I am going to conduct an interview with Lady Sakkarah (Regine_EAMythic, UO Associate Game Designer). The interview will be done from the perspective of rares in Ultima Online. I will be asking questions supplied by you guys. Please only post questions that make sense and has a chance of being answered.
A brief history of Lady Sakkarah is in order (in context of events and rares):
- Ran QuestMasters guild on Atlantic shard which arranged some very great player managed events
- Was an event moderator of Baja shard during the last season arc
- Recently as part of the developer team of Ultima Online, she was responsible for cooking up the murder investigation plot
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The theme of the interview is positive outlook towards rares and events. Try to come up with questions that are respectful, answerable, and unambiguous. I will not pick any questions that are rude, already answered, or cannot be answered. Also, I don't think I will be asking anything related to duping as it - maaaaybee one question. PS, looking to get the questions by Tuesday 26th.
PS read all the questions already submitted or brought up so that you don't ask the same thing.
So far the questions I have are:
1) Players often get conflicting responses from the GM team. Is it possible to have Game Masters more trained in terms of Rares so that they are able to better answer questions like "Are neon tubs legitimate?" (can I get a better example than neon tub?) *asked by jasonleebeck*
2) Any chance of having EM program brought back? (even though I doubt that it is going to be answered in a direct manner) *asked by manticore, elbryan*
3) Quite a few people mentioned having new rares introduced via systems like obsidian statue quest or mini-events like Japanese slime event. One of the things that I have always wanted is an obsidian statue named after myself and so I quite often do the quest myself. Do you think it would be possible to have more mini-quests like this where you get an entire spectra of items in terms of rarity? *asked by chaosy, pickaxepete, feath*
4) Rare collecting has long been infested with duping. One of the primary reasons is that dupers/fencers exploit the fact that it is very hard to tell if an item has been duped. As such, it is always a primary concern for anyone interested in collecting. A lot has been said about it recently. Do you have anything extra to share with us at this point? (this will be the only duping question that I am asking) *asked by pretty much everyone*
5) Sometimes during patches, certain rare items are known to "break" - losing their tag and reverting to default name, or even functionality. In the past GM's used to be able to fix such bugs but it seems to be not the case anymore. I personally have always felt too guilty about trying to bring such a bug up to a developer level as it is not up there on the grand scheme of things. However, recently I have been thinking of starting a list in rare forums where we keep track of such bugs. Do you think this could prove to be an useful resource for that very rare occasion when a developer might be looking to fix something (very) minor? *asked by tomas*
6) Recently, EA/Mythic has introduced new drops in old dungeons and such which has been quite nice. However, most of these items have been fairly easy to get. Is it possible to also add artifact rarity new items as drops to old places like doom or anti-virtue dungeons? Well, of course it is possible but what are your thoughts on this matter? *asked by hon*
7) Will we ever see a major event that builds upon the concepts used during the well-received Ophidian invasion, specifically speaking the ability to really control the fate of their shards? In retrospect, this should have been really used during the Magincia invasion as then players would have truly been able to save the city (or not). Lot of players have often wondered about why this has not been done so as it was arguably the most successful invasion event in recent times. *asked by tomas*
8) Due to the many seer items still sitting in players bank boxes or hidden away in chests, will the team ever look into changing the properties of "newbied" items, so that they can be locked down, and will not decay while being locked down? *asked by halister*
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A brief history of Lady Sakkarah is in order (in context of events and rares):
- Ran QuestMasters guild on Atlantic shard which arranged some very great player managed events
- Was an event moderator of Baja shard during the last season arc
- Recently as part of the developer team of Ultima Online, she was responsible for cooking up the murder investigation plot
------
The theme of the interview is positive outlook towards rares and events. Try to come up with questions that are respectful, answerable, and unambiguous. I will not pick any questions that are rude, already answered, or cannot be answered. Also, I don't think I will be asking anything related to duping as it - maaaaybee one question. PS, looking to get the questions by Tuesday 26th.
PS read all the questions already submitted or brought up so that you don't ask the same thing.
So far the questions I have are:
1) Players often get conflicting responses from the GM team. Is it possible to have Game Masters more trained in terms of Rares so that they are able to better answer questions like "Are neon tubs legitimate?" (can I get a better example than neon tub?) *asked by jasonleebeck*
2) Any chance of having EM program brought back? (even though I doubt that it is going to be answered in a direct manner) *asked by manticore, elbryan*
3) Quite a few people mentioned having new rares introduced via systems like obsidian statue quest or mini-events like Japanese slime event. One of the things that I have always wanted is an obsidian statue named after myself and so I quite often do the quest myself. Do you think it would be possible to have more mini-quests like this where you get an entire spectra of items in terms of rarity? *asked by chaosy, pickaxepete, feath*
4) Rare collecting has long been infested with duping. One of the primary reasons is that dupers/fencers exploit the fact that it is very hard to tell if an item has been duped. As such, it is always a primary concern for anyone interested in collecting. A lot has been said about it recently. Do you have anything extra to share with us at this point? (this will be the only duping question that I am asking) *asked by pretty much everyone*
5) Sometimes during patches, certain rare items are known to "break" - losing their tag and reverting to default name, or even functionality. In the past GM's used to be able to fix such bugs but it seems to be not the case anymore. I personally have always felt too guilty about trying to bring such a bug up to a developer level as it is not up there on the grand scheme of things. However, recently I have been thinking of starting a list in rare forums where we keep track of such bugs. Do you think this could prove to be an useful resource for that very rare occasion when a developer might be looking to fix something (very) minor? *asked by tomas*
6) Recently, EA/Mythic has introduced new drops in old dungeons and such which has been quite nice. However, most of these items have been fairly easy to get. Is it possible to also add artifact rarity new items as drops to old places like doom or anti-virtue dungeons? Well, of course it is possible but what are your thoughts on this matter? *asked by hon*
7) Will we ever see a major event that builds upon the concepts used during the well-received Ophidian invasion, specifically speaking the ability to really control the fate of their shards? In retrospect, this should have been really used during the Magincia invasion as then players would have truly been able to save the city (or not). Lot of players have often wondered about why this has not been done so as it was arguably the most successful invasion event in recent times. *asked by tomas*
8) Due to the many seer items still sitting in players bank boxes or hidden away in chests, will the team ever look into changing the properties of "newbied" items, so that they can be locked down, and will not decay while being locked down? *asked by halister*
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