"This area is temporarily unavailable..."

[Alyssa of ATL]

Did I miss an IDOC change?
I searched and couldn't find an answer to this.

After a house fell, I tried to place a house for about 30 minutes, and the placement tool gave me the message "This area is temporarily unavailable for house placement".

Can someone clue me in, please?

Thanks!

 

[Sarsmi]

Yes, you can't place from between 20 minutes up to 3 hours after a house falls. It was to combat script placers. If you try to place to fast you will get a cool down timer on your tool and won't be able to use it at all. I managed to place at a castle idoc the other day, I placed about an hour after it fell and was attempting to place every 8-10 seconds since I'm unsure of how fast you have to be to hit the timer.

 

[Alyssa of ATL]

Thank you, Sarsmi.

I found out about the time-out on the placement tool the old fashioned way.

I was kicking myself when I got the message that I couldn't try to place for a while, because I had tried too many times. Then when I could try placing again, I used more of a delay.
And of course someone came running along and... you can guess the rest.

Oh well.

 

[Sarsmi]

It's a roll of the dice. I know I got really lucky, but there were actually very few people at the castle idoc (trammel! grass! what the heck?) and my friend vol even had her tool time out, her sister was trying to place for her while she went to powder her nose. I think there were only 5 or 6 people at that fall to begin with. She picked up a 2 story statue off the ground, and this was after the castle had been down for several minutes hehe. I was wrestling with an overweight bucket with a million items in it, too heavy to put on my beetle at the start of the fall (what is so heavy?? There's only two ingots in this pile?! What is it?!? ARGH!!!) but even so got a potted tree like 10 minutes after the castle dropped, it was slightly masked by a real tree. Camouflage!

Castle falls are fun, and awful nerve wracking. I hope you picked up some nice trinkets at yours.

 

[Lady Arwen]

Wow, congrats on the Sarsmi! I was at a keep idoc about a week or two ago and didnt know about the wait. As soon as it fell I was so occupied by trying to place the keep that I forgot about all the loot.. by the time I realized I had to wait to place all the loot was gone... Woops! Ill know for next time I guess.

 

[Sarsmi]

Thank you! Glad they don't happen too often, I get pretty nervous. And fall times is about when my husband rolls out of bed and comes to bug me, er I mean give me sweet kissies. So imagine you're at a castle fall trying to place, your hand on the mouse and ready to "click click" on that one spot and then someone comes up behind you and- ARGH!!! Those days are over! Now I just freak out if I'm trying to grab something really good and he sneaks up behind me. Then he'll try to carry on a conversation with me. I swear this is the only time he talks to me, when I have to concentrate on something time sensitive. I end up making monosyllabic answers that make no sense.

Him: "What do you want to do for lunch?"
Me: "Fine."
Him: "We had that yesterday! I was thinking indian." (I hate indian)
Me: "Ok."
Him: "Indian it is!"
Me: "Wait...shut up! No, I want foodie."
Him: "What kind of foodie?"
Me: "Delicious foo- ARGH dammit I lagged out!"


So stressful!

 

[Lady Arwen]

hahaha!