Small House Security?

This is not a thread nor a post attempting to call for change.
For the record I realize I am but one player who voluntarily opted to participate in an free and entertaining result of the labors of others. This is just feedback on my opinion.

...

Thank you and your effort is appreciated but, yes I absolutely have no intention of participating in this.... feature.
I did give it a try, entering and leaving the house about 6 times throughout the afternoon.

I can't begin to describe how utterly ridiculous I felt looking at a pair of bloody housekeys suspended in mid air that for some reason only I can access and proceed to...

1. unlock door
2. open door
3. step in
4. suspend physics
5. reach through door
6. use keys to lock door
7. step forward
8. unlock a bloody table
9. lift table
10. step past table
11. put table down
12. lock table
13. realize I had just forgotten why I came inside in the first place

If there's a less ridiculous way that helps me feel like less of a wacky tardaloon... please advise.

There's a YouTuber called the Nostalgia Critic. He did a review of the movie "Signs" and made an interesting point about the aliens in the movie that were trying to get to the actors and attack them but couldn't manage to do so... they couldn't figure out how to open a door. Yes, they could build space ships that could travel great distances across the universe but a wooden door stops them in their tracks.

That's all I could think of as it relates to this situation.

Thief: "Haha, I've snuck inside undetected... the treasure is in sight but... oh, what the hell is this? A small wooden table? DAMN! I ain't got time for that!"


I suffered this period of the game when it was live but didn't fathom it would be here as a feature. My mistake.

This is a GAME. If you're looking for reality, look elsewhere.

I'm going to highlight and reiterate a part of my post that I believe you are replying to and I'll add...


There's something to be said about opinions and their ability to offend others... then again, there's many things that could be said about the offended.

Here's the excerpt...

This is not a thread nor a post attempting to call for change.
For the record I realize I am but one player who voluntarily opted to participate in an free and entertaining result of the labors of others. This is just feedback on my opinion.

I don't typically weigh in with my opinions because feathers tend to get ruffled so easily on forums and I don't particularly enjoy ruffling feathers, but I feel this one is pretty straight forward. In my mind, the great thing about a feluccia shard (and this one in particular) is the risk vs reward game play. You take a super slayer out to kill mobs, you risk losing it to a pk, but your potential reward is more monsters killed per hour = more lewt.

Now as per the issue of house security, here the risk is potential robbery and the reward is your time/convenience. I personally don't use a table wall and only detect hidden every 2nd or 3rd time I use my house. This cuts down on time spent ensuring security, but risks being robbed. The best part about a feluccia shard? You have the freedom to choose how you spend your time and what you choose to risk in order to gain rewards.

Underlined portion: Pet bonding would like to point, mock, and laugh at you.



This is point where this thread can and likely will derail, skim across the ocean, and somehow end up in Narnia.

Again, I'm really not trying to get this changed. I've learned about it, I've acknowledged it, and I've opted out.
My objective is to redistribute what I take from this world back out to the player base be it innocent, criminal, or murderer anyway.
The lack of housing will be a slight cramp in my organizational style but, I'll manage.

I simply don't see the risk part of this risk/reward content feature when the precautionary measures outlined in the housing security guide are done. I mean, once in place... where is the risk? I could get jumped and killed by the door? Sure. That's going to happen with or without the table wall.

So when in place, this feature stops becoming it's intention and boils down to nothing more (SEE: OPINION) than an arbitrary motion that lowers the quality of life and utterly destroys the immersion portion of owning a house in UO.

Sure, there are hundreds that use this feature on a daily basis, think nothing of it, and likely view my opinion of it as crazy.

Then again, if I met a player that didn't allow their character to eat fish steaks because of... reasons... I'm going to acknowledge and not try to convince them otherwise.

After all, it's their loss... not mine.

This thread seems to have been overly complicated... I myself also do not enjoy table walls, and for 7 months have not used a table wall(at my entryway) with 100% success.

1. if your going to live out of a 7x7 house you will just have to live with the fact that security is not one of its strong points, and without a table wall you risk being looted.

2. a brick 3 room house is extremely affordable and can also be extremely secure. You get 3 locking doors and 4 secure containers, treat the first large room of the house as if you wanted to invite people over to hang there, put the 4 secures in this room, don't store loose items that you don't want to chance losing to sticky fingers in this room. Pick one of the two back rooms and keep it locked, use this room for loose item storage, stack up a chest wall and store away in relative safety.

3. House Entry -

- Detect hidden before you use the key, target the steps, this will reveal any hiddens waiting on you to enter. Make a DH Macro!
- Unlock the door, open it, walk in, close the door, lock it.
- DETECT HIDDEN, yes again, make sure no one followed you in, have "i ban thee" on a macro!

Now your in your house, it took seconds, its really not a big deal. Once your inside, and know no one else is inside, feel free to open and close that locked storage room as you wish, just make sure you lock it when your done!

4. Extra Safety - I myself randomly detect hidden in my houses even if i have not used the door, after a while it just becomes a habit.
Your about to open a interior door? Detect hidden!
About to go grab a drink in RL? Detect hidden!
Just got that tall cold glass of coke and sat back down to get your UO on? Detect hidden!
Got one of those creepy chills like someone is UO stalking you? Detect hidden!....
Lol you get the point, you will find some times that you missed locking a door, or in the worst case you missed an intruder.

5. as for floating keys... Go see a psychologist specializing in OCD treatment, you need help (that's a joke by the way don't go raging on me please)

I think most of us understand you aren't asking for things to change but at the same time your reasoning for not using this extra layer of security is quite dumb... to put it frankly.
Who cares if the keys "float." Maybe they're hanging on a chain and fastened with a padlock? Would that ease your mind? Besides you could use a trash barrel as your entry point as the guide describes and this would eliminate The steps you've been using to unlock, move, and lock down a table.

I wonder, what's the likely hood that you have opinions about things that I may feel are quite dumb... to put it frankly. I'll be damned if I'm going to point them out to you and decry you for it. Sheesh, lighten up?


I care if the keys float however, it's not the keys that are the deal breaker for me. I can get over it. It's the arbitrary song and dance just to enter the damn thing that I find hilarious. I've opted out. I'd like to move on, please.


By the way,

Thanks for the mental image about the trash barrel...
"Honey! I'm home... *SMASH* *STUMBLE*.... "I wish to place a trash barrel" .... so, what's for dinner?"

Security is the cost of the unlimited storage a house can provide. The cost of annoyance entering a secured house Vs the benefit of unlimited storage is one of the best values you will find in Felucia.

Honestly being able to use a locked down keychain to lock and unlock the door is kind-of Trammel and it could be argued that this feature itself is overstepping on a Felucia server.

Lawl.
I've seen some big Internet epeens and personalities before but this guy takes the cake. So holier than thou with a splash of if you don't agree with me you must be raging. All over a mechanic he can and did opt out of. If you want to drop it, get off your soap box

honestly you don't need a table wall, but you have to make it a habit to always enter your house, relock the door, detect hidden.

Table walls, of course, are another layer, but it's only if your careless with layer 1.

You could always install a mailbox and make it a secure container outside your house. Store your house key in your mailbox.

note: mailboxes are a player invented idea and are not a mechanic of the game.

Wait. This seems to imply that people can access locked down containers from OUTSIDE the property?

Somebody tell me I'm wrong.

So I have a few cents to chuck in:

TL;DR: Its more immersive to have to protect your house from thieves, than for players to auto-magically be denied entry to an open door.

Perspectives are as diverse as people! I live in a huge city, and this (entering a house in a complex way) is what I experience on a daily basis. Professional thieves make a good living here, and yes, there are people who have the glorified job of walking around neighborhoods seeing which doors (cars and houses) are unlocked, which windows look vulnerable, which yard or fire escape ladder is accessible, etc. I have to unlock 4 doors to get into my apartment, each with 1-3 locks of its own. I also have lots of motion detector lights near my houses, and my landlord has infrared motion detector cameras pointed at my apartment door and the front door of the house. These measures pretty much prevent anyone from coming in. If they werent there, its only a matter of time till someone gets in here (Ive also had my house 100% cleaned out IRL from a robbery, but that was a decade ago).

So I find the measures one takes to secure their house in UO to be rather immersive. I find carebear games to be the exact opposite - oh, no one can hurt me by simple virtue of the game world's invisible walls everywhere. Plus, the UO measures are extremely simple to macro. Use keys, unlock door, step in one tile, close door, lock it, detect hidden, open secure container, use hatchet on trash barrel, step on trash barrel tile, say "I wish to place a trash barrel," step forward one tile. The macro runs in about 8s, and takes like 30s to record. Then you just press your custom desired "enter house" keyboard combo, and its all simplified.

In fact, this is less complicated than getting in and out of a building in my city IRL!

Next TL;DR: I dont think "suspension of physics" argument ever works in any video game.

As for the whole "suspension of physics" argument - what do you do every time someone casts flamestrike, rides a nightmare, tames a dragon, or polymorphs into an orc (you all do that too, right?) ? I dont see my house keys as floating in the air, i see them as magically bound to a hook on the ceiling that detects approved avatars. Use your imagination. Pretend your GM tinkerer char has a cool contraption that analyzes biometrics and scans accepted avatars into the door. This is seriously no greater suspension of immersion than a recall spell or carrying 400 fish in your backpack and using a knife on them once and getting thousands of perfectly cut fish filets.

I am pretty sure he meant the table-wall, not the outer wall of the house.

Thank goodness for that.

The heck is up with all these necros lately?


I was trolling. I used to do that a lot more than I do now. I rob in game housing for a 'living' btw.


Then again I wonder if you yourself are trolling... there are few dim witted enough around here to claim tldr and then respond as lengthy as yours... which I too did not read. If so, bravo!


Like your new place btw.

Perhaps I am just dim witted but I believe he was not claiming TLDR, but providing a "pre-emptive" TLDR summation of his necro essay for the lazy reader.

I did not read what you just wrote. I did not pause to process what I did not read.

After not reading what you wrote, I believe what I did -- before I sat down to mimic the act of reading.

I pass my eyes over walls of text every day and I am well-informed.

I am secure in my beliefs.

How dare you call us all lazy and good for nothing. You, sir, are clearly a member of the other team.

//end scene

I AIN'T GOT TIME FO DAT!