Yay! I'm out of the dungeon!

[Leurocian]

Hail and Well Met!

We want to thank all of you who came to the Seattle Townhall, in person, virtually, and otherwise. We have been really anxious and excited to talk about the next expansion pack for Ultima Online: Stygian Abyss.

Now that we have formally announced that we are working on SA, we may – from time to time – ask for feedback on game systems and features. We will continue to keep you updated on SA via our website, FoF, as well as dev posts.

It feels really good to be able to interact with you all about what I’ve been working on.

May your swords and spells never fail!

Patrick “Leurocian” Malott
Lead Game Designer, Ultima Online
Mythic Entertainment, an EA Studio

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Glad to see you.

-Galen's player

 

[Halister Marner]

Welcome back Leurocian.

Glad that you're not [squelched] anymore!

 

[Black Sun]

Welcome back! It's good to see you again.

 

[Devil_Woman]

Really nice to see you out and about again! Hope you had your sunglasses on when you came out of that dungeon. As long as they've had you chained down there I'm sure the light would've hurt your eyes.

 

[phantus]

Truly happy to see you still hard at work.


One question I would love to ask that we didn't get asked. Since embuing is coming will we finally get the ability to embue/enhance/repair in a trade window?

 

[Setnaffa]

Glad to have you back! I hope to see your post count go through the roof in the coming months.

 

[Leurocian]

Truly happy to see you still hard at work.


One question I would love to ask that we didn't get asked. Since embuing is coming will we finally get the ability to embue/enhance/repair in a trade window?

Hi Phantus!

I don't know of any immediate plans to allow imbuing/enhance/repair in a trade window. I'll mention this to the team and get their input on it. This is a good question.

Thanks!

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Game Designer, Ultima Online
Mythic Entertainment, an EA Studio

 

[christy1221]

Welcome back! How is your baby girl doing?

 

[The_Letter_E]

Any chance you can describe what/how you think the embuing might work?

Personally, I'd like to see the as a very difficult skill to master.

E

 

[Leurocian]

Welcome back! How is your baby girl doing?

She is doing very well. Thanks for asking. Today, she is 4 months old. She occasionally says "Ma Ma". Smiles a lot. And she can throw a temper tantrum when she wants to. Reminds me of me...

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Game Designer, Ultima Online
Mythic Entertainment, an EA Studio

 

[christy1221]

She is doing very well. Thanks for asking. Today, she is 4 months old. She occasionally says "Ma Ma". Smiles a lot. And she can throw a temper tantrum when she wants to. Reminds me of me...

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Game Designer, Ultima Online
Mythic Entertainment, an EA Studio

Mine is 6 months now and I know what you mean about the temper tantrums. My daughter does it when you put her down. She thinks I should hold her all the time now LOL. It's not easy playing uo holding her.

 

[PASmountaindew]

I am willing to bet Leurocian followed the crumbs from Queen Mum's cookies to find his way out of the dungeon to safety. Hopefully he had a glass of milk with him.

 

[o2bavr6]

Will you guys ever fix the bugs/imbalances that are rampant in PvP?

 

[Lady_Rachel]

Good to see you back Leurocian!

The embroidery kits?
Are those the things we will be imbuing with?
And how will they be obtained?
BOD rewards?

 

[Leurocian]

Any chance you can describe what/how you think the embuing might work?

Personally, I'd like to see the as a very difficult skill to master.

E

Yes. But I shouldn't give too much detail at the moment. The general plan is to roll out specific features for SA on the website and once we formally have them there, we can add further detail in dev posts to fan sites, FoF, etc.

With the above stated....ah, what the heck, I'll tell a little

Things can change, etc. etc. You know the drill. But here's the current design idea and what we have internally so far.

Imbuing will be done by skill activation. You will need a special object called a soul forge (more on this later) and you will need magical ingredients and the item to imbue to perform this skill. The higher your Imbuing skill, the greater the intensity you can imbue, etc. If balanced right, it should be difficult to master.

You can also unravel magical items with Imbuing and receive magical ingredients from these items. Doing so, destroys the item in the process. Other resources will also be required for Imbuing, but I'll save that teaser for later.

Items (such as artifacts) that can't normally be enhanced or recycled, etc. cannot be imbued or unraveled. And no, the current plan is to not replace Item Identification with Imbuing. Imbuing is a separate skill.

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Game Designer, Ultima Online
Mythic Entertainment, an EA Studio.

 

[Leurocian]

Will you guys ever fix the bugs/imbalances that are rampant in PvP?

A while back, we made a Live PvP balance pass that was aided by the players in our focus forums. That was a great start, but more certainly needs to be done. We will do our best on SA (as well as Live) to ensure that balancing (both PvP and PvM) continues and that all the new weapons, abilities, etc. feel right for the game.

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Game Designer, Ultima Online
Mythic Entertainment, an EA Studio

 

[RedDaTeef]

Hey welcome back Bro and thanks for taking the time to answer player q's!

Can you tell us approximatly how far along on SA you guys are, halfway there, just started, almost?
I mean as far as I remember you guys have been working on this for a long time.
Thanks!

 

[Kojak]

god, how many times are we going to see imbuing spelled with an e instead of an i like it's supposed to be spelled

 

[love2winalot]

Hail: To attract NEW Players to UO, not just old ones reactivating accounts, What will be in the BOX? And , do you not need to add a new Shard?

 

[Tomas_Bryce]

Yay!

It is a shame that you did not let Draconi out too

 

[Connor_Graham]

god, how many times are we going to see imbuing spelled with an e instead of an i like it's supposed to be spelled

42

That's always the answer.

 

[Magnus]

'On our website', eh? I don't see any information on it, tsk tsk!

Welcome back, this weekend has been one of the most exciting a long time, I'm really looking forward to more information on SA!

 

[Loqucious]

Can you tell us approximatly how far along on SA you guys are, halfway there, just started, almost?
I mean as far as I remember you guys have been working on this for a long time.
Thanks!

Yes!!!!! Please answer this question.

 

[Teufel_Hund]

Yes. But I shouldn't give too much detail at the moment. The general plan is to roll out specific features for SA on the website and once we formally have them there, we can add further detail in dev posts to fan sites, FoF, etc.

With the above stated....ah, what the heck, I'll tell a little

Things can change, etc. etc. You know the drill. But here's the current design idea and what we have internally so far.

Imbuing will be done by skill activation. You will need a special object called a soul forge (more on this later) and you will need magical ingredients and the item to imbue to perform this skill. The higher your Imbuing skill, the greater the intensity you can imbue, etc. If balanced right, it should be difficult to master.

You can also unravel magical items with Imbuing and receive magical ingredients from these items. Doing so, destroys the item in the process. Other resources will also be required for Imbuing, but I'll save that teaser for later.

Items (such as artifacts) that can't normally be enhanced or recycled, etc. cannot be imbued or unraveled. And no, the current plan is to not replace Item Identification with Imbuing. Imbuing is a separate skill.

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Game Designer, Ultima Online
Mythic Entertainment, an EA Studio.

ooh a new skill for me to become Legendary at! I like what I am hearing!

 

[o2bavr6]

Last July, we made a Live PvP balance pass that was aided by the players in our focus forums. That was a great start, but more certainly needs to be done. We will do our best on SA (as well as Live) to ensure that balancing (both PvP and PvM) continues and that all the new weapons, abilities, etc. feel right for the game.

Thanks for the answer.

Do you suppose you could expound on what was looked at.

Will there ever be a fix to reflect phys armor and how it hits people first, even though they aren't the aggressor?

What about polymorph and how people cast it to get others to flag on them then remove it real fast to get the person guard killed?

What about the bug where a tamer can sick their pet on someone and then all of a sudden the tamer goes blue to the person, even though their pet is still grey?
Will you ever change the flagging for pets to where if they are the aggressor they can not be recalled back to the owner, as in flee of battle? Like every other person has to deal with?

Was there a reason why all wondering healers in Fel cant be red? instead of just adding a few more near gates?
What about T2A, why are there only blue healers in town and no red ones? THis makes reds have to completely leave T2A to look for a healer. Kind of unfair isnt it?

Will you ever address the flagging system that blues have? Why is it that a blue is no longer grey to a red if they kill the red? shouldn't the 2 minute aggressor timer still be in effect?

 

[Leurocian]

Sorry o2bavr6,

I just edited my post. I was referring to the PvP balance pass we did several publishes ago when Wilki and I worked on it then. I compiled your list of questions here and passed them on to Mesanna - just in case any of these need to be entered into our bug database.

As a quick followup, I just talked with Mesanna about your list of questions. Some of these issues should be addressed in the next publish. You should receive more info soon, so stay tuned.

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Game Designer, Ultima Online
Mythic Entertainment, an EA Studio

 

[Tomas_Bryce]

Patience of a saint ^

 

[AirmidCecht]

So great to see you posting again Leurocian! The community is not the same without your insight and input. Thank you!

 

[o2bavr6]

As a quick followup, I just talked with Mesanna about your list of questions. Some of these issues should be addressed in the next publish. You should receive more info soon, so stay tuned.

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Game Designer, Ultima Online
Mythic Entertainment, an EA Studio

OUCH I hit my head when I fell out of my chair after your second response to me. :bowdown:

I will hold judgment and wait and see.

Thanks again..

Except now you torpedoed all the other threads I posted the same questions on

 

[Experimental]

Welcome Back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We sorely missed you.

 

[Leurocian]

Good to see you back Leurocian!

The embroidery kits?
Are those the things we will be imbuing with?
And how will they be obtained?
BOD rewards?

Hail Lady Rachel,

As I stated below, Imbuing will be skill activated and will require a soul forge and magical ingredients.

As for new BOD rewards, that topic is currently under discussion.

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Game Designer, Ultima Online
Mythic Entertainment, an EA Studio

 

[Lady_Rachel]

Thank you!

 

[drinkbeerallday]

A while back, we made a Live PvP balance pass that was aided by the players in our focus forums. That was a great start, but more certainly needs to be done. We will do our best on SA (as well as Live) to ensure that balancing (both PvP and PvM) continues and that all the new weapons, abilities, etc. feel right for the game.

Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Lead Game Designer, Ultima Online
Mythic Entertainment, an EA Studio

It looks like Imbuing will actually be part of the PvP balance as far as the overpowered weapons and gear.

Factions/Champ Spawns have so much potential but haven't been touched in years. I hope something good happens. Even if it's something as simple as a new Champ Spawn type in a new location. That would be better than nothing at all. Personally I always liked the idea of having a champ spawn that randomly spawns on the Felucca mainland without an altar.

And please, no repeat of the UOML PvP problems. I remember it took forever for a publish to come out after UOML. You should schedule a PvP balance publish within a month after SA goes live.

This was addressed in the Town Hall but I think it should be bumped up the list, fix all the bugged 92+ day houses that are still standing ASAP.

 

[Wenchkin]

Glad to see you back again Leurocian

Looking forward to seeing the PvP changes and hopefully more good fixes coming soon. I wonder if folks hide when they see you walking around purposefully with a list of bugs

On the subject of imbuing, it would be great if this would give us a use for low end magic armour and items. I'd love to go through old armour I've outgrown and get something useful from it, the same with jewellery, so I hope we can re-use as much as possible. I'd love to be able to use a warrior smith template with imbuing to hunt for items, salvage materials and then return to his forge to complete the process.

Wenchy

 

[Thrand Graywolf]

I don't know of any immediate plans to allow imbuing/enhance/repair in a trade window. I'll mention this to the team and get their input on it. This is a good question.

It would be a good idea. With the current difficulty in getting a suit put together, and how expensive the good stuff can be...there's just no way I'm letting someone else fix my armor or weapons. That's a shame, because it does cut down on interaction...but even people I trust don't get to touch my armor...lest they accidentally hit their "smelt" macro.

Which brings up another point...if you do add the ability for crafters to do stuff in trade...make sure they can't cut up leathers or smelt metal, as well.

 

[Oriana]

*hugs Leurocian*

So good to see you!! Glad your lil one os doing wel, glad to hear you no longer have to twitch uncontrollably when asked certain questions. For those of you not at the San Diego Townhall meet, Leurocian twitched and grinned like a proud Dad that got the bestest gift for the family. It was priceless and know very much understood.
Thanks for everything you do!!

Oriana

 

[The_Letter_E]

Imbuing will be done by skill activation. You will need a special object called a soul forge (more on this later) and you will need magical ingredients and the item to imbue to perform this skill. The higher your Imbuing skill, the greater the intensity you can imbue, etc. If balanced right, it should be difficult to master.

Mythic Entertainment, an EA Studio.

Do us a favor and err on the side of caution. I think someone mentioned Legendary. Will there be a scroll for it?

A few suggestions/questions:
1. Don't allow player made items to be unraveled. I can already see people stacking up leather to unravle their spined gloves to get something and power up skill.
2. Don't make the soul-forge or what ever it's called charge based like the runics. That would just be crazy.
3. Will we be able to add multiple ingrediants to try for several enhancments? Or perhaps enhance something multiple times. I'm going to assume that if you fail the item will break. Hopefully?
4. Can you make an imbued item 200-250 durability and non-fortifiable? Let's not go back to where we're at today. Let's keep the skill moving along.
5. Can you include ALL items in there. Instruments, Weapons, Armor, Wands, Jewelry?

Anyone else got any questions ideas?

E

 

[Petra Fyde]

So.

In addition to Smithing, Tailoring, Carpentry, Tinkering, armslore, mining, lumberjacking, bowcraft crafters will need imbuing too.

Anyone got a handy shoehorn for my crafters' templates? I hate juggling skills with soulstones, and that's not what they were meant for anyway.

 

[Jeremy]

Don't forget Musicianship and Magery for those Carpentry addons, too! Can I borrow that shoehorn?

Actually, I'm thinking about making my crafters a little more specialized in the crafting sense and a little more self-sufficient for resource gathering and the like. The days of the pure crafter mule are probably numbered.

 

[Connor_Graham]

Don't forget Musicianship and Magery for those Carpentry addons, too! Can I borrow that shoehorn?

You can use items to reach the appropriate levels of both Music and Magery. No need to invest the skill points.

 

[Redxpanda]

The days of the pure crafter mule are probably numbered.

I guess i will get a soulstone and prepare to start reworking my template.

 

[Connor_Graham]

I guess i will get a soulstone and prepare to start reworking my template.

That's why I have 2 crafters.


Not to mention the 17 soustones and 10 fragments for backups.

 

[Redxpanda]

I been having a hard time squeezing everything in. I had to sacrifice legendary to be a pure mule. Plus Bowcraft never really fit into my archery template but i really had nowhere else to put it. I have some room since i soulstoned the music skills so perhaps there is still hope.

 

[Oriana]

I have 2 mules, with the various skills spread across each, I use soulstone with armslore to pass back and forth, and even thats difficult. Now with Imbuing, time to rework some thoughts and I think I'll need a bigger shoehorn than that.

Mama:
Alchemy 100
Cooking 100
Fishing 100
Magery 100
Legendary tailor
Meditation but that's dropped when she gets Armlore and put back on for defense while fishing. 100

Vulcan:
Mining 105 with gloves
blacksmithing 100 with out any hammers
bowcraft 100
Carpentry 100
Tinkering 100
Lumberjacking 95 and uses a mels hatchet
Magery 40, 59 with a book and ring
Musicianship 45


He has no place to put Arms lore really but I'll soulstone off which ever skill not necessary at the time to get it in their. But again it's a pain.

They both have lrc suits that aren't the best, not that it helps poor Vulcan much with low magery.

I'd move off the lj to Mama to get Tailoring on Vulcan but then no room for the extra 20, and makes it even harder to get armslore as well. Anyway just wanted to share my 2 mules to give an idea of how cramped they really are.

And I'm supposed to put Imbuing where exactly?

Oriana

 

[Jeremy]

And I'm supposed to put Imbuing where exactly?

On your Gargoyle, of course!

 

[Oriana]

LOL Trouble is, silly me bought the 7th character slot that was supposed to be for SA originally. So can I have another slot? please lol Or make soulstones transferable between accts, so I can move my mules to a less crowd acct? Please )

Oriana

 

[Connor_Graham]

I have 2 mules, with the various skills spread across each, I use soulstone with armslore to pass back and forth, and even thats difficult. Now with Imbuing, time to rework some thoughts and I think I'll need a bigger shoehorn than that.

Mama:
Alchemy 100
Cooking 100
Fishing 100
Magery 100
Legendary tailor
Meditation but that's dropped when she gets Armlore and put back on for defense while fishing. 100

Vulcan:
Mining 105 with gloves
blacksmithing 100 with out any hammers
bowcraft 100
Carpentry 100
Tinkering 100
Lumberjacking 95 and uses a mels hatchet
Magery 40, 59 with a book and ring
Musicianship 45


He has no place to put Arms lore really but I'll soulstone off which ever skill not necessary at the time to get it in their. But again it's a pain.

They both have lrc suits that aren't the best, not that it helps poor Vulcan much with low magery.

I'd move off the lj to Mama to get Tailoring on Vulcan but then no room for the extra 20, and makes it even harder to get armslore as well. Anyway just wanted to share my 2 mules to give an idea of how cramped they really are.

And I'm supposed to put Imbuing where exactly?

Oriana

With your templates, you'll need some soulstones. I don't have Cooking or Fishing my crafters, so the only skill I need to swap between them is Arms Lore. That gives me the freedom to have Med and Eval (80 of it anyway) on my Smith that is also a Miner, so that he can kill the ore eles, and protect himself in Fel if needed (although after 4 yrs of mining in Fel, I have yet to see a PK).

Yep. Better use the next vet reward on a soulstone.

 

[Loqucious]

So.

In addition to Smithing, Tailoring, Carpentry, Tinkering, armslore, mining, lumberjacking, bowcraft crafters will need imbuing too.

Anyone got a handy shoehorn for my crafters' templates? I hate juggling skills with soulstones, and that's not what they were meant for anyway.

Yep, I have two chars dedicated to crafting and 13 soulstones to handle the many skills I have to bounce back and forth.

 

[DevilsOwn]

*waves to Leurocian*

wow, that felt good

*waves also to Jeremy, who's been among the missing of late*