House of Commons from 2004-04-22

House of Commons from 2004-04-22

Brannoc	Good evening and welcome to another great Stratics house of commons chat, tonight our guests are the developers of Ultima Online! The topic for tonight will just be general discussion so all questions about the game are welcome.
Brannoc	Please send said questions to [QT]^J^ or [QT]Brekkee. Questions sent to me or the developers will not make it into the lineup, so don't bother. FUll logs of the chat will be up on uo.stratics.com shortly after the chat.
Brannoc	So without further ado we'll start with a brief introduction from the developers, now would be a good time to send those questions.
Oaks	Hi All. I'm Oaks and I'm a designaholic.
OSI_speedman	I'm speedman, UO Server Programmer extraordinare
Vex	Howdy, all. I'm Vex, a designer on UO, with aspirations to Take Over The World.
Kerowyn	Hi everyone. I'm Kerowyn. Community Relations. <Insert witty comment here>
Fertbert	Hi everyone, I'm a programmer and UO Live team lead.
Toes	Toes Lead Code Monkey
Toes	hi hi.
Niobe	Hiya! I'm Niobe. Designer, UO.
MrTact	I am Guest80652 --- no, wait. I'm MrTact, and I am not the Lead Server Programmer
SunSword	I'm SunSword.
Brannoc
JMacAlpine	my question: "I'm sure you've seen the ongoing discussion regarding archers... what are your plans for their 'big 3': fixing the crash bug, hit chance increase, and fire and forget arrows?"
OSI_speedman	Well, for the crash bug... we have a possible fix
OSI_speedman	But we can't reproduce it...
OSI_speedman	so we are thinking about making a "test" client available to people who are plagued by this
OSI_speedman	the other issues are on the map
OSI_speedman	but haven't been assigned a publish yet
Brannoc	<[DJ]psycho> Hows the work on Publish 24 & 25 going? Will it be released anytime soon? *cant wait*
Fertbert	Publish 24 is in testing right now, we'll be posting publish detail soon, probably early next week. Publish 25 is currently in the planning stage at this time.
Brannoc	*Lambana* Would you consider allowing archers to drink pots with a bow armed ?
Oaks	It's definitely a consideration as we continually make improvements to the archer skill and profession.
Brannoc	*Minotaur2k* Meow, So will Ilshenar ever see Dungeon or Puzzle chests for T Hunters? Or anything for T Hunters?
Oaks	It's very unlikely.
SunSword	He meant "no."
Brannoc
Corran	Will there be a change to how easily Leathal Poison is cured in the future?
Vex	That's a balance tweak we'll take under consideration for a near-future publish.
Brannoc	*Barrackas* One of the stated reasons for stopping production on Scenarios was that UO needed time to become "centered" before moving forward with new live content. Is the game now at that point, and can we expect to see new content from the live team resumed? (this is excluding bug fixes, expansion packs and super secret projects of course)
SunSword	We're approaching that point. Having to move almost the entire team to California, put a little hiccup in our plans to roll out the EM program in a more developed fashion, but our intent is to develop the EM program so that it provides more content activities to players, beyond the dedicated live and expansion teams.
Brannoc	*Minotaur2k* So can you give us some general details on what MrTact is working on? ie PvP, PvM, a better future for all of UO?
MrTact	Nope.
MrTact	Seriously, there's nothing to report at this stage. When there's anything substantial to talk about we will do so.
Brannoc
MrMage	When will more info be released on the upcoming expansion?
Oaks	Soon.
SunSword	More precisely, we should have a lot more to talk about regarding the expansion in the next 2 months.
Brannoc
SmokeSerpent	Recently I shopped *extensively* for undead slayers. Not *one* of the many I saw was a post-AoS weapon. Have you verified that they do in fact spawn?
Oaks	Yes we have. The large group slayers spawn much less frequently than the single type versions (Troll, Snow Elemental, etc.)
Oaks	In fact, the large groups (Repond, Undead, Reptile) are only picked 1% of the time when a slayer property is generated.
Brannoc
Mega	I would like to know when the other Virtures are going to be open and if there are going to be reds virtures in the next pub and expansion
Vex	This is something that we have been talking about internally a bit, recently.
Vex	Right now we don't have any solid plans, so unfortunately I can't say anything more than that.
Vex	Finishing virtues is something we haven't forgotten about.
Brannoc	*Lenar* With the so-called "Next Generation" MMOGs released and being released, such as Final Fantasy XI, World of Warcraft, Lineage II, are the UO team planning on re-inventing UO to keep up with the changing times, both in terms of graphics and gameplay? Thanks :)
SunSword	The fact that UO remains strong despite the increasing amount of competition is a testament to the community and its design. However, we are always considering what will continue to keep UO strong in the future. There are plenty of good ideas both in regards to design, art and technology, that we are always considering for UO.
SunSword	The best thing I've learned since I returned to work on UO is that my bosses are very open to improving UO. It continues to be EA's most successful MMO.
SunSword	Right now we are returning to a fully staffed live team, and expansion team, and as MrTact noted, addition work on the future of UO.
Brannoc
Lambana	Bola's are a little bit overpowered atm, could you possible consider a remounting delay after throwing a bola ?
OSI_speedman	We are aware of the power of the bola and are looking into it
Brannoc	<Guest7080469> What is in the future for us UO Gardeners? New plants? New resources?
Toes	We're planning new content for gardeners for the upcoming expansion.
Toes	There might even be some suprises coming up sooner.
Niobe	The future for UO Gardeners is...growing.
Toes	*groan*
Brannoc	*Eowyn_of_Pacific* Would you consider allowing all characters, reguardless of total skill points, make use of the advanced character service?
MrTact	We have discussed changing the advanced character system to use a reg code, like character transfer.
MrTact	If we do that, we will likely not care how many skill points you currently have.
MrTact	I think there's a good chance we will do something like this -- the GMs would really like us to -- but I don't know exactly where this fits into our priority list.
Brannoc	<Guest7080469> Any consideration of adding new low-end Smithy BODS rewards?
Vex	Hanse isn't here to speak for himself, and BODs is a system that he usually works on, so I'll go out on a limb and answer for him:
Vex	I think our priorities within that system would be first to continue to improve the balance of reward for investment...
Vex	And then to add BODs for other crafting skills, before going back and adding more BODs for Smiths and Tailors
Vex	I don't know that we have any major BOD systm changes on the near-term schedule, but the usual Live balance tweaks should include some BOD system adjustments.
Brannoc	*Ray_Corpnews* Are there any plans for a possible specialty or premium shard?
Toes	we don't have any plans for a premium shard, we want to provide the best service possible to everyone.
Brannoc
Garaba	Are there any improvements to golems or tinkers in general coming in the next couple of publishes?
Oaks	We will be making improvements to all classes for both PVP and PVM for the expansion. Golems are on the list.
Brannoc	*Rho* Will we see any new features or systems before the expansion or are the publishes between now and then going to focus only on bug-fixing and balance issues?
Fertbert	You will likely see the scale of publishes scaled back a bit in favor of more frequent publishes. I do expect that each publish will contain bug fixes and balance tweaks, some publishes may contain new features or systems. Stay tuned to see how it all turns out. :)
Brannoc	*Durnik* Is there any hope to remove or reduce the delay for Ethereal Mounts, making it possible to remount during combat?
Oaks	Ethy mounts have the unique bonus of not being attackable, so some casting delay is needed to balance them out. It may be possible to reduce the delay, however. We'll be reviewing it with our PVP tweaks.
Brannoc	<Gwen{MTC}> When will carpenters be able to make the fireplaces that we were told about before publish 21?
Vex	Fireplaces were worked on during the development of House Customization for AoS. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to complete development or test them, so they fell off the schedule.
Vex	Right now we actually do have a couple ideas floating around to make them available.
Vex	The plans aren't solid enough to be specific about, though.
Brannoc	<Noxin-L2> My character has Gm cooking, but I feel left out of the upcoming publishes, is there any way you can create some kind of PvP chef abaility, such as throwing pies? also could they be neon pies?
Vex	Hmmm...explosive muffins...
Vex	Well, I don't know about the possibility of *combat* Chefs...might be a bit of a stretch, you know? :)
Vex	However, cooking is a long neglected skill. Not only is it important to many of our North American players,
Vex	but we have also gotten some requests from our Japan offices for enhancements to cooking as well.
Vex	So I think we'll be looking to enhance cooking somehow, somewhen.
Brannoc	*Caretaker* How do you like your new work enviroment? And if possible could you make some pictures from your new workspaces and post them on stratics?
MrTact	What, so your image recognition missiles can home in better? No way, man.
MrTact	Seriously, it's pretty nice.
MrTact	California is WAY colder than we were led to believe, though.
MrTact	We're considering a class action suit.
Niobe	It's not /that/ cold here!
MrTact	You have never lived in Texas, I'm guessing.
Vex	We are borg. Your bioligical and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.
Vex	Er... I'm just being silly about the new digs. This is the first time I've worked out of a cubicle. So, I was a bit apprehensive at first.
Vex	But the facilities here at EA HQ are very nice indeed and I'm getting settled in well. :)
Oaks	This place rules.
Fertbert	Indeed
Brannoc
Schimmy	How about some enhacements to fishing!
Oaks	Our primary goal with fishing would be to make it more interactive and exciting... so should we address fishing in the future (and I'm not promising that we will), that'll be the plan.
Brannoc	And that's it for the night golks! I'd like to thank everyone for stopping by (especially the devs), be sure to join us next time!
Fertbert	Thanks for joining us!
Oaks	Ninjas.
Niobe	Night everyone!