UO 15th Anniversary Transcript – Presentation (Updated)

[0:21] Bonnie: So, first off. Bathrooms [Bonnie gives directions to the bathrooms, and then discusses the smoking and parking policies for the rest of this 1 minute, 23 second video labeled UO 15th Presentation 1, which is the video at the top of this article]

Second Video
[Audience noise and clapping. Slide says, “Another reason for City Loyalty…Have you every thought about politics, well your in luck!”]

[00:07] Bonnie: Okay. Okay, guys. Now I’ve heard a lot of good things
d
[inaudible] Oh by the way, we did put in a fix, I hope it sticks and works for losing loyalty, city loyalty. So let us know. If not, we’ll [inaudible …might be saying “try again”].

[Audience reaction, including complaints about losing loyalty because of being at the party.]

[00:29] Bonnie: You can log in. We have computers. You can log in. Yeah.

[00:35] Bonnie: Now. I’m going to take what we’re going to do with city loyalty now and why you’re going to continue having ways that you can gain city loyalty.

[00:45] [New slide displays with the heading, “What’s Next for City Loyalty?” Bulleted items that display beneath it:]

[00:46] Bonnie: Wait a minute, I’m not through with that.

[Audience reaction.]

[00:51] Bonnie: Go to the next page. I was told not to rush and you’re just pushing me on! Bring you to the team and you just get pushy on me. I swear. Okay. So have you ever thought about getting into politics?

[Lots of audience talking and can’t hear what Bonnie is saying.]

[01:09] Bonnie: You know, these people don’t want…I swear. I’m not [inaudible]. But, I can give you something [inaudible]. Now. We want to bring in player-run councils. We are going to have elections. If you keep your loyalty at a certain level, you are eligible. We are going to have voting booths, buildings, [indecipherable, might be saying “co-ops”]–we hadn’t come up with that yet–in each town. You will vote for the people that are eligible that want to be your representative. The representative will meet with the Viceroy. The Viceroy is Blackthorn’s second-hand person. Of course, Heckles is his first, so, you know. You guys will meet probably about once a month or twice a month. You will meet with your members of your town, find out what you’d like to see, what kind of improvements you want, ideas, whatever. And you will discuss it with your Viceroy. At that time, your Viceroy will bring it to the King and we’ll set up a meeting. And then you will have an audience with the King in his big castle. So we won’t kill you off anymore. We’ve killed off many, many, many kings and queens in the past. And we’ve killed off many players of the council members. And [inaudible] We’re just wiping the slate clean, polishing it up and getting ready for you guys. So, I think this is going to be a way for you guys to be more involved in the game, what goes in. This is not a bug…a platform for submitting bugs or anything else. This is just for what you would like to see the improvements of the town and everything else. Role playing is totally whatever you guys make it. You have the opportunity to do it. So I hope you enjoy this. We’re still ironing out everything, but this is going to go in after the big bug push.

[Audience reaction.]

[03:26] [A new slide displays. It says, “Did you really think you could kill Exodus?”]

[03:27] Bonnie: Okay. Seriously guys, did you really think that you killed Exodus?
[Audience reaction.]

[03:32] Bonnie: I mean, the guy is a pure bad-ass. You cannot kill him. Okay.
[Audience reaction.]

[03:39] [New slide displays with the heading, “Exodus Summoning Ritual.” Bulleted items below it:]

[03:41] Bonnie: You know, the stat scroll that he dropped? That everybody was so concerned about? Of course, we’re not going to do that just once. We are putting in an encounter that you can kill Exodus with that will drop, among many other things, the stat scroll. He’s going to have his…it’s of course the ghost of Exodus, because we just love him so much. We’re going…the keys we thought we’d kind of change it up. It’s going to be a keys to get in. We know not everybody can do just one thing, so we made three different ways. Crafters can get keys. You have a special way to do that. Your…you can just pure combat, you know, depending on what you are, hack-and-slash. Or you can stealth and get the keys.

[Audience reaction.]

[04:31] Bonnie: No, it’s stealth in and steal them.

[Audience reaction. Someone says, “No, you can do either/or.”]

[04:34] Bonnie: Yeah. You can do either/or?

[Audience reaction.]

[04:38] Bonnie: So it’s…it’s pretty cool. Wow. You guys are so easy. So I hope we’ve…. All of the replicas that…or all the artifacts and stuff from the other little events coming up that people wanted and couldn’t get, whatever, “The Cure.” From “The Cure,” right? All “The Cure,” all of those, are going to be available on Exodus. So it’s not just a one-time thing, in case you did not get anything. But we are putting them in as replicas. So…

[Audience reaction.]

[05:16] Bonnie: I want to keep the ones that are [indecipherable] pure. So that way it doesn’t spoil the whole thing. So this is after the bug push. He is…actually I’m wrong. This is coming in the next publish, so you’ll have this in November. So. You’ll have stuff to do over Christmas.

[05:43] [A new slide displays, still with the heading “Exodus Summoning Ritual.” It shows a small stone building that looks like it might be the virtue shrine building on Dagger Isle, the words “Exodus Sentinel,” “Norris the Knight,” and the inside of some containers with items in them, too small to distinguish.]

[05:43] Bonnie: These are some of the pictures that you’re going to see. The chest. We are giving you ways to get some of the resources and stuff. It’s nothing huge or anything, but you can get the keys and a map. Your shrine that you get…put it all on….so you’ll see different ways. I think you guys are really going to look this. And I’m sorry, I still call you Dudley. Dudley actually did this encounter. So, this is his [inaudible].

[Audience reaction.]

[06:26] [A new slide shows with a picture of Exodus under the same heading of “Exodus Summoning Ritual.”]

[06:27] Bonnie: And of course…Exodus.

[Audience reaction.]

[06:34] Bonnie: He’ll [inaudible] be a little easier.

[Audience reaction.]

[06:39] Bonnie: Did you make him [inaudible, sounds like “bardable?]? [pause] Yeah. I really, I mean…of course he’s going to be a little harder than the 10 barding, but, yeah. I really hate putting in all the…all the new mobs and stuff before all the barding masteries are not finished, you know, because it doesn’t [inaudible] make any sense.

[Question from audience: Is the encounter under gargoyle city?]

[07:02] Bonnie: It’s in there. Gargoyle city will never be gargoyle city again. Gargoyles are uniting in Ter Mur. Yeah, so they’ve been taken underneath Queen Zhah’s wing. Yeah.

[07:15] Bonnie: Okay, so this is our wish list. I hope you enjoy.

[07:20 A new slide displays that shows these bulleted items, and this also includes the slides from below:]

[07:20] Bonnie: Tada. We would like to talk about the Chaos/Order system with you and doing away with factions. We do know that it wouldn’t be the original, it would have to change. So just keep in mind that we do want to talk about it and see what you guys think.

[07:36] Bonnie: We also want to talk about doing a currency conversion and getting checks out of the system, because the easiest thing in this game to dupe is checks.

[Audience reaction.]

[07:50] Bonnie: We want to put in a vendor search of our own.

[Audience reaction.]

[08:00] Bonnie: Mrs Troublemaker, Yvette, is already doing a plan for it, so that is pretty much on our list. We want to do Enhanced UI improvements. So, for the EC client, of course. We want to revise the armor. Right now, leather is basically the way to go. We want to change that. We want to make all of it useful, where everybody can use whatever they want, you know, and not just use leather.

[A new slide displays with these bulleted items on it (attached to the above Dev Wish List): – New tasteful hues on mobs. – Revising pet slots. – Pet Revamps. – Making new tameables. – Reworking champ spawns.]

[08:30] Bonnie: We want to put in tasteful hues. I repeat “tasteful”, okay? There’s no reason that the cu sidhe should be the only one that is blaze, or whatever. I personally would like to put in chocolate dragons, you know? [inaudible, may be saying “it’s always dragons”]

[Audience reaction.]

[08:49] Bonnie: No red…oh we have red. No pinks, purples, you know. None of that. But not only in dragons, but all tameables to have some type of rare hue. You know. You know that we can’t give it to you guys to do. If you do, we’re going to have blaze and whatever colors, you know, that just blind you and all. You know.
[Audience reaction.]

[09:13] Bonnie: We also want to make new tameables. Obviously, I would love to take all of the greater dragons and turn them into baby dragons.
[Audience reaction.]

[09:29] Bonnie: Honestly, do you know how hard they are to do an event with? To target a mob with 400 greater dragons around? I mean, I have greater dragons and I’m like man, it’s really hard to pull them off.

[09:41] Bonnie: We want to rework all the champ spawns. What I mean by “rework them” is this: Right now, it’s just a dance. You know exactly what you have to do, what steps you have to take. There is no changeup. There is no excitement. There’s no guesswork. It’s just there. I personally–

[No sound from 9:59 to 10:09.]

[10:10] Bonnie: Same guy, just different abilities, different this, different that. So it’s a guess. You can’t go with all of your necromancers. You can’t go with just this or that. So… I think it’d be a little more fun to do, personally, you know. UO is an endless [inaudible]. I’ve seen UO go through so many phases. One-on-one’s. “Let’s make everything easy.” Well, I don’t want to make everything easy, because there’s no excitement that way. I want people to go, “Dang, I did that. That’s cool.” You know, and feel the…the accomplishment, you know, and be proud of yourself that you can do something. I want to bring that back.

[Audience reaction.]

[10:50] [New slide displays with these bulleted items (added to the above Dev Wish List): – Adding new items to the fishing quest. – New Sea Creatures and encounters. – Meer/Juka loyalty quest. – Horn Stylist (humans can’t have everything). – Battle ground shard.]

[10:54] Bonnie: I want to add new items to the fishing system. I think [inaudible]. And I also want to add new sea creatures and new encounters. And, as you know, yes they did find out that there is a problem with the lava lobsters and it is going to be fixed. New sea creatures. We might get a sea turtle.

[Audience reaction.]

[11:26] Bonnie: We want a sea turtle, so [inaudible] Turtle soup? Mermaids? [inaudible] sirens? You want a siren [inaudible, may be saying “encounter”] or mermaid?

[Audience reaction.]

[11:45] Bonnie: Well, we can just put them on rocks [inaudible].

[Audience reaction.]

[11:53] Bonnie: Okay!

[Lots of audience reaction, suggestions, questions. There is some mention of a place called “Dudley’s room.’”]

[12:01] Bonnie: Honestly, do you know how long it took to build that thing? Oh my god.

[Audience reaction.]

[12:09] Bonnie: I am really proud of the first one that we did. It was like, “This looks really good.” And he goes, “Oh, I want something bigger.” And I’m like, [inaudible]. But it was built, and it did turn out really good.

[12:21] Bonnie: Guess what guys, we’re going to go ahead and continue on with the Meer/Juka, different ways for the loyalty for those guys. We’re not going to forget them like they have been done in the past, so.

[12:32] Bonnie: We’re going to put in a horn stylist, so you can change your horns.

[Comment from the audience that the girl horns are weird-looking.]

[12:40] Bonnie: Yeah, I know. This doesn’t mean that we can’t make new ones. Jim wants to make new beards, so…

[Audience reaction.]

[12:57] Bonnie: Oh my god.

[Audience reaction.]

[13:04] Bonnie: You might want to [inaudible]. We are talking about a battleground shard. This is something that would not be open 24/7, so it won’t pull everybody from a shard. We do not have all the details, so please don’t ask a whole lot of questions. But it’s something that, whatever you do, you will get credit on your shard. So whether a title or whatever. Again, don’t have all the details. But it’s just a place that’s going to open up and you’ll have a place to go fight if you don’t have enough people on your shard.

[Audience reaction. Someone says something about a lot of healers on that shard.]

[13:43] Bonnie: Of course. [inaudible] You want a hard-core shard? Once you die, you’re done? Can’t come back?

[Audience reaction.]

[14:01] Bonnie: That’d be horrible. We want to keep our customers, not kill them off.

[Some audience comments about it being a temporary shard to which you copy your characters.]

[14:17] [New slide displays with these bulleted items (including in Dev Wish List above): – High Res Art. – New Paperdoll. – New in game art (furniture, tapestries, paintings) – New Wearables.]

[14:18] Bonnie: Again, we have definitely not ironed out [inaudible] Do you want a chair? Are you okay?

[14:32] Bonnie: Of course, the high res art, we’re going to continue on with this. New paperdolls. So needed. You know. So, yeah.

[Someone in the audience asks if we can pick the color.]

[14:45] Bonnie: Color of what?

[Audience response: “Our diaper.”]

[14:52] Bonnie: You know, we were discussing that the other day. [inaudible] These diapers are pretty old. We are going to continue to add new game art for like new tapestries, new paintings. The ones we have are pretty old, tattered. And new wearables. And if I have my way, new female wearables. Make us some real boots. Oh yay, get some high heel high boots. But…. We’re talking about new armor, new clothing, so. I have to say some of the wearables just…it doesn’t look good.

[15:42] [New slide with a heading of “Improving Communications”]

Improving Communications
• UO.COM will be launched on Monday, October 1st
• Team is doing an Ask and Answer post every Monday (collected by Petra)
• Fansites are being updated with descriptions of what they are about
• Each Fansite has a representative that will be contacted by Bonnie Armstrong
• Hooking up the Facebook event page to Twitter

[15:44] Bonnie: Communication. I have already started, but I want to explain what we’re doing. I’m going through Petra because we have worked on Stratics for a very long time, since before 2000. And since I bring this up, I would like to introduce Tazar. He is with us from Stratics.

[Applause.]

[16:09] Bonnie: Thank you very much for coming and [inaudible] and he’s got great taste too. I love his sig.

[16:17] Bonnie: I’m going through one person to give the Ask & Answer. I don’t know if you guys read any? We’re not going to call it Five on Friday, because that kind of didn’t go over well. So we’re doing Ask & Answer. We’re pulling from all the fansites to feed all the questions into Petra. I need somebody to go through it like this to…to weed out the duplicates. To do this, so we don’t keep answering the same questions over and over. So that is what she’s doing for us. I’m working with all the fansites to make sure they give me a little paragraph of what the site is about, so when players go click on the new link on UO.com come Monday–

[Audience reaction.]

[16:59] Bonnie: The Herald will be no more! We have UO.com back. Yay! I’m so glad to have that back. It looks awesome. It looks really good, so please, please, visit it on Monday whenever we get it launched.

[17:16] Bonnie: We’re going to have the fansites…I want descriptions from you guys. I’m going to try to get to know each one of you, each one of you has a representative, so I don’t have 400 people on me. I only have one from each fansite. So please pick them carefully. Make sure that you know them, you know. So they can feed information to me from you guys. And, oh, one more thing. I’ve started putting the events that are actually sent to me on time for the EMs on Facebook. I’ve gotta throw something on the EMs. That is going to start feeding out through the Twitter also, so not only will it be in sight on their fansites, on Facebook, but there’ll be several different ways that you’ll be able to tell if there’s an event or not. So I hope you guys have no more excuses of not knowing when an event is coming.

[18:17] [A new slide displays showing what looks like a Segway.]

[18:18] Bonnie: Now. This is art. What is this?

[Audience reaction. Some people yell out that it is a Segway.]

[18:21] Bonnie: Thank you! A Segway. I couldn’t figure out any other way to do this.

[18:29] [A new slide displays that says, “Bug Reporting at its finest!!”]

[18:29] Bonnie: Segue into bug reporting. I made this go. Tada. After this all. As you know, this has been on the board to [inaudible, may be “allegedly”] trying to go through all of your bugs. Trying to decide if they’re written up. Writing up the ones that are our…but it’s very, very difficult to write up bugs, or confirm a bug that doesn’t have the right information. So we really, really need your help and this is how.

[18:58] [A new slide displays that says the following: “I can’t do something at a specific spot. Steps to reproduce: – Go to a specific location. – Make sure you have the right stuff (stat, skill, spellbok, etc.). – Try to do “something.” – Note that you cannot do this “something.” Expected results: I can do something at this specific spot. Actual result: I cannot do something at this specific spot.]

[18:59] Bonnie: Some of the steps, as you can see, can you go to a specific location? Is it location-specific, first. Make sure that you have the right stuff on your stats, skills, everything. Try to do whatever, right? And then note that you can or cannot do this. Then we have the expected, “Yes, I can do it on this spot” and “No, I cannot do it on this spot.” That helps more than anything else. Also, we do not, cannot support Pinco’s. If you are using Pinco’s and you have a problem, please get out of it first. Try it again, because there’s [inaudible]. Pinco’s is a third-party UI. It…it’s really awesome, I have to give the guy props. It’s a nice UI. It really is. I love the…anybody here play Diablo? Okay, it has the bobble, the round circle, you know, which is really cool. It has some really nice options. I’m not push [??] it. I’m just saying that there are some issues with it. So we get a lot of bug reports and problems and the problem is it’s–

[There is no sound from 20:09 to 20:19. At 20:16, the slide changes. It shows these bulleted items:]