Locked Down Containers:

[Blaise]

Wait, so if we don't cherry pick that last patch, does that mean we get UO:R houses because they were also implemented early with that patch level?

If that's the case, I'm on the 'full' use of that patch side of the fence

[Faust]

Wait, so if we don't cherry pick that last patch, does that mean we get UO:R houses because they were also implemented early with that patch level?

If that's the case, I'm on the 'full' use of that patch side of the fence

No, new style houses were not introduced until UOR and did not even show up in design view under the update site until March 30th. Phase 3 was even introduced before the new houses existed.

[Kaivan]

To clarify what I mean as a temporary addition, I'll refer everyone to this article regarding the new housing system, and the 3 phase system used to implement it. For phase 1, there was a mechanical change to all servers, such that trash barrels operated in a different way for two weeks. Had we chosen the patch just prior to the November 23 patch (which happens to be the CuB patch), then we would have the issue of replicating a set of mechanics intended as a temporary measure, and leaving it in permanently. In this way, many of the November 23 housing changes fall into the exact same category. Specifically, the relationship between the new lock down system and the old prevention of item decay in houses. This leaves us narrow choices regarding housing, and ideally we can achieve the best compromise between goals by including everything from the November patch except the housing changes. While this isn't perfectly accurate, it has the virtue of at least including an accurate long-term system to some period of time during T2A, whereas phase 2 does not, nor do our current mechanics.

[Faust]

Kind of sounds like you are implying that item decay was implemented during Phase II.

Link is broken by the way.

While this isn't perfectly accurate, it has the virtue of at least including an accurate long-term system to some period of time during T2A, whereas phase 2 does not, nor do our current mechanics.

Why do you try to make it sound like phase II is some sort of mutation with in the t2a era that was never meant to be? That sounds more like a personal decsion on your part. I dislike phase II as much as you do but don't allow that to interfere with my judgement of the shard's goal. The goal is mechanical era accuracy neither of which is being accomplished going in the current direction or the 'cherry pick' 23rd patch approach. Going with the entire November 23rd patch or vice versa without it would be more in line with the shard's goal of era accuracy than what you are proposing Kaivan. This one clause destroys any credibility of using a specific time for a cutoff date no matter how you look at it. We should just ditch the whole idea of using a cutoff date and write up something else using stipulations on the November 23rd patch despite the fact that would render the whole idea obsolete that we have been striving for in the past several years. This is one of those situations where you want your cake and eat it too.

Virtue and accuracy are completely different terms here.

No one single person holds the same virtues of what the t2a era was or should be like.

[the bazookas]

Link is broken by the way.

It worked for me; of course the "WayBackMachine" is really, really flaky.

Why do you try to make it sound like phase II is some sort of mutation with in the t2a era that was never meant to be? That sounds more like a personal decsion on your part. I dislike phase II as much as you do but don't allow that to interfere with my judgement of the shard's goal. The goal is mechanical era accuracy neither of which is being accomplished going in the current direction or the 'cherry pick' 23rd patch approach. Going with the entire November 23rd patch or vice versa without it would be more in line with the shard's goal of era accuracy than what you are proposing Kaivan. This one clause destroys any credibility of using a specific time for a cutoff date no matter how you look at it. We should just ditch the whole idea of using a cutoff date and write up something else using stipulations on the November 23rd patch despite the fact that would render the whole idea obsolete that we have been striving for in the past several years. This is one of those situations where you want your cake and eat it too.

This makes sense if the goal of the server is indeed to have a specific cut-off patch (e.g. Nov 23). According to the wiki (I don't know what the true "authority" is), however, there is not a cutoff patch, or even a specific cutoff date:

Era Accuracy is the ultimate goal of UOSA. Because T2A encompassed several patches and several eras within itself, a specific "target date" has been chosen for replication. The target date was decided to be November of 1999.

First, I want to point out that I don't know where the most official position of the era accuracy goal of the shard (is it this wiki post?). But for the sake of argument, I will assume it is this wiki post for now:
"Target date" implies a single date, but no single date is given, rather a date range "November 1999". If the "date range" is the true goal of accuracy, then cherry picking between the Pre-November 23 and Post-November 23 patch could technically be argued as legitimate (so long as it falls in one of those patches). Even taking this technicality a bit further just for kicks: Even if the "cutoff date" was November 23, unless the server was taken down before 12:00am November 23rd and brought up after 12:00pm after applying the patch (every server?), there was a pre-Nov. 23 patch time and a post-Nov.23 patch time within that single date.

I'm being a bit facetious here, but my point is that there is always necessarily some interpretation regarding the hard-line "accuracy" that is the goal of this shards.

I know what you are going to say in response to this (and it's certainly a very defensible position, and in fact I find your argument quite compelling): that the mixed mechanics we now have never specifically existed at any time in-era (although all the pieces of it did, except, for example, possibly Locked Down containers holding over 400 stones as Kaivan explained and anything else that is legitimately nowhere in the October OR November 1999 patches). That may be true, but again, is that what the "accuracy" goal of the shard really is, or is that your personal interpretation of what that goal really is?

Regardless, it's up to the staff to determine and execute their best interpretation of the shard's goal, and it sounds like Kaivan (at least) believes there is reason enough to accept the mixed mechanics between those two patches (and he has given his own reasons, which also are quite sensible ).

Doesn't mean you shouldn't try to make your point, though I'm just saying that after making our point of view / interpretation known, it's ultimately up to the staff to interpret what the era accuracy of the shard really means.

Oh and btw, I agree with Robbbb in that if ALL containers were 400 stones limit, that would be a huge bummer, and arguably not in line with a "long-term" intention across Phase I and II that was referenced by Kaivan .

...where you want your cake and eat it too

As a side note, this idiom always puzzled me; what other reason do you have for wanting your cake but to eat it? After looking into it, however, it appears that the origin of this idiom involved something reversed--more along the lines of "would you both eat your cake and have your cake?", implying that you cannot eat it and still have it. That word order makes far more sense. I know you were all dying to know that

[Kaivan]

I'm not sure why the link isn't directly working, but the archives redirect to the article (exact article I linked, ironically enough).

Regarding item decay in houses, I don't think I am implying that item decay began with phase 2 housing, and I expressly state the following about phase 2:

Specifically, the relationship between the new lock down system and the old prevention of item decay in houses.

Also, regarding the idea that it is my interpretation that phase 2 housing was a system that was never meant to be, I can assure you that isn't the case. If you can read the article in my last post, the developers themselves clearly state that houses would be modified to accommodate item decay within houses. Since phase 2 did not include item decay in houses, yet included the new housing rules designed to accommodate item decay (which makes sense from a development perspective), then it is quite clear that phase 2 was intended to be a temporary state of affairs as they transitioned to the new system.

[Telamon]

.

[Robbbb]

Oh and btw, I agree with Robbbb in that if ALL containers were 400 stones limit, that would be a huge bummer, and arguably not in line with a "long-term" intention across Phase I and II that was referenced by Kaivan .

Thank you sir. From doing just a bit of research I stumbled upon this little tidbit that pretty much shows that OSI intended to make all the containers 400 stones and everything in the house decay and finish Phase III in mid October...Since that never happened, as we can tell from the patch notes that are from late November, I would assume it is because the system was VERY flawed and they needed to make changes. So it wasnt a 'temporary' fix...it was a FIX to FIX their mistakes.

Damocles Sep 30 1999, 12:00 am



Pulled this off the OWO site:


[begin quote]

Phase II - Lockdown


The second phase of our Clean Up Britannia event will change the way
items are stored in houses.


Lockdown will be optimized for interaction with the item decay system.
The specifics changes during this phase will be provided in the near
future.


The Lockdown phase will begin October 11, 1999


Details on this phase will be posted in the upcoming days.


Phase III - House Item Decay


The final phase in our Clean Up Britannia campaign will be the
implementation of item decay in houses.


Once in effect, house item decay will affect all items that are not
locked down, placed in a secure container, or were placed by a GM.


House item decay will begin on October 19, 1999.


Details on this phase will be posted in the upcoming days.


[end quote]

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... 8eed7ad0e8


The whole system was a mistake and they tried to correct it best they could without killing the community and losing a TON of their player base. Let's not make the same mistakes they did...

[Kaivan]

Oh and btw, I agree with Robbbb in that if ALL containers were 400 stones limit, that would be a huge bummer, and arguably not in line with a "long-term" intention across Phase I and II that was referenced by Kaivan .

Thank you sir. From doing just a bit of research I stumbled upon this little tidbit that pretty much shows that OSI intended to make all the containers 400 stones and everything in the house decay and finish Phase III in mid October...Since that never happened, as we can tell from the patch notes that are from late November, I would assume it is because the system was VERY flawed and they needed to make changes. So it wasnt a 'temporary' fix...it was a FIX to FIX their mistakes.

Damocles Sep 30 1999, 12:00 am



Pulled this off the OWO site:


[begin quote]

Phase II - Lockdown


The second phase of our Clean Up Britannia event will change the way
items are stored in houses.


Lockdown will be optimized for interaction with the item decay system.
The specifics changes during this phase will be provided in the near
future.


The Lockdown phase will begin October 11, 1999


Details on this phase will be posted in the upcoming days.


Phase III - House Item Decay


The final phase in our Clean Up Britannia campaign will be the
implementation of item decay in houses.


Once in effect, house item decay will affect all items that are not
locked down, placed in a secure container, or were placed by a GM.


House item decay will begin on October 19, 1999.


Details on this phase will be posted in the upcoming days.


[end quote]

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... 8eed7ad0e8


The whole system was a mistake and they tried to correct it best they could without killing the community and losing a TON of their player base. Let's not make the same mistakes they did...

A few thing about this.

First, the 400 stone limit for containers (and without any evidence to the contrary, for locked down containers) existed before any changes to lock downs took place in either phase 2 or 3 of the housing changes. This means that there was nothing to 'ruin' with respect to weight limits on containers, as it already operated that way. Secondly, the newsgroup post does not suggest that there was any major error in the implementation of the new housing system, which forced them to undo the damage and come up with a new system. We can see that this is not the case because of the October 6 announcement linked earlier in the thread (which is before their first intended implementation date) that details the upcoming changes to houses, and the eventual addition of item decay. The only difference is that the their timetable was pushed back for the phases, which is not that uncommon.

[Faust]

First, I want to point out that I don't know where the most official position of the era accuracy goal of the shard (is it this wiki post?). But for the sake of argument, I will assume it is this wiki post for now:

Both Derrick and Kaivan has stated that the November 23rd patch is the cutoff date with the exception of Phase II housing. The argument is not really even about that I don't care if that is the final decision. I just think it needs to be state officially and disregard the use of era accurate mechanics on a hard line. We would not be era accurate if that is the case.

then it is quite clear that phase 2 was intended to be a temporary state of affairs as they transitioned to the new system.

Well of course and that isn't being questioned. Both phases until the last phase were temporary phases but that does not mean one is more significant than the next. There is a reason the whole transition was phased and referred as such.

[Robbbb]

All this will do is add to the item count in the world. Instead of people hoarding 125 items in a bag they will hoard those same 125 items in 30 bags, creating 29 more items in the world...

You can stack a hell of a lot of small pouches and backpacks on one tile...

[nightshark]

All this will do is add to the item count in the world. Instead of people hoarding 125 items in a bag they will hoard those same 125 items in 30 bags, creating 29 more items in the world...

You can stack a hell of a lot of small pouches and backpacks on one tile...

it's not pick and choose, it's era accuracy

[Robbbb]

All this will do is add to the item count in the world. Instead of people hoarding 125 items in a bag they will hoard those same 125 items in 30 bags, creating 29 more items in the world...

You can stack a hell of a lot of small pouches and backpacks on one tile...

it's not pick and choose, it's era accuracy

I know that...I'm was just saying...

[Kaivan]

Items inside of a container still count towards the total item count in-game.

[the bazookas]

Extending the point Robbbb was trying to make: rather than having a single locked down container with all the stackables (1000's in each stack) in it, if both locked down AND secure containers (if pre-Nov. 23rd housing is the goal) are limited to 400 stone weight limits, players have only 3 options for storing heavy stacks of stuff:

1. For house storage: Stack things like mass reagents, ingots, boards, etc on the floor (makes restock agents not work--e.g. for in-house macroing--probably a plus in some people's view, heh, but inconvenient for most people.
2. For house storage: Create stacks adding up to 400 stones and place them into MANY containers... e.g. in each bag you could store 500 of each reagent. In the reagent example, this would mean that a stack of 10,000 of each reg would split into 20 containers, which increases those reagent's item count 20x, assuming the person decided to put all 8 reagents in each bag (which is, of course, convenient for restock agents, both for macroing and for a PvPer wanting to quickly restock out of their house's stockpile--dragging regs from the floor would be a bummer ).
3. Bank storage: As banks would still have no weight limit, there would not be a big change in item count, since most players already have 1 stack of each reg in their bank, but would be more inconvenient since you'd have to keep every character stocked, rather than (as I do) having practically all your reagents in a house in a container that you can just use a restock agent on, and you just have a small amount of each reg in your bank. This is also not ideal in the case where you'd like to share your reagent stockpile with friends, as you would need to choose option 1 or 2

I imagine most people would store things they want to share in stacks on the floor (option 1) in order to create that "shared store". Bottom line is that it would:

• (potentially--I haven't tested it) make things a bit more inconvenient for house macroers--the restock agent doesn't work off of a resource on the ground directly, and the "Lift" command seems a bit flaky, although I haven't tested it thorougly--hence you would either need to macro at the bank (i.e. throw away what you make), or have many bags with 800 boards each that you pull from (not impossible, just requires a more complex macro that a lot of people wouldn't know how to make).
• Make people leave their stacks of stuff outside of containers; simultaneously making it to identify stacks you would like to loot at an idoc (or after sneaking into a house), and more difficult to "score" a ton of reagents by grabbing the right box.
• probably would increase the number of containers required for boxes of magic armor and weapons, since I believe they are generally more than than 3 stones each, so weight would limit the box before item limit did.

Is this going to be terrible? Not really. Less convenient? Certainly. Personally I say just make it era accurate and be done with it.