Yay! I'm out of the dungeon!

[Petra Fyde]

I don't have any mules, I have crafters. Two on Europa and two on Siege.

While it's possible to get enough music on an elf with items, I know of no way to get enough magery to make a pentagram with them. I guess I'll just have to work out which skills to dump, because on Siege at least, there's no way I can get another character. It isn't a question of getting 7th character slot on there, it's affording another monthly subscription, and that's just not an option.

On all other shards there is the opportunity to expand to 6 and now 7 characters. Siege still only has one. Two would be nice, but not everyone would agree with me on that.

 

[Jeremy]

Siege is, as always, an interesting case. The character limit was always intended to make people make hard choices about what kind of characters they wanted - the choices have simply gotten more complex over the years.

I've got three crafters myself (two for the weapons-n-armor type skills, and then a fisher-scribe-mage) and it's going to be interesting figuring out how to do it. I probably have more room on my paladin than on any of my crafters.

Hmm, that'd be an odd RP concept...

 

[Beefybone]

So Imbuing = WoW enchanting. Creative.

Now that we have that out of the way, can you give us 5000 character slots? So that next time an expansion or something comes out, people can cry how they play all 5000 of their characters and scream for 5001 slots?

 

[Maplestone]

Should imbuing let you know your probability of success before attempting? (that is to ask, should the interface behave like crafting or like enhancing? - assuming this hasn't already been decided)

How will imbuing powerscrolls be obtained?

Will there be any racial influences on imbuing?

Will there be a recipe component to imbuing? (will you automatically be able to imbue all available properties or need to learn each one separately?)

Alternatively, will there be skill interactions on imbuing?

Will imbuing influence material enhancement? (or will the rules for enhancing be changed to be absorbed into imbuing?)

edit: oops, there was supposed be a "welcome back Leurocian!" in there somewhere

 

[MalagAste]

Leurocian,

I'm glad they let you out finally, you've been missed.

Nice to hear about your daughter.... I became a Grandma for the first time and my lovely Granddaughter is now a month old!... My how time flies.

I would like you to concider and look into that idea about using the trade window to do enhancements/imbuing and repair. If that is not possible could you make a special type of box or chest at certain areas like say Brit Smithy and maybe Luna or one in the new SA that would work somewhat like the Vendor contract only this would be a repair/service contract where you would put your item to be enhanced/imbued or repaired and then you would get a target cursor to target the crafter of your choice and that crafter would "agree" to do the enhancement/imbuing and/or repair and a price would be settled on and this way both the crafter and the owner could "see" the item in the box but ONLY the owner could remove the item from the box... this way if it breaks both folk get the message? Do you suppose that would be possible???? I think it would work... and I think it would bring folk back to communities... you might actually do away with repair contracts if you could do that and then you could actually have crafter plying their trade once more around the "anvil" so to speak at the town shops.

 

[Lunaticus]

Okay, so dumb question; if imbuing is not to take the place of item identification (which is fine with me), is there chance at all, even a tiny one, that item ID will once again become useful???

 

[MYUO]

Leurocian, welcome back. Looking forward to your intensive interaction with players that we have enjoyed.

A UO designer with passion - priceless.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

The days of the pure crafter mule are probably numbered.

Second best UO news I've heard today

 

[Nematode]

And I'm supposed to put Imbuing where exactly?

On your Gargoyle, of course!

Aha! So this is how they are gonna make people BUY the SA expansion... So I suppose the days of artifacts are over once embuing is introduced? And Id tried for SOOO VERY LOOOONG to get my hands on an orny...

Oh! And welcome back. Active devs in forum does alot to boost the moral of the community.

 

[Evilminion]

Welcome back, Leurocian! Hope you've managed to get some sleep since the arrival of the little one.

 

[Sindris]

Any clues as to what the next veteran rewards will be? Both of my accounts are 11 years old now (and yes, I am the original owner of both) and I am always excited to see what stuff you guys can come up with. I never really saw any threads asking for ideas this time around, probably for the best.

One little idea though... Phantom steed- Can only be mounted while a ghost. Just a thought...

 

[Basara]

I don't have any mules, I have crafters. Two on Europa and two on Siege.

While it's possible to get enough music on an elf with items, I know of no way to get enough magery to make a pentagram with them.

Petra, here's how to do it, even on Siege.
1. Get a soulstone (you'll only need one)
2. Move a skill you aren't immediately using onto it.
3. Go train up magery (trying to remember - can you buy skills to 30 on SP, or not?). Even without buying, and with RoT, shouldn't take too long to get to 25 skill.
4. Equip a Tome of lost knowledge (+15 skill), a +15 magery bracelet, +15 Magery Ring, and the Alchemy talisman (if your crafter is an alchemist, you'd want one of these anyway). That will give you +50. Added to the 25 skill, that's 75. Alternatively, use a crafted spellbook with +magery instead of the tome, and a little more magery trained up to compensate (can also be done to replace the alchemy tali). Of course, on SP, if you actually have a Crystalline ring, it would work too (and probably is safest kept at home to just craft with).

5. after you craft however many pentagrams you want, turn magery down and re-absorb your skill from the soulstone.

 

[Pickaxe Pete]

So Imbuing = WoW enchanting. Creative.

Mythic has dibs on this idea, since DAoC (Mythic's original MMORPG) was out well before WoW and had the spellcrafting skill which is very similar.

Like I always say, Blizzard is the thief, not the other way around.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Mythic has dibs on this idea, since DAoC (Mythic's original MMORPG) was out well before WoW and had the spellcrafting skill which is very similar.

Like I always say, Blizzard is the thief, not the other way around.

Not to mention that I remember people having a similar idea for UO long before WoW was so much as a serious proposal.

And of course.....Fantasy is a very, very old genre. Why people expect originality from it is completely beyond me. Fantasy is about style and content, not originality.

Not a damn thing in Dragonlance was original. If you tell me that the Lance itself was original, then I tell you that there's precious little difference between a magic lance and a magic sword (Excalibur anyone?) being at the center of the plot. And dragons? Hell, dragons have been around for a long, long time. Elves? Stolen from Tolkein, who stole it from mythology before him. OK, so Dragonlance elves are shorter and have different subgroup names than Tolkein elves. Oooh. And I'm sure UO's skill will work different from WoW's comparable skill.

Tolkein. Original? Nope, the Ring of Invisibility was an ancient idea. The breaking of the fellowship? Nope, see Malory for that. Orcs? Nope. Hobbits? Well, he invented the name, the look, the customs, etc. But the idea of magical, humanoid little people, in one form or another, is very, very old.

What made Tolkein, Dragonlance, Malory, all of them unique was not originality in terms of plot, background, or trimmings. It was....Something else. It could take volumes to explain what these all had that other, similar works didn't.

I often wonder if the originality crowd would have been satisfied if UO's elves had been exactly the same but had simply been called something else. Woozies perhaps? No, that's too close to wookies.

-Galen's player

 

[hawkeye_pike]

First off, it is GOOD to finally see Leurocian back on the boards again!!!
Second, I am looking very much forward to the upcoming changes!

What annoys me a bit, are people who are already starting to complain (without knowing the facts) about the lack of character slots and the current skill cap.

I noticed that (compared to UO as it was 10 years ago) people have become loners who want to be able to do anything by themselves. I ask them: What are communities for? In a good organized community you have crafters who will craft you any items for free, if you give them the ressources. You do not NEED every crafting skill on yourself.
So, instead of whining, how about joining one of the communities actively and contributing something by yourself? UO is a community game, not a solo-player game!

 

[Pickaxe Pete]

I noticed that (compared to UO as it was 10 years ago) people have become loners who want to be able to do anything by themselves. I ask them: What are communities for? In a good organized community you have crafters who will craft you any items for free, if you give them the resources. You do not NEED every crafting skill on yourself.
So, instead of whining, how about joining one of the communities actively and contributing something by yourself? UO is a community game, not a solo-player game!

Well said. That point has been on my mind as well.

 

[Nexus]

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

To be honest I'd be against this...There needs to be items that can't be repaired with deeds (artifacts ect.) so that player to player interaction is needed. Yes some people will be taken advantage of but on the same note those people will be quickly filtered out and noticed as being untrustworthy.

 

[Beefybone]

Nobody is HANDING OVER their arties to someone to fix. It's just not going to happen. The GM pages for stolen aritfacts would be epic. It's interaction via trade window repairs, or the lame repair deeds. That's it.

 

[archite666]

Mythic has dibs on this idea, since DAoC (Mythic's original MMORPG) was out well before WoW and had the spellcrafting skill which is very similar.

Like I always say, Blizzard is the thief, not the other way around.

yeah I mean the idea of breaking down magical items to create new ones has been around since, oh I dont know....NES?

And if you get REAL technical you could do it in AD&D, which turned 30 recently so...The idea certainly is public domain and not taken from anywhere.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Here's a question I don't think anyone has asked yet.

New expansion, new item still, new item system (kinda).

So......Powder of Fortification? Several new items within the last several years have been non-PoF-able. Jeremy stated that, contrary to my speculation, this was not laying the groundwork being laid for removing the Powder.

But....Was it laying the groundwork for, say, imbued items not being PoF-able? Or gargoyle items being non-PoF-able?

Or has perhaps thinking changed, and now Jeremy's statement is out-of-date completely?

For my part.....Despite all this talk of crafting being "dead" i have spent multi-millions the last few weeks on crafted armor, attempting to improve Galen's suit.

-Galen's player

 

[Gwendar-SP]

So good to see folks posting again.

 

[Lord Kynd]

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.

speaking of... can we get soulstone's, not fragments. again 'free' please.
i'm not talking thru the ea store or vet rewards.

 

[Lord Kynd]

Nobody is HANDING OVER their arties to someone to fix. It's just not going to happen. The GM pages for stolen aritfacts would be epic. It's interaction via trade window repairs, or the lame repair deeds. That's it.

i agree, back in the day i had so much junk stolen by these type of people who say they will repair and when mod's came then also and take your item and disapear.

or course paging a GM is worthless in such a matter as it is strickly against posicly to replace a item.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I'm taking an educated guess here and saying that every crafter will need it, like armslore. For example you won't be able to imbue a weapon unless you're also a smith and you won't be able to imbue leather armour unless you're also a tailor?
Have to have skills for a smith in that case would be: Smithing, mining, armslore & imbuing.

 

[phantus]

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

To be honest I'd be against this...There needs to be items that can't be repaired with deeds (artifacts ect.) so that player to player interaction is needed. Yes some people will be taken advantage of but on the same note those people will be quickly filtered out and noticed as being untrustworthy.

I honestly don't understand your comment. So rather than taking a perfectly good mechanism to prevent people from being scammed and promoting interaction(because of the 0 chance of getting ripped off or scammed) you would prefer we don't use it and allow people to keep their fears of giving their good to public crafters? I don't give my good to crafter I don't know for this very reason. There was a time when you could go to the smithy and take a risk but at that time the cost of a suit was 3k. Amazing You want to promote interaction how?

You will need a special object called a soul forge (more on this later)

Since we are on the subject of player interaction... I hope this soul forge is not something that we have access to in player homes. If instead, it was only available in certain cities it would be a great mechanism to bring players together like the days of the brit forge. This combine with the ability to item mods in a trade window would really make those community badges everyone claims to tote around very shiney.

 

[phantus]

Mythic has dibs on this idea, since DAoC (Mythic's original MMORPG) was out well before WoW and had the spellcrafting skill which is very similar.

Like I always say, Blizzard is the thief, not the other way around.

yeah I mean the idea of breaking down magical items to create new ones has been around since, oh I dont know....NES?

And if you get REAL technical you could do it in AD&D, which turned 30 recently so...The idea certainly is public domain and not taken from anywhere.

Tolkien invented D&D when he was in the womb. Yea...it was a rip off. That is why everything is a WoW clone. Never mind bard's tale, wizard's crown........

 

[Coppelia]

I just hope you won't have to kill God and his family 237 times to get the ressources and craft 7895 sextants to get the recipes, like what ML was all about.

 

[PixelPusher]

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

I hope it has a cap of GM instead of another Legendary...

 

[phantus]

I hope it has a cap of GM instead of another Legendary...

Me too

 

[Flora Green]

It's not easy playing uo holding her.

Isn't that the truth!! Mine (18 months) is fascinated with feath's cat avatar.

 

[Flora Green]

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

Since you are adding imbuing, maybe later on you'll add those embroidery kits mentioned by Lady Rachel. You know, embroidery as a tailoring extension so we can finally make rugs and such? Just sayin'.

It's good to see you again, Leorocian. Glad your daughter is doing well.

 

[Eslake]

...

The days of the pure crafter mule are probably numbered.

Second best UO news I've heard today

I am firmly of the oposite view!
The FIRST character I made back in '98 was a miner who became my smith and tinker, and added tailoring to repair peoples leather armors, and so on. He became a pure crafter as his ROLE in this ROLE PLAYING game.

I am sick to death of everything being pushed toward combat. If I just wanted to hack things up every time I logged on I would play one of the thousands of games out there that are designed specifically for that.
For that matter, I wouldn't need to play online, since Single-Player games are generally better suited for hack'n'slash.

 

[Zym Dragon]

...

The days of the pure crafter mule are probably numbered.

Second best UO news I've heard today

I am firmly of the oposite view!
The FIRST character I made back in '98 was a miner who became my smith and tinker, and added tailoring to repair peoples leather armors, and so on. He became a pure crafter as his ROLE in this ROLE PLAYING game.

I am sick to death of everything being pushed toward combat. If I just wanted to hack things up every time I logged on I would play one of the thousands of games out there that are designed specifically for that.
For that matter, I wouldn't need to play online, since Single-Player games are generally better suited for hack'n'slash.

I don't think this implies that you have to have combat on your crafter. My read on it is that the days of a single character (uber mule) being able to craft everything is over. That, imho, is a good thing.

 

[FrejaSP]

Welcome back, dlad to see you again. I look forward to see what you have been working on

 

[FrejaSP]

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.

I would love to see crafters need to have some combat skills again but I would hate for crafter to have to kill upper spawn to get their resources.

Some middle ground would be good, special if it make crafters traveling the overland alot more. The harder dungeons spawn should be for the hardcore PvM players, not forced on crafters.

 

[Beefybone]

So......Powder of Fortification? Several new items within the last several years have been non-PoF-able. Jeremy stated that, contrary to my speculation, this was not laying the groundwork being laid for removing the Powder.

But....Was it laying the groundwork for, say, imbued items not being PoF-able? Or gargoyle items being non-PoF-able?

I remember that exchange, and no offense, but it was painfully obvious that Jeremy didn't know WTF she was talking about.

Oh, the virtue armor drops can't be powdered because you want them to wear out and eventually be replaced, you say. Hmm. Really. So why does the complete set get a bonus of Self Repair 10?

And the items don't need to be good, because they're for newbies? Great. So why is the drop rate crushingly low, but higher in Felucca of all places?

Clownshoes.

 

[FrejaSP]

And I'm supposed to put Imbuing where exactly?

On your Gargoyle, of course!

And where I'm supposed to put my Gargoyle on Siege with only one char slot?.

We will again lose players who go to normal shards to try a new template and never comes back to Siege.

Please please, one more char slot on Siege.

 

[Nosuperiors_Damnfewequals]

And I'm supposed to put Imbuing where exactly?

On your Gargoyle, of course!

At first read, this brought a chuckle!
But after the initial humor, you have to stop and think: This is what got us in the mess we have today. A few thoughts...

Is this an unconscious slip of the tongue, hinting that gargoyles will have a higher skill cap? A slip hinting that gargoyles will be the only ones imbueing?
Is anyone gonna be able to imbue? Is everyone getting a cap increase?

I like the ability to make add-ons. So my crafter is:

Arms Lore (obvious reason)
Smithing
Mining (goes with smithing, almost mandatory)
Tailoring
Tinkering (to make the shovels and picks and sewing kits on the go, so ya
don't have to carry dozens around)
Carpentry(if ya want to make add-ons, this has to be on the main crafter, with tailoring and smithing]
Magery (travel, heal, cure, and to make house addons with other skills)

It's bad enough I had to separate the Lumberjack from him to put the arms lore on him. Now, what do i pull to put Imbue on here? I guess tinkering, since its the only one that can stand alone and is not needed for the carp skill to make addons.
If I pull tailoring to another char, then I get to train arms lore up yet again for the new tailor. *shrugs*
I refuse, I abso friggin lutely refuse, to buy/claim soulstones, and juggle skills and templates every day/week/whatever. It ain't happening.
So, Devs, think on this, work it out for the benefit of the players and community, not just because some other game has it, or its easy to do, or whatever.


The other thought, for everyone to keep in mind (not a flame or troll here, just facts) before yall start tearing templates down and stressing, remember SA has just been announced, and they dont even know what's going in it yet.
It's next years expansion. Also, remember we heard that over a year ago too So don't start destroying precious chars and liked chars getting ready for something "on the radar" until that radar blip gets a whole lot closer!

*waves*

 

[Zym Dragon]

At first read, this brought a chuckle!
But after the initial humor, you have to stop and think: This is what got us in the mess we have today. A few thoughts...

Is this an unconscious slip of the tongue, hinting that gargoyles will have a higher skill cap? A slip hinting that gargoyles will be the only ones imbueing?
Is anyone gonna be able to imbue? Is everyone getting a cap increase?

I like the ability to make add-ons. So my crafter is:

Arms Lore (obvious reason)
Smithing
Mining (goes with smithing, almost mandatory)
Tailoring
Tinkering (to make the shovels and picks and sewing kits on the go, so ya
don't have to carry dozens around)
Carpentry(if ya want to make add-ons, this has to be on the main crafter, with tailoring and smithing]
Magery (travel, heal, cure, and to make house addons with other skills)

It's bad enough I had to separate the Lumberjack from him to put the arms lore on him. Now, what do i pull to put Imbue on here? I guess tinkering, since its the only one that can stand alone and is not needed for the carp skill to make addons.
If I pull tailoring to another char, then I get to train arms lore up yet again for the new tailor. *shrugs*
I refuse, I abso friggin lutely refuse, to buy/claim soulstones, and juggle skills and templates every day/week/whatever. It ain't happening.
So, Devs, think on this, work it out for the benefit of the players and community, not just because some other game has it, or its easy to do, or whatever.


The other thought, for everyone to keep in mind (not a flame or troll here, just facts) before yall start tearing templates down and stressing, remember SA has just been announced, and they dont even know what's going in it yet.
It's next years expansion. Also, remember we heard that over a year ago too So don't start destroying precious chars and liked chars getting ready for something "on the radar" until that radar blip gets a whole lot closer!

*waves*

I think you are reading way too much into the gargoyle statement. To me it simply means that since most people will start new chars to try our gargoyles, you can learn Imbuing on that char.

 

[Nosuperiors_Damnfewequals]

I think you are reading way too much into the gargoyle statement. To me it simply means that since most people will start new chars to try our gargoyles, you can learn Imbuing on that char.

I hope I am. Especially since I have no intention of deleting one of my characters to make a Gargoyle. I can polymorph into one, and then even I can fly

 

[Mayadevi]

YAY ! So Glad to see you out of the dungeon !

Hope you are getting a bit more sleep now and the family is doing well.

Looking forward to your questions, they always make me think over the things i love about the game.

Mayadevi

 

[Sarphus]

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.

Awesome!

 

[FireKitten]

*wishes for a jewelry box for all the jewels similar to bod books*

 

[dukarlo]

Hey Leurocian, is speedhacking going to be adressed any time soon? The only reason i ask in this thread is because it has not been addressed anywhere else for a couple years now despite numerous complaints.

 

[Duke X. Winter]

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

Run man! RUN! When they see you made it out they're going to come get you! You can stay at once of my houses if you like. It doesn't matter really, just RUN MAN!