time for houses to fall

[Lorddog]

it neigh time for all those permament houses out there to start to fall.
we have so many out there that the owners havent been around in years and years. if it is a newer account then they fall but these older grandfathered permament houses need to go.

im just saying

 

[canary]

it neigh time for all those permament houses out there to start to fall.
we have so many out there that the owners havent been around in years and years. if it is a newer account then they fall but these older grandfathered permament houses need to go.

im just saying

Aside from Atlantic, does UO need the landscape to look any more barren?

 

[weezer]

Canary, i agree about the barren landscape. However, a lot of these house are in very good or even unique spots on the shards. They should all drop. Some are even blocking castle spots. It is time for them to fall.

Also the people actually paying for the game should have access to the housing spots that the people who aren't paying/playing the game currently have.

 

[JC the Builder]

Most houses which were bugged have been deleted. I know because every one I marked on Atlantic is now gone. The houses remaining might be on accounts which are being paid for, but the owner doesn't know they are. Or maybe they are expecting to return to the game. A friend of mine paid for his account for 4+ years and didn't play a single day. His tower only fell recently.

 

[Lynk]

Agreed, but I'd like an email from Mythic containing X/Y coords and times for every house that falls on all east coast shards so that I can attend and get lewts.

 

[ohmyGED]

Agreed, but I'd like an email from Mythic containing X/Y coords and times for every house that falls on all east coast shards so that I can attend and get lewts.

This.

 

[Arcus]

im just saying

...nothing. These houses went poof long ago. If it is there, it is paid for.

 

[Spellbound]

Still see unpaid return to brit houses and plots standing... and Draconi infected burning plots.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

There are still many Welcome Back to Britannia promotion houses all over, especially on the more populated shards. As far as I'm aware, none of these houses have fell. It's amazing they can't engineer a fix for these after all this time.

 

[RD Gumbie]

...nothing. These houses went poof long ago. If it is there, it is paid for.

HA, you have no clue, there are 3 years of welcome back to brit houses out there. Hell i placed 10+ on Euro in tram over the past 3 yrs and all of them are still there, Unless somone else is paying for me to hold my crap in them There are also lots of houses with no name and no owner out there.

 

[canary]

...nothing. These houses went poof long ago. If it is there, it is paid for.

Actually you are wrong. In the past, Jeremy (who no longer is with Mythic) and Mesanna have asked for houses' shards and locations because there are quite a few plots which never fell, and they could then tend to them and delete them.

So... if anyone sees a house that shouldn't be standing, that's actually what we have been asked to do.

 

[Lady Storm]

Hummmmm

I think you should know 90% of those houses are paid for.

When I say paid for I mean a player pays UO/EA for a monthly fee to keep their account on. They dont need to play there everyday or log in even.... Yes there is a few "vacant" houses, I my self sent in 2 locations I found to Mesanna for proper poofing.

However.... just because you dont see the owner of a home ever pop in or running around does not mean its ownerless...

I know of one friend who because he is in the service and has not had the time to go in game due to his deployment has a home that no one has seen anyone in in almost a year.. its paid for. His home is in Luna.. do you want to be the one to tell him he lost his property because you couldnt stand to see it unused??

I myself have 64 homes and quite honestly I cant visit every home on a daily basis. So they are going to look abandoned. I can assure you my homes are needed and used. But there too you could go to the Dev and say gee guys its been abandoned, no one ever shows up when we go by.....

Oh I can simpathise with the ones who hope the Dev will step in and eliminate "choice" homes so that sweet castle spot can be filled by their hoped for building.... but get real guys.
Would you want the Dev to walk up to a house you own, deem it on a dead account and unused and poof it ?? Just because your neighbors havent seen you for a week or two??

Do you see my point?
I hope so.....

UO looks so empty that even if they took back the 1 house per account all the way back to the original first houseing limit of 1 house per character it would still look vacant!!!

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

Oh I can simpathise with the ones who hope the Dev will step in and eliminate "choice" homes so that sweet castle spot can be filled by their hoped for building.... but get real guys.
Would you want the Dev to walk up to a house you own, deem it on a dead account and unused and poof it ?? Just because your neighbors havent seen you for a week or two??

Do you see my point?
I hope so.....

If the devs or customer service or GMs don't have the tools to look at a house, note the account name that owns it and check to see when the last time the account was paid for then this game is in way worse shape than any of us even knows.

The Welcome Back to Brit houses were placed by players that don't play UO anymore on formerly inactive accounts or by current players on spare inactive accounts during the free to play and log in promotions. There have been at least three. Once the promo was over those houses should have fallen. They did not. They are all still there.

 

[MedeaDF]

None of the houses I sent in and were probably RTB houses went poof on my shard. I had a runebook of full of houses, and we also got an island full of those houses. They still sit there, rotting slowly. I don't think all those players are still playing or paying for those accounts...

 

[weezer]

i have 6 houses still up that havn't been activated in years and years....

I now have pot houses on six servers.... They are out there and a lot of them. I pay for two accounts and have 8 total houses thanks to the bugged ones.

I would miss all my houses, however i think ea should fix it and drop them.

 

[weezer]

Most houses which were bugged have been deleted. I know because every one I marked on Atlantic is now gone. The houses remaining might be on accounts which are being paid for, but the owner doesn't know they are. Or maybe they are expecting to return to the game. A friend of mine paid for his account for 4+ years and didn't play a single day. His tower only fell recently.

You missed mine on ATL.. it is still up.

 

[kelmo]

While I understand... I just hope no paying account ever has a house deleted. I do not really care if they play or when they play. If they are paying, they deserve to keep their houses.

 

[Lorddog]

right - i am only saying the unpaid/inactive account houses need to go through the idoc process.

Lorddog

 

[claudia-fjp]

There are many kinds of bugged houses. None of which a dime is paid for.

On 9/15/2010 I sent Mesanna an E-Mail with 9 ownerless houses that were banned circa 2001, and mentioned the Castle EA tried and failed to auction off a few years ago. I even ran into her at a local RP event and handed her a runebook full of runes to ownerless houses. 2 months later figuring I'd give her a more complete list I ran all over my server for many hours marking each location and writing down coordinates. I fired off the second E-Mail on 11/13/2010 with over 30 ownerless houses, burnt plots (one of which a paged GM took care of) and bugged items like a metal door that was banned from a house (lol @ that bug) that decayed years ago.

On top of that any house placed with a closed account during return to brit NEVER decays so long as the account is kept closed. So your neighbors house you think is on an active account because you see him in it could very well just be his Coowned house on a closed account he placed so he can play on his 5th server. Some people even use that time to place houses around people they know want to upgrade but can't yet. So they drop a bunch of houses around them to sit empty just to grief.

So NO they haven't been cleaned up, and FAR more houses are bugged and unpaid for than anyone suspects.

 

[Jordy]

Agreed, but I'd like an email from Mythic containing X/Y coords and times for every house that falls on all east coast shards so that I can attend and get lewts.

I would also like them to have pack horses waiting for me, already loaded with loot and ready for me to take so that I don't have to sit at the house and wait.

 

[Raptor85]

it neigh time for all those permament houses out there to start to fall.
we have so many out there that the owners havent been around in years and years. if it is a newer account then they fall but these older grandfathered permament houses need to go.

im just saying

I second this, with an addition that even NEW houses should fall if unpaid for 30 days, removing the loophole where people keep dozens of houses in prime locations for years and years for less than I pay for 2 active accounts.... even though they no longer play.

 

[Lady Storm]

What do you mean in the way of permament grandfathered houses?? For example My accounts are on. I play where I want too, and I pay for my GRANDFATHERED houses every bloody month. Who are you to say that the owner is there or not?? Lay off the houses that are grandfathered and paid for.
You wont steal that spot you so desprately want by getting a free demo of a players house. There are 27 shards and they could be on another shard playing. Just because you dont see them doesnt mean they dont exsist or not have rights.

Yes the Dev and the GM's have ways to see if a house is on a active account. That said Mesanna was working on gathering locations for deletions. I have seen a few go over the last few months but will admit the RTB houses are still all over the place.

By the way that 90 day was installed for reasons of banking/credit/debit card payments that are still in practice at most banks. Too many banks were causing accounts to be denyed and players lost their houses due to it so the CS/Dev set up the 90 day clause.
If you want the game to shut down put it to 30days.......... I know many here on this forum who count on that lea way to help balance their playing and the recient finacial troubles. Others have ben sitting on the fence whether to quit UO or not have that time to decide.

Something hit me reading a few of these about the RTB and OFF accounts that players are using for blocking free... The UO dev staff would love to poof them... thats the truth but its time... if you sat there and thought why cant they take care of this mess. EA expects work to be done and though Mesanna has taken many of these X/Y/Z cords she still must confirm each address legaly before she can drop them. This occured to me that they just might be holding alot of this dropping for 1 main drop time all at once...

 

[Raptor85]

By the way that 90 day was installed for reasons of banking/credit/debit card payments that are still in practice at most banks. Too many banks were causing accounts to be denyed and players lost their houses due to it so the CS/Dev set up the 90 day clause.
If you want the game to shut down put it to 30days.......... I know many here on this forum who count on that lea way to help balance their playing and the recient finacial troubles. Others have ben sitting on the fence whether to quit UO or not have that time to decide.

It was put there because the original house refresh WAS too short....but 90 days is far too long and has led to people creating dozens of accounts that are only paid a few times a year. If you can't get $10 into your bank account in 30 days from the day the payment fails, or get a game time code by that time....you have far larger issues to take care of than playing UO.

 

[Lorddog]

must I say this again Storm? I am only talking about houses that are not paid for.

people who have 2 houses is just wrong and unfair but i am not talking about those even.

 

[Arcus]

I don't think all those players are still playing or paying for those accounts...

You know this how? The only thing you can say with some amount of certainty is that you don't see any players there while you are logged in. You have no idea if they are paying for them. Unless you know the person how would you?

 

[Vaelix]

must I say this again Storm? I am only talking about houses that are not paid for.

people who have 2 houses is just wrong and unfair but i am not talking about those even.

Three times now you've had to say that same thing, I wonder if its taken root yet

:gun:

 

[Mook Chessy]

Three times now you've had to say that same thing, I wonder if its taken root yet

:gun:

She has 64 homes in UO...enough said!

 

[JC the Builder]

You missed mine on ATL.. it is still up.

Opps, I forgot about the Return to Britannia houses. Those are still hanging around. But the old ones from 5+ years ago have all been torn down.

 

[claudia-fjp]

Opps, I forgot about the Return to Britannia houses. Those are still hanging around. But the old ones from 10+ years ago have all been torn down ON ATLANTIC.

Fixt


and yes, no one wants to take away your grandfathered houses or anyone's house that belongs to an active paying player. There are enough bugged houses in the game there's no need to go after legit ones.

This last RTB I had a friend who forgot he had a malas Log Cabin on a closed account, he didn't even remember the account name. Every RTB plots pop up over night in every available space, dozens of 18 x 18s on Pac once everyone realize it was free house time of the year again.

For those who cry "HOW DO YOU KNOW ITS NOT ACTIVE!!!" One way for people to check if a house is current and paid for is do a character search on UO.com. When an account is active its character show up on there, if you suspect a house is bugged and unpaid for simply search the owning characters name for 4 months in a row. If it never shows up chances are its fallen through the cracks. The ownerless houses are obvious. Hello no owner, hello private but can walk on the steps, hello no items newer than 2001. My favorite one has an illegal gauntlet Game Cursor locked down inside which is probably why they got banned a decade ago.

More than a few people want the RTB house to continue to be overlooked and downplay or deny it. They've gotten used to not paying for all the houses they use.

 

[Poo]

...nothing. These houses went poof long ago. If it is there, it is paid for.

well..... thats not really true.

cause i have 7 return to brit houses that are still up.
and a couple from way back that are on accounts that have been deactived for.... hell 10 years.
and they are all still up.

 

[Poo]

Opps, I forgot about the Return to Britannia houses. Those are still hanging around. But the old ones from 5+ years ago have all been torn down.

not true.

i have noticed that if you mouse over the house sign, if its a 2 liner its a old house that is on an inactive account.

all new houses or active houses are 3 liners.

name
owner
private or public

 

[Lady_Rachel]

Looking for the house owners character on a search may not be accurate either. The character on that account could have been deleted and the account still quite active.

 

[Deaol]

They should just make ever house on ever shard start to decay...


Those who pay.. and still play will log in, those houses will be refreshed.

All the others, well.. we now know who is what.

 

[Lady Storm]

We had that, it was the 7 day timer you needed to open the front door to refresh.... only it didnt work all the time and on player crafted homes without doors......... you would need to open the house sign. Only some crafty players found tricks to mess up players doors and though they opened the door thinking the house was refreshed it stayed unrefreshed and if you didnt take the time to notice it your house fell and the party who messed with your door was there to clean up the mess... And no you didnt get a warning back then, it just went poof. Not a good thing jr.

Lost 1 tower full of my rares that way by a neighbor who thought what I had would look better in his house...... I didnt find it so funny.

Look all I was upset about is the fact he said Grandfathered ... it has a meaning not to be confused with RTB houseing bugs.

Grandfathered came in to being when UO decided to limit us to 1 house per shard then later to the 1 house per account. We who had played from beta had the limit of 5 per account (99% were smalls 7x7) we could do. They are the grandfathered houses not RTB's.

 

[claudia-fjp]

Looking for the house owners character on a search may not be accurate either. The character on that account could have been deleted and the account still quite active.

Sure, this is one possibility that's always brought up, but seriously how often do you think people delete the character they used to place their house? I'm sure a handful of of houses in UO fit this category but hundreds if not thousands of others do not. They're simply bugged and not paid for. I mean if you've never seen anyone home, the character never shows up on the UO.com search site, and new items never appear or disappear it kinda points to the owner not playing. I seriously doubt there are that many people out there who so loved the UO:R house decorations that they'd never add one of the thousands of new items added to the game since...


For those few who did do this houses are tied to ACCOUNT so whether the char was deleted or not doesn't matter if they actually went and looked at the housing server and checked to see if the account was active or had been sometime in the last 3 months. They should set something up to do this for every house in UO. Even the ownerless ones they say they "can't find", I assume by this they mean on the housing server, but the data for them has to be stored SOMEWHERE. The server does draw them every time it comes up along with everything in them. If they cross checked the housing server with active accounts it would get rid of all of these unpaid for houses of every variety from every bug and loophole over the years.

 

[Theo_GL]

They should just make ever house on ever shard start to decay...


Those who pay.. and still play will log in, those houses will be refreshed.

All the others, well.. we now know who is what.

It would be an easy fix if they coded better. Instead of a script that runs each day to look at accounts that are exactly 90 days old and then marking house for decay - once a month they could look at ALL accounts more than 90 days and marking any houses associated.

That would clean up all the WTB houses.

Although, its probably not in their best interests to do this as it will REALLY REALLY underscore how empty the game is currently.

I have two active accounts and 7 or so 18x18's on GL. My primary 2 paid have all the good stuff and the rest is full of 'junk' items like pumpkins and tmaps and crap that could easily go away.

Space is NOT an issue on GL with tower and 18x18 spots everywhere. Imagine if 50% more of the houses fell. That would be pretty depressing. It would look like Sonoma/Arirang/Origin/Oceania....etc.

 

[Jirel of Joiry]

They didn't clean up all the glitched/owned by Osi houses on Legends.

I can show you 5 right now.

A small tower on the beach outside of Brit, a marble with with a patio north of Minoc, a marble on ice island, a customizable by yew gate that been owned by OSI since 2004, and the pis-de-resistance a owned by osi castle that been that way for 2 1/2 months.

I'd particularly like to see that damned yew gate house go its only been languashing SINCE 2004!

Yes I did tell Mesanna about it and it still there. I wish I were a GM with a truck full of UO dynamite!!!

 

[JC the Builder]

For those who cry "HOW DO YOU KNOW ITS NOT ACTIVE!!!" One way for people to check if a house is current and paid for is do a character search on UO.com. When an account is active its character show up on there, if you suspect a house is bugged and unpaid for simply search the owning characters name for 4 months in a row. If it never shows up chances are its fallen through the cracks.

This is not accurate at all. Characters on MyUO only show up if they have been logged on within the past 30 days. You are not required to login on the house owner, or any character for that matter, to keep the house up.

 

[Tinsil]

Most houses which were bugged have been deleted.

This is wrong. Many more stand than have been deleted.

 

[claudia-fjp]

This is not accurate at all. Characters on MyUO only show up if they have been logged on within the past 30 days. You are not required to login on the house owner, or any character for that matter, to keep the house up.

True I thought it was by account but it appears to only be by character. Still though that with the other things I mentioned is still a pretty good indicator of inactivity. Who doesn't log in on all their characters on the shard they play for the free stuff when they give it out?

People can knit pick it all they want, point out how I could be wrong about a specific house, how they may have deleted the character, how they might just not log in, how maybe they subscribe but just don't play, but when it all comes down to it there ARE hundreds upon hundreds of unpaid for houses. That's just a fact. Some are easy to spot, no owner, owned by osi rep, asdfasd or whatever, placed during RTB but then how many more are abandoned that don't outwardly show it?

 

[Lady Storm]

Well this christmas. I didnt log in many. I didnt like the gifts at all.. I collected 2 or 3 doz and stoped. So many accounts didnt get loged in but were on and paid for... so that means they should loose their houses????

 

[claudia-fjp]

Well this christmas. I didnt log in many. I didnt like the gifts at all.. I collected 2 or 3 doz and stoped. So many accounts didnt get loged in but were on and paid for... so that means they should loose their houses????

No.

Go back and reread, I've never said a paid for house should fall. I'm not talking about some random player with three dozen grandfathered houses with half the placing characters deleted and was out of town for x-mas gifts. It doesn't apply to them, they've more than paid enough money over the past decade to keep their grandfathered houses. It's just a lot of people think every house they see is on a paid for account but that's simply far from the truth. If a house is on an account that is ACTIVE and PAID for within the last 90 days, then its fine. No reason it should fall. Period. The End. Why would they lose their house? No reason they should since they are doing nothing wrong. It's all the damned BUGGED ones. BUGGED. BROKEN. UNUSED. UNPAID for houses that should have fallen YEARS ago.

Like this past October I logged in one of my old accounts that had a small house placed during the second RTB. There was an 18 x 18 next to it that could upgrade to a keep, so I dropped the house. I shouldn't have had to, it should have decayed years ago if not for the bug. Now put yourself in the shoes of the 18 x 18s owner. They have this house, they could upgrade to a keep but this little plot next door is in the way. Little did they know it wasn't on a paid account. They may have suspected, and if they did they would have been right! Now its out of the way, not because EA fixed it but because I fixed it for them by dropping the plot.

Some people wait YEARS to upgrade houses. Often they have several accounts holding different houses in the same area waiting for one final one to drop to place their dream castle. Except what if that last plot they need is ownerless, a RTB, or otherwise bugged house. Unpaid for, empty. How fair is it to that playing and paying customer?

 

[Widow Maker]

I will sign onto this. There are houses around me that have not been touched for years. The players have been gone..some for over 8 years

 

[Widow Maker]

We need a server sweep on houses

Devs, please... sweep the servers for houses.

**** If no paying account is found, get them decaying. ****

I have houses around me that the players quit years and years ago. They need to be cleaned out.

We have been asking, begging, pleading for this for years now. It is time to get up and get on it.

 

[anna anomalous]

Re: We need a server sweep on houses

isn't there a thread posted directly under this one (time for houses to fall) that is proposing the same exact idea?

some issue causing players to think some houses have no (active) owner is because when you own a house and delete the character, the name stays on the house and the character is not possible to find. others can have houses on a certain server that they don't actually play and their names can be removed from search results as well. on top of that, many houses are grandfathered by older accounts.

sure, there's probably a few out there that are bugged, but why post a whole new thread when one is active on the main page?

 

[Lord Frodo]

This is not accurate at all. Characters on MyUO only show up if they have been logged on within the past 30 days.

This is not true. I have 7 BOD runners that get logged every day and my tamer that gets played daily and none of them are showing up in MYUO. Only 3 players out of 14 are showing in our guild that depending on what is needed get logged at least every 3 days if not more. MYUO is not and has not worked right for a long time. And yes I have been out of work for 2 yrs and have played daily so it should not take MYUO 2 yrs to update.