House of Commons from 2003-03-06

House of Commons from 2003-03-06

Lord‑Xanthor	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 and programmers of Ultima Online.
Lord‑Xanthor	This chat will be in a moderated format. To ask a question of the developers, please /msg or /query the question takers that will be listed in the topic of the channel and have [QT] in front of their names. These question takers will then present the questions to the Ultima Online development team here with us this evening.
Lord‑Xanthor	I will be the moderator tonight...I will post your question into the House of Commons chat channel and the Developers will answer those that they can. Please /msg or /query different question-takers at different times, in order to balance the load and speed the process up.
Lord‑Xanthor	Please do not send the same question to multiple question takers, those that do will be ignored. Thank you =)
Lord‑Xanthor	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
Lord‑Xanthor	Enjoy tonight's chat...
Lord‑Xanthor	Tonights Topic is Age Of Shadows
Lord‑Xanthor	Please /msg /query [QT]Elm, [QT]MagicLady, [QT]Nuke, or [QT]XenaDragon
Lord‑Xanthor	*Ash* Are we going to see anymore items that a thief can steal in the game?
Hanse	...we haven't decided on what's going to be added yet...this may or may not be changed in the future...
Evocare	I think it's safe to say "probably" though =]
Lord‑Xanthor	*_JohnDoe_* After AoS thieves are unable to steal containers. Can you confirm that it is a bug?
Hanse	Our resident thief expert isn't here tonight.
Hanse	We'll look into this issue, though.
Hanse	Ah, it's posted as a known issue on our site
Hanse	I was just told. So, yes, it's a confirmed bug.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Keri* Why is the chance for destroying an item when trying to enhance it so extremely high? Virtually every item I have tried enhancing has been destroyed. This is using materials with different properties than the item being enhanced, which I heard gives a better chance of success (using spined on armor with low physical resist etc).
Evocare	Enhancing items is the way to get the best possible items in the game, it has to be difficult to do in order to ensure that these top-notch items remain difficult to obtain.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Fachtna* Are there any thoughts on decreasing fighters obvious battle advatage over mages in pvp?
Evocare	we're still evaluating combat balance impacts, but it is reasonable to believe that we'll be making some adjustments in an upcoming publish
Evocare	so far, we're looking at addressing potential balance issues from over-spending on resistances, and possibly a small modification to double strike
Evocare	we don't think any changes will need to be drastic in order to make solid improvements though
Evocare	ah yes, we're also looking into tweaking lances somewhat
	* Hanse eeks and hides his invulnerable enhanced leather armor. *
Lord‑Xanthor	*Krump* can you explain 'life leech %' does that mean you have % of a chance, or % of damage dealt will be leeched, also whats the dmg dealt?
Hanse	life leech percentage is the chance for it to use the life leech effect
Hanse	it is not the amount that is leeched, though
Hanse	we're looking up the amount real quick that's leeched
Hanse	The amount is 10% of hp damage is added to yourself.
Hanse	As Alai so nicely looked up for me... :)
	* Alai bows deeply. *
Lord‑Xanthor	*godski* It seems strange there is a whole catagory called Nautilus for the firehorn under item properties. Is this an indication bards will have more weapons like this coming?
Vex	"Nautilus" is the generic name for the sea-shell graphic used for the fire horn. Right now we don't have any specific plans to introduce other elemental damage items for bards, but this is the kind of ongoing game content tweak we keep in mind when building feature lists for publishes.
Lord‑Xanthor	*godski* There is a, seemingly, ignored skill.. Remove Trap. It takes a good bit of work to raise it and complimentary skills to be a good dungeon rogue. Primarily looting dungeon chests and, if there were a point, remvoing dungeon traps. Now that the gold has been reduced it's even less valuable to have RT as a skill. Can you do some enhancements to it? Remove skill delay, make a Remove Trap tool that works like a lockpick - no delay and w
Hanse	Well, aside from using it to remove faction traps?
Hanse	We've seen reports of issues with remove trap and treasure chests.
Hanse	We're looking into those issues.
Hanse	That aside, we may have changes in store for remove trap in the future. I'm sure our resident thief expert has ideas for thieves in general. :)
Lord‑Xanthor	*beans* Being a paladin, imo, is more expensive than being a necromancer. Paladin's are forced to use gold, whereas necro regs can drop from mosters, making the two additions financially imbalanced. Are there any plans to maybe, say, have only "x" amount of tithing points be used up on failure?
Vex	Well...comparing Paladins and Necromancers is comparing apples to oranges. Paladins, for instance, can use their powers without having to carry bags of reagents.
Vex	Nearly every monster drops gold, while far fewer also drop necromancer reagents.
Vex	Of course we do continue to keep our eyes on these kinds of things and this is something we may tweak in a future publish. Right now we have no plans to, though.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Gavin_Taowin* Does what you say about Life Leech also apply the same numbers to mana leech and stamina leech?
Hanse	Yes. To reiterate...
Hanse	the percentages are the percent chance to cast the effect
Hanse	Although, for mana and stamina leech, the percentage is 20% of the damage dealt...double what it is for life leech... fun to get all three on a weapon for the aspiring special move warrior... :)
Lord‑Xanthor	*Layla* I am still having trouble with the black hole effect happening while I am fishing up MiB chests. Just wondering if this is being addressed.
Alai	Yep, we're well aware of the problem. We're in the process of fixing this now.
Alai	The fixes will come in a couple of stages that will fix it to varying degrees, the first of which is currently being released.
Alai	The others fixes will be coming just as fast as we can write 'em and test 'em.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Bobo* will there be a rune book that paladins can use like mages have for recall and gate
Vex	Unfortunately a paladin has to set the desired rune in the book to be the default locaiton, then target the book with Sacred Journey. We will look into fixing this so a paladin can Journey without needing that extra step. Keep in mind that the fix for that is not likely to be immediate, but we will look into it when we get a chance.
Lord‑Xanthor	*godski* I like the idea of the moving crate having all house items in it. Does AOS bring, or has there always been, the ability to have more than 125 items in a container? I'd love to be able to have just one secure in some of my houses. It would making organizing, bods for instance, much better.
Vex	The moving crate is a special case and is tightly controlled. There are some important reasons why there cannot be more than 125 items in a single container. Even the moving crate has to be subdivided into subcontainers, each of which don't hold more than 125 items.
Vex	A change to containers in general isn't likely, sorry.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Jolteh* Are there any secrets out there in Malas that remain undiscovered?
Hanse	200000 of you vs a few of us...the secrets are out... :P
Hanse	actually, there may be something...ahem...new...
Hanse	possibly another housing plateau may open up in the future.... :)
Lord‑Xanthor	*Melancholy* exactly what does Mage Weapon -29 skill mean? What's so big about a mage weapon, and why would you want to lower magery to equip it? Does it give any bonuses, etc?
Vex	A Mage Weapon uses your Magery skill instead of a normal weapon skill, but at a penalty. The number given is that skill penalty. For example:
Vex	If you have a Kryss (usually takes Fencing) that is a "Mage Weapon -29 Skill", and you are at 100 magery, then the kryss works as effectively as if you had 71 Fencing.
Hanse	Mage weapon penalty can go down to 20. So, if you're at 120 magery, you would wield the weapon as if it were 100 skill.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Jolteh* what is the actual effect of the 'enhance potion' attribute, does it just increase purple potion damage or does it increase the effectiveness of all of the potions?
Hanse	Yes, it increases potion healing/damage by the percentage displayed.
Hanse	Although, this does not work for night sight...as that's a fixed amount...
Lord‑Xanthor	*Thalestin-* Will powder of temperment be fixed to work on magic equip and will we be able to dye magic leathers again soon?
Hanse	Powder of temperament does work on magic equipment. How do you think I maxed my enhanced valorite magical hally's durability?
Hanse	as for using dye tubs on magical leathers...we'll look into the issue...although, I haven't heard about that issue before
Lord‑Xanthor	*Outcast* Is smelting bods a bug or is it intended?
Vex	Yes, that is a bug and we do intend to fix it.
Lord‑Xanthor	*redrum* I noticed that the t.bods rewards have changed any plans on changing smiths rewards?
Hanse	We changed blacksmith rewards, too... just didn't add any
Hanse	Vex had an idea the other day that intrigued me. It's possible that we may do something with blacksmithing rewards again...not sure...
Hanse	We made Valorite Runic Hammers harder to acquire as they became too easy to get with exceptional bonuses for reward points... (hmm, did that make sense?)
Hanse	Anyway, if you have the top deed filled, you will not get a random roll between verite and valorite hammers. You have a 100% chance to get the valorite hammer.
Hanse	The same goes for verite...there isn't a roll between the two hammers anymore (they're split up).
Lord‑Xanthor	*Jolteh* is there an upper limit on the stacking of effects like 'reflect physical damage' or 'increase defense chance' ala the 70% caps on resistances?
Hanse	there is an artificial cap
Hanse	it's the amount of items you can wear...with the maximum reflect/increase
Hanse	but there's no absolute cap of 70% like resistances
Lord‑Xanthor	*sethd* When doing Treasure Maps, does luck play a role in the magic items in the treasurebox you dig up
Vex	No, luck only affects the loot you get from monsters you kill. It doesn't impact runic crafting, treasure chests, or SOS bottles.
Lord‑Xanthor	*Narcissus* With AoS Tailoring Powerscrolls became VERY easy to get, are there plans to do the same to blacksmithing? (I hope not)
Hanse	No, no plans to do that to blacksmithing.
Hanse	Although, reversed from blacksmithing, runic tailor sewing kits are much harder to get.
Hanse	well, actually...to correct myself
Hanse	blacksmithy BOD's have a wider spread of hammers...runic sewing kits are higher in the reward list...
Hanse	also, they don't have random rolls between powerscrolls and sewing kits...so what your deed is equivalent to, you get...
Lord‑Xanthor	*Blackheath_THB* Regarding storage in houses,is there a difference in the way items are handled by the server when they are locked down as opposed to in secure storage? Why are we only allowed to use half the total items in a house's storage count for actual lock downs?
Vex	In AoS we decided to separate house secure storage and limit how much of it can be used for lockdowns. When there are too many dynamic objects in a confined space, the result is a lot of network lag.
Vex	By separating it, we can at a later time allow houses more secure storage space without increasing the number of items secured in such a way that they are sent immediately to anyone entering a house.
Lord‑Xanthor	*InstantDeath* How much better is a valorite runic vs a weapon made in valorite?
Hanse	much better
Hanse	:)
Hanse	A valorite runic has a chance of adding up to five magical properties on the item.
Hanse	The magical properties have what's called "intensity".
Hanse	This intensity tells the magical property what its value can be.
Hanse	A valorite hammer allows the highest intensity on the magical property.
Hanse	IE: if a property's maximum is 50 (in the case of increase damage)... then the valorite hammer can possibly craft that value...
Hanse	opposite that is the actual resource, valorite
Hanse	well, not quite opposite... :)
Hanse	anyway, valorite allows a spread of different damage types on the item to be applied...as well as a durability bonus... it's very different than adding magical properties to an item
Vex	Oh -- when crafting with a Valorite runic, the *minimum* intensity level of any property added is, I think, 50% of the maximum. This means that for any property added by a valorite runic, it's guaranteed to be a fairly high level.
Vex	Overall, the chance of finding such an item as loot on a monster (5 magic properties all at 50% or greater intensity) is really, really low.
Hanse	Unless you have high luck... :)
Hanse	Then it's just moderately low...
Lord‑Xanthor	*Vulcin* Can we get quick buttons for chilvary like magery has in groups. Also can the range on Chilvary's healing powers be increased a bit.
Alai	There are a lot of convenience features we hope to add in the future. Making the party bar buttons assignable would be something really cool to do, but it isn't going to happen anytime soon.
Alai	The range of the heal I'm gonna offload on to someone else... ;)
Lord‑Xanthor	S-ATL]* Do hooded shrouds of shadows wear out from use in combat, or are they unbreakable like vet reward robes?
Vex	Again, we will continue to look at combat balance -- and this is something we may or may not tweak. Right now I just don't have a solid answer.
Vex	(Sorry, that was in response to Alai's redirect in the previous answer)
Hanse	hooded shrouds to not wear out in combat...they are impervious to damage
Alai	Was that a bad translation from Babelfish?
Hanse	to=do
Hanse	:P
	* Alai grins. *
Hanse	I did over 1000 lines of code today...my fingers are sore
Hanse	and confused!
Lord‑Xanthor	CyberfisH looks funny to me, or else this one: *KaraMuro* Heh, my question is.. Where should the donations of Asprin and antacids be sent to, and the cookies too. ;>
Hanse	yowza! behind the scenes comments even!
	* Hanse waves to Cyberfish! *
Hanse	you're funny, dude!
Vex	Apparently, Lord‑Xanthor will be needing those.
	* [QT]XenaDragon chuckles *
	* Lord‑Xanthor goes into hiding. *
Vex	Thanks for coming, everyone. Sorry we weren't able to take some questions regarding PvP and Siege, but Evo had to leave early and we is the one best suited to answer those.
Hanse	he is...even
Hanse	I'm contagious.
Lord‑Xanthor	I would like to thank everyone for coming tonight!
Lord‑Xanthor	And thanks to all of the OSI folks for spending their personal time talking to us
Lord‑Xanthor	Please join #ultima-online for continued, unmoderated chat
Lord‑Xanthor	the log will be posted shortly at http://uohoc.stratics.com
Lord‑Xanthor	THANKS
	* Alai waves. *