House of Commons from 2002-02-07

House of Commons from 2002-02-07

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, Prescient and Lord‐Xanthor
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	*VenomousDemise[DH* Question: What is OSI's current status on where they are sort of 'leaning towards' when it comes to a substitution to statloss?
Evocare	We've got the start of a plan that involves substantial changes to the murdering system for felucca, but I won't say just what yet. :P
Evocare	keep your eyes open for more details in the near-ish future (intentionally vague)
Evocare	However, making felucca a more interesting place to play is a priority for us. =]
Kehleyr	*neriwa* the talk of fixing horse stamina has been around for months now, when is it planned to be introduced, because it will make factions more involved. It will allow Sigils and Warhorses to mean something
Evocare	Frankly, horses are a touchy subject since there isn't any simple solution to the overall speed without drawbacks issue. Especially when you factor in multiple playstyles that don't necessarily include pvp.
Evocare	We don't have plans to make any significant changes to them right now, but it is, and will continue to be on our minds.
Kehleyr	*Xena* Will there ever be house decay agian? If so, new system? Old System? What are your plans to do with house decay?
Vex	Right now that's undecided, but I think it's safe to say we won't see the old house decay system coming back.
Kehleyr	*Wanderer* Will Sosaria ever see the introduction of two-handed swords, perhaps with the release of the 30 new items from LBR?
Evocare	I wouldn't rule it out, but I can't claim that it's right around the corner.
Kehleyr	*Frigax* Haven's new, expanded look was a surprise. Are more map modifications planned?
Oaks	You can thank Ignatz (and a host of other helpers) for those improvements. And yes, there will be map modifications down the road, but to tell you what would give away too much.
Kehleyr	*Spunky* I just want to thank you all for the good work you've done lately. The pure nightmares did take a while, but thanks for getting them in there
Evocare	thanks, glad to hear you're happy!
Oaks	Just like *all* our players are
Evocare	*wink* *wink*
Kehleyr	*Lord_Elf* Are we going to be able to repair leather items anytime in the near future?
Evocare	Can't say for sure... although we're expecting to do some improvements to tailoring in an upcoming publish
Evocare	It's going to depend on whether we feel reparing will be better-for or worse-for the skill and players in general when combined with any changes we make.
Kehleyr	*celest-cv* are they going to do anything to improve the time it takes to make scrolls?
Evocare	No plans to change that right now. =[
Vex	That isn't just a matter of the crafting aspect. Casting a spell from a scroll is much easier than casting from the spellbook. With an extremely short crafting delay, it would be a simple matter to macro the creation of a scroll, and the scribe/mage could then instantly get an effective magery bonus while in combat.
Kehleyr	*Jaelk* Why is there a focus on adding to established classes like Barding when there are issues with classes that haven't had significant change in 4 years (aka. Magery?)
Evocare	Magery isn't as absurdly lucrative as skills such as Barding and Taming. Improving the gameplay for those skills while balancing better is a higher priority right now.
Kehleyr	*VenomousDemise[DH* Question: Is GGS on 'go' , if so, when is the time/date that it is going to be implimented into gameplay?
Evocare	I can confirm that GGS has at least a yellow light. ;]
Evocare	Basically, that means we want to get it in, but it's possible some publish limitations could force it out of the mix for now. However, we'll try to keep that from happening.
Kehleyr	*Utheg* Is there any way to have a drawback to ethy creatures? Orcs and various other roleplayers try to stay away from mounts and we have bolas to thank for alot of our success, but ethys are unstoppable. Would it be considered?
Evocare	While mount balance in general is a touchy subject, mounts people chose as vet rewards are even more touchy. I am aware of the issue though, and when we address mounts, we won't forget about it.
Kehleyr	*Baja1* Will the pet invis bug (crashing in 3d when a pet casts invis and you have their health bar up) ever be fixed? Last one of these chats said it was 'being looked at'
Evocare	We don't have any client programmers here on-hand to answer that accurately, but I'm certain they know about it and will fix it as soon as they find what causes it. The problem generally comes down to whether we can reproduce the crash with a debug client.
Kehleyr	*neriwa* With LBR coming out, will we start getting patches so people who dont upgrade can use and see new objects and weapons? Will we be able to use all the new items, and ride the new rideables?
Evocare	The 3d client will always be able to see the new art in its "true" form. However, whether non-lbr clients will be able to use "LBR items" is probably going to be on a case-by-case basis.
Evocare	2d clients will see conversion art for any LBR stuff that has new art.
Kehleyr	*Khonsu{OES}* I have a question of magery. Have you ever thought of bringing new magic to UO in the near furture?
Evocare	Have we thought of it? Heck yeah! Will we do it? Can't say just yet. =]
Kehleyr	*Bladefire* The reactivation of Condemned housing decay was delayed due to bugs. When will condemned houses decay again and what is planned for regular housing decay? Houses cost twice what they used to cost sometimes even more due to no houses falling..
Evocare	That's a server-programmer question... not sure what the status on that is right now. Sorry. =[
Kehleyr	*Aphrael* Are there any plans for new skills in the works? Or perhaps more diversity for our current magery skill?
Oaks	Currently, magery is our most diverse skill as it can do almost anything... our focus right now is on balancing our current skills and making them more fun.
Oaks	They might "feel" like new skills when we get done with some of them. =)
Kehleyr	*CelestialWinds* Are we going to see any substantial changes to the main world map? What about differences between Trammel and Felucca...is the map going to be more different (like the Haven/Ocllo changes)
Evocare	We expect that over time, the Trammel and Felucca landmasses will become more and more distinct from each other.
Evocare	However, this will be a gradual change, since map changes have fairly considerable patch-size issues.
Evocare	Expect change though. =]
Kehleyr	*Noblesteel[CV]* Are we going to be able to pick or harvest fruit? From like say, the fruit orchard in Ilshenar?
Evocare	Hmm, sort of... although it'll be more like gardening. Ok, no more hints.
Kehleyr	*Nomadic_Dragon* Will Magery ever be fixed so that harder, more mana intensie spells like Flamestrike and Meteor Swarm will do noticeably more damage on larger targets?
Evocare	Those spells did recieve damage improvements in the last round of magery spell damage changes (a few months ago).
Evocare	When we do more magery changes, we'll look at the damage values again.
Kehleyr	*Lord_Elf* When will plate chest Bods be reintroduced?
Evocare	If they haven't already, asap.
Evocare	I'll have to check with Hanse to verify whether they're spawning again as of today's publish.
Kehleyr	*Mordain* Is anything going to ever be done with "useless" skills, for example Begging?
Evocare	ever? probably.
Kehleyr	*Ray_LS* When will I be able to PK trammelites, Evocare? :p
Evocare	As soon as they go to felucca.
Kehleyr	*DarkVeng* wouldn't simply making barding skills difficulty-based reduce the bard problem? It would make the skill gain faster, while preventing 1 day old characters from outperforming 7xGM mages and warriors in PvM.
Vex	It would be simplicity in itself to do that. It would also be a plain old nerf that would make a lot of people unhappy. We do want to correct the relatively extreme power of bard provocation, but don't feel that a simple power adjustment is the answer. Instead, we want to look at how barding can be extended and enhanced at the same time to allow bards to contribute to the game in exciting new ways.
Kehleyr	*TN-Wormie* When will the next vitrue be out
Evocare	Barring unforseen problems, during the next scenario.
Kehleyr	*Ka`Non*Why isn't there a switch to choose your language. The localisation has been done very badly in parts (Like the BODs) and some players would like to play in English rather than their native tongue.
Evocare	Please send comments on poorly-executed localization to [email protected]
Evocare	We'll do our best to fix the problems.
Kehleyr	*Cyberdud* Question: In trammel, We don't turn grey anymore when we spar with the blue fighters in the jhelom dueling pits...was this a undocumented addition to this publish or a bug?
Oaks	You can no longer be flagged as a criminal in Trammel (or Ilshenar).
Oaks	This was done as part of a set of changes to simplify our rulesets in consensual PvP areas.
Kehleyr	*mers* Why is hiding so hard to gain now?
Evocare	I'll check on the hamsters powering the hiding skill-gain treadmill... they might be tired. =[
Evocare	Honestly? I don't know... no changes to it were made to my knowlege.
Kehleyr	*AnvilNForge_C-S* When can we expect BODs for Tailoring, Carpentry, and the lot of the other crafring skills?
Evocare	Tailoring: Soon. The others: not sure yet.
Evocare	The next major server publish will be *very* substantial, so it'll be in development and testing for a while still.
Kehleyr	*Cedric_OGF* Will factions ever be allowed to fight on trammel or be locked pernamently from Trammel? It seems kind of odd to see more faction people on tramm than fell...
Evocare	I don't expect we'll open faction fighting on Trammel. We want to support "weekend warriors" that don't necessarily want to be targets all the time.
Evocare	Realistically, if we allowed factions to fight in Felucca, those players would leave the system altogether, and you wouldn't get to kill them anyways. So really, you're not losing out on anything. =[
Evocare	erm, i mean Trammel. =]
Kehleyr	*Southernbelle* When will we be able to throw snowballs while riding mounts? And will archers ever be able to shoot while running again?
Vex	No plans on the snowball thing. It was disabled due to an animation problem. As far as the archery one, I honestly don't know what is in the works for that.
Kehleyr	*Wanderer* Is UO: LBR really going to release on the 12th of February, 2002?
Evocare	Yep.
Evocare	All the servers have been published with the LBR code and are running it already. I'm using it from work and home! ;]
Kehleyr	*TN-Wormie* There has been a bug about guildstone thats you guys never fixed. If i have more than 30 wars i am not able to see the rest of the wars i have.
Evocare	The guildstone code needs some reworking, it's on our "list of important infrastructure changes to make".
Kehleyr	*VenomousDemise[DH* Will you ever be able to lock you're stats so you can keep a stat template and not have to be burdened with constant stat alteration by gaining skills
Evocare	Hopefully. We're certainly not opposed to stat locks, it's just a question of there being so much to do, with so little time. =[
Oaks
Evocare	Is it true that you are going to grab a cold beer after this HoC is over?
Oaks	yes
Evocare	Absolutely
Vex	And then drink it?
Evocare	That too.
Evocare	Sorry folks, the host got discoed. =]
Oaks	We're gettin' crazy now!
	* Kehleyr bows *
	*Gilthas* Hopefully the devs will keep their clothes on this time, though. *
Evocare	look out!
Kehleyr	*Nomadic_Dragon* Regarding Evocare's use of LBR at home and at work: You mean after eight hours of dealing with our suggestions, complaints, urging, and flames, he STILL has the heart to sit down at this game for _lesiure_?
Evocare	Can't get out of touch ya' know!
Oaks	msg evocare I dunno... I think it's kinda weird that Addy wears that pink bunny outfit to work sometimes, but everyone has their quirks, right?
Oaks	ack! wrong channel!
Evocare	oops!
Evocare	;]
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 :)
Sannio	Thanks for coming everyone!
Kehleyr	bye everyone!