Official Housing Mechanic Discussion Thread

I vote for 1house per account

Is there an actual reason for this thread @Chris ? Is this just to have a singular discussion thread where people can spitball ideas in a contained thread? Or are you actually looking at changing the housing mechanic? And if so what aspects as this thread is so vague that it's confusing as hell to follow.

Everything from taxes to npc house watchers to housing per account

Indeed it is a single thread to try to contain the dozen different threads that people would inevitably create to mostly complain about the housing mechanics. Because honestly, those of us who think things are fine as they are, do not get involved and don't speak up. I don't see any change happening any time soon, as this is a thread that is over a year old to begin with.

Personally, I think that it would be VERY difficult to "take away" a "right" to own 15 houses. I don't think it would be fair to the veterans.

Not to mention, and I hope I am WAAAY wrong on this one, the pool of UO players is limited, and dwindling. For as successful as the shard might be, it is going to be tough to attract a much higher number of players than what we have now. I know we keep on growing, and it is something to be celebrated, however that growth curve has flattened out considerably, and, again, for as much as I would love to, I don't see it spiking significantly again any time soon. There's still fine plots of land to be had all around.

"But newcomers don't have access to larger houses, and the prices are astronomical!!"
Want a tower? Save your walfare plat for 3 months and buy a kick ass one! You don't even need to farm the money!! Just AFK it! <- BTW, that right there is the biggest joke EVER. In all my previous UO experience you had to grind like a mad man for MONTHS to be able to buy a large house.

[The following comments do not necessarily reflect the author's thoughts as they are simply a collection of comments made and heard in the past with friends regrding this topic]

What is my perk for being here for four years (almost since the start)? Great housing. Now you want me to give up what I have so that new-comers can have awesome houses? Why? What right do they have over me? I've been here since the shard's first year.

I agree whole heartedly with your post except for the right to have 15 homes.

If you do have a need for 15 homes you should be an active player. Refreshment players should not be entitled to 15 homes.

I think one house per account is just fine.

I saw in a thread in the trading post that someone was looking for a large keep and bought another players "extra large keep" implying they had a huge, massive home just sitting vacant as well as pointing to the idea that they had several larger homes probably doing much the same thing.

I agree with your post about players dwindling and I also agree that saving for a house allows players to invest time into this server making hem stick around. However most of us are older and have families etc....

I don't have the time to farm like a madman for literally years to afford the 10 million for a large structure when people literally have them just sitting unused and vacant.

The IDOC group and Chris himself say it's silly to waste time by camping out on a house waiting for it to fall as we all have better things to do, could you not make the same argument that it's a waste of time for a player to farm for months and sometimes years to obtain something that has been sitting vacant and unused for that same amount of time?

I mean if your goal in the game, the thing that keeps you going is to buy a fortress on grass near water and you do it through conventional means (farming, fishing, etc...). Your end game is years away, if ever, because someone has to have 5 forts and 10 towers. I could see that being hard to stay motivated to stay playing, which is why I think that a change IS needed to housing limitations.

.

We should just lock the thread after this.

Well said.

I still fail to understand how anyone can look at a house earned and owned by someone else and decide for them that its not being used in the way they think it should be. Empty, full, used daily, used monthly.... in the end only one fact remains: Its their house not yours, they can use and even under-use it as they please.

I can agree that its sh**ty for someone to horde housing just to horde it or drive up pricing, but its just as sh**ty to tell someone they can't earn and own a compound of houses or collect multiple houses that they desire.

Whats the correct number of houses per account? This is a question you answer when you create a shard and in this case they decided it to be 5. Changing that in the middle of the servers life span is wrong regardless of anyone's personal opinion. To me this also includes any sort of taxation or point system.

Finally please can anyone tell me what exactly is the problem that requires a housing change in the first place? I have yet to read a (in my opinion) valid reason a change needs to be made.

Well said.

The problem is all those people with 15 empty fortresses. Soon to be 18 guys, 18.

Right. Short sighted but right. I mean growth and longevity is maintained by being able to have pixels. If for you that's houses, rares, gold, weapons etc... it's all pixels. For most players it's housing.

When a person who is new to the server runs around and sees an absurd amount of empty or CUB houses, one must ask why? No?

To see hoarders with 5-10-15 houses not being used in any way is a turn off. Especially if that player is rarely active or even worse, inactive and has someone else refreshing houses for them.

I get that you're entitled, not just in opinion but the tone of your post. However, your play style and everyone else's here depends on a thriving population. If desireable homes become unobtainable unless through extreme means (millions upon millions upon millions of gold and items) that puts the population of this server at risk. Just so entitled players like yourself can hoard homes.

I totally respect that opinion I just feel it's very short sighted.

And the wheel turns again in this cyclical argument.

I will solve all of this, open the lands of t2a for housing. Give every player a keep with a moat and 200mil gold to start.

.

@Ducky

I would argue your thought is kind of relativist. Of course there is not a "right way" to use houses, neverthless there is a way 99% of people think is the right way and it could be considered the right way.

There is not enough space for the number of players, so we should start to Reduce the number of house deed per account. We may start decreasing it to 3 house per account maybe, 2 or 4 but the fact is: there is not enough space for the number of players.



May i ask to @Chris if this topic stills up for him?

Shit, I had promised myself I would not reply anymore, buuuut...

So wanting a penthouse apartment on the upper east side of Manhattan should be affordable to maintain a stable economy in NYC?

Ok, I think we need to start by defining what is a desirable home? Is a tower desirable? Towers are sold all the time for around 800k-1mill. That is 3 months of free welfare plat. Is that millions upon millions upon millions of gold and items?

Oh, wait, a tower isn't desirable for a 3 month old new player. You want a keep or a fortress. And you want it now, damnit!! Who is sounding like "an entitled player" now?

@One, for as much as I would LOVE a massive influx of new players, it is highly unlikely.

@blasfede, what is enough space for the number of players? Do we want to hand every mew player a fortress? Would that be enough? Again, what is enough space when Towers can be bought frequently for 3 months of 0 effort?

Veterans have the benefit of having been here longer. The game is a progressive, non-ceiling, snowballing game. Like it or not, and it has always been such, the rich get richer. Want to enter a socialist regime? UO isn't it!! Never has, never will.

EDIT: Looks like I WAY over estimated the price of towers, and they're more in the 500-600k range. On grass, in desirable locations. 2 months of welfare plat. That's it. What did you own in era in production shards? Really people? Check your fucking entitlement at the door, please.

This tower sold for deed+50k!!! And only had one bid!! And people keep bitching about housing being broken? And still call veteran players who have worked and grinded for their houses entitled?!?!?! Wow!!

@Pirul you're supposing people can stay connected with 3 tons 24/7 for 3 mouths and this is the first bias in your thought. Second: we are not exactly talking about small or medium houses, we are talking about large houses like fortress. At this moment you cannot place a stone keep, a castle or a fortress in any spot on the map.
People are selling them for 20 mil, more or less 20 times the deed price, just because they own the spot, is it fair? I think is not! I've been playing here for 1 year, i still don't have 20 mil to spend man!

BTW also place a tower is anyway really hard!

Wait, you want an endgame item!! A tower is not a desirable enough house for a new-ish player?

And yes, I am assuming everyone can stay logged in 24/7 for two months, and that was wrong. But farming 600k is not hard in this shard.

I keep my opinion, but maybe we can meet in the middle, one large 2 medium 2 small houses per account
Or you can also do a slot system where you might have 5 slot per account

Massive house > 5 slot
Large > 3
Medium > 2
Small > 1

I doubt there are more than a handful of players that own more than 3 keeps/castles/fortresses. Of course I may be wrong, but doubt it.

Is exactly why we should regulate that, because not more than 10 people keep all those massive houses