Five on Friday - September 1, 2006

1. Did the 30 day timer for house decay go into effect on August first or was it postponed for publishes and the current story arc?
Aaron "Darkscribe" Cohen, Producer: The 30 day timer has not gone into effect yet. Our goal is to put more housing slots into the hands of active players, and doing that effectively involves more than just the decay limit. We’re sorry for the delay. As soon as we have an update, we will announce on www.uo.com.

2. Will there be any released products in between 9th ann and UOKR?
Aaron "Darkscribe" Cohen, Producer: No. But plenty will happen between those two releases.

3. When can we expect Punkbuster?
Aaron "Darkscribe" Cohen, Producer: We are working hard to launch the public beta in September, taking care of some remaining polish issues. We don’t want to launch even the beta version until we feel it’s ready. As soon as we have a beta launch date, we will announce on www.uo.com.

4. Is there a chance of a Halloween shard again this year?
Draconi: Count Draconula: Vat a velcome question! Ve suppose it all depends on you... do you veally vish to be our victims for a fortnight vonce more?

5. Can you explain the recent leech changes?
John@EA "Wilki", Community Coordinator: The old method used your leech % as a chance for the effect to fire each time you swing. Each time the effect fired, you would get 40% of the post-resist damage inflicted back as mana, or 30% back as hit points.

The new method uses the leech % as the top end of a range. The amount of that 40% of mana (or 30% of life) that actually gets delivered is randomly determined -- from 0 to your leech %. This amount is added every time an attack hits.

The resulting effect is that the amount leeched over time will be less -- from a little bit less, for slower weapons, down to about half for fast ones. However, because it will deliver smaller amounts continuously, hopefully it will not feel like the ability has been nerfed dramatically.