06-17-2009, 04:08 AM
Well, it looks like the consensus is leaning towards implementing this so I'll go ahead and brainstorm possible problems to take into consideration.
1) If a house decays, you won't be able to reach the items that "drop" on the top floors of the house. Maybe they should fall to the ground when a house decays instead of floating.
2) A house should be able to be flagged as no-decay or you should at least be able to modify the decay timer. This could be useful if people have to take a break from UO but intend to return. For instance, I'm going to be moving to Japan for a foreign exchange program for 6 months in January and I won't be able to log in during that time, which basically means I have to either let my house decay, move all my items and delete my house and hope that the spot is still there for me (and then the terrible process of rebuilding a custom house.), or give out my account info to someone else to have them refresh it which shouldn't be an option.
3) Doors that are deleted and replaced may not refresh the house duration. (guild doors, re-hued doors)
4) If this is just to get rid of the problem with tons of houses being used as placeholders, (for example, Rabbi's 30 or so houses that block off the whole area north of minoc mines), it's not going to work since the player would just run to refresh all those houses once a month or so.
5) Allow any friend/coowner/owner who uses the door to refresh the sign, OR let a simple login on the account that owns the house refresh the duration. Otherwise, it's just one more bit of hassle that's being added. I know UO is kindof built around hassle, but I think that today's gaming crowd is getting more accustomed to games that don't require constant babysitting.
--EDIT--
This isn't showing support for the idea. I don't like the idea of house decay at all.
Here's an alternative solution:
Add a timer to all the houses that check to see how long it has been since the house has been used (door opened or sign used by the owner/co-owner/friend). Have a command in-game for GMs to use that will show houses or statics that haven't been used in 6 months. GMs can see those houses, then go to the location to check it out. If the house is a worthless house (or static) or the player has quit, then the GM can delete it and put a deed or check in the player's bank box (you could add a command for that also.)
I think that a case-by-case basis is going to be the best bet. Implement that timer, then wait 6 months to see which houses still haven't been used and start deleting houses and opening up statics.
The other benefit is that you have clear logs of when the house was deleted, by whom, and you can explain what happened if the player came back later.
Oh, and as far as item count, we're being a little silly. Think of shards like NOS that had 500+ players back in 2001 or so. TONS more items and players than we have right now, yet they were able to run fine on machines that run at what, an eighth of the capacity of modern machines? Item count is fine and there are betters solutions to lowering it than house decay. That's just another "pro" to use to support house decay that doesn't really matter at all.
1) If a house decays, you won't be able to reach the items that "drop" on the top floors of the house. Maybe they should fall to the ground when a house decays instead of floating.
2) A house should be able to be flagged as no-decay or you should at least be able to modify the decay timer. This could be useful if people have to take a break from UO but intend to return. For instance, I'm going to be moving to Japan for a foreign exchange program for 6 months in January and I won't be able to log in during that time, which basically means I have to either let my house decay, move all my items and delete my house and hope that the spot is still there for me (and then the terrible process of rebuilding a custom house.), or give out my account info to someone else to have them refresh it which shouldn't be an option.
3) Doors that are deleted and replaced may not refresh the house duration. (guild doors, re-hued doors)
4) If this is just to get rid of the problem with tons of houses being used as placeholders, (for example, Rabbi's 30 or so houses that block off the whole area north of minoc mines), it's not going to work since the player would just run to refresh all those houses once a month or so.
5) Allow any friend/coowner/owner who uses the door to refresh the sign, OR let a simple login on the account that owns the house refresh the duration. Otherwise, it's just one more bit of hassle that's being added. I know UO is kindof built around hassle, but I think that today's gaming crowd is getting more accustomed to games that don't require constant babysitting.
--EDIT--
This isn't showing support for the idea. I don't like the idea of house decay at all.
Here's an alternative solution:
Add a timer to all the houses that check to see how long it has been since the house has been used (door opened or sign used by the owner/co-owner/friend). Have a command in-game for GMs to use that will show houses or statics that haven't been used in 6 months. GMs can see those houses, then go to the location to check it out. If the house is a worthless house (or static) or the player has quit, then the GM can delete it and put a deed or check in the player's bank box (you could add a command for that also.)
I think that a case-by-case basis is going to be the best bet. Implement that timer, then wait 6 months to see which houses still haven't been used and start deleting houses and opening up statics.
The other benefit is that you have clear logs of when the house was deleted, by whom, and you can explain what happened if the player came back later.
Oh, and as far as item count, we're being a little silly. Think of shards like NOS that had 500+ players back in 2001 or so. TONS more items and players than we have right now, yet they were able to run fine on machines that run at what, an eighth of the capacity of modern machines? Item count is fine and there are betters solutions to lowering it than house decay. That's just another "pro" to use to support house decay that doesn't really matter at all.