House of Commons from 2000-09-07

House of Commons from 2000-09-07

Jerrith	Greetings and thank you for attending tonight's UOHoC.
Jerrith	Tonight's chat topic is Factions and as such we will accept questions related to this topic.
Jerrith	Jerrith will be our moderator for this evening. In order to submit questions, please /msg or /query Destiny, Kehleyr, Serephina, Tsolyani Jerrith changes topic to "UOHoC - Topic: "Factions" - Please /msg or /query Destiny, Kehleyr, Serephina, Tsolyani your questions. - UO World Faire: www.uo.com/news.html"
Jerrith	Please /msg different question-takers at different times, in order to balance the load, and speed this process up. Do not msg anyone from Origin--these questions will be ignored.
Jerrith	Remember they may not have the opportunity to answer all of your questions. In addition, some questions may not be answered if they feel that it is not appropriate or that it has been better answered through some other question.
Jerrith	In addition, please do not submit any questions that have already been answered during past conferences.
Jerrith	We encourage you to read the logs of the previous UOHoCs, which are available at http://uohoc.stratics.com
Jerrith	Thanks for coming, everyone. We will now begin accepting questions.
Jerrith	*Lugh* How will perpetual kill of 2 oppsiing faction characters [2 accounts, same owner] to generate endless silver be combated?
Evocare	Players will not be able to get silver from the same opponent multiple times over a short period of time.
Evocare	It will take a while before players can get silver from the same person again
Jerrith	*Priam* Will there be fictional support(i.e. seers involved directly) for factions? If so, how extensive will it be?
Sage	There are no immediate plans for OSI sponsored fiction when factions launch. We hope that players will drive fiction of their own, using the faction system as a tool.
Sage	In the future factions may be incorporated into more detailed plot development, but there are no current plans for such action.
Jerrith	*Zeitgeist-and-Teriieroo* How do you think the faction system will fair with the pvp community in general compared to the old system?
Adrick‑OSI	the faction system will bring more into pvp beyond killing players in combat
Adrick‑OSI	things such as merchants
Adrick‑OSI	political struggle
Adrick‑OSI	and actually influencing through town control
Adrick‑OSI	we hope this will be well received by the pvp community and merchant/political playstyles as well
Jerrith	*Lugh* Will faction monsters aggresed to opposing faction members be guard killable in town? And has the ability to control/tame friendly faction monster been considered?
Evocare	Faction monsters will be attacked on sight by guards. They will not be tamable.
Jerrith	*Lugh* What is your best estimate as to when factions will be available on a test server?
Adrick‑OSI	Test Factions is up now with most of what is in the doc on the website
Jerrith	*godski* Will faction craftables, such as a faction-crafted gnarled staff, be usable by non faction participating characters?
Evocare	Players that are not in a faction will not be able to equip faction items. Anyone with even the lowest rank in a faction can, however, equip 4 faction items
Evocare	Due to the fact that faction rank atrophies over time, players who are very inactive will eventually be reduced to the lowest ranks, and thus be less-able to equip many faction items
Jerrith	*Zeitgeist* how do you plan on creating a role for just about everyone, such as lets use a tailor for example, what rolls would non-warrior classes play in the faction system?
Adrick‑OSI	tailors, smiths, bowyers, scribes and carpenters all can make faction items
Adrick‑OSI	the tinker can make traps
Adrick‑OSI	the thief with remove trap can remove these traps and steal the sigils
Adrick‑OSI	faction items are important because they are blessed for a period of 3 weeks
Adrick‑OSI	the gnarled staves can be charged with faction scrolls - such as greater healing and lightning (the spells you see on magic staves in the game currently)
Adrick‑OSI	so merchants/crafters will play a large part in the struggles
Jerrith	*RayAlton* What about all the players who will join and not participate? Alot of people believe this will mess up the load balancing feature.
Evocare	It's statistically likely that non-participating players will be pretty evenly distributed among the factions, thereby not causing a particularly bad imbalance in one faction. However, if this does end up becoming an issue, there are additional steps which we could take if need be. =]
Jerrith	Mocker* Are any provisions being made to allow murderers and evils to participate in factions on SP? Over half of the shard's PvPers are red and factions will be crippled there if they're not allowed full participation.
Evocare	We're very aware of Siege's unique population. When changes for Siege are announced, it will become more apparant how that issue is going to be addressed.
Sage	We are looking at Siege very carefully right now and evaluating how Factions will have the best impact with relation to SP. Many ideas have been forwarded, but no definite conclusions have been made.
Jerrith	*Ashran* How will factions affect a normal player?
Sage	It is important that factions be attractive to a "normal" player, which in this case I assume means non-PvP for the most part. I believe the system now supports a wide variety of professions
Sage	as well as giving meaning to combat. However, we were very careful not to force players into factions, as we realize some people will be unsure about it.
Sage	I believe that as time goes by, more people will be willing to experiment with PvP, and factions will be the natural alternative.
Sage	For those that don't, factions will be much like a great voyeuristic experience.
Evocare	In terms of clear-cut game mechanics, factions will only affect those non-faction players who choose to shop in faction-controlled cities in Felucca with altered store prices
Jerrith	*CleptoJoe_S\S* Will thieves be able to hide/stealth when carrying the sigil?
Adrick‑OSI	indeed but there is a one hour timer - stealthing the entire way in some cases will be impossible
Adrick‑OSI	in one hour if the sigil is not delivered it pops back to the last place it was stolen from
Jerrith	*Zeitgeist* how do you plan on stopping res killing? Or is there a place the faction member is transported when he dies?
Evocare	We feel the deceased player is in control of their ressurection destiny. If there are enemies nearby, or if the enemy has placed any of the various floor traps in your local healer's shop... we advise against ressurecting in that location.
Evocare	One of the keys to success in the faction system will be having a network of teammates who can ressurect you safely.
Jerrith	*wintermute* Could factions in the future be changed to become player made factions? Several guilds have spoken up against the lack of control of whom they will be fighting with
Sage	I think this is an excellent question. Eventually, I believe the trend for all systems will stem from the community. It allows for more ownership within the community, and a greater ability to choose your friends. However, when delivering a system of the magnitude, it is sometimes necessary to "bootstrap" it.
Sage	This is the phase we are currently in. It is hard to predict the future, but my philosophy personally, is that tools should be given by the development team, and the functionality, within limits, should be given to the community.
Sage	So I really, really like the idea that factions would stem solely from the player base, but I don't think that we were at the point to give players the correct tools yet.
Sage	Thanks for the question!
Jerrith	*CleptoJoe_S\S* How will a Smith,Tailor, etc. be able to join factions when they usually have no way to defend themselves?
Adrick‑OSI	an interesting dynamic will be factions will have to guard and protect their merchants who cannot deffend themselves
Adrick‑OSI	faction items can only be made in a town controlled by the faction
Adrick‑OSI	so if the warriors want items
Adrick‑OSI	they will have to work with the merchants or they probably wont have any items unlike the factions who protect their merchants
Jerrith	Sosaria* why not have felucca be 100% faction affected, people who want to be left alone can spend their time in Trammel?
Evocare	While we feel the faction system will be a system which finds its home and purpose in Felucca, we don't feel that Felucca exclusively meant for factions.
Evocare	It is important that each system play its part in the world as a whole, but that no single element becomes overbearing.
Jerrith	*ghyde* Why is one faction not getting a magic-casting monster, when the other three all have magical monsters? It disadvantages one faction from the others in that their monster can't use ranged attacks.
Evocare	Actually, two factions do not have spellcasting monsters... and of the two which do, one of them isn't an "agressive" monster.
Evocare	Each of the factions are different in a variety of ways, and we feel these differences will contribute to the depth of play.
Evocare	As the faction system continues to develop, these differences will manifest themselves more clearly and become part of the personality of each side.
Jerrith	*Zeitgeist* What are the looting rights? Is it free for all who gets there first, or you'll go grey for looting a orange you didnt do enough damage too? Also will people be able to heal members outside of their factions, like to factions gainging about against one faction in a struggle for conquest!
Adrick‑OSI	on looting
Adrick‑OSI	you will be able to loot any enemy you did damage to
Adrick‑OSI	when the enemy heals all the way up the list is cleared
Adrick‑OSI	also if you place a faction trap and it does damage an enemy you will be allowed to loot as well
Adrick‑OSI	on blue healing
Adrick‑OSI	it will not be possible to heal a player who has taken damage to a faction or guild enemy
Adrick‑OSI	however
Adrick‑OSI	you will be able to heal a faction member who is say in a dungeon and not being attacked by enemy faction members
Jerrith	Darkstar* Has any thought been giving to allowing the faction controlling a city to set whether or not the npc healers will rez enemy faction members?
Evocare	We feel the dynamics of ressurection are interesting as-is. Factions do have the potential to "control" the healer shop through force or subtlety, so we don't want to simply code it into an absolute.
Jerrith	Mocker* Any plans to lessen the imbalance presented by tamers with wyrms and dragons in PvP? They were able to wreak havoc on Order/Chaos and they're likely to do the same in faction wars.
Evocare	We are aware of taming being an incredibly powerful force in large-scale combat.
Evocare	We're looking into it. ;]
Jerrith	*Zeitgeist* Will factions to be able to trade items with other factions, such as one town specific supplys, and they must form stratic alliances, to get something they might have value for, to take over a enemy town
Evocare	Currently there isn't any kind of built-in trade system specifically designed for the faction system. Players can trade their silver to each other since that will be a common currency.
Evocare	However, the system will not support the direct transfer of money from the faction treasury to other factions.
Evocare	The potential for temporary alliances still exists (and is encouraged) despite the inability to "pay" another faction using the faction treasury.
Evocare	There are many forms of payment in Ultima Online. ;]
Jerrith	That will conclude our chat for tonight.
Jerrith	Thanks everyone for coming.
Jerrith	In particular, thanks to Adrick, Calandryll, Evocare, fieryice, Hanse, Maleki, Melantus, and Sage from OSI. :)