First of all let me say that I am an experience UO player having played since 97 and also playing on a number of freeshards over the years. I haven't played here long but I am finding the server to be great and for the most part represents what I've been missing about the true spirit of UO. On most shards I wouldn't even bother posting this but the development staff here seems to be worth it so here I go. Let me begin by drawing your attention to the numerous dead towns and unused building strewn across Sosaria. I've always wondered why nobody ever used them. I propose a rental system for guilds that would allow guilds to rent these building in the various towns giving them all the same rights within the buildings confines as any normal house, decorations, lockdowns etc etc etc. I also would make the rent heavily tied to the factions system allowing controlling factions to heavily tax enemy guilds that live within the towns they control. This idea would give people much more reason to be worried about faction involvement it would also breath life into dead towns and unused buildings and be in my eyes a huge boost to factions and poltical intrigue so to speak. You could even go one step further and make the buildings trappable and give opposing rogues the ability to penetrate these building just to keep them on their toes. Really the possabilities here would be endless and would be damned fun to boot. What do you guys think? I mean we might as well use them for something right? Oh and it would also give noobs more of a reason to join an established guild. I would make these buildings only rentable if the guild met certain requirements though, for example the large castle in nujelm would only be rentable by guilds with a large number of members and maybe other requirements that I haven't really given much thought too. To end let me also add that it would certainly help with housing availability and space to some minor degree.
Sounds intriguing. What would you get for 'renting'? Could you place vendors? If so, this would have a massive impact on existing real estate values.
I'm not a fan of this idea because, These houses are inherently in guard zone. Pre-existing runes would become blocked or what? If "I ban thee" worked, faction PvP becomes one big house hide. Specific guilds controlling these houses, nay. Vendors in town, ruin other vendor shops. When does the "lease" expire? What stops them from being insta-purchased and then privately used for all eternity? If "rent" is an issue, then allowing factions to set rent that's too high ruins the point, since faction control changes like the wind. What if your faction no longer owns the town? The opponents can just barge in and loot away? Setting rent too high will make it pointless, rent to low will make the first person who gets it keep it or sell it off as a commodity.
I invite you to read this thread; in its entirety if you have the time. Many thoughts are considered in this thread as pertaining to 'gold sinks'. Bits and pieces of your idea are discussed here. viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3121&hilit=Gold+sink&start=90#p22420
In reply to snap dragon, banning would have to be limited somehow or just completely done away with, also I'm not sure about vendor issues I haven't though about that. Also in order to keep househiding pvp faggotry to a minimum you could make it to were faction rogues would be able to pick the locks. If you aren't a faction guild then no worries. The rent would be a set rate and then a tax up to say 30% could be put into place. If an opposing faction controls your town you keep the property nothing changes in that regard. In order to prevent people from just basically buying the buildings their would have to be requirements like number of active guild mates, or perhaps frequency of use on a decay timer much like current housing but much much quicker. I'm quite certain all of those issues could be addressed with a bit of thought.
While this shard does have a few custom systems and can not be considered 100% era accurate, the primary goal is to re-create the game as it was when Renaissance was released while ignoring any Trammel-related changes and ironing out some oddities the game had at that time. There are plenty of custom shard out there, they will come up with all kinds of crazy systems and people who play there will probably enjoy that. But I am against the introduction of non-era customization to this server. It takes away part of what makes this server so special. This is the perfect server for a UO relapse (thus, many people call it UO:R) and a great chance to recapture the game as it was. Every additional custom feature added here will ruin the feeling of playing the "real" UO a little more. If any custom feature should be added to this shard, it should in no way affect the in-game economy, PvM and PvP mechanics. As Snap has already pointed out very precisely, your proposal will greatly affect both the economy and the PvP mechanics. Kinda like the introduction of Malas when suddenly all vendor houses elsewhere turned worthless ... Remove all advantages guild or a player gets from "leasing" such a house and you might find this idea considered here. Make it a vanity thing - you can rent one of the Inns in Minoc, rename the building and all the NPCs. Make it the place where you meet and drink and play chess. Heck maybe even add a customizable town crier that will tell players about the guild and link to the guild forum ...
I always thought that renting unused town buildings as a precursor to owning a house might be a good idea. Maybe provide 1 lockbox and a key to lock it or something to let new players macro or get some increased storage. If done right, the buildings will get used, but there won't be any advantage to using it for somebody who already has a house. Maybe even make rental rates controlled by factioners.
Ive always liked the idea of using these static buildings somehow. I agree with some of the criticism here though. I dont really like the idea that all the richest players/guilds would control all of the city housing. Maybe only certain (preferably public?) institutions would be granted a static building? For example the post office came to my mind earlier today. It would be perfect and they are worth it, youre not worth it just cause u have hoarded enough money though. Things such as museums would also be nice to have in town. So basically, things that provide interesting aspects to the shard, but doesnt give any certain benefits to certain players. Well, that last part may be discussed, but my suggestion should be pretty uncontroversial. Anyone agree?
I like the idea of renting out houses in town which basically become guard zone houses. I'd prefer to see them otherwise act as normal houses with secures, lockdowns, bans and player vendors. Here's my contribution: compounding rent, so that town houses are affordable (even for newbs) but not permanent. Rent: Houses are rented by dropping gold on an unrented house's sign. Gold or checks are dropped on the sign to pay the rent and it acts like player vendors: gold is held in an account and deducted each day. So, no refresh like normal houses... just pay the rent. All town houses of any size bottom out at 5k gold per week rent. Each week that the house is rented, it increases by 10%. There is no maximum. Each day that it is not rented, the required weekly rent drops by half. So, week 1 only costs 5000 gold and week two only 5500. Indeed, the first three months' rent is only 107k gold. Week 52 costs 646,000 gold and renting it continuously for one year costs 7M gold. If vacated at the 7M mark it would then have to remain empty for 11 days to return to the 5K gold level. When the rental ends, you are evicted: the doors unlock and every item in the house is ejected to a pile on the curb where it's looted or decays as normal. Initial: I would start with a single town, one of the less popular ones. Auction the houses off here in the forums where the auction is for the initial week's rent. Auction one each week. Stop setting up new town houses when the auction prices fall. Start up again when all existing houses are rented. You wouldn't necessarily rent an entire building. The building SE of WBB with four rooms and four entrances could be four rentals. Player vendors embedded in the middle of towns would tend to liven up the towns a little bit, instead of having the same old generic Yew Market and Brit Gate Market. I agree something would have to be worked out with respect to factions pvp. At worst, simply ban faction members and faction items from rented town houses. Regards, Wil
I, and I would assume other vendor owners, am vehemently against in-town vendors. This would effectively destroy current establishments.
