House of Commons from 1999-10-21

House of Commons from 1999-10-21

Glamdring	Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's Open House.
Glamdring	Tonight's chat topic is "In Development and In Concept".
Glamdring	I will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions please /msg or /query 'Fripp, Niobe, Xander, XenaDragon'
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 myself--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	*Trugagh* will gold be able to be locked down with other stackable items?
SunSword	Yes.
Niobe	*website question* What are the plans on implementing the Skill Management system?
SunSword	The plan is to implement it in the publish immediately after the second phase of item reduction
SunSword	it should move to "in testing" in a week or two
Niobe	*Grok* What is status of potion barrels and how will they work?
Firedog	I can't give you too many details now.
Firedog	Watch the website, and we'll be posting more information soon on the exact functionality.
Firedog	You should see the kegs in Phase II.
Niobe	*Baran_Euro* What are the plans on improving the housing situation? Will there be a new CD for housing, or how can more space opened for everyone to get his home? 1 house per account without being enforced seems not enough. And not everyone can afford a taxation on his home :(
SunSword	As you know, we announced that in the next 6 months or so, we will be adding more land for housing
SunSword	this land will not require a new CD, it should be downloadable
Niobe	*Joshua_Rowan* QUESTION: Why not put some heavy Money Sinks (like the unique items found in the Ticket System) permanently into the game?
SunSword	We are looking at several money sinks in the game
SunSword	The unique items in the ticket system aren't really a good candidate because the longer they are available, the less "Unique" they are, and the less valuable...
Niobe	*ghyde* About the proposed changes to boats, if someone parks their boat somewhere and can't remember where they left it, how will they track it down again without a key?
Sage	One of the things we are trying to incorporate into the new boat system is to disallow people to just leave boats lying around.
Sage	It causes blockading and hurts several other players. Our goal is to find a good solution that will harm the least number of players
Sage	Ideally we would like everyone to use the dry docking feature and not leave boats for extended periods
Sage	Part of that is going to be making sure we have a good system where people do not get knocked off of boats.
Sage	We have received some really good feedback on our "in concept" site.
Sage	We will have more information on actual decisions later.
Niobe	*Radian-CAD-GL* With respect to the "Name Change" deed, would it be possible to limit it to once every six months, rather than once per life of the character? It would allow people to take on different roles after awhile without having to start an entirely new character.
SunSword	That's an interesting idea. The "name change" deed will probably go up on "in concept" to get more feedback on it. Obviously, a frequent name change would be problematic. Expect to see more discussion on this issue.
Glamdring	*website question* When will important things like skill locks, necromancing, house auctioning, alchemy, etc. be given Dev Team Brain Time instead of focusing in not so important stuff like boat changes?
SunSword	First, the assertion that the boat changes are "not so important" is incorrect. Our first goal before we can begin the series of changes to add to the land of UO requires that we reduce our item count.
SunSword	Boats are a large part of that problem, and also tend to be problematic.
SunSword	Secondly, the assumption that we are not working on other systems while boats are being considered is also incorrect. There has been a considerable amount of work done on skill management, and you're going to see a great deal of information on these new changes in the near future
SunSword	We've been making a strong effort to keep you informed on the update center, expect that to continue.
Glamdring	*Tricolore_Euro* Will you add the Runestone project to the "In Concept" section anytime soon?
SunSword	Quite possibly
SunSword	We're working very hard to find a good solution for the combination of item decay and runes
SunSword	There are several designs that have merit.
Glamdring	*frenetic* Why, after all this time, is there no secure way to transfer houses? Rather than trying to limit the amount of houses people own, why don't you give them the facilities to actually create a market out of it?
Sage	This is something we want to address. Everything clearly has priorities with us, and it difficult to judge each priority depending on who they will affect
Sage	I think this is something that goes hand in hand with other issues, and this is something we will be looking at. I would not try to pin a specific date to it at this point, because it is not at a concept stage yet.
Glamdring	*website question* Are there any plans to denerf archery and/or improve bowyering?
Firedog	There are currently no plans concerning archery or bowyering...
Firedog	However, we will certainly keep you informed on the web site as things develop.
Glamdring	*Woogie* Q: A few months ago you all gave the impression that lots of new Skills would be possible after you designed a skill-tree system. Some of the skills you did were Stealth and Meditation. Why have you not created more? There are a ton of ideas out there, including Masonry, Hunting, Brewing, etc.
SunSword	A few months ago, the team went through a pretty serious transition. Since then we've been working on item reduction, skill management, housing, boats, alchemy, etc...
SunSword	There are currently a lot of things we need to get done, and I'm sure you want us to get done first.
SunSword	But we do have the capability to develop the skill system further, and hopefully alchemy will be the first new step in that direction.
Glamdring	*DRAGONX-G* Any Plans in future to make the duration of blessings, dexterity, strength and agility armors last longer and more useful?
SunSword	Not in the near future.
Glamdring	*Britney* With boats now allowing players to access their bank box, what are the possiblity of permitting seers to add invulnerable npc bankers to player establishments? This would encourage people to hang out there more often.
SunSword	I think this might be a good place to address the purpose of "In Concept"
SunSword	:)
SunSword	The idea behind this section of the website is to put out some ideas about a difficult problem and get player feedback on it
SunSword	So please don't assume that when you see something there, that it is definitely going into the game.
SunSword	So it would be almost impossible for me to really answer this particular question, because at the moment, you cannot access your bank from a boat :).
Glamdring	*Myrddraal* Will the new land to be added be wasted solely on housing, or will some of it encorporate dungeons and hunting areas?
SunSword	um
SunSword	It will be more than just housing
SunSword	It will have adventuring areas as well.
Glamdring	*Tahkamata* Why are reds being shunned from everything that is coming out like with boats? It was once said the murderer was important to the game and it seems like were being outcasted and there's an effort to exculde us from everything :(
SunSword	Again, this is just a reminder that the boat design on "In Concept" isn't written in stone. With that said, I believe the reason red's were excluded from bank box access with boats was to be consistant with the current rules of the game
SunSword	There's only one place reds can access their bank box, and it's pretty tough to hang out there
SunSword	As for red's in general, another part of the land expansion is to give players the opportunity to choose to be involved in PvP or not, and once we have a way of determining players choices, we can look at how the rules about reds and PvP might be changed
Glamdring	*Sky* Can we get any hints about the new ideas for pvp and the new areas? Or is that rune's territory?
SunSword	No more than I just gave. But it's not just Runesabre's field :)
Firedog	We can't offer a lot of hints right now.
Firedog	However, we intend to develop a solution that enables those who PvP and those who don't
Firedog	to both be able to have the kind of experience that they want.
Firedog	In addition, we want these people to continue to interact in the way that all fans of UO are accustomed to.
Glamdring	*Di_Kid* What are the reasons behind putting a name on all exceptional items made by a smith? Marking our names was one way to prive we are GMs.
Sage	Actually, players have always been able to make exceptional items that were not GMs. The problem was that we were devaluing items and then making anything but being a GM a losing proposition
Sage	This way, a GM can still mark their name, but every exceptional item crafted has equal value. That way you don't have to be a GM to just be viable in your chosen profession.
Sage	We want to encourage growth, not mandate it.
Glamdring	*Chandra_euro* a possibily for the future: having addons shadow their outline for a more exact placement.
SunSword	Good idea.
SunSword	We'll keep it in mind. Don't know if it's possible though :).
Glamdring	*website question* For boats: 2 hours seems a LOT short. Things like Time Warps could cause players to fail to drydock (Done after save) and boat sinks. would not 8 hours be a better limit? Also: What is the purpose of allowing Bank access while on a boat ?
Sage	Kind of like the earlier question, but the main thrust is to have everyone dry dock their boat, since it is easy and painless, or at least relatively so.
Sage	We want to encourage this, but time warps are a primary concern. This is something we are discussing a lot. The in concept is by no means concrete and I expect it to go through changes.
Glamdring	*SRC_Mindtrip_Ches* The ping pong counter is related to the short term counter according to the programmers. This means, technically the release info of March 28 that states going blue to red 5 times is incorrect. Technically, its going nostat loss to statloss 5 times which causes perm red. Is there intentions to redesign this to fit the description mentioned in the patch info and this common held belief or to clarify how this works and grant amnes
SunSword	Allow me to clarify.
SunSword	The short term murder count does dictate whether you go from blue to red. However, the nature of the long term murder count can veil the situation by keeping you red, once your short term murder count decays.
SunSword	The basis of ping pong and perma red is the short term murder count, and is only laterally related to stat loss
SunSword	The system may come under review when we introduce the new lands and the nature of PvP becomes consensual
SunSword	But until then, it is working exactly as it is supposed to. It reveals a pattern of murder that requires a long history of killing innocents.
SunSword	And permenantly identifies the character as a murderer.
Glamdring	*Nehrakgu* What ever happened to the things you said you were going to add one or two new craftables each patch? I remember a while ago when the first house adons came in, you said more would come, a few in each time. There is still a lot of unused art-tiles in UO...
Firedog	As SunSword mentioned earlier, a lot of things have changed in the recent past...
Firedog	So we've been concentrating on some much larger issues.
Firedog	However, there will still be additions to crafting skills in the future...
Firedog	Perhaps not so aggressively...
Firedog	Don't forget that we have recently added the ability to unmake things to most crafting skills,
Firedog	so they're not forgotten.
Firedog	And there is a possibility that new craftables will come along with new items like the potion kegs.
Glamdring	*ghyde* This Magic Cow Launcher of pandemonium's that was spotted on TC - what do you plan on doing with it?
Lord_Pall	Actually, the cow launcher was a test put together by Chris Coffin, one of our programmers. He was using it to track down and fix a client crash.
Lord_Pall	So unfortunately no cow launchers. :(
Glamdring	Well folks, that'll wrap it up for this evening. I would like to thank everyone for coming including Sunsword, Sage, Firedog, Lord_Pall, Calandryll and Llano
Sage	Before I leave tonight, I just wanted to send out the Dev Team's thanks to all of our volunteers again! Have a good night.!
Glamdring	please join #ultima-online for continued discussion