2 unpopular idea to draw in more players to this server

As with UO back in the day placing a house was a big deal. I remember the day in 1997 when I placed my first little stone house in North Minoc along the rock wall. I was so happy because now my smith could just walk out the house and start mining without as much fear of those awful pk's coming to grief me where I had been mining over the bridge east of Minoc It was so convenient cause there was a forge there and it wasn't that far of a run to town, but it didn't seem to matter cause I would get waxed 75% of the time regardless.
That being said it is nice to have each character being able to have a house, but that locks up the land so it is harder to place a house. As A new player coming to this shard they will want to seek out a place to put a house and there are spots if they look hard enough, but not that many. I read a post some guy said about his Moonglow house he had been waiting 3 years to get. That is a long time and most people would quit and give up by then. I came to this server cause a friend asked me to and pretty much got hooked up with everything I needed to succeed, regs, armor, a place to train my skills, gold, even got a large tower in my first 3 weeks on the server. For most people it isn't like that. They will get frustrated and quit due to lack of housing, being killed by griefers in occlo where they are training up there skills, etc. Again this is just my opinion and I know nothing about coding or anything close, but making it so just one house per account, grandfathering those that already have houses, but if they deed or sell one then they can't place another if they already have one per account. Also I would recommend some kind of coding to prevent people from luring ev's into occlo to kill everyone that is macroing afk. Again these are just 2 things that I think will be both unpopular, but that could bring new players to the server.

.

This has been talked about to death and I think house places are far more available than you're making them out to be. It's fairly easy to succeed here and have the house you want in a short amount of time if you work toward it. I think a better idea is banning forum alts.

Vandalin I am not sure if you are implying something or not in regards to forum alts, but if you are almost all of my Characters have some form of Doe in it. Ie John Doe, Jane Doe, Play Doe, Dill Doe, etc, so if I were to be an alt on the forum it wouldn't make sense to use my characters name. Anyway appreciate the feedback. Have a great day.

.

Wasn't implying anything. Not sure why you would assume otherwise. Just a suggestion.

I really enjoyed UO when it first came out and as time progressed it wore on me and wasn't as much fun. I see the need for new content, but if we did add new content wouldn't that be "Trammying up" the server? As for increasing the PVP even though I am old and decrepit it is still my favorite aspect of the game, so I am all for that.

.

I'm all for one house per account, would make things more interesting!

I concede that one person having 15 houses overdoing it, especially if they're aren't using them. I personally have 10 houses, but 4 are New Player Housing, 2 are for decoration (I used the inside to play around with deco ideas), and I actively use the rest.

The problem I have with all of these posts about reducing housing to 1 per account is that they are built on false information. All claim that "It's impossible to place anything big", which is not a factual statement. I personally watched a relatively new player find and claim a tower spot about a month ago. Granted he didn't place a tower there, yet, because he can't afford it, but he did place a house to hold the spot. Last night, I found 2 spots for medium sized houses. I'm always looking, even if I don't place. I run around the wilderness all the time, and am always surprised at how much empty space there is. The people that say there's no housing out there just flat aren't looking. Oh, sure you may wander around the towns, but how often have you walked out deep into the wilderness? If you say there's no housing, then you haven't much.

You say you can't get a spot on Verity Isle? Well, I'm sorry but that's the game. Prime real estate is going to go first. That's just how it is. Restricting housing isn't going to change that. Those house spots are still going to go fast.

About 6 months ago, when I was still coming up in the world, I was wandering around in the wilderness. I came across a spot I thought MIGHT hold a house. I went back to town, and spent 66k on a small stone workshop deed, and placed the house. I posted the house on the forums, and a few days later, the auction had gotten up to 1.7m. Was this unfair of me? Anyone could have found, and claimed that spot. All you have to do is leave town and go wandering, which is what I do, every day.

If you want to be the hundredth person to ask for 1 house per account (which won't happen), then go ahead. I have no right or inclination to stop you, but at least put factual information up to support your request.

.

I think you're with the minority here when you say you use all your houses, Kirby. While I agree that there is plenty of room to place houses as big as villas, patios or maybe even a tower if you're lucky, there are countless houses, towers, I dare say even keeps, that have absolutely nothing inside. Houses that are there just to hold a spot. Even though I think this is part of the game and we can't do much about it, it is still kinda of a dick move and one that will mostly hurt new players. That being said, even if I'm ok with the way it is right now, I can see an one house per account rule helping a bit.

Yes, spots for Keeps and higher fill up fast. As you said, it is part of the game. If you limit everyone to 3 houses that will definitely change, after a good portion of the server leaves.

Honestly, if I went to a server where you could easily place a Keep or bigger, and that server wasn't brand new (less than a week old), I would leave. That server is dying.

The solution to houses owned by inactive accounts isn't to limit housing, it's to introduce Condemned status. This has been discussed before. It's where houses can only be refreshed by co-owners by so long before the house becomes Condemned, which means only the houses owner can refresh it. You'll have a better chance asking for that than asking for 3 houses per person.

What will bring more players to the server and back to the server is the implementation of patches that have been "soon" for years, like cub, guildstone changes, carpentry bods, and so on. I guarantee this shard's population will skyrocket past the previous high mark when people finally find out all the new stuff is here at last.

I don't see how adding some new PVM content would Trammy up the server. If out of protection areas, players would still face the fact of pkers and thieves, plus whatever monsters added or roaming about.

I don't PVP, so really can't address anything about that aspect or factions.

side note: I used Newme, because that is what this server is to me. On the old server, I really couldn't be me, than Tela invited me here, which saved my UO arse. I can be me here, play the style I enjoy best. So fresh start, new name. On IRC I do use the same name my main character had on the other server.

Thanks for posting this thread, interesting one.

.

%$#@ housing limitations!!!!!!!!!!

2 houses per char!

Condemned status? Pffffft who needs that, there's a million spots!

Empty towers and keeps make it LOOK like more people play here so we should fill all the land with houses!!!

600 people online equates to 2-300 real players. No reason player 301 should have the opportunity to place a house that he wants.

The 1% crowd gets butthurt because their 15m forts and keeps drop on value but to them I say, eat #@$%.

I think you'd find that there's broad support for implementing condemned housing rules but the overall impact of that is likely to be fairly small. As to limiting to one house per account, it's a hard no from me for a few reasons.

First, OSI tried this and, coupled with the introduction of trammel, pretty much killed player-run towns and vendor malls. We're not OSI so the impact would likely be far more negative as we don't have the player base to absorb a huge hit like that (nor the "hook" of a monthly subscription that has people feeling invested).

Second, we're not OSI. As many have pointed out it is still possible to place houses even up to the occasional tower here whereas on most OSI shards it was a murderfest at even a small house dropping which is one of the drivers behind trammel/1 house per account features. We're nowhere close to that level of saturation.

Lastly, even with one house per account you're likely not to see keep/castle/fortress spots open up. Despite what you may think, most of those who own larger houses have on average 5 houses anyway. They would likely give up their smaller utility houses first before thinking of parting with their larger houses.

Bottom line, there is a finite amount of space available for larger housing that will not change even through the mechanisms suggested here. In fact it would likely drive those houses higher in price through people going into refresh-only mode reducing the overall availability. If you want one you're going to have to save up and overcome the supply and demand economics. Same goes for houses in prime locations, they would be scarce even with a server population of 50.

As a new player I wanted to chime in on this, I don't care that people can have 15 houses and wouldn't want that opportunity to be removed.

I also run around the wilderness a lot and have marked a sh!t tonne of runes for spots where houses, both small & medium sized would fit.

I will say that it's weird seeing so many BIG houses, especially empty ones where people HAVE just parked some real estate, but honestly I don't really give a sh!t. They were playing before me and good for them, they got a big ol house and have one secure box.

I'm just gonna keep playing, make some more cheddar, and when I've got enough of that cheddar I'll spend maybe a few 100k over deed for one of those parked spots.

It's still better than back in the day where you might be looking at a mil or two on a small glow house.

And when I DOOOO nab me a biggie, I'll give whatever else I've got away to new players.

Fully into the addition of carpentry BODS.

I personally would also like to see alchemy BODS too.

#justsaying