FoF Nr. 007

PLEASE NOTE: The Five on Friday archives are not updated with each patch. Please take older documents with a grain of salt, as they may be inaccurate.

April 28, 2006

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.