House of Commons from 2001-11-02

House of Commons from 2001-11-02

Kehleyr	Good evening everyone, thank you for coming to tonight's Ultima Online open house. This Stratics House of Commons chat is a direct connection between you the players and the designers, programmers and community staff of Ultima Online.
Kehleyr	This chat will be in a moderated format. To ask a question of the OSI Staff, please /msg or /query the question takers that will be listed in the topic of the channel. These question takers will then present the questions to the Ultima Online evelopment/community/programming team here with us this evening.
Kehleyr	Our question takers are: Destiny, Gilthas and Mindtrip
Kehleyr	I will be your moderator tonight... I will post your question into the House of Commons chat channel and the girls (and guys) will answer those that they can.
Kehleyr	Please remember that your question may have been asked previously or may not be able to be answered in a public forum. Please do not message or query myself or anyone from OSI, these questions will be ignored. We encourage you to read the logs of the previous Open Houses, which are available at http://uohoc.stratics.com
Kehleyr	Tonight's topic is open to General Discussion :)
Kehleyr	*Keeper-* With the idea of GGS going on. IF this system came into play would there be any way the penalty of stat loss on a PK is lessened to a not so extreme punishment. With the new system once a pk dies it would then take a real long time to Create a new one. This should not happen and is not fair to do to a valid playstyle within the game.
Evocare	Really the two of those concepts are very seperate from each other (GGS and statloss). So, we haven't really been thinking of GGS in terms of a time to change stat loss for murderers.
Evocare	I've heard some pk's voice concerns that it may be more difficult to rebuild their characters after taking stat loss under GGS, so yes, we are paying attention to issues like that.
Evocare	However, we don't want stat loss to get in the way of improving the skill gain system for everyone. =>
Kehleyr	*Barrackas* We know there is new 2D static art in UO:LBR, but is there new 2D animation art?
Evocare	Well yeah, we certainly want our new monsters to animate. They'd be pretty dull otherwise. ;>
Evocare	I won't give anything else about UO:LBR away right now though. =>
Kehleyr	*GreyPawn* Question for Adrick and Evocare- Will issues with the factions, like the indefensable CoM stronghold, the faction trap silver bug, or other balance issues ever be resolved?
Adrick‑OSI	Factions will get more attention in pub15 including better balancing and removing exploits from strongholds - I did make a change to the way traps award silver in 14 - I believe it will address that bug
Kehleyr	*Lord_Darlantan* How manageable will the new UOLR client be in regards to adding new future content on the 2d side?
Evocare	the UOLR 2d client has many improvements that include new art. however, that it doesn't resolve all the patch-size problems associated with 2d artwork.
Kehleyr	*Perianwyr`* Regarding the current in-game fiction, how do you reconcile Blackthorn's previous role as a believer in the diversity of the shards with his new role as cybernetic archvillain (without evil moustache?) And, whither Lord British? Last we heard, he was being tortured by mongbats. And oh yeah, what does all this have to do with Minax and her dirty deeds (done dirt cheap?) Explain, enlighten!
Kehleyr	*fergal* will other already used housing multi-muls ever be considered for player housing?
Vex‑OSI	We are looking at some ideas for new housing options for some time in 2002, but we haven't made any kind of solid plans yet.
Kehleyr	*bat* why will osi not change explosion to instantly sustaining a flag on someone once targeted with explosion... i keep taking counts because the explosion hits when they turn blue...
Hanse	We'll look into fixing that in a future publish. That is definitely a bug.
Kehleyr	*mike-phlockpoicking* You need to fix moongates camping! towns in fellucca are deserted! when are you going to fix that?
Evocare	moongates are camping the towns in felucca? definitely a bug! ;>
Evocare	ok, serious answer coming from Adrick... =>
Hanse	meanie
Adrick‑OSI	if by moongate camping you mean the hopping as a criminal and agressor then that is fixed in 14
Adrick‑OSI	you wont be able to initiate the gump or click a city if you turn grey or go agressor with it up
Evocare	note: by "fixed in 14" Adrick means fixed in the upcoming publish.
Adrick‑OSI	aye sorry :(
Kehleyr	*Mjukis* Alot of players incuding myslef thinks that the GGS system is to much to late. What is your take on this and how many years are you expecting UO to be a popular MMORPG?
Evocare	It's never too late to improve the UO world... it's still gaining new players, and we haven't ruled out the creation of new skills.
Kehleyr	*Klaitu* Will there be new music with the new client?
Evocare	quite possibly.
Kehleyr	*Pyros_Darkblade* What is the proposed timeline for UO: LBR?
Evocare	"sooner or later"
Evocare	if things go well, sooner then later. =>
Cynthe	It's due to be released in early 2002. :)
Kehleyr	*DrGhost* WIll you be updating the old 2D art? like the arcane robes, golems, efreets etc?
Evocare	yes, there will be 2d art updates.
Evocare	disclaimer: the art updates are selective, not exhaustive.
Kehleyr	*Lazy* With two facets now using the trammel ruleset is there even a possiblility of removing stat loss from normal shards?
Adrick‑OSI	There are no plans right now to remove stat loss - we are working on getting the faction system stable and fun as an avenue of pvp for fel - the penalty for player killing is stat loss
Kehleyr	*Visike* Is there any plan to change the stat system so players cannot be "maxed out" so quickly?
Evocare	The GGS system does include changes to the speed at which stats can be gained, so if that system were to get published, that would be covered too.
Kehleyr	*Pullus* I think the bigest question for alot of us is will there be new art/monsters for 2d with the new expansion?
Evocare	Yes! Definitely!
Cynthe	Yep, when Evo said art updates, he meant new art as well.
Evocare	Totally all-new never-before seen or used monsters designed explicitly for UO and no other game. =>
Kehleyr	*Gorion-Catskills* UO has had a history of adding housing or housing areas with every other new addition (UO and UOR had housing, T2A and 3D didnt), is there any plans to address housing space problems in UO:LBR?
Evocare	Actually, publish 14 includes some new code that allows us to implement static map changes. If these smaller-scale changes go well, and depending on a number of other factors, it may not be necessary for us to add new housing areas exclusively through new cds.
Cynthe	But to be clear, there isn't new housing space specifically in UO:LBR.
Kehleyr	*godski* Now that you can apparently change the Fel and Tram maps independantly of each other can you make Fel more Unique? I don't see why we need 2 of each town and dungeon and hedgemaze etc. ?
Evocare	As mentioned earlier, the scale of changes we can make to the map isn't proven yet... so we'll have to wait a bit to make a call on that issue.
Kehleyr	*Hotaru-Chan* People that attend the Online World FanFest, will they become part of the beta testing for UO:TBR?
Cynthe	There aren't any plans for that currently, but there will definitely be other good reasons to come. :)
Kehleyr	*Shadowcat_East* My question is with the announced virtue sysem. I read that the players will be able to gain Humility by helping youngs and Valor by participating in certain types of PvP. Seeing as how the Virtue System seems to be designed to encourage well-rounded characters, which virtue (if any) will be primarily geared for the crafting community?
Evocare	We aren't giving away any information on the virtues beyond the initial two that have been mentioned already, sorry!
Kehleyr	*Martal_Bau* I would like to know if the Dev Team has any plans to improve Group Oriented PvM??
Vex‑OSI	With the work we've been doing with monster AI for Blackthorn's Revenge, we hope to pleasantly surprise everyone with interesting new critter behaviors. We expect to improve PvM across the board.
Kehleyr	*godski* Any chance of making it so party members show up on the radar? Would be nice while adventuring.
Evocare	No plans to do that right now, although it is on our wish list.
Kehleyr	*Shadowcat_East* Will we ever be getting improvements to crafts like dyable sandals or makers marks for cooking (maybe on savage paint?)
Vex‑OSI	Maker's Marks are in for cooking with the upcoming Publish 14. Due to other related changes, we were able to include it in the design. Cooking items will act a little different, though.
Vex‑OSI	No exceptional-quality cooking item will say "exceptional" in its name (though we do plan on addressing that later). However, if you're a GM chef, you can now make a cake Crafted by YourNameHere :)
Vex‑OSI	We do hope to get other crafting improvements in, in the future as well.
Kehleyr	*godski* When will the dev do a polishing of the game? Things like fixing the multiple doors and objects stacked on each other as well as in TD the opjects being overlapped by the map tiles. Just an over all sweep to eliminate things that make the world less belivable. I don't think players should constantly be faced with environment glitches as it makes the world less emersive.
Hanse	Each publish contains bugfixes which is what you would consider polishing.
Hanse	Many of the bugfixes are listed on our website.
Hanse	The double-doors is a bug we mean to address, but have had other issues pop up with higher priority.
Hanse	ahem...If you find map specific bugs, please mail us at [email protected]
Hanse	or [email protected].. :)
Sannio	Please use [email protected] if you find something on a normal shard, or [email protected] if on a test center shard.
Kehleyr	*Jada* Can you ask them If and/or when they plan to fix the Party health meter bug?
Evocare	Greyburn is currently working on fixing party system bugs. Please feel free to email him at [email protected] with specifics of any party bugs you know of... it's possible he's not aware of all of them. =>
Kehleyr	*BlackHeart_GL* (question): What are your plans for the Bulk Order Systems outside of the Blacksmithy skill?
Evocare	No plans until we've had time to evaluate how it does with blacksmithing first.
Kehleyr	*beans* Friends or Survivor? Which would you watch?
Vex‑OSI	I'd prefer to watch The Weakest Link. G'bye!
Cynthe	For some reason I can't explain, it's Survivor all the way.
Kehleyr	survivor sux! Australian one was dumb and yes I am Australian! So Friends for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Evocare	the middle one
Hanse	I'd have to say Friends. I like to immitate Joey by sayin "How you doin'?" ...tons of good tips there...
Sannio	Friends.
Kehleyr	Thankyou everyone for taking the time to attend tonight's HOC and a special thankyou to everyone at Origin for being here to make it possible, as always we are grateful :)
Kehleyr	The logs will be posted at http://uohoc.stratics.com
Kehleyr	Feel free to join #ultima-online for further discussion :)
Gilthas	Thanks for coming, everyone!
Sannio	Thanks.
	* Sannio grins *
	* Mindtrip waves goodbye *
	* Sannio bounces off *