[Eighty Swords]

Yeah thats a lovely story but I was giving an example more fitting for the scenario.

I think we can agree on something -> we like analogies

And? 3 shards makes up like .01% of all total shards that were ever in existence. Do we have the exact same players here with the exact same habits or something? Just because people didn't buy many houses there doesn't mean they don't here. This has no relevance whatsoever.

I wasn't arguing the % of shards that have house decay, what I was arguing was that in 2-3 years on a few shards it wasn't necessary to have house decay so I can't believe how there's such an urgent need for it here.

So fact vs speculation now? You are assuming it will bother people because you don't like it. Meanwhile people have asked for this countless times in the past, sometimes around other people, and nobody has ever said anything against the idea until now.

Oh no my friend, it is fact and you don't have to look any further then this thread and you will see other people don't like the idea. And it's only natural to assume someone will be pissed when they find out they lost something. I don't know anyone who would say 'Well I just lost all my stuff, oh well' or 'I just lost 5 million dollars, oh well, life goes on.'

The default house system has "levels" and each one shows on the sign when its enabled. It would work something like:
This house is like new (1-7 days old)
The house is slightly worn (2-3 weeks old)
I forget the next two..
This house is in danger of collapsing (24 hours remaining)

I've seen something like this on houses I own when I double click the house sign but never on a house I don't own.

[quote=Shade]The truth comes out.

Way to miss quote me... I could do that too... I'm sure I can chop up your posts to make you say "I LOVE EIGHTY SWORDS WITH ALL MY HEART" lol

[QUOTE=Jackal]So first off i would like to Thank Eighty and Shade because I haven't read a book in awhile, and after reading there posts i feel like i've read a Novel... In ending I would also like to add NO MORE NOVELS PLEASE!

I'm confused... you enjoyed reading our book but don't want us to write another one? lol

Second House decay is a awesome idea! I would say 95% of the houses on the shard are inactive so why would we keep those houses if the chance of the player coming back is.........ill be generous 10% will say. If a person knows that there items might disappear then i'm sure they will hop on to refresh so no biggie. If they don't care about there items or even logging back in then houses will decay. Whats so wrong in that?

What's wrong about it is in x time here someone amassed so much items and x amount of gold to buy the house and in certain cases in a comparatively short period of time where someone doen't play it's all going to be taken away. THAT's the issue I have with this suggestion. It wouldn't be nearly as bad if everything was just banked and you lose your house spot. That's a compromise I'd make if I had to choose between the two.

What is the big fuss about? This is not a 50/50 split its more like a 98/2 split.

My saying it's about a 50/50 split is based on the forum feedback. I obviously don't see everything everyone says in game so I can't comment on that. I work with what I have. Look through this thread and you'll see that among the players that posted in this thread it's about a 50/50 split.

[imported_Ryuuku]

I dont like the house decay Idea, but if it get necessary one day I have nothing against. For now I think we dont need it.

I posted agreeing on house decay but it dosnt mean I like it.

How you can see on my first post I wanted it to be just the house disapear but itens get banked and owner refunded with house value, since decaying is to solve the space problem.
If item count start being a problem so yes I agree in let the itens go to the ground and delete the itens that have been banked (when the house decayed) and the owner never come back.

[imported_Shade]

I think we can agree on something -> we like analogies

Anologies make the world go round.

I wasn't arguing the % of shards that have house decay, what I was arguing was that in 2-3 years on a few shards it wasn't necessary to have house decay so I can't believe how there's such an urgent need for it here.

I get what you are saying but I am saying that the players that have come and gone from here more then likely have different tendencies and may like buying into real estate. On INR we actually had a few real estate moguls that resold prime locations and those players transfered here when the merge took place. Some of those players did in fact have intentions of doing that again on here but ended up going elsewhere, meanwhile the land they ate up remains that way.

Oh no my friend, it is fact and you don't have to look any further then this thread and you will see other people don't like the idea. And it's only natural to assume someone will be pissed when they find out they lost something. I don't know anyone who would say 'Well I just lost all my stuff, oh well' or 'I just lost 5 million dollars, oh well, life goes on.'

If people let their possessions go down the drain then they only have themselves to blame. We aren't saying everyone who owns a house is screwed and you keep making it sound like that. We are saying, if you care about your property in game log in for a minute once every 3 months OR contact us and let us know you intend on coming back.

I've seen something like this on houses I own when I double click the house sign but never on a house I don't own.

Since house decay is currently inactive it won't show on the sign.

Way to miss quote me...

I took your quote out of context, which I think is slightly different then misquoting you.:p Besides it was funny

Anyways, I know you may not care but some players like living in certain locations and when that is taken by a player who quit, that is rather unfair to them as well as an annoyance. In any case, this isn't something that needs immediate action but its best to prep for the future. Even if we were to limit housing to x amount per account, we still have near 1000 accounts that have been created since day 1 of this shard, eventually we will run out of room no matter what because we still have new people coming and going.

[imported_LudaKrishna]

how would it work for statics?

[imported_Papa Smurf]

Actually, when you join the the military you do sign a contract agreeing to certain things just like depending on the nature of your job you have to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement)

This house decay thing is like if you have a bank account and you don't withdraw any money or make any deposits in 3 months the bank keeps all your money lol!

In the 3 versions of XUO I played there was never house decay and running out of space was never an issue. XUO2 was up for at least 2-3 years, maybe more, and this never became an issue and we didn't even have static houses so the % of houses that are static houses on this shard would be regular houses taking up open space on XUO.




Don't take this the wrong way but there isn't always a staff online to page and leave a message for, and even when there are staff online and legitimate pages with questions about something ingame (and not a page like 'please host an event') they aren't always answered. And I don't mean not answered in 30 seconds, I mean in several hours...




You're right it's not all based on the forums, there are plenty of people who don't post here that play. The other factor you're not considering though is that people against house decay aren't spontaneously coming up to you and other staff saying 'please don't make houses decay' if they never see any talk about it.




Are you saying as a player I can click on a house sign and see how close it is to decaying? I've never noticed that before, but then again maybe there was never house decay on a shard I played...




OK that's good to hear then. This was one of the big 'gripes' I had about this issue where it was sounding like it wouldn't happen for statics too.




Oh yes, you're absolutely right! I don't give a flying f*ck what happens to this shard, I just want to be the leetest poster on these forums :badgrin: You ever hear of an analogy? Apparently not... Come on man use your brain if you want to discuss something with me. If I didn't care about this shard do you really think I'd spend so much time on these forums trying to help balance ideas or argue why I don't think they'd help?

Yes, actually I do think you would spend this much time on the forums because people actually pay attention to you on here (kinda) *coughs* attention whore! As for me using my brain well I like to think I am kinda smart. I am sorry if I dont have a PHD like you, or at least thats what you try and make people think by belittling everyone on here and telling them to use their brains.

[Eighty Swords]

Anyways, I know you may not care but some players like living in certain locations and when that is taken by a player who quit, that is rather unfair to them as well as an annoyance. In any case, this isn't something that needs immediate action but its best to prep for the future. Even if we were to limit housing to x amount per account, we still have near 1000 accounts that have been created since day 1 of this shard, eventually we will run out of room no matter what because we still have new people coming and going.

No no, I completely get the idea of wanting to put a house in a certain location, hence why I placed my house where I did and I even asked a GM to place it for me when I thought 1 lousy stone was blocking it but eventually I got it on my own (check the logs if you think a staff did some fowl play).

You're right, immediate action isn't needed but at some some form of action will be needed and I fully agree with that. However since we both agree immediate action isn't needed, isn't it possible that we can hold off on implementing house decay or possibly introduce less severe measures first.

Yes, actually I do think you would spend this much time on the forums because people actually pay attention to you on here (kinda) *coughs* attention whore! As for me using my brain well I like to think I am kinda smart. I am sorry if I dont have a PHD like you, or at least thats what you try and make people think by belittling everyone on here and telling them to use their brains.

Oh yes, I am the biggest pre-madonna ever and I require non stop attention from people I never met and most likely never will meet and most of my time spent interacting with them is spent arguing... Oh yes I CRAVE attention from these people...

I understand sarcasm is hard to read so I'll put it in straight forward language for you. Aren't I nice? I post so much on these forums because I care what happens to INX just like I cared about what happened with XUO and I want to help it get better every day.

I make statements such as 'use your brain' because with all the hub bub of the ever increasing fast paced lives we lead I find that more and more people don't take the time to sit down and read something and think it over before disagreeing with it. If you feel insulted by that kind of comment or if you feel that I'm belittling you then you have some personal issues to sort out. Read a book on establishing and improving self-confidence or look in a mirror for 5 minutes a day saying 'I love myself' if you have to. Just sort out your personal issues on your own and don't shit where you eat as the expression goes.

[imported_Shade]

No no, I completely get the idea of wanting to put a house in a certain location, hence why I placed my house where I did and I even asked a GM to place it for me when I thought 1 lousy stone was blocking it but eventually I got it on my own (check the logs if you think a staff did some fowl play).

You're right, immediate action isn't needed but at some some form of action will be needed and I fully agree with that. However since we both agree immediate action isn't needed, isn't it possible that we can hold off on implementing house decay or possibly introduce less severe measures first.

It is better to have it ready for when we plan on mass mailing anyway. Once we leave beta we want to make as little changes as possible, that alter gameplay in any way at least, so the best course of action is to take in what we can about this topic and prepare it for when we leave beta. Adding anything that would slow down the main issue here will not really fix it, it would just delay the inevitable.

[imported_phobia]

If you had a castle and loss it when you come back you just need a house placement tool , money and a spot to put it.

If you lose a static you have the risk of when you come back it have already been buyed by someone else and cant have it again.

Btw you dont need to pass by an auction to buy a normal house or redo you custom.

An idea that come to my head if that idea get implemented someday is refound the owner with the house value on gold.

Anyway if you set the decay time to a year to all kind of houses (and refound the money ) so I dont care if the time gonna be the same to statics.

you can refund the money for the house but what about items. and what if one players says he had 10tubes 7rare rides and other stuff. would it not be a hassle to look in the logs every time? (plus i hope to be one of those returning players one of these days)

[imported_Lederoil]

you can refund the money for the house but what about items. and what if one players says he had 10tubes 7rare rides and other stuff. would it not be a hassle to look in the logs every time? (plus i hope to be one of those returning players one of these days)

Well who says anything about refunding anyway? If you let your house decay it's just too bad for you... Your own ****ing fault of letting you lose your items.

[imported_Papa Smurf]

well who says anything about refunding anyway? If you let your house decay it's just too bad for you... Your own ****ing fault of letting you lose your items.

amen!

[smoke]

house decay is good, it promotes pvp when houses have items on the ground gives new locations to allow players to put there houses when there houses decay instead of people just afking laways with there house there and they dont play, just let us know how long houses decay in

[imported_Sindern]

I still think that this is trying to fix something that isn't broken.

Things that this would fix:
Lack of house space (doesn't exist in the slightest)
Statics being owned by people who have quit. (this is legit)
Item count (negligible. I'm pretty sure a server in the year 2009 can handle running a server of a game that was released in 1997, and there are better ways of lowering item counts)

Things that this would hurt:
Returning players (with as few players as we have at the moment, we don't want to alienate the people who have quit for a while and decide to come back. Lets face it, noone will devote their entire gaming lives to one game. You play UO some, you play something else, you come back to UO. Who are we to put a time limit on that?)
Vacationing players (a 3 month decay means that you're telling the player, you can't leave for more than 3 months or we'll take your shit from you. Then, if they do decide to leave, some GM has to come set their house to not decay.)


I'm a big fan of the system that I suggested earlier in the thread. Let me recap the main points:

• Add a timer to each house that starts counting when the script is added.
  
• Every time owner/coowner/friend opens the door or dclick the sign, the timer is reset to 0.
  
• Add a {.checkhousetimer X} command where X is the number of months you want to check for.
  
• Add a .condemn command. Use it and target a sign and the house will delete after 7 days (1 week). You could even have it broadcast that a house has been condemned.
  
• Condemn all houses that aren't refreshed after 6 months.
  
• An owner/coowner/friend can dclick the sign/door after a house is condemned to un-condemn it and reset the timer to 0.
  

This sounds like it's a lot of work for GMs, but it's really not. Just use .checkhousetimer every few days and condemn the houses that are unused. You'll very rarely get one that's past 6 months since they'll nearly always be refreshed unless the player quits.

After 6 months, you'd see a surge in un-used houses that you can go to and check out and .condemn. After that, you'll hardly see any of them.

I'm not a big fan of having everything automated. For instance, if you see a house in the middle of nowhere with lots of stuff inside, you can leave it alone and reset its timer since it's not in a prime location and the player has a lot invested in it. You can also check to see who the player is to see the likelihood of them coming back. However, if it's in a prime location, is a static or is empty, condemn it.