March 1, 2011 UO Video House of Commons Transcript Part 4

This is part four of four, of the transcripts from last night’s Video House of Commons.

Other parts of the transcripts (four parts in total):
* Part 1 of the Transcript
* Part 2 of the Transcript
* Part 3 of the Transcript

As previously mentioned, I apologize in advance for any errors. If you notice any errors, please contact us and we’ll correct them as soon as possible. This transcript is taken from a video I recorded. It is hard to convey when they are talking over each other or when they seem excited or unsure of whether to answer something or to continue, so I would recommend you watch the video and judge for yourself if you have the time.

UOJournal.com Notes
(?) or *unintelligible* means I couldn’t quite understand it and maybe guessing.
* Cal = Calvin Crowner, UO Producer
* Mesanna = Bonnie Armstrong, UO Associate Producer, head of EMs
* Supreem = Derek Brinkman, UO Lead Engineer

Off Camera: Umm..the BOD rewards and gold amounts have long remained the same since AOS, could we have a quick update and new items to choose from, menu-style(?) and maybe a 10% increase in gold for (?)
Cal: I like that..(?) I just like..why don’t you just go ahead and add that on top of it
Off Camera: Well you know, when you’re talking to the developers…
Cal: Exactly
Off Camera: Might as well ask for everything
Cal: Can I get fries and whipped cream
Mesanna: Can I get fries with that
Cal: Exactly
Cal: I want a BOD with fries please.
Supreem: Noted
Cal: Bulk Order Fries
Mesanna: *laughs*
Cal: Do you want to table that one
Mesanna: Ummm…
Cal: You can table it
Mesanna: *nodding her head* yeah I don’t want to answer that one
Cal: Yeah you don’t want to answer that.
Cal: Bonnie is pleading the fifth. Go ahead

Off Camera: Uhh, have you ever thought of combining shards into one, for exactly Europa and
Cal: Yeah, yeah, we’ve thought about it
Supreem: It’s a big challenge…you know games like Warhammer Online which are very dependent on player populations, they have no choice but to merge servers because in order for that game to be fun, they need lots of players in the world. If you ask some of our UO players that are on a tiny shard do they want to move, they’ll probably say no. They like their small community, they like their friends, umm..you know, if you wanted to, you could get a character transfer and go to a more populated shard. Players don’t do it because they like their small communities. It’s very difficult to come up with a solution for that in our game because we have houses all over the world. Um…
Cal: And what he means by that is that like literally across the planet with different people (?) and different shards.
Supreem: There is a possibility of doing something similar to what Camelot (Dark Age of Camelot) does, which is, it’s called clustering where you take areas of the world and share them between servers. A lot of technology goes into doing something like that and it would be a major undertaking for us. We would basically have to neglect the game for a while to make that happen, which to us is just not worth it right now.
Cal: Right
Supreem: If our players like their small communities, they can stay there. If they want to go to a bigger shard, they can transfer.
Cal: Also the other side of that is how do you determine which ones you do, right, because the thing that we’ve learned about our community is not only is it vocal, but it’s dedicated and it’s been around a long time, so having to tell someone you know of 12 or 13 years, oh by the way we’re moving your stuff, that’s a really difficult, and I think honestly an unfair decision to have to ask somebody to do.

Off Camera: Along the lines of moving stuff, sort of a second part to that question, would it be possible to have a house pack-up feature, much like used in Star Wars Galaxies. Are you familiar with it?
Cal: Yeah, yeah
Mesanna: *unintelligible*
Off Camera: Nice explanation here, too.
Cal: Yeah, and actually some of the, some of the..so there are a couple of reasons I actually left Star Wars Galaxies years ago. One is for Dark Age (of Camelot) and the other was for the actual game itself. Umm..but I know we talked about that system. It’s not that easy to implement.
Supreem: Well, I also think it’s kind of cool when you see a guy walking around with four pack mules, it’s like “yup he’s moving”
*laughter*
Supreem: It’s kind of cool. I know it’s a lot of work to move our house, but you know. It’s UO
Off Camera: That’s life(?)
Cal: Yeah
Supreem: That’s life
Cal: Or we could just, we could figure it out and then make it, and could sell it for like a $100 US. So.

Off Camera: Let’s talk technical for a second. Can we talk more about the enhanced artwork, is (or it’s ?) it going to have high resolution versions of what we have or new, etc., etc.
Cal: I thought we kind of just talked about that.
Supreem: Well a little bit. Umm..We’re really just starting to talk about it. It’s in the plans and um..I don’t know, it could go either way.
*lots of looks are being exchanged at this point*
Cal: Right. Umm..the first look is umm…Can you mute the mike really quick (microphone) Can you do that.
Off Camera: Yes I can, hold on one moment
Cal: Okay
UOJournal note: audio is muted, screen is flashing a UO logo, this is around 45 minutes in
Cal: Right cool
Mesanna: And we’ll into
Cal: Alright we’re on, we’re live
Mesanna: and let you know (UOJournal note: not sure on phrasing)
*laughter*
Cal: So, we’ll let you know as we know more.
Supreem: It’s still too early to say
Mesanna: That was a lot of discussion
*Laughter*
Cal: So what I’d really like is cake. I love cake.

Off Camera: *unintelligible* making crystallized essence stackable
Mesanna: That’s doable. When, I don’t know, but yeah.
Cal: Yeah, Not right now.
Cal: So umm..the other thing that uhh..players need to understand, is that we very rarely throw in ideas that come up in the publish that we are working on right now, and maybe not even a publish after, so the ideas that you give us now, that we think are good and can implement, don’t expect them for 2-3 publishes after the current publish that we’re in.
Supreem: It takes time
Cal: Yeah
Supreem: *unintelligible* through the cycle
Cal: That’s important to know for everybody

Off Camera: Here’s a question I think is kind of interesting, with a lot of land not being used, can we ever see a chance that the land will be converted into future player towns.
Cal: Not against it, but not right now.
Cal: What, okay.

Off Camera: Will the small soul forge ever be able to be placed on the Brit ship
Mesanna: Yes
Cal: Next

Off Camera: What is the idea behind the exquisite corpse thread.
Cal: Okay, umm…who is asking the question.
Off Camera: Uhh..it’s Storm
Cal: STORM! you…you…you…alright so the idea behind the exquisite corpse thread is umm..storytelling..the thing that we really want to focus on this year is to tell a good story, to have players engaged, and what I want to see was one, and I wrote this in the thread, is I wanted to see what kind of writers we have, because we get a lot of guff for doing fiction. Umm..and so uh…we’ve asked for fan fiction before like I think it was one of the first things I did as producer, umm..or getting to be a part of the team(?) is asking for fiction from players. And we get uhh…some interesting results. Umm..some things are actually not fe(?) but then you see other things like we did for High Seas where we have player fiction that is fantastic. So one of it is watching community interaction. That’s the one purpose of exquisite corpse is to get people working together. The other part of that is to find out where our writers are. The other part of that is to see what kind of creativity that players can express between each other. And the writing and the…the one good thing that’s even when like playing tennis, you tend to bet a better writer, a better player when you’re with people that are a level above you. Umm..so we’re hoping to kind of grow that community and RP and creative writing and story and that’s like just..that’s the purpose of the exquisite corpse thread.
Off Camera: Alright, just so you know, I’m now being told by our Stratics friends that might not have come from Storm, it just came from the Stratics boards.
Supreem: Oh, okay, cause I love, I love me some Storm. I’m just sayin’ so I know that
Mesanna: Partiality, look at you (UOJ note: May have been impartiality)
Cal: What? That’s not partiality, I love many people, equally.
*laughter*

Off Camera: *Unintelligible*…Um… Question for the team, will the PVP arena be open this spring.
Supreem: I hope so. He’s pointing at me because I’m the one that is taking point on that project. The hardware migration kind of sucked me up for a while and now I’m starting to climb out of that hole, I can start looking at arenas again, so it’s..like 90% of the way there, but that 10% is 90% of the rest of it.
Cal: Nice
Supreem: So it’s still
Cal: That’s great math
*unintelligible*
Off Camera: Should be in front of Congress
*laughter*
Cal: That makes 93.7% *unintelligible* Congressman
Supreem: It needs more work before it can go to a test center..umm..and we really want to make sure Character Copy is working before we open our arenas so that you can bring your live characters there, we don’t want to have to force you to spend hours setting up a character so that you can test arenas for us
Mesanna: Have we told them about character copy(?)
Cal: Yeah, people have picked up on it ’cause in the thread in the clients, you can actually see there is an option for character copy.
Supreem: We’ve mentioned it a few times.
Cal: So you want to actually cover what
Supreem: We’re actually fairly close to getting character copy working on Test Center 1, which means you’ll be able to bring your character over there, and you’ll still have the Test Center rules on TC1 so you can muddle with your skills and try different setups. Umm..so we should have that pretty soon.
Cal: Alright
Supreem: So by the end of the month
Cal: So tell folks exactly what the purpose of character copy is.
Supreem: Well character copy is a character transfer without removing your character from the source, from the original shard the player is on. It’ll only be available to go to test centers obviously, because we don’t want you cloning yourself on live shards. The point is to test your character in a test environment, or to try out new features or new publishes with your existing characters.
Cal: Right
Mesanna: Also when we do arenas, they’re not going to be able to build a character.
Supreem: Yeah, I mean we don’t have to get into too much detail about that.
Mesanna: Yeah

Off Camera: A Short question, will you allow transfers off Siege.
Cal: You can’t do it. It’s not technically possible. So..
Supreem: That’s right. Umm..because the rules are differet, there are items on that shard that are very specific to it, I mean not just necessarily items, but different things you can do with items, you can’t just bring those characters to live shards, we’d have to make so many exceptions to make it possible, to transfer a character from there.
Cal: Right. As I said before, umm..when Siege was created, and this is the stuff that I’ve learned. Umm..there are a lot of rules that were made that prohibited folks from going there or leaving…umm..so like I said, Siege is an island, and it was designed that way unfortunately.

Off Camera: Okay, here’s a question about the UO game codes. Will there be improvements on the UO Game Codes store for future decoration items that can be updated more and changed frequently.
Cal: I don’t think I completely understand that. Just..is it just a more items question?
Mesanna: Uh.. no..I think they’re asking if we’re..it’s going to be easier to put stuff up and rotate them out or whatever.
Cal: Oh..I would like that.
*laughter*
Supreem: Getting an item on the UO store is also more than just getting it on the webpage. There is a pretty big process between creating the content in-game, tying that to a promotional code, generating a lot of those promotional codes, providing them to the store, and the store selling them. It’s a huge process.
Cal: Right
Supreem: So I mean we obviously, we are always trying to streamline that process and make it easier…umm…and it is what it is..
Cal: Right
Mesanna: And make it look good (?)

Off Camera: Next question, about improving game economy, the upshot is, this person is asking if you would be able to change the amount of gold looted on monsters, to be lower than the current amount, thinking that would improve in-game economy (UOJournal note: hard to understand parts of the question)
Supreem: So..I actually think the gold on monsters should be higher..umm..when you talk about real-world economy
Off Camera: This person is not going to like you
Supreem: Probably not
Cal: Well just, oh yeah, because we don’t like differeing opinions around here.
Supreem: When you talk about a real-world economy, as there’s more gold in circulation, you get inflation. Right, so the value of gold is less. So what that means is if the umm..all of the things that players sell is inflated. The amount of money that players’ items sell for is inflated, it’s being sold for much higher than it would if it was around two years ago. Umm..but the monsters don’t drop more gold, so it’s as if umm…let’s say your’e getting paid $30,000 a year, and then inflation hits, and the economy is now inflated by 10% but you’re still making $30,000 a year. That’s actually a problem, and it doesn’t hurt our existing players, but it hurt’s our new players coming in, because they can’t afford to buy the player-made items that are sold at inflated prices because they are still getting the gold from monsters that was made when the monsters were created before the inflation.
Cal: Right
Mesanna: If somebody even sells
Supreem: So it’s actually the opposite of what you are suggesting.
Cal: Right. Ummm..the other side of that is just from an economic level, if you’re going to speak macro-economically, US suffers from what’s like called the push-pull economy right, where effectively we have a lot of people with a lot of money with very little to do with it. So the idea is to come up also with ummm…a way for the folks that have a lot of money, give them a reason to spend it, and then for folks that have no money, a way to get it. So. there you go. Next.

Off Camera: Okay I think we’re gonna do two more questions and then sign off for the evening. Umm…there’s a question uh who..someone who feels that reptalons..how do you spell…how do you pronounce that
Supreem: Reptalons
Off Camera: Reptalons
Mesanna: Reptalons
Off Camera: are a little weak to take up four slots and would like to know if there could be some love for them.
Cal: Awww.
Mesanna: *raising hand* That’s actually true.
Cal: That’s sweet
Supreem: Send Bonnie an email to remind her.
Mesanna: Send me an email. I’m sure you know what it is.
Cal: *laughs*

Off Camera: Uhh…there are a lot of abandoned homes in the game that have no owners. Will these be cleaned out.
Mesanna: As soon as I find them all.
Supreem: That’s a slow process. I mean, we’re always trying to get rid of some of these old abandoned houses, and it just takes a lot of time.
Mesanna: That’s my *unintelligible* (My job?)
Cal: Next
Supreem: Takes time
Mesanna: I just deleted two hundred on Legends.
Supreem: Wow

Off Camera: Here’s a good one to maybe end the evening on, will you ever make castles/keeps customizable
*silence, sighing*
Supreem: There’s not an easy answer to that.
*unintelligible from C/M*
Supreem: Because of the largest size a customizable house can be is 18×18. A castle is larger and it also has unusable space inside it.
Cal: Yeah
Mesanna: *unintelligible* Enhancing it, but not customizing it.
Cal: Yeah, we, let’s put it this way, we talked about castles and keeps a while ago, like actually last summer, about what to do with them. Umm…it’s difficult…Umm…that’s all we can say.
Supreem: One of the ideas that we’ve kicked around is maybe, possibly, allowing you to lock things down in your courtyard. Ummm…it seems like it’s definitely doable from a technical standpoint, so…

Off Camera: Alright, can we uhh…we should probably wrap this up for tonight. Uhh..Cal would you like to give some final words or would anybody like to
Cal: No, I’ll uhh..give it to Derek.
*laughter*
Off Camera: Wow. That’s a manger folks. That’s what managers do.
Supreem: Delegation. Well thanks for coming everybody..Uhh..I hope you had as much fun as we did.
Mesanna: Kiss your EMs.
Cal: Hug ’em
Mesanna: Hug ’em. Be nice to them.
Cal: Alright, umm…thanks to CJ and Rowland and the *unintelligible* uhh Airmid thanks
Off Camera: Thanks guys *unintelligible*
Cal: And Petra and all the folks at Stratics for putting up with us and helping us to put out flame wars and all that good stuff. Umm…and for the guys that are tuning in *unintelligible* stream for Facebook, keep watching, and we’ll try to keep all of the unwanted information off of Facebook as well.
Off Camera: Alright, cool.
(?): That’s it
Off Camera: Goodnight everyone
Mesanna: Goodnight
Supreem: Thanks guys

UOJournal.com note: That concludes the fourth and final part of the transcript to the March 1st, 2011 transcript from the Ultima Online Video House of Commons.

Note: This story originally appeared on UOJournal.com.