Here's the burning questions of TLL!


1.(SpyderBite) With all the great games out there.. with 10x the player bases... why did you come back to UO?
Leurocian:
Three reasons. Darkscribe’s vision for Ultima Online, the creative and fun development team I get to work with everyday, and you, the Ultima Online community. While there are other great games out there, none of these games to date have matched the immersive virtual world of Ultima Online.
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2.(SpyderBite) Are you disappointed that the team completely let factions get covered in dust? What about PvP? Same question really.

Leurocian:
You know I’m not one to skip hardball questions, so I won’t skip this one. Honestly? Yes, I am a little disappointed. However, that doesn’t mean we won’t revamp factions or PvP in the future. We’ve had some pretty intense discussions and even arguments internally about what we should actually do to improve these systems. We acknowledge that Factions and PvP need a lot of love. I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to improve PvP game play for Ultima Online. No promises, of course.
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3. (Duke X. Winter) We all know that of all the donation NPCs that the fishing NPC is the MOST unbalanced of them all. Are there any plans in the future to add new items to the list of donations, such as pearls, nets, MIB's and SOS's?

Leurocian:
I would imagine that once we tackle revamping loot such as on mobs, treasure hunting, fishing, etc. is when we would look into this. I can’t say, however, when we will be doing that, but this is certainly something the team will make note of when we’re ready to tackle this.
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4. (Illandril) If you had an unlimited about of resources and could get the results of up to a years worth of effort in just one day... but only if you worked on only one of UO's features (or one new feature)... what would you change in or add to UO on that day?

Leurocian:
I would want to revamp the item property / loot system in UO. That would also allow for revamping crafting, which would affect PvP and PvM, and a whole slew of other subsystems.
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5. (Illandril) What is your favorite part of UO to work on and why? Least favorite and why?

Leurocian:
Most favorite is any task that involves scripting and programming such as monster AI, spell systems, and so on. I don’t really have a least favorite at the moment.
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6. (Illandril) Can you give Gildar/Illandril/Sahra/etc access to the early UO:KR betas?

Leurocian:
You’ll have to talk to Jeremy about that one. J
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7. (Illandril) Do you think that UO would benefit if it shifted to a trait system instead of a racial bonus system, sort of like how it benefits from skills instead of classes?

Leurocian:
It could. It’s not something the team (to my knowledge) has any plans to tackle right now. The team tries to be mindful and careful about the development we do for UO. We want our work and vision to be as Ultima like as possible. So if we were to tackle such a system change, we would want to keep that in mind when doing so.
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8.(Illandril) What is the most frustrating thing that has happened to you while playing UO?

Leurocian:
A long time ago, someone killed my mining character, stole my character’s house key, and my character was homeless for a while. Fortunately, the house thief was kind enough to return my character’s house key a few days later. However, at the time, that was very frustrating, but quite a learning experience.
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9. (Illandril) What is the longest stretch of time you have played UO for (with only minor bathroom or snack breaks)? What were you doing?

Leurocian:
When I was barding ophidians to get GM provocation. I think I played 14 hours that day because I was so close. I finally managed to achieve GM provocation, and back then, that was quite an accomplishment.
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10.(Flutter) Being a long time bard, what changes would you like to see to the bard skillset?

Leurocian:
I’m not sure I would want to change the skillset per se. However, one thing I would love to eventually see is the ability to customize the music a bard plays. Being a guitar player in real life, this interests me a great deal. Not sure if this will ever happen. However, I can dream. Can’t I?
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11. (Flutter) Another bard question, when can we hope to see a fix for the bug that makes pets and summons stop fighting a creature when a bard provokes something onto it?

Leurocian:
I’ll pass this on to our QA team and see if we already have this in our bug database. Thanks for bringing this up.
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12. (Flutter) Can we get a LostLands exclusive spoiler? (Can be anything! Scenario/KR/Expansion! Spill some beans!)

Leurocian:
I’m afraid I probably can’t offer any spoilers at the moment. That’s Darkscribe’s territory. J



Thanks for the interview!
Patrick "Leurocian" Malott
Senior Game Designer, Ultima Online
EA Mythic
www.uoherald.com