Questions and Answers from the 24/7 Live Cam

Hi,
since I can't make transcripts of live chats (especially when I'm not here =p ), it would be nice if everyone, who answered a question on the chat and thinks it was properly answered by a developer on the live cam, could write question and answer down here. So the devs don't have to answer the same questions over and over again.

Cheers,
Andreas

P.S. Disclaimer: written Q&A here may differ from what was said live; so please don't take it for canon.

 

Chris answered 2 of my questions. Gonna paraphrase a bit because I cannot remember word for word.

Question: Regarding travelling seamlessly from tile to tile in local map without toggling the world map.

Ans: Not entirely possible but there will be instances where this can happen. Chris gave an example using sewers where player can go from one end to another end and climb up into another area.

Question: Will there be global chat (shout)

Ans: No global shouts but there will be guild chats and the ability to chat with friends across the realm.

 

I hastily wrote down these while Chris and Richard were talking, so some of this may be incorrect:

- Backers at the Developer tier or higher will get to design one unique NPC each
- Ability to join the evil forces in the game - undecided or not commenting on it yet
- Jumping - yes
- Swimming - no, but perhaps wading through shallows
- One online account per character only, no shared set of skill points that have to be split between skills
- Modding - not officially supporting yet, but if done, it would be for single player side, not going to expose that content to multiplayer; may build a DLL that you can drop in and program against, so learn your C#
- Skill cap - none, you'll earn skills over time, and they will be putting in more skills in the game than players will ever have time to "max" out; they don't necessarily want you to be 100% in everything, but there's no cap so to speak
- Time will be handled differently between single player vs multiplayer; currently it's 30 mins real-time per 24-hour game time
- Nightime in-game will be strikingly different than daytime; forces of evil will be even more powerful at night
- Possible upcoming stretch goals: cover art, music (reminiscent of times past), new environments /islands, long distance travel
- Houses will decay, so the lot can be claimed by new players; however existing player will still be able to get back into the game and reclaim their deed/house and put it on a new empty lot, if any are still available; old player basically loses his location if its taken
- Global server time - yes for multiplay
- Music in-game - challenging to implement to keep players in sync with timing; they talked about perhaps putting a metronom in-game so players can key off that

Please add to this, or correct me if I'm wrong on any of the above.

 

Thanks Lord Kei =) :

One Q&A I remember is simple, because Chris wrote the answer in the chat ;-) :

Q: Will there be an option for full loot in PvP?

A (by Chris Spears): we will have an option where guilds can declare as full PK with looting and behave like UO

 

and Thanks to Smack =)

 

from Zingor on the Kickstarter Comments:

"On the livestream, Chris stated that in-game player written books are something that could be easily added if enough people wanted it to be in the game."

And the answer to a question from me (wording not 100% ):

Q: When can we expect the video interview between Richard Garriott and Spoony?

A: They are working on a press release, where things like the interviews get handled

 

He also liked the idea of towers for city lots. He did say they are very early in the process of what houses will look like

 

Some more info:

- There will be item decay to a certain extent, in part to help the economy and to make crafting more valuable; three types of items:
- There will be hard goods, such as furniture; things that won't wear out
- There will be soft goods, that wear out through use, such as swords and armor, crafting tools
- Weapons and armor will need to be maintained and will need repair, it will become less effective through use but they'll tune this through player feedback
- The more time items are repaired, the more costly it will become to repair
- Consumables is third type of item
- Crafting stations can be placed in your house, currently only allowing one but still ongoing discussion and can change, need to work through the design
- The name that you get to pick for your NPC (Developer tier and higher) will need to be reviewed / approved
- One of the concept sketches showed players wading through shallow waters to get to "Skull Island" which is a real place in the game
- Inventory -- planning on bags, will make things as painlessly as possible; goal is ease of use and ease of sorting
- Cloaks, trees, grass are all affected by the wind; trees can sway, cloth simulation, flags will move with the wind
- There will be plenty of easter eggs in the game, but will be very careful not to destroy the game for everybody
- Beach town or village -- will have announcement on that later
- Lots of concepts on houses; one has a tower; another has a windmill; haven't done all the models yet
- There will be quests or jobs that are night time only; some things you can only do at night
- Currently no plans for an underwater town, have plans for water but no swimming; would not have thought it would be critical to Ultima people, but they got a lot of feedback on it, so things can still change

...and I think that's about it!

 

Smack did they say if that housing decay is also for kickstarter houses or just those bought with in game gold?

 

Oops, sorry -- no house decay for kickstarters.