What follows is the transcript for the May, 2011 Ultima Online, Online Developer Q&A. Questions are repeated from the March 2011 House of Commons in order to provide updates. Thanks to ‘D’ for providing this.
[0:11] Calvin Crowner: Hey guys! I’m Cal Crowner, “Uriah,” Producer of Ultima Online.
[0:15] Bonnie Armstrong: Hi, guys. I’m Bonnie Armstrong, “Mesanna.” I’m the Associate Producer.
[0:20] Dan Bussanich: Hi, I’m GM Akemai. I do in-game support for Ultima Online. I’ve been working there for about three years.
[0:25] Cal: And he’s also responsible for getting stuff off the boards and feeding it to us. And he’s our resident cop.
[00:33] Heading: ANYTHING COMING FOR TER MUR?
[00:35] Cal: One of the questions that we get a lot is, “Hey, are you guys going to do anything more with Stygian Abyss expansion and Ter Mur?” The answer is, “Yes.” What you’re going to see within…probably starting in June…not “probably starting in June,” but “starting in June” is a live-event arc that will encompass the history of Ter Mur. You’ll understand a bit more about how Zhah became queen and why she’s queen. There’ll also be, let’s say, a challenge for what players should expect. We’ll also be fleshing out a couple more areas that have not been touched yet in the Ter Mur area. [Looks at Bonnie.] What else?
[01:12] Bonnie: And add in a few mobs.
[01:14] Cal: Oh yeah. So it should be very interesting. Look for fiction probably in the next couple of weeks.
[01:21] Heading: WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH THE ADVANCED CLIENT GRAPHICS?
[01:23] Cal: What we did is we had a phased approach. The first phase was actually evaluating what we could do and what we could touch. The first part is kind of an immediate gratification with updating the terrain and wall tiles. From first inspection, from the results that we’ve seen, the Enhanced Client for those particular areas, it’s like if someone had astigmatism and then put on glasses. So there’s a lot of the blurriness that you saw before is actually gone now. We’ll keep you updated as we progress and then move through other areas of the art update.
[01:58] Heading: ARE ANY CHANGES COMING TO THE DUNGEONS?
[02:00] Bonnie: Umm…yes, there is. We are starting on a few specialized first. We’re going to revamp the mobs, bring it up-to-date, and see how it goes. It will be tied in also with something that’s coming soon to help new players.
[02:18] Cal: Right. Also, the other part of that is that it’s not only new players, but returning players, and that’s why we’re taking a look at the older dungeons. What you’ll also see is we’re going to more or less touch the amount of gold that you’ll probably see on the mobs as well.
[02:33] Heading: ANY DETAILS ON SPRING CLEANING?
[02:34] Mesanna: You owe me.
[02:35] Cal: Okay. So the answer for Spring Cleaning is it’s already spring. So you probably haven’t seen much cleaning. The problem is that…not the problem, but what we were actually more focused on was finishing out the whole Magincia arc and getting things to flesh out the bazaar. You should have seen that in a lot of the producer updates. So Spring Cleaning is going to happen this summer. So it will be spring cleaning in the summer. And yes, we will update you and we are actually going through the design docs right now to identify exactly what items we’re going to do, what will be acceptable point values for everyone, and making sure that we touch on enough items that folks feel that we’ve answered the question and just leave a few off so that at least you have something else to look forward to.
[03:26] Bonnie: And we’ll be able to clean out your house.
[03:27] Heading: WHAT’S BEING DONE TO HELP TOWN POPULATION?
[03:31] Bonnie: We are discussing this right now. We are thinking about making bazaar stalls in the towns to get people to come back to them. It’s still in development. Nothing’s finalized, but we are thinking about it.
[03:46] Cal: Also, you’ll see a bit more focus in the towns on how…shoot…[looks at Bonnie]…I just screwed up your answer.
[03:56] Bonnie: Yeah, you did.
[03:57] Cal: I was about to give you guys a spoiler, but scratch that. I can’t tell you what else we’re going to do with towns.
[04:01] Bonnie: Thank you.
[04:02] Heading: IS A FIX FOR THE PARTY STATUS BARS IN CC?
[04:06] Bonnie: We are aware of the issue with the health bars…
[04:10] Cal: In the Classic Client.
[04:11] Bonnie: …in the Classic Client. We are going to try to make sure that we have a steady flow of bugs being fixed in the future publishes. So it will be fixed in one of the future publishes. Thank you.
[04:23] Cal: [laughs]
[04:24] Heading: CAN YOU GIVE RARE COLLECTORS A TITLE?
[04:27] Bonnie: Rare titles or titles in general are very easy for us to add to the game, but if we put in a rare title, how do we know who really gets it? How do we know what is a rare, what isn’t, and how would we know if somebody is wearing the title correctly? So there’s a bu…there’s a lot of if’s with it, but if you guys want a rare title, we can put it in.
[04:49] Heading: WHAT ABOUT THE CLASSIC SHARD?
[04:51] Cal: So there’s been some questions about if we’ll reconsider the classic shard. And we actually got a…there are folks actually within Bioware and within EA that look at you and go, “Hey, why don’t you guys do this?” And I hear you, and the team hears you, and yes it would be great. But as explained before, there are just so many ifs about what actually goes into a classic shard that so many people can’t agree on it that it would be probably a bad pursuit right now with what we’re doing. But what we are doing, and that’s what we’ve talked about for the year so far, is we’re changing and updating and improving the graphics that you’re going to see in the Enhanced Client. We’re going to take a look at the loot tables, and the amount of gold and rewards that actually come on mobs. We’re going to take a…we’re taking a look and actually in the process of updating some of the classic dungeons. In addition, we’re working on the new player experience and revitalizing a lot of what players returning to the game see. So instead of just the classic shard, we’re actually more open to the whole world of UO, instead of one specific server.
[06:05] Heading: WILL THE REBUILDING OF MAGINCIA TAKE INTO ACCOUNT BOTH FACETS?
[06:08] Bonnie: During the rebuilding of Magincia, we have put it in both Trammel and Felucca. so all of the rules are the same as you would see on the facet. Everything is basically the same. We did not leave anything out at all for Felucca, so it’s basically mirrored completely. Our next phase is going to be encampments. I think you guys are going to have a good time with them and I hope you’re on TC1 to check them out when we publish this week so you can give us your opinion.
[06:36] Cal: And so probably you’re wondering, well what’s an encampment? We’re actually going to be putting together a high-level design doc as we did when we started to do the initial repopulation/restoration of Magincia. We’ll let you know when encampments are and yeah, like Bonnie said, you should…you’ll dig it.
[06:56] Heading: WILL VETERAN PLAYERS HAVE ACCESS TO THE NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE?
[06:58] Cal: The way we’re designing it is new players entering the game will have exposure to the whole world. The new player experience will not be something that is exclusive so that those who are veteran players and folks who are returning to it will be able to help and mentor players entering the game.
[07:18] Bonnie: Like they did in the beginning. So towns will be more useful, because that’s where the new players will be showing up in the first place.
[07:26] Heading: WOODCHUCKS?
[07:28] Cal: So the question about woodchucks is…I don’t see putting woodchucks in the game, but…there have been a couple of votes for honey badgers.
[07:38] Heading: WHAT IS THE FUTURE FOR SIEGE PERILOUS?
[07:40] Bonnie: Right now I’m going to be using it to help train EMs. Since I can’t really keep an
EM on Siege, we’re going to have all the new EMs that are coming through come there and do events for you guys so at least you’ll have something going all the time.
[07:56] Heading: WHAT IS BEING DONE ABOUT RENOWNED CREATURES SPAWNING IN INACCESSIBLE LOCATIONS?
[07:58] Bonnie: If you see them or have a general location, please just e-mail me. Tell me what mobs, location. I will get it into the system and get them fixed.
[08:09] Heading: WILL MORE ITEMS BE ADDED TO PIRATE AND MERCHANT SHIPS?
[08:11] Cal: The piwate loot! [laughs]
[08:14] Bonnie: The piwate loot! [laughs] Arrr! And the fishing quest loot…. We are actually working on this to enhance and make it better and give you more reason to go fishing, more reason to kill your pirates in the near future. So I hope you guys enjoy it.
[08:29] Heading: ISN’T IT TIME FOR MORE MESANNA ROULETTE?
[08:32] Bonnie: Don’t you guys get tired of me killing you? So, the answer is yes, I’ll be happy to come to your shard and put you through the dice rolls. Just don’t get upset when you die quickly.
[08:47] Cal: And often.
[08:47] Bonnie: And often.
[08:49] Heading: HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT COMBINING SHARDS?
[08:51] Cal: So with the shard populations…for the lesser populated shards, we’re not talking about the Yamato and Atlantic, of course. But for shard consolidation, we’ve looked at a couple of technical ideas. Right now, it’s not feasible with the other things that we have to do for our hardware infrastructure and that sort of thing. We can’t see it happening. There’s also been a question about the pack-up feature for houses. It’s something that we constantly think about on how to do it, on how to make the server architecture work. So don’t think that we’re not thinking about it. It’s just that right now we don’t have a solution.
[09:32] Heading: VANITY RULES!
[09:34] Bonnie: Unfortunately right now we are not looking at revamping any of the wearables. Hopefully, one day, I can’t say when, but hopefully one day we can do this.
[09:45] Heading: WILL THE SMALL SOULFORGE EVER BE ABLE TO BE PLACED ON THE BRIT SHIP?
[09:47] Bonnie: Yes. The small forge will be placed or be able to be placed on a Brit ship. Also, parrots and perches.
[09:57] Heading: THE CAPTAIN’S WHEEL?
[10:00] Bonnie: I’m sorry, but it is a decorative item only for your house. We cannot put it on boats. We have the small ones on the boats, but we can’t put the ones that we’re giving away. Sorry.
[10:12] Heading: ARE THERE ANY PLANS TO ADD NEW CURRENCY TO THE GAME?
[10:14] Cal: Recently I just heard UO is all about the gold, so that’s where it is for right now.
[10:21] Bonnie: [Snickers and looks at Cal.] Or lack of, because we just sucked it out.
[laughter]
[10:28] Heading: ON THAT NOTE, JUST HOW MUCH GOLD WAS TAKEN OUT?
[10:30] Bonnie: We just want to let you guys know that we’re still working on the document. [Shoves Cal’s knee as he stifles something he has to say.] Excuse me a second. [Looks at Cal.] Shut up.
[10:37] Cal: [Whispers] OK.
[10:37] Bonnie: We’re still working on the document to get everybody a figure of how much gold was actually taken out of the game for the Magincia plots. We’re going to break it down per plot, per shard, and overall. You should see that in the near future also.
[10:53] Cal: It was a lot.
[10:55] Bonnie: It was a whole bunch. Huge.
[10:56] Heading: THANKS!
[11:00] Cal: Hey guys, just wanted to say thanks again for all your questions. Of course, as always, we didn’t get to all of them. We answered as many as we could. What this is is feedback from the video House of Commons we’ve done where it sounded like you guys just prefer that we answer a litany of questions. We’ll keep looking out for you on the boards.
[11:20] Bonnie: It’s that time of year that we are starting to think about our vet rewards and anniversary rewards, so if you guys have any suggestions or something that you’d really like to have in-game, e-mail us.
[11:31] Dan: And if you have any questions, suggestions, I’m always reading the boards every day. Just go ahead and post whatever you like on the boards. Also, if you have any suggestions for in-game support when you’re actually talking to them, we always bring those up to the developers.
[11:45] Cal: All right. With that, we’re out. See ya!
[11:46] Bonnie: Peace.
