to that feature and include nothing else with it. Right now the schedule is undetermined -- I don't know the order of those two publishes or their tentative schedule dates.
TrinityX	*RacerX* I asked this in the last chat, but it bears repeating: The familiar bug whereby "legal" targets can give you a murder count because the familiar became "criminal" for attacking your target, any progress on this?
Adrick-OSI	In pub 21 I had several flagging / pet type bugs - perhaps this one was overlooked and I shall forward it to QA to reconfirm is happening if it was not addressed along with the others
TrinityX	*POIUYT_LS* Will more blocking issues be addressed? It is easier to walk through the woods than it was before, but there is still a lot of tanglefoot.
Vex	The plan is to continue with the second phase at our earliest opportunity. Some terrain tiles had to be left as blocking tiles due to strange draw order bugs. And there is a bit of weirdness involving the terrain "translation" that happens between Trammel and Felucca.
Vex	We do plan to finalize those fixes, but right now I don't know the client programmers' schedule with respect to that, sorry.
TrinityX	*PinkHatThug* I heard the dragon barding on swamp dragons was bugged(20% dmg reduction off on all resistances when it should be 20 off physical) this was supposed to be fixed in p21 or 20 but never made it...will we see it fixed anytime soon?
Vex	Like Adrick said earlier, "D'oh...? I'll send a request to our QA people to see what exactly is broken and we'll schedule it into a regular bug fix publish."
Adrick-OSI	Doh!
Sannio	When sending in bug reports, the ones for normal production shards go to [email protected]. Bug reports for Test Centers and Test Sosaria go to [email protected].
Sannio	Please make sure to note which shard you saw the bug on, as well as the facet and general location, your account name (but not password) and character, and the steps that we can use to reproduce the bug.
TrinityX	*Raje* ok I was going to ask this. . . Where is the Chessapeak EM and why is Chessapeak not geting events, also is there still a plan to inform the whole shard when events happen I have not been to an event on Chessapeak yet and that is the only shard I am on
Sannio	Actually, the "Lord British Returns" story arc finished up earlier this week, and no more events are planned as part of that plotline.
Sannio	As I mentioned before, we still haven't announced the fate of the Event Program, but should these events continue we'll be taking a long hard look at how we can improve the ways in which we can get players involved.
Sannio	We'll always have to be careful about how many players show up in a specific area at the same time (with all the lag that may create), but we have some ideas on how we can "spread the event lovin'
TrinityX	*Drofala* With the latest pub. was there anything in there addressing crashing issues?
OSI_Speedman	With every publish we look at previous server crashes and how to make the server more robust
OSI_Speedman	So, yes! We're always concerned with stability.
OSI_Speedman	No one likes to see crashes or reverts
TrinityX	*The_Rock* Can you ask instead if fireplace deeds will ever be added for the holidays
Vex	The fireplaces were something I worked on late in the development cycle of Age of Shadows, and had to be cut from the feature list due to our extremely packed schedule.
Vex	I for one would like to see them added to the game. But, we haven't found a publish to put them in yet and I'm not sure how long it will be before we will.
Vex	<vex> I guess the best I can do is say "maybe".
TrinityX	*The_Traveler* question: Did any of Speedman's lag fixes get included in Pub 22?
OSI_Speedman	You mean, you didn't notice?
OSI_Speedman	Of course!
OSI_Speedman	This was just the first cycle though. I'm still looking into even more things that can be done to help out with lag
OSI_Speedman	You'll possibly notice less lag where there are lots of people coming and going around you
OSI_Speedman	but i'm still not done, I'll be trying to get some lag fixes into several later publishes
TrinityX	*pittmion* we appreciate the recent fixes for siege skill gain over 100, but is there an estimated time for a fix for resist over 90
OSI_Speedman	This is really a MrTact question, but since he's not here
OSI_Speedman	The short answer is we're looking into addressing the skill gain system in many ways
OSI_Speedman	Some of those include difficulties in gaining skill
OSI_Speedman	In fact, publish 24 is going to make it slightly easier to gain weapons skill
TrinityX	*Kurgan* With all the changes coming with the newer publishes. Will there be anytime to go back and look at the House Deco Tool, Mabye add more tiles to it?
Vex	That is likely to come up in one of the small feature tweak/bug fix Live publish over the next year. Don't know when, but it is something that a lot of us here want to do.
TrinityX	*Raje* when do you think you will impliment the other virtues Warriors are waiting for the virtues to duel and get more bonuses
Sannio	Unfortunately, the remaining Virtues aren't in our short term radar, and won't be appearing in the next few publishes. Beyond that, I can't say. Anything's possible.
TrinityX	*Isiot* With pub 22 certain monsters have seemed to increased in speed. Was this an intended feature?
OSI_Speedman	No monsters have increased in speed that I know of
OSI_Speedman	Except of course the super cows on Test Sosaria :)
TrinityX	*Minotaur2k* Where are our Pink Deer Hats? I know it was a bug in P19 Test, but it was a fun bug =)
Sannio	Sorry, although they may have been funny, we don't have pink deer hats under development. :]
TrinityX	*Purple_Llama* i ask this every time so hear goes again have dyable pet tubs and or pet breeding progressed any further inthe scheme of things?
Sannio	People seem to enjoy coloring things, eh? :} Sorry, pet dye tubs is something else we're not working on at the moment. Same with pet breeding; breeding's not on the radar at this time.
Vex	Well, maybe for *some* of us.
Vex	Oh, you meant *pet* breeding.
Vex	:)
	<font* Sannio laughs
	<font* TrinityX shakes her head
TrinityX	*Minotaur2k* Is there any chance that you would run a System Design Contest, for those of us who are artisitcally challenged? Maybe first prize for the best system design would be implementation into UO in a future Publish.
Sannio	Hm, I've never heard that paricular suggestion before. It's not something that's in the works, and with the behind-the-scenes complexity of the game code/script/programming, I don't know that this would be possible.
Sannio	We'll make sure to pass along your suggestion once we're back in the office, but, again, it's probably not possible.
TrinityX	*Silverfoot* Can you tell us howlong gifts can be recieved.And how you qualify?
Vex	This year's Holiday Gift claiming will be active for approximately 30 days from today...but if history is any indicator it'll probably end up being more like 35 days. :)
Vex	Your character must be a minimum of 30 days old to receive gifts. They are not given to anyone dead, due to strange side-effects that have happened in the past when giving giving gifts to ghosts.
Vex	So, if you're dead when you log in, then resurrect and re-log to get them.
Vex	Sometimes, characters might for some reason not have a bank box. I'm not sure what causes this. But if your character does not have a bank box, you won't receive the gifts. If you think you should receive gifts but aren't getting them, then visi the bank and open your bank box. The box will be created, and then when you relog you'll get the gifts.
TrinityX	*Istanbul* Will wreaths be able to stay up all year or will they come down the same time as christmas trees?
Vex	This year's holiday gift items will be "active" all year long. So, wreaths won't re-deed, snowmen won't melt, and the gift boxes won't lose their luster.
Vex	But, the trees *will* re-deed after the holiday season is past, just like before.
Sannio	Don't forget to pick up your re-deeded holiday trees!
TrinityX	*RacerX* Just a kudos to whomever coded the gifts this year. It's been stated in the past that gifts were usully the byproduct of a dev members "off" time, and if thats the case, I wanna give em a thumbs-up. Nice job!
Vex	Well, they were a group effort. Let me break it down:
Vex	Sannio created the gift box artwork.
Vex	Kerowyn created the poinsettia artwork.
Vex	Binky (one of our Marketing people) created the Snowman and the Wreath
Vex	And, Fertbert did the snowflake
Vex	Fert and I split the technical work to get the gifts into the client...and yours truly recycled some gift delivery code from years past to get 'em to you.
TrinityX	And that ends our 10th UO Storm Chat!
TrinityX	I'd like to give a thanks Sannio, Vex, Adrick, Speedman, and Helios for joining us tonight and answering our questions.
Vex	Happy holiday!
Vex	Er, Holidays!
Sannio	Happy holidays, everyone!
OSI_Speedman	Thanks all :)