House of Commons from 1999-04-08

House of Commons from 1999-04-08

Glamdring	Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's Open House.
Glamdring	Tonight's chat is considered General Discussion and as such we will accept questions of any topic relating to UO.
Glamdring	I will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions please /msg or /query Fripp, Marduk, Troll, Uziel, Aphrodite or Jerrith.
Glamdring	Please /msg different question-takers at different times, in order to balance the load and speed this process up. Do not msg anyone from OSI or--these questions will be ignored.
Glamdring	Remember that OSI may not have the opportunity to answer all of your questions. In addition, some questions may not be answered if the Dev Team feel that it is not appropriate or that it has been better answered through some other question.
Glamdring	In addition, please do not submit any questions that have already been answered during past conferences. We encourage you to read the logs of the previous Open Houses, which are available at http://uohoc.stratics.com.
Glamdring	Thanks for coming, everyone. We will now begin accepting questions.
Glamdring	*Xander* I find the current state of the Paralysis spell somewhat unfair. A) When will it become "resistable" (like promised months earlier) and B) How about upping the damage on Magic Trap to prevent that particular "trick"?
Faceless	It is resistable already. There is a fair chance that the duration will be 0 sec on paralysis. It is questionable whether that chance is high enough. I can't say when, because I don't know.
Faceless	As far as upping the damage on Magic Trap, we are talking about internally what the damage should be.
Glamdring	*Ibn_Shaun* Could the healing skill be given an enhancement whereby it restores both stamina and hitpoints to distinguish it and make it superior to magical forms of healing? Also, when will bandages stacking on creation be finished (assigned to Toad as per #uohoc December 3, 1998)?
Faceless	That's an interesting idea. There is going to be a potion that affects both stamina and hitpoints. I'll keep the healing suggestion in mind.
Faceless	Bandages stacking? I cannot speak on schedule right now. It's on the list, but I hope you understand why I can't promise a date. Things have to fluxuate.
Glamdring	*Ravensha* We have not heard anything about the parry skill update in a while. What happened to shields reflecting projectile spells? Will this ever be added?
Faceless	When we investigated parrying, we found that there are many changes we'd like to make with the skill to make it more viable. We didn't think that just making it partially effective vs spells was going to be a big factor so...
Faceless	We are going to wait on parrying until we can invest the resources required to fully make the skill work better and balance it into the current combat system
Glamdring	*Duskwalker_Catskills* A couple of short questions: Could furs and some of the rare "generic" items be made lockable in houses? I understand not allowing regs or possibly food, but I'd like to have a locked down fur rug :-). Second, are there any plans to make a craftable Bulletin Board (and if not could it be added)? I think this would be a great addition for public buildings and guilds...
Faceless	I'd like to add carpetting :). I'll keep in in mind though. Bulletin Boards would be a cool feature. They will have to wait though until we have the resources to add minimal moderator features to them.
Glamdring	*AngelStorm-UOChesNews* Any date yet on guard protection for public buildings? Lock-able interior doors?
SunSword	At the moment, it hasn't been established that we have a clear need for guards, nor have eliminated all possible exploits from their behaviour...
SunSword	as for the lockable interior doors...
SunSword	See here that I SHALL DO THEM.
SunSword	Ok?
SunSword	Ok...
SunSword	I'll take a look at it this week.
Glamdring	*Seren* Question, Is there something wrong with the Nightmare Spawns of Lake Superior. I've been told that the Dev Team controls them and the rangers are in need of a challenge.
Faceless	The Dev Team does not control the spawn of any creature. Keeping the area clear of creatures helps improve the rate of the harder ones.
Glamdring	*Joshua_Rowan* Will you be providing any way for "Good" Players to develop Paladin skills without having to be 100% PvP, much like Evil players can fight wisps?
Faceless	That's actually one of the imbalances in the current system in place on TC and Abyss. Likely we will either kill wisps giving life force, or add something in for paladins.
SunSword	poor wisps...
Glamdring	*Hythlodaeus* Several questions about dungeons: Will the number code in Covetous or all the many switches in Covetous and Deceit ever serve purposes? Even with t2a, there are a number of unused dungeon areas including what looks like four additional mostly completed levels of Hythloth. Might this ever be Doom? Lastly, might "magic areas" in dungeons with numbers of pentagrams, runes, etc. play a special role in necromancy or some other future sch
Faceless	Likely there won't be any revamps to unused dungeons without a new client CD release. Even then, it would be questionable. Dungeon revamps are currently a ways a way on the schedule. More than likely Despise would be the first dungeon addressed.
Faceless	Necromancy? No comment on how the system will work.
Glamdring	*Cuchulainn* Will the Forgetfullness potions be the sole tool available for players to control their skill levels or are other methods in the workd? (skill locks, etc)
SunSword	The answer is "for now". To the question, "are we considering ways to give players more control over their skills?" The answer is absolutely
SunSword	We have two competing ideas, but the issue is definitely being delt with.
Glamdring	*KurokoOfBon* I read the post on the COB Dev Board yesterday on your priorities, which did not include housing. I think this is a big issue for both players new and old, any plans on perhaps detouring to it within the near future? (Perhaps by making a house maintainence deed for a week craftable by a carpenter and reducing the amount of houses per account?)
Faceless	We're aware there is still more demand for housing than the available room. However it is not a priority for the near future.
Glamdring	*Sir_Deraj* why are there not lots of seers? i have never seen one before, I believe that quests should be a very big part of the game yet I can never find them.
IronWill	The truth is that seers are running events everyday. A lot of people ask why there are no seers but the truth is when they run their events, it wont be in their green robes.
IronWill	In addition to those events that seers run, there are also daily IGM quests as well as player run quests and events.
IronWill	For the seer and IGM events, the town crier will cry off what the event is and where its at...
IronWill	For player events, make sure that you check out town.owo.com and check out the Calendar of Events.
Glamdring	*FinkPloyd* Do you plan on every putting in Arm/Disarm, Last Target and Target self? DD has said it will be implemented but it stil hasn't been.
Faceless	Yes we still intend to add this functionality to the client.
Glamdring	*Nova* Any potential for giving tinkers or smiths the ability to engrave short messages on jewelry or items?
SunSword	yes, one of those things on the list... :)
Glamdring	*OneArmMan* Will fishing be tweaked a tad to allow MiB's and Maps to be found just a bit more often? (perhaps 1 every 2 hours of fishing?) My fisherman has 91.5 fishing and has not caught one map since the patch.
Faceless	The primary use of the fishing skill is to catch fish. Other items were added to allow the hardcore fisherman an occasional surprise. It is not supposed to be a substitute for the primary way to find treasure...killing monsters.
SunSword	nods.
Faceless	Remember fishing away from land will increase the rate of surprises.
Glamdring	*ghyde* What are you going to do about overweight characters who die excessively overweight under the new good/evil system? Will they get all their stuff back or only part of it? Or how will it work?
Faceless	Whatever they have on their person when they die will go to their ghost if the system determines the victim was an innocent killed by an evil player.
Glamdring	*Dot_Warner-GL* Will be be able to dye pillows, chair cushions, and beds (sheets) soon? The drab gray is a bit depressing...
SunSword	It's a good idea. I like it. Soon... haven't really looked into it, but it might be a simple thing to add, actually.
Glamdring	*Niobe* Is there anything being done to deal with how new skills are introduced? Recently we've seen several new skills that became 'nerfed' after less than a week.
Faceless	If we introduce a skill that is too powerful, we have to tone it down. If people want to call that nerfing, so be it. I call it balancing. What will be done in the future? We're going to try...
Faceless	To be more conservative in our approach to adding new features. From the response that we got, I'd like to err on the side of not powerful enough in the future.
Faceless	It also means we're going to take our time adding new features in.
Glamdring	*Virtus* There is word circulating around the UO community of a total server wipe. With the recent resignation from a councellor, he explained the reasons he did so. He explained several reasons, and at the end stated it all wouldn't matter because of the server wipe. Can any of you validify or deny these rumors?
Faceless	We are not planning on wiping the public servers. There will be a wipe on Test Center in the near future.
Faceless	*NOT*
Faceless	I said *not*
Faceless	Never believe a rumor of a wipe.
SunSword	So, are you saying that we won't be wiping the public servers?
Faceless	When aliens invade the earth
SunSword	That's what I thought you said...we are NOT wiping the public servers.
Marduk	looks to the sky and covers head
Faceless	In short, there is no wipe :)
Glamdring	watches a boy and his bot
SunSword	You sound pretty serious about that.
SunSword	I am NOT a bot.
SunSword	*bZZzzt*
Glamdring	hehe
Glamdring	I would like to thank everyone for coming tonight
Glamdring	and thanks to Faceless, Sunsword, Ironwill and Dupre
Glamdring	Have a good night all
Faceless	Thanks for coming.