Thanks for the update Kit....sounds like we may like KR when it comes out (speaking for me and kellen) *grins*

Wow... thanks for the update Kit!

Hey all Larisa from over at Stratics here..I was also at the meeting and posted my notes on stratics..will add here as well...great reporting! And I had NO idea Queen Mum was there! *pouts*

Okay guys and gals....I am finally home.

First off, let me say that I had a GREAT time. I was nice to see everyone there even though I didn't know ANYONE but Lady Rachel from Atlantic.

The food was FABULOUS....cheeseburgers, fried chicken, nachos with salsa and cheese sauce, nice veggie platter and all you could drink...I am STUFFED!

Before you all get TOO excited, I do NOT have a digital or video camera so I will be unable to post any pictures...but I can tell you that the pictures we've seen so far do not even come close to giving the game justice. We did make a strong voice about an offical video release and they said "Yeah we should do that." DUH!

The first thing that was mentioned was the dress/undress macro they have added to the game...Ohhh's and Ahhh's abounded as they went into further detail about the in-game macro system. As far as I am concerned, UO Assist will no longer be needed...you can set macro's in the game with just as much ease as you can with UOA, it's AMAZING! you can also chose your own icons for the macro's you create so you know which is which.

Devil'sOwn...they showed the game NOT in full-screen. For those of you who played 3D and remember the expandable containers? You can now do that with the game window itself, stretching it as far as you like....and the hotkey bars? Not only can you create new ones, but you can change the view so they can go from left to right across the bottom of your screen OR they can go from top to bottom....that was pretty cool to see. The black area is still there so those who like to have the paperdoll and backpack open onscreen can still do that.

The in-game map.....it took my breath away....UOAM? HISTORY! Let me tell you...not only is the little round in-game map zoomable? BUT it will show waypoints, party members, CORPSES! Whatever you want it to show, it will show...BUT WAIT I"m not done....you can expand it FULL SCREEN so it looks just like a cloth map! FULL SCREEN! AND you can see everything on that one too..party members, towns, waypoints.....its' amazing. UOAM will no longer be needed.

Treasure Hunters were touched on briefly during the map presentation and a few people mentioned BOD-type books for treasure maps, which Jeremey hurridly wrote down in her little notebook, everyone claiming that was a GREAT idea.

The intricacy of the New Player Experiance is outstanding. If you go into your skills menu, there is a little question mark there, when clicked on it will tell you all about that skill, what you need to work that skill and how to work it. Not only that, but when you start out as a new player, you start in Old Haven and you get a guide...Gwen the guide who will teach you the basics of the game..how to open things like backpacks and boxes, how to loot, how to pick things up, how to equip armor and weapons, how to fight, how to cast spells...it even has you die and look for a healer to get rezzed so noone thinks they have to delete a char and start over when they die (*wink wink nudge nudge*)

The mention of Arms Lore complimenting Blacksmithy and Tailoring was a huge success, and we were asked if other skills could be paired like that..such as herding and taming...not making herding NECESSARY for a tamer, but giving a tamer benefits that you would normally not have if you did not have herding. This went over well, which brought a second question...if you are going to make the "useless" skills viable again, are you going to give us more skill points? The answer to that was a resounding NO....meaning that you have to take what skill points you have and work them the best that you can....this brought a 50/50 reaction from the crowd...some were very happy with this as more skill points would make the gimp templates even EASIER to make (IE Bushido necro archer tamers and the like) and some were not so happy because they just didn't have enough charactors to work all of those skills. Jeremey put it well when she said that a charactor is something you design, it's unique and it should be hard to work the right skills into a template to make it viable, not overpowering, but usable.

A few graphical updates-
Heartwood looks really nice, it actually looks like the inside of a tree, and when you walk near the edge, it gives the effect of clouds moving so you feel like you're higher up, same in Malas near the star void.

Lava serpents are cool, little slithering flames, very neat.

Snow Twinkles

Corpsers look mean now! with writhing leaves and mouths full of fierce teeth!

The stance in the paperdoll that we've seen is normal, out of war-mode. Females have the same stance. In studded armor you really can't tell it's a female, but in a dress or other feminine attire you can defenatly tell the differance...the breasts are very clear *smirks*

The new faces are interesting...but as of right now only new charactors can make that choice, you cannot change the face of an existing character.

Backpacks WILL have three different views as has been stated before. I DID ask Leurocian after the meeting about snooping and stealing and how the backpack views would affect that, and he said that it was an interesting question and he'd have to look at it further.

The auto-loot thing is buggy, and as of right now only auto-loots your own corpse but they will be looking into making it work with monster corpses and such.

We didn't get to see much of the new taming tools, but from what I understood, we will now be able to control all of our pets out of one context menu? I am not really clear on that.

The question came up about how they wanted to make the things that UOA does accessable in game...and for the most part UOA won't be necessary BUT someone mentioned the tithing, regs, arrows, bandaids....those things that you can count and see on your stat bar....and they will be looking into that.

Crafting changes will be coming with SA, they are working KR and SA kind of together and want to make sure that KR and SA work smoothly together so we probably won't see any real crafting changes until SA.

The overhead text will still be there, along with the new chat system, with different channels you can create for friends, guilds and so on. The chat system is still buggy so they didn't want to show us too much of that tonight. Mention of implementing a voice chat program so that Ventrilo or TeamSpeak wouldn't be necessary was met with raise eyebrows and Jeremey added that to her notes of things to look into.

Factions....nothing with KR, probably nothing or very little with SA but they ARE going to do something with factions..very cool stuff...

They know the house placement tool "blows" (Exact wording) and are looking into it.

New Housing is Possible.....(said with a twinkle in the eye so I"m betting that we'll see some new housing with SA)

Also with SA comes
Gargoyles that can work stone and manipulate energy (New Crafting)
New Pets
New Magic
New Skills
New Monsters
New Housing Sets
New Epic Quests

Okay I think that's it...*collapses*

Ooh thanks Maharia/Larisa

You are very welcome! I had a blast but omg am I tired..that traffic was horrid!

Awesome! Thanks for the info Maharia

Oy yes the traffic was awful! I'm still trying to get rid of the pounding headache associated with even my mile and a half jaunt on the Dan Ryan...

Oh kit I hear you...and I live in the suburbs! AN HOUR of that...BOTH WAYS! OY VAY!

Yup I'm in the southwest burbs. It was painful just getting to 55!

Aurora here..and oh my! Was worth it but I am EXHAUSTED!

traffic....TRAFFIC?!?!?!?!?!.....did QM make it back to her hotel??

Awesome report Larisa, thanks very much for sharing it here with us.