The May 26, 2006 edition of the Five on Friday is now up on UO.com. Questions about paging GMs, and the lag that some are experiencing.

1. I have noticed some lag lately while I’ve been playing. Is anything being done to address this?

Ando: Yes, the Dev team is working to find a resolution to this issue as soon as possible. Currently we know that this issue only appears to be affecting certain parts of the world and is more noticeable on some shards than it is on others.

2. Hey, have you guys noticed the crazy old lady at the bank? She’s really got a crowd worked up! What’s going on?

City Guard: We are aware of her presence, yes. She is called Inu the Crone, a visiting national from the Tokuno Isles. Thou art not the first to inquire, and we shall be posting an informative bulletin for the citizenry in the near future. Good day.

3. Sometimes I feel like nobody actually looks at my question when I page a GM. Are you guys robots?

Lead GM Hugo: Are we robots? That’s an age old question for us in In-Game Support. The short answer is no, but what a great idea!

You see, each UO petition is reviewed (in real time) by a live person and addressed on an individual basis. Our GM’s responses are actively reviewed and measured as to ensure the highest accuracy and quality possible. Wow, just think about it! If we employed robots who didn’t care about properly identifying your issue, nor what information they gave you in return; we could save a ton of money!

Unfortunately, accuracy and quality are two determining factors we’re just not willing to sacrifice. We understand that when you have exhausted all your efforts and reach out to us for help, you need it as soon as possible. So, that’s our mission. We aim to get the most accurate information in your hands as quickly as “humanly” possible. Believe it or not, we often come across the same question multiple times. We’ll typically take the necessary time to write about it in detail at http://www.support.ea.com. If that’s the case, we’re more than happy to assist your retrieval of that information. Don’t forget, we’re here to help you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and three hundred sixty-five days a year.

4. Are you going to be doing town hall events again soon? If so, what cities?

Darkscribe: Yes, we are hoping to get on the road again in late summer or fall. As for what cities, those are TBD. I’d love to get back to Austin for a visit (I miss the barbecue quite a bit), and going back to DC might be fun. That was perhaps the most memorable town hall meeting from last year, where we met the infamous Drunk Guy. We are very open to suggestions.

5. When are we going to hear more about the anti-scripting initiative you’ve been hinting at?

MrTact: Soon. Very soon.

It’s that time once again - Five on Friday from UO.com, from May 19, 2006. Questions of interest - PvM becoming more difficult, and some more information about the Inu the Crone plotline.

1. Would it be possible to have a beta test client that everyone can download if they choose that is separate from the main client?

Darkscribe: Yes. On occasion, we will be making beta clients available to test new functionality before release to the entire player base. Sometimes these will be small tests of 10-20 players. Sometimes they will be large beta tests available to almost everyone. It depends on the functionality we’re adding and how deep we need to test it.

2. I really like the new targeting and buff/debuff systems. Are there any more improvements in store for the client?

Darkscribe: Yes. There probably won’t be any major client changes in Pub 41, which is dedicated to features and content that will require more server-side work. More on those soon.

3. Some of the changes that have been proposed are going to make PvM more difficult, especially when it comes to the peerless bosses. Are there plans to rebalance PvM after combat has been changed?

MrTact: If we were to tweak weapon and spell damage values as part of the balancing process, it would pretty much mandatory for us to review monster stats in that light.

4. Will we ever see a Guild Message of the Day feature in UO?

MrTact: Hopefully! I would very much like to implement this, but it’s not on any schedule atm.

5. I’m seeing a lot of new faces (NPCs) related to the Inu the Crone plotline. Do you have any hints on more ways we can interact with them?

Draconi: *smiles* When I meet new people, one of the first things I like to ask them is their name and a little about their job! This usually gives me enough that I can make much longer conversations with them, rather than just randomly saying something. Also, it really helps if I seem interested in what they’re saying! If I just sat their and spit out one word responses to someone, they’d get tired of it pretty quick. So try to think about what they’re saying, and sometimes phrase things with a few more words than you normally might - in fact, sometimes try to think of things that they didn’t exactly say!

Oh! Sometimes people like to receive gifts or have you run errands for them. Right now there might not be too many of that sort hanging about Inu, but you never know.

From UO.com, the May 12, 2006 Five on Friday.

1. When you add vet rewards, will you add some for vets that haven’t been playing since the beginning?

Darkscribe: Yes! We are adding a new reward for one year players, to go along with the existing one. We should be able to announce all the new vet rewards next month.

2. I really liked the Treasures for Tokuno event. Is there a chance that it, or something like it, will be brought back in the future?

Darkscribe: Absolutely. We really liked that event as well. It needs some tweaks here and there, but overall it got a great response. We’d like to do something similar this year.

3. What would it take that you consider removing the timer on the polymorph spell. If not then why?

MrTact: The only reason I would be reluctant to do this would be that I hate “toggle” spells, although the recent introduction of the buff/debuff gump makes them somewhat less annoying. We will look into doing this in a future publish.

4. Have you been listening to our feedback on Proficiencies? I haven’t seen you comment on them recently.

MrTact: Proficiencies slipped out of this publish, both because we bit off more than we could chew with pub 40, and because of the level of player reaction to the announcement of the feature. I haven’t been talking about them because there was more than enough controversy over what was left *in* pub 40! As we come to the close of that publish, we’re going to start talking more about proficiencies.

It’s clear to us that we need to take our time and make sure they are done right. Accordingly, we are actually slipping them out of pub 41, as well – we have some time-dependent features in that publish, proficiencies are a big change, and we don’t want to push them out half-baked just to make a deadline on another feature. We’ll be working on them, and they should be available on TC for players to experiment with, but the earliest you would see them in production is pub 42.

5. I really enjoyed the “Inu” story that was printed on BNN. Who wrote it, and do you plan on writing more fiction like that?

Inu the Crone: I commissioned this relatively unknown writer who goes by the name Draconi to write the first chapter of my story. So many of you have come to me asking me about bits and pieces of the story. By bits and pieces, I literally mean one word at a time. And you wonder I prefer the company of scorpions and sand to you people? Bah.

In any case, I do think I will have this Draconi fellow write more of my story in the future.

The April 28, 2006 edition of the Five on Friday is online at UO.com. Some of the questions answered include future enforcement of the TOS (in regards to scripting), as well as changes concerning targeting and the client.

1. Kudos to EA for announcing the recent scripter bans on uo.com. Will we see more announcements like this in the future?

Darkscribe: On occasion, we will announce developments when it comes to enforcing the rules and dealing with rule breakers. I want all UO players to know that we enforce the rules, ban accounts when needed, and are working hard to make the game fair for everyone. On the other hand, I don’t want to keep hammering at that message and make the game seem like a police state. We’ve got a lot more fun things to talk about.

2. Why did you decide to change how targeting works?

Darkscribe: The old targeting system just wasn’t as easy and responsive as we wanted it to be. I know a lot of existing players have grown used to it and are quite good at using it in even the most hectic of combat situations. However, that old system just isn’t as good as it could be. I think once the complete server publish is rolled out with Pub 40, when targeting hostiles is working and a few other polish issues are taken care of, the new system will become quite popular. Personally, I find it much easier to target what I want and when I want. And, we are listening to the feedback and are figuring out ways to make the system better.

3. Using lightning strike with a heavy crossbow on the Pub40 TC can do over 100 damage. Is this intended?

MrTact: Nope. In the last few days before the server publish, we’ll be looking at this and issues with other systems as they are on TC, including swing speed.

4. Are you planning another client patch to address some of the problems we’ve been having with the new targeting system?

MrTact: Yup. And we will be looking at ways to do broader beta tests of publishes in the future, so we find these problems before we go worldwide with the client.

5. What’s the status on hunger, remove curse apples and corpse skin?

Wilki: We’re going to adjust hunger, that’s a given. Remove curse apples will also be brought into balance by the hunger adjustment, since you won’t be able to eat tons of them repeatedly. In the meantime, the changes to corpse skin have been reverted, so there will be no change in Pub40.

Now online - the April 21, 2006 Five on Friday at UO.com. Make sure and read the question about codes (gametime, etc.) being sold…

1. I’ve been having a lot of fun with the Inu the Crone puzzles. Will my friends on Asian shards get to participate in the event too?

Darkscribe: Absolutely. The Asian shards have separate community teams that will be running the events. The key plot elements will be the same, but delivered in different ways and at different times. We’re going to try and keep all the shards as consistent as possible, but there will be deviations.

2. Are you guys at a point yet where you can finalize the list of pub 40 changes?

Darkscribe: We are very, very close, and just about everything in pub 40 is public now. I expect the entire “code complete” publish to be on test center next week. When it’s up on the TC, you’ll be able to sample all the new stuff, including the new buff-de-buff system and the new targeting system.

3. Can we see what the new buff/debuff system looks like?

Wilki: Yes, you sure can. Click here for a preview.

4. Sometimes I see codes (gametime, gender change, etc) being sold for less than I can buy from from EA. How is this possible?

Wilki: While I suppose it’s not completely impossible that someone might buy a bunch of codes and sell them for less than they bought them for out of the generosity of their heart, I’d say it’s about as likely as finding a check for one million gold lying around the Luna moongate at 8pm on a Saturday night. In the past, we’ve discovered codes bought with stolen credit cards. We then make an effort to find accounts that used the stolen codes and occasionally ban those accounts as well, depending on the circumstances.

If you need to buy a code, it’s highly advised that you only buy them from www.uogamecodes.com, otherwise caveat emptor. You wouldn’t meet a stranger at the crossroads in Felucca to trade your unblessed rares collection for an artifact, now would you?

5. I think Inu is a virtue short of a full codex. Is she ever going to make any sense?

Inu the Crone: I make plenty of sense. It’s not my fault that you can’t add two and two together; or any other combination of numbers for that matter.

*mutters* Non dignus.

The latest and greatest Five on Friday has been posted on UO.com by the UO development staff. Some of the questions addressed - cheating guilds and GMs, and eating and hunger (eating rhymed with cheating, I had to throw that in there, and hey, it is a question that was asked).

1. I have seen things on my server, where a specific pair of guilds cheat without ANY interruption from GM’s. I have a friend that used to be in the one guild, and he said that a couple of the members were GM’s. My question is this: Is there any internal audit system for GM’s??

GM Silvani: Yes, all Game Masters are actively monitored, and we hold our employees to the highest professional and ethical standards. Everything that a Game Master does is logged. We encourage players to report any misconduct by an EA employee to GM Reviews. GM Reviews are answered by our senior staff; we take each and every email sent in very seriously and each report is fully investigated.

On top of our GM reviews process, we have a quality audit that is done weekly. This audit includes our senior staff as well. If anything is found through the GM Reviews or through the Quality Audit it is addressed quickly, to insure quality and fair customer support.

If you have a complaint about a particular member of our Game Master staff, please fill out a GM Review here.

2. Will a Non-Bushido Melee Character ever be a viable choice again?

MrTact: Consider this 6-slot melee template: weapon skill, tactics, anat, healing, parry, resist. Using that 7th slot for Bushido (or Chiv, or Ninjitsu) offers abilities that enhance your melee damage; NOT taking one of those abilities means you are giving up that extra damage. So will a melee character that doesn’t take one of those skills be competitive with one who does, based solely on damage output? Probably not. We’d have to resort to some extreme game design gymnastics to make that possible (e.g. items that give a damage bonus but cannot be used if you possess one of those skills).

There are some other axes we could balance on, such as how much damage you can absorb. That was the rationale behind tying armor to a skill, but people REALLY didn’t like that idea.

The basic problem is, not every skill has equal usefulness. That’s been true for a long time, and it would take a lot of effort to fix it (and would probably tick off quite a few people).

3. Any plans to make hunger/eating work correctly and be useful again?

MrTact: Yes! This is part of the reason Remove Curse apples are overly useful - because you don’t get full quickly enough.

4. I thought the scroll stacking issue was being fixed in Pub40, but I don’t see it in the list. What gives?

Wilki:The change list we posted earlier in the week is not a complete list of everything that is in Pub40, rather it’s a list of what’s currently on the test shard. We’re still planning to have a fix for scroll stacking in Pub40.

5. Division Rules Sosaria?

Inu the Crone:That’s what it says, doesn’t it? You people are dense!

The Five on Friday page at UO.com has been updated this week. Among the questions answered - whether UO is advertised, and in-game item sales by EA, and a follow-up question about what happens when you submit a bug to the dev team.

1. Does Ultima Online advertise?

Darkscribe: Yes, we do quite a bit of online advertising. I can’t get into specific dollar amounts, but I can say that for the release of Mondain’s Legacy and earlier in 2005 with the release of the UO:GOLD demo download program, we spent quite a lot of money on Gamespot, IGN, various MMORPG dedicated sites, and community sites like Stratics. With targeted online advertising, we are able to choose our audience with great specificity. We know we hit people interested in MMORPGs and RPGs, while not wasting impressions on people who wouldn’t really care about UO. We will be advertising again in the next fiscal quarter, starting in July. What will we be advertising?

As far as print advertising, the audience for the big PC gamer magazines tends to be very high-end oriented favoring new games that make even the latest video cards smoke. However, that doesn’t mean print mags are out of the plan for this year, but they are not where a big portion of our marketing dollars will be going.

2. Are in-game item sales going to be a part of Ultima Online going forward?

Darkscribe: Yes. From time to time we are going to sell commemorative, decorative or interestingly useful items. However, in almost all cases, those items will also be available some other way. For instance, we are adding several formerly on-sale items to the buddy referral system. Some special items will also be included in special boxed products. These offerings might not appeal to everyone, but there are many players who enjoy collecting rarities, decorating their houses and using items with interesting new functionality. They don’t take too long to build, can mostly be built by outside contractors, and make some players quite happy, so we’re going to keep doing it. In fact, because these have been a success, we’re working on some more interesting offerings that should be available sometime this summer.

What I really want fans to understand is that when we enhance one part of UO, it’s not taking away from the parts of UO you like. We are working extremely hard to get the right PvP changes done. We’re working on a year-long fiction cycle that will be centered around large in-game events, along with mysteries, puzzles, and other surprises. We are hunting down and killing significant bugs as quickly as possible. We are working on a solution that will put a huge dent in scripting operations. We are trying to improve several key areas of UO, so when you see something like the Spring Décor Items go on sale, don’t take that to mean UO is becoming Martha Stewart’s Fantasy House Homebuilder. It just means that there are a lot of people in UO who like housing and might want some unique new décor items.

UO is a world of choice. You get to choose how you want to play. We dev team members are trying to make all the choices more fun. Capice?

3. Are you ever going to add Tokuno dyes back into the game?

MrTact: Not per se; we intend for those colors to stay rare. I would love to add metal dyes in a variety of additional (common) colors as an alchemy craftable, though. It’s just a question of finding the time to get it into a publish!

4. The risk/reward balance for Doom seems to be a bit too hard now. Are there plans to change it?

MrTact: Yeah, the Dark Fathers in particular are a little brutal right this moment. What I’d really like is to make them tough by giving them better AI, so you have to strategize to beat them, instead of them being tough by having ridiculous hit points and one-shotting you. I hoped to tweak the DF a little in pub 40, but it’s iffy at this point. It’s high on the UO Live priority list, though.

5. What happens when I submit a bug using the bug form on uo.com?

Ando: When a player submits a bug to the Quality Assurance (QA) team using through the bug submission form (http://www.uo.com/mailBug.html), an email gets sent to our UO Bugs inbox. Then each day one of our testers, such as Serado or Mesanna, goes through the list and pull reports that appear to be new issues. We cross-reference these with bugs we already have entered in our tracking database to check for duplicates, and test anything that appears to be new. We pay particularly close attention to player reports while a new publish is being tested on Test Center, or just after the release of a new publish to production shards, and treat these issues has high priority. Once we do find a new bug that we are able to reproduce, we enter it into our bug tracking database, and if it’s critical enough, we bring it to the rest of the Dev team’s attention.

Sometimes players tell us they are concerned that we did not receive their report because we do not respond to them, so they send it again. This is not necessary though, generally because we’re so busy testing new features in addition to bug reports from players, we don’t have time to respond to each report we receive. We typically only have time to respond to players who tell us about an important bug we don’t know about, but don’t provide us with enough details to reproduce it.

This week’s Five on Friday is now online at UO.com. Among the questions answered - information about proficiency and Publish 40.

1. I saw the new targeting system thread in the Developer’s Corner, and I can’t wait to try it. I was wondering if that example was the way it is going to look in Pub40?

TheGrimmOmen: Not quite. What you saw in that thread was an early prototype to demonstrate the functionality of the new system. We’ve been working on the art for the targeting reticule, and should have something new to show you soon.

2. How will armor resists work with the proficiency system? Can I still have all of my resists at 70% if I want?

MrTact: Under the current plan, no. However, the armor proficiencies are one of the more controversial elements of the proficiencies system, and are likely to undergo some changes before deployment. There is an active discussion of this in the proficiencies thread on Stratics.

3. Do you still plan on putting a timer on changing proficiencies?

MrTact: Yes. The model I’m basing this on is the Soulstone. However, I am open to the idea that playtesting may show this to be too painful. If so, we can always relax that requirement.

4. When can we expect Proficiencies to be on a Test Shard?

Ando: Most of our focus at the moment has been on Pub40. We would like to try and get a Pub40 Test Center up for players to start testing some of the PVP fixes as soon as we can. At this point, there is only one technical issue remaining that needs to be addressed before we can do this. We are also working hard to get the Pub40 client ready so players can get their hands on the new targeting system and buff / de-buff system.

I don’t see us putting up a Pub41 proficiencies Test Center until after we release a Pub40 client. This is mainly due to the fact that logging into a Pub41 shard using a Pub39 client displays a lot of text errors when trying to test the proficiencies. I will also point out that when the Test Center does go up that it will probably only contain the tier 1 proficiencies at first.

5. The Basket of Herbs in the Spring Décor Collection doesn’t give a bonus if you are at GM Cooking. Is it supposed to be like this?

Wilki: It was designed that way, yes. However, after reading your comments, we’re looking into allowing you to exceed the 100 cooking skill cap with the basket, much like how mining gloves work with mining. No promises that we’ll definitely do this, as there may be some hidden issues that won’t be apparent until we try the change, but it most certainly is being looked at.

The March 24, 2006 edition of the Five on Friday has been posted on UO.com. I though this bit from Darkscribe was very interesting, in regards to future scenarios: We had a long planning session this week that will result in a year long arc of events that will tell an epic story with long-lasting implications for Sosaria

1. Does the proficiency system have any impact on PvM, or is it just for PvP?

Wilki: It will be applied equally to both PvM and PvP. However, for weapon damage increase, there will be options to focus in both PvM and PvP WDI, or both if a player chooses to allocate their proficiencies in that manner. So far, everything else is equally applied to both, though that could change as we begin our testing phase.

2. I really enjoyed participating in the old scenarios, and more recently, the EM events. Are these ever going to return to UO?
(more…)

The March 17, 2006 Five on Friday is available at UO.com. Interesting information/comment on a “Classic” shard.

1. The Moonglow Zoo Community Collection seems like it is too hard for my shard to advance to the next tier. Are you going to change it to make it easier?

Niobe: Yes, we are going to change it to make it easier. After reviewing the numbers and all the player’s posts on the subject, I reduced the number of points needed for each tier substantially. Tier 11 now takes about the same number of points that Tier 1 used to take. I posted some information to the community recently, and you can read it here. So far the reaction has been favorable, and we’re waiting to see how it looks when players actually get in and test it.

2. I heard something about “diminishing returns” and now “proficiencies” that had to do with combat in UO. Can you tell me what that’s all about?
MrTact: Short answer: diminishing returns out, proficiencies in. Keep an eye on “In design”. There should be a document explaining the proficiencies system in some detail very soon.

3. My account age seems to be off by a few months lately. Is that going to be fixed?
Mr. Tact: This was fixed last week. It can take up to a week for your character to reflect these changes (because we only update your character’s age once a week). Everyone should be corrected by now, so if your account age is still off, please send in a bug report here.

4. How come EA doesn’t open up a “classic” shard?
Darkscribe: I have very mixed feelings about a “classic” rule-set shard. The reason is this: What a “classic shard” should be depends on what player you ask and when they entered the game. Year One people want one that looks like Year One. Year Three people want a pre-AOS shard, but not a pre-Ren shard. Then there are lots of people who came in after AOS, but could do without some of the Samurai Empire and UOML stuff. Then again, there are Year One people who want all the expansion pack land masses, but pre-AOS item properties and also no Elves. So, is it about PvP rules, or item properties, or size of landmass, or insurance, or races, or professions, or crafting, or artifacts, or what? What would make the majority of players the happiest? It’s very close to an unanswerable question. I’ve conducted the research, launched the surveys, conducted the focus groups, and I’ve yet to see a clean answer that wouldn’t anger as many as it pleased.

Here is what I do think can be done, maybe, after a lot more research and player discussion: I think a shard with a unique rule set could provide a new kind of experience and be an important addition to the world of UO. I’m more excited by the thought creating something new, instead of the impossible task of re-creating something that existed years ago and maybe could never be re-created again.

At the Town Hall meeting, I compared expecting a “classic shard” to be as satisfying as your first UO experience to expecting your 20-year high school reunion to be as fun as your senior prom. It just isn’t going to be as good.

The real question is what should a unique shard really look like? Or, should we take a closer look at our current hardcore shards, Siege Perilous and Mugen, and think about how to make the experience there more satisfying? These are questions we will try and answer within the next three months as development plans come together for the rest of the year.

5. Are we going to be getting new veteran rewards anytime soon?
Darkscribe: Yes! These are slated for Pub 41, which should be out in late June. There will be Year Six, Seven and Eight rewards, and perhaps something new for Year One or maybe Year Two.