I think that in the asking of this question you understood what difficultly it would be to answer. Any course taken sets up arbitrary restrictions that may very well impact people who you would not feel were abusing the system, such as players with jobs that take them off grid for a month or two; I know we have had these players and they have contacted me when they were taking a long leave of absence.Treysta wrote:Can you define "accounts which are used clearly to just hold houses for another player"? Does the account owner have to play once a month? Once a week? Daily? Do they have to use the houses on their account?
I don't feel it's justified to tell them to redeed their house and store all the contents etc etc... I think it is reasonable to allow these otherwise active players to have their houses refreshed by a friend in their absence.
However there are certainly people who do make an investment in real estate which rises to the level of abuse. Wherever we set that level is at least somewhat arbitrary and ripe for argument. Unless we clearly post some sort of clear guideline, players who are informed that what they are doing looks abusive will certainly protest with the unfairness of it all. If the level is set too low they might be right; and if it is set to high, will have no effect.
The discussion of housing and the unfairness of it all has been a topic on UOSA for half a decade. We will not likely publish specific rules on what constitutes poor form in house holding; but a general moral rule of "if you know you're doing something wrong, then you are doing something wrong" is worth citing here.
We will continue to monitor for accounting abuse. If your houses are not on your three allowed accounts, it's fair to warn that you are at risk of losing them.