Housing overpopulation

[MatronDeWinter]

I think there is no problem at all with 1 person owning 15 houses, because not everyone is going to be doing that, I know I'm now, and there are very few people who have this vast real-estate market fantasy, so the impact would be slight.

I think the problem is with housing that is not used, even by active players. I know of MANY spots (really great ones included) that are just a total waste because the owner(s) have not played in close to a year. Friends are refreshing them in some cases, just incase they ever decide to play again, or co-owners are using the houses as their own in some form or another, pretty much side-stepping even the 15 house per IP rule. I think it was mentioned before about someone using "friends" accounts to hold personal houses, I think this touches along that same subject and is certainly something to consider.

[Caswallon]

I cant beleive people actually think we are going to get era accurate real estate inflation here .

Get real people, that happened because while the player base expanded 10 fold in 18 months from T2A to UO:R, the land mass stayed exactly the same size, if anything actual house suitable terrain decreased because of the new placement rules.

Average of 5000 people per shard vs average 300-400 unique IPs here. It aint gonna happen, not unless we have a rush of 1000+ people join.

I dont care either way, 3 houses would be more than enough for me, i would be happy with 2 per account but i dont really care if it stays 1 per charecter either. Basically, whatever.

[Hiram]

I think there is no problem at all with 1 person owning 15 houses, because not everyone is going to be doing that, I know I'm now, and there are very few people who have this vast real-estate market fantasy, so the impact would be slight.

I think the problem is with housing that is not used, even by active players. I know of MANY spots (really great ones included) that are just a total waste because the owner(s) have not played in close to a year. Friends are refreshing them in some cases, just incase they ever decide to play again, or co-owners are using the houses as their own in some form or another, pretty much side-stepping even the 15 house per IP rule. I think it was mentioned before about someone using "friends" accounts to hold personal houses, I think this touches along that same subject and is certainly something to consider.

Do you know (have documentation) if friends in T2A were able to refresh a house of someone who had an inactive (cancelled) account? I know currently the house goes into an unrefreshable state if the owner account is canceled. If this is the case, it is another way the shard being free is impacting era accuracy.

[MatronDeWinter]

I think there is no problem at all with 1 person owning 15 houses, because not everyone is going to be doing that, I know I'm now, and there are very few people who have this vast real-estate market fantasy, so the impact would be slight.

I think the problem is with housing that is not used, even by active players. I know of MANY spots (really great ones included) that are just a total waste because the owner(s) have not played in close to a year. Friends are refreshing them in some cases, just incase they ever decide to play again, or co-owners are using the houses as their own in some form or another, pretty much side-stepping even the 15 house per IP rule. I think it was mentioned before about someone using "friends" accounts to hold personal houses, I think this touches along that same subject and is certainly something to consider.

Do you know (have documentation) if friends in T2A were able to refresh a house of someone who had an inactive (cancelled) account? I know currently the house goes into an unrefreshable state if the owner account is canceled. If this is the case, it is another way the shard being free is impacting era accuracy.

Except accounts are never "canceled" here.

[Hiram]

I think there is no problem at all with 1 person owning 15 houses, because not everyone is going to be doing that, I know I'm now, and there are very few people who have this vast real-estate market fantasy, so the impact would be slight.

I think the problem is with housing that is not used, even by active players. I know of MANY spots (really great ones included) that are just a total waste because the owner(s) have not played in close to a year. Friends are refreshing them in some cases, just incase they ever decide to play again, or co-owners are using the houses as their own in some form or another, pretty much side-stepping even the 15 house per IP rule. I think it was mentioned before about someone using "friends" accounts to hold personal houses, I think this touches along that same subject and is certainly something to consider.

Do you know (have documentation) if friends in T2A were able to refresh a house of someone who had an inactive (cancelled) account? I know currently the house goes into an unrefreshable state if the owner account is canceled. If this is the case, it is another way the shard being free is impacting era accuracy.

Except accounts are never "canceled" here.

That's my point -- since no account inactivity or cancellation mechanism is in place on this server, a house could sit around for as long as it takes for every co-owner and every friend of a house to quit playing, which seems excessive. Generally, paying 10 dollars a month for a game you don't play will result in account cancellation.

EDIT: I think that accounts after a certain period of inactivity (no login for 30 days maybe?) should go into an inactive status where their houses go into the above mentioned unrefreshable status. If the player has not logged in by the 35th day, the house will have collapsed and all contents inside would be free for lootination. This process would leave all of the accounts characters and possessions in packs or banks in place should they ever log back in to play, but their housing footprint would no longer be around to affect us all

[Ronk]

I get his point. We will never truly be era accurate unless we all pay 10 bucks per account. Which, of course isn't gonna happen and isn't even legal. However, the cost of accounts and that sort of thing can/should be taken into account in regards to era accurate discussions.

In this case, it could be deemed era inaccurate to grant three accounts to everyone. It could be argued (though I dunno how it would be proved either way) that most people in T2A did not shell out 30 bucks a month for houses and accounts...some did, sure. By UO:R I know people had multiple accounts because people quit, gave their accounts away, and the nature of online games kinda changed.

Either way...from an era accurate standpoint im not sure the goal should be to limit the houses per character but look into the 'inactive account' setup. If the primary owner hasn't logged in for X weeks, flag their account as 'inactive' and stop allowing a refresh. The issue here is people will give their account away but stopping someone from having 4+ accounts is another issue.

[Biohazard]

I cant beleive people actually think we are going to get era accurate real estate inflation here .

Get real people, that happened because while the player base expanded 10 fold in 18 months from T2A to UO:R, the land mass stayed exactly the same size, if anything actual house suitable terrain decreased because of the new placement rules.

Average of 5000 people per shard vs average 300-400 unique IPs here. It aint gonna happen, not unless we have a rush of 1000+ people join.

I dont care either way, 3 houses would be more than enough for me, i would be happy with 2 per account but i dont really care if it stays 1 per charecter either. Basically, whatever.

I get your point but it seems that certain people who already know all these sweet locations have them on lockdown for personal gain. Bottom line is no one needs that many houses. I'm sure there are all kinds of reasons people don't need 15 houses. I also feel it doesn't really need explaining either, so I'm not going to.

[Caswallon]

Im actually on your side of the arguement Bio, i was refering to Dr Faustus claiming its accurate due to real estate inflation. I cant see a need for 5 houses let alone 15. But i also dont think its going to change because people are going to hide behind the "its era accurate" shield, and i dont think it becomes a major issue until[if] we run out of housing space, im looking for a site for a small town atm and have found 4 potential plots with more than 2 large spaces, so right now its not a major issue but it may become one in the future.

We all know, despite what some people here claim, not many people had 2nd accounts, the reason alot of people here had multiple accounts, or knew people that did, is because we are mainly serious/hardcore players both now & at the time, thats our demographic here imo, therefore it may seem like a large % of people had more than one account, but thats only looking at the small % of player base that played more than 2-3 hours a day, the hardcore players, who of course were likely to have multiple accounts, thus skewing people memorys.

People that are just refreshing houses really should either play here or do one however, give your stuff away and go enjoy playing whatever it is you play without hoarding here just incase, on the off chance you might come back one day, you know, maybe.[This happens on every new free shard, spend 2 weeks farming, get some prime housing then just refresh for 2 years without actually playing]

But as Hiram rightly points out, its because we are a free shard, unless houses are IP capped or accounts restricted, the only other way is non era accurate solutions, which i dont think Derrick would condone or impliment unless drastic measures were needed, as much as we would like it to happen.

[platypus]

Once you guys have played for a year +, you will realize why some people have more than 5 houses and actually use them all. I have and use 3 castles. I have placed and sold 3 other castles. Since you can only fit 400 stones/125 into a secure chest, this translates to about 40-50 weapons per chest. If you've done thousands of treasure maps, like me, you'll amass ridiculous amounts of vanq/power/invuln shit that you need almost 100 secures to store. However, most of my characters don't own a house.

I used to have small houses in lots of cool spots and found it not worth the effort of refreshing constantly just to try to sell the house for an inflated price in like a year. Therefore, I doubt alot of vet players even own more than 5 houses. If they do, its because most of them are small houses. I personally have seen hundreds of open house spots, even some next to guard lines. Housing will probably never be an issue here, since people quit the game or forget to refresh their houses all the time. The only property that will ever be sold for a markup will be keeps/castles, imo.

[Mikel123]

Once you guys have played for a year +, you will realize why some people have more than 5 houses and actually use them all. I have and use 3 castles. I have placed and sold 3 other castles. Since you can only fit 400 stones/125 into a secure chest, this translates to about 40-50 weapons per chest. If you've done thousands of treasure maps, like me, you'll amass ridiculous amounts of vanq/power/invuln shit that you need almost 100 secures to store.

Wow, you own 3 castles? That's kind of a bummer, actually. I've played this game on and off for probably 3 or 4 years total, and have never owned more than a tower. I can't imagine that I'd ever "need" to own anything more than one castle.

Do you really *NEED* to store 4,000 to 5,000 vanq/power/invuln weapons and armor?

[Caswallon]

Even if you lose a complete set of armour and a weapon once a day to damage, and once a day to death, thats still enough equipment to last a year. Have you considered using weight limit free locked down containers instead of secures? Put them in the ground floor SE or SW wings of the castle. Congrats, you are now 50% more efficent in terms of storage!

[Xukluk Tuguznal]

I get his point. We will never truly be era accurate unless we all pay 10 bucks per account. Which, of course isn't gonna happen and isn't even legal. However, the cost of accounts and that sort of thing can/should be taken into account in regards to era accurate discussions.

In this case, it could be deemed era inaccurate to grant three accounts to everyone. It could be argued (though I dunno how it would be proved either way) that most people in T2A did not shell out 30 bucks a month for houses and accounts...some did, sure. By UO:R I know people had multiple accounts because people quit, gave their accounts away, and the nature of online games kinda changed.

Either way...from an era accurate standpoint im not sure the goal should be to limit the houses per character but look into the 'inactive account' setup. If the primary owner hasn't logged in for X weeks, flag their account as 'inactive' and stop allowing a refresh. The issue here is people will give their account away but stopping someone from having 4+ accounts is another issue.

x months would work better. Business and Private matters alone can keep someone away for weeks.

[Hoots]

I said this in the suggestions forum as well.

Inactive status will not prevent people from hoarding land space.

If it is a 60 day window, people with towns being refreshed by friends will either log in once every 60 days (6 times a year...) or simply give their account info to a trusted active player to do it for them.

The only way to address this issue (IMHO) is to have some sort of monthly upkeep deposit in the house of natural, unpurchasable resources. (Inggots, boards, leather, cloth) The bigger the house, the more resources needed.

If you had to go out and farm resources or buy them from another player, it would actually make keeping house more than logging in once a week.

Of course, the is out of era and never implimented on OSI. But, IMHO, that is the only way to address land hoarding. (not that im saying it is that much of a problem)

But yeah, saying you need 3 castles to hoard thousands of items in secures only is a complete joke... OSI's intend on large housing was for guilds to share them... Not have every item you acquired over x years in a secure...

I think a small restriction of 2 houses per account (6 total) could be a step in the right direction... Dont know if you could code that by account though..

[tenduil]

I said this in the suggestions forum as well.
The only way to address this issue (IMHO) is to have some sort of monthly upkeep deposit in the house of natural, unpurchasable resources. (Inggots, boards, leather, cloth) The bigger the house, the more resources needed.

If you had to go out and farm resources or buy them from another player, it would actually make keeping house more than logging in once a week.

This is a neat idea but would require players to always have a resource character and spend large amounts of time collecting resources. This would change the game and the economy in the game. Again, its a really neat idea but not really feasible.

[Ronk]

I would reckon that OSI/EA never implemented resource upkeep because the resource they wanted players to spend for house upkeep was real money, going to them.

Thus we could be era accurate and say each house requires a donation each month Lol