Different ways we could limit houses per account.

[Dan]

If we decided to limit houses per account I'd like the communities opinion on a few things.

1. What should the limit of houses, per account, be? Keeping in mind that players can have up to 4 accounts.

2. If we set a limit how should players "unlock" additional account house slots? Shard Loyalty? Gold? Ect?

NOTE: If we do enact a limit, players with multiple houses will be "grandfathered". That being said they would need to be under the new "limit" to place anymore.

Please keep this discussion civil. Any useless comments will be removed.

 

[xG00BERx]

If we decided to limit houses per account I'd like the communities opinion on a few things.

1. What should the limit of houses, per account, be? Keeping in mind that players can have up to 4 accounts.

2. If we set a limit how should players "unlock" additional account house slots? Shard Loyalty? Gold? Ect?

NOTE: If we do enact a limit, players with multiple houses will be "grandfathered". That being said they would need to be under the new "limit" to place anymore.

Please keep this discussion civil. Any useless comments will be removed.

If you want to set a limit, set a limit but GOLD is the requirement to build houses. Why does anything else need to be a prerequisite the prices are already changed to be more expensive.

I mean tbh you're only fuckin the new players that join as most of us have placed lots of houses to either sell or set up shop.

What happened to the free market thought about getting as much as you can afford?

 

[Dan]

This is all thinking out loud. Does not mean anything is changing. Just looking for feedback.

 

[Noah]

Grandfathered/older accounts (not by shard loyalty) but rather by creation date, limit to 5 per account.

New accounts limit to 2 per account.

Limit the amount of houses owned to any account in Luna or Tokuno "city limits" to 1 or 2.

I agree that there needs to be more diverse ownership in luna to provide more vendor space, libraries and less inactive players owning houses that sit for years.
Maybe even make the decay process in Luna much faster. Instead of 6 months make it 3 months, and anyone who owns a house in town already cannot place one there.

There is land is available for anyone to place currently. Not like OSI when an IDOC fell, it was camped for the placement, not necessarily the items due to land all being taken up.

Heritage currently has a lots of locations without a single house on them, so I'm curious as to why its an issue now?

Limiting Luna plots should be addressed first, as well as non-active players sitting on 3-4 plots and not using them, even for vendors.
Of course Luna plots are more desirable and usually go for a higher asking price. There are a lot of plots for sale, including the one I do own. So those that are serious about buying should consider doing so now. prices will go up

 

[Moti]

Your opinion, what is the value of houses in the Luna, when there is a search item by vendors?

 

[Omalley]

Your opinion, what is the value of houses in the Luna, when there is a search item by vendors?

1. Convenience
2. Close to a Moongate
3. You own a shop in the most popular city in the game.

 

[Omalley]

Im curious at why you would want to limit housing? with all the room in the world, and only 40 accounts online.. now if we had 1000 accounts online, this would make sense. but.. sorry, just dont get it. Kinda feels shady, like removing Power Hour

 

[Dan]

I get various complaints every few days about a select few players owning all the good locations and them going to waste, so am just thinking out loud.

I did not simply wake up and say "what can I ruin today?"

Just putting it out there for conversation nothing has even been thought on or touched.

Also as a side bar, the Power Hour script was removed because it required VitaNex core, which we removed to increase stability. On top of that half of it (the gold part) was found to not even work.

 

[Omalley]

Well, I think its great the way it is... like everything, some people hate it, some people like it, but like you said, if you set it to 5 houses per account, thats still 20 houses, and someone could easily take over an area with that.. so it didnt really fix anything.. all in all, 5 houses per account seems manageable, I think im sitting close to that, but i like designing homes.. so.. i get use out of them, a new house (or custom castle) is like a new piece of epic gear for me.

 

[Dan]

I think another way we have to look at it too is, storage now is basically unlimited. We have a huge item count on this shard currently. Having housing limits would curtail some of that. Or we could look at Storage in general.

 

[xG00BERx]

I did not simply wake up and say "what can I ruin today?"

 

[Shakyj]

I was one of the people who spoke to Dan about it originally.

We have a lot of good plots taken up in popular towns that people are holding out a lot of money for or just simply not using because they already have a lot of housing. Walk round and look at the blank 18x18's that are about or blank luna houses that aren't used or even the few that are owned by someone I've never seen in my 3 months here...

That's what could be improved

It also turns IDOCs into battlegrounds because a house has value just to sit on it and hope someone buys it. If we had limitations, even just areas that are limited to say 1/2 houses across 3/4 popular areas it would open up a lot of new housing in traffic'd areas for new people.

I liked the faster IDOC rate in certain areas at first but I'm not sure if it will just make it worse and make it more of a 4/5 owners town

 

[Omalley]

I was one of the people who spoke to Dan about it originally.

We have a lot of good plots taken up in popular towns that people are holding out a lot of money for or just simply not using because they already have a lot of housing. Walk round and look at the blank 18x18's that are about or blank luna houses that aren't used or even the few that are owned by someone I've never seen in my 3 months here...

That's what could be improved

It also turns IDOCs into battlegrounds because a house has value just to sit on it and hope someone buys it. If we had limitations, even just areas that are limited to say 1/2 houses across 3/4 popular areas it would open up a lot of new housing in traffic'd areas for new people.

I liked the faster IDOC rate in certain areas at first but I'm not sure if it will just make it worse and make it more of a 4/5 owners town

I understand your point, but you also have to think about how some of these houses were obtained.. every Luna house i have for sale i purchased with real money.. not gold.. not sov's, i took a chance and gave someone real $$ for those homes.. & Thats why I am asking for sovs in return.. consider it an investment for me.. and a bit of a profit makes it worth doing.. the players who sold these homes, did not want gold.. they wanted CASH! Only, so no one would have ever had the chance to buy it with gold.. some one else may have a simular story.. and some are just dicks buying up land to say they own it.. *shrug*

With all that said, I like building houses, and selling them... to be restricted by a max houses, kills alot of chance to be a real estate broker & a house builder.. an alternative income source, as I am not the type to delve too deep into the dark places of the world...

But i understand, where @Shakyj is coming from.

 

[xG00BERx]

I was one of the people who spoke to Dan about it originally.

We have a lot of good plots taken up in popular towns that people are holding out a lot of money for or just simply not using because they already have a lot of housing. Walk round and look at the blank 18x18's that are about or blank luna houses that aren't used or even the few that are owned by someone I've never seen in my 3 months here...

That's what could be improved

It also turns IDOCs into battlegrounds because a house has value just to sit on it and hope someone buys it. If we had limitations, even just areas that are limited to say 1/2 houses across 3/4 popular areas it would open up a lot of new housing in traffic'd areas for new people.

I liked the faster IDOC rate in certain areas at first but I'm not sure if it will just make it worse and make it more of a 4/5 owners town

Im all for limiting certain areas... But that is about it..

 

[Shakyj]

I understand your point, but you also have to think about how some of these houses were obtained.. every Luna house i have for sale i purchased with real money.. not gold.. not sov's, i took a chance and gave someone real $$ for those homes.. & Thats why I am asking for sovs in return.. consider it an investment for me.. and a bit of a profit makes it worth doing.. the players who sold these homes, did not want gold.. they wanted CASH! Only, so no one would have ever had the chance to buy it with gold.. some one else may have a simular story.. and some are just dicks buying up land to say they own it.. *shrug*

With all that said, I like building houses, and selling them... to be restricted by a max houses, kills alot of chance to be a real estate broker & a house builder.. an alternative income source, as I am not the type to delve too deep into the dark places of the world...

But i understand, where @Shakyj is coming from.

Yeah, I get that too. It's hard to find the balance between having diverse towns and the ability for people to turn a profit. I wouldn't want to be Dan lol

 

[Gharik]

This is the Pandora's Box type of question... Bravo for asking it Dan, but you're not going to make everyone happy either way... I'm probably one of the newest players to the shard, so my input won't hold as much weight. I don't have as much skin in the game. I'll give it anyway, because you asked so nicely.

Do I think housing overall should be limited? No. Not in our current climate. I can wander the world and find plenty of space. Even for castles. I could probably create a beautiful city out of player made houses if I wanted to. And I may do that. Will it be in Luna? No. That doesn't bother me though... It'll give people a reason to go somewhere other than Luna.

Would I like to own a house in Luna? Absolutely. Will I spend real money on one? Nope. People who haven't played here in ages and are just sitting on them to sit on them? That's a lame move... but to take that from a player who's taking a break doesn't seem all that fair either. Maybe they're doing other things and plan to get back to UO a bit later? That'd discourage them from coming back. Perhaps messaging them directly to see where their heads' are at? Only Dan can do that... I'm sure some won't respond... Maybe they don't check their email. Unless someone has contact info on certain owners. Maybe they'd be willing to give them up for a price. Just to breathe new life into Luna?

As much as I'd love a house in Luna, I don't necessarily need one. There are plenty of kind people here that give you free vendor spots in Luna. That's not something you'd ever see in OSI.

Side note... was anyone around for when OSI burned down some of the Luna houses? I think it happened across multiple shards... but I know a guy on Baja who was caught scripting. He owned multiple Luna vendor houses. When OSI caught him scripting and make real money off of it, they burned the houses down. They were burning for weeks before they actually removed them... That was a fun even. Not for him... but for everyone else.

Now for the storage question... I don't know what sort of machine is running our server, but I'm willing to bet our small population isn't scratching the surface of it. If the server were to double or triple in size, pixels might then begin to become a problem. Having a plan in place for that day is a good idea... Lower how much a house can hold? Maybe... Limiting housing at that point may be worth visiting as well. Do items decay in homes when they aren't locked down? If they don't... That's something to consider.

Personally... You don't want to alienate your core supporters by taking their pixels. They keep the server going. Do I think people need more than 5 per account? Not really... But that's too much maintenance for me. I've never really needed more than a few houses. Limiting the house selection cuts your most loyal player base off at the knees though. They've spent the last few years or so collecting and building. I think you should shelve this conversation for when the server actually needs it. When there's too many player generated items and the server is starting to bog. Or when the server population is large enough to where people are fighting over land mass.

It isn't fair for me to point fingers and whine about people who are hording prime real estate and aren't doing anything with it. They were here first. I was not. Simple as that. If there comes a day that I want to spend real life money on a house. I will. As will everyone else. You won't be able to please everyone though... with whichever decision you make. In the end, Dan will have to make a command decision. And the response to the backlash will have to be, "It was for the good of the shard. The shard that I work hard to operate. If you don't like it, there's the door."

 

[Moti]

Dan, tell us, if it doesn’t bother you, what caused your decision, allow players an infinite number of houses? A very unusual solution, I must say, very unpopular on many private servers, since it creates some problems. Social, and economic and technical.

 

[Dan]

So, before I respond I would like to know, from your perspective, what:

SOCIAL
ECONOMIC
TECHNICAL

Problems does the current system cause.

 

[Moti]

Social-A lot of controversy and discussion on this topic. Everyone expresses his opinion, and you are faced with the fact that it is impossible to please everyone.

Economic-the players who came first start spicking the ground in the most valuable places, which also causes dissatisfaction of the players who came later. At the moment, all houses in the Luna belong to 4-5 players (except for one who caused a storm of indignation). The main thing is that speculation in pricing inevitably leads to an increase in the money supply, which is very difficult to remove from the financial system.
I am sure you are worried about this issue - the presence of a large money supply with a relatively small number of players. It also makes people continuously farm money from mobs. At the moment, all houses are selling for sov., which affect the overall pricing.What is the problem for you, you ask? And here there will be a whole set of problems donated servers. Believe, they are.

Technical- In the future, there may come a time when the number of players will increase, and an uncontrolled number of houses may hamper the development of the server, have to redo the system and maybe a lot of technical problems. With things, with accounts and stuff. It can be very difficult to unblock it. Servers may be have a limitation on processing power, often seen it, but I can only assume it here.I am sure this moment will come, for example, on Demise it is impossible to put a house of 18 on 18. Many people have little space.It's unavoidable.

Therefore, all serevers have a standard 1home-1 account limit, which is enough for players to manipulate removable houses, spiked prices for a limited amount, and avoid a headache in the future for owners.

 

[Noah]

Moti is wrong. As usual. He's been here 1 month and has wanted to change everything since he's gotten here.

There are more than 5 players that own homes in Luna. I'll name a few to prove him wrong...
Myself, Goober, Rain, O'malley, Brosephine, DewCono, Magus, Barbie, Redbeard, Izolda, Sookie, Melek, Naxious, Xtal....

Economic... play more=get more gold. Houses will sell in Luna for gold as well as Sovs. The price just has to be in range for current players holding gold to make such a purchase.

Technical...This sever is only 3 years old. There are still lots of plots available for building houses. With a player base of 20 active members i don't see this becoming an issue any time soon. Especially since the introduction of the new castles. I myself have sold several 18 x 18's since they are no longer needed, and dumped 50 mil into buying, and decorating it.
Maybe in 2-3 years the server will explode with more players than land can handle, but I don't necessarily think that limiting houses or who owns them is an issue at this time.