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[UO Herald] Housing Decay Reactivated in 2012

Salivern_Diago

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Thank you for the clarification Jeff. It should ease alot of the panic :)

Just a quick question though, when are we gonna see you in game ;) lol
 

Black Sun

Grand Poobah
Alumni
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I have removed the discussion regarding the legality of RL cash sales. Not only is it off topic, but cash sales are in violation of the Stratics RoC. So we're not going to have a conversation that will most likely turn into a "right or wrong" debate or start giving tips on how to circumvent that policy. Further off-topic posts will be issued infractions.
 

Aurelius

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
My concern is more about the variable quality of automated process programming by EA/Mythic...

My house was legally placed - until the Yew guardzone was changed with the end of the 'swamp', and it's now inside a guard zone and the house sign reads 'illegally placed'...

Never been an issue - but I really don't trust that the 'automatic' start of decay again won't manage to pick up 'illegally placed' houses too.
 

Black Sun

Grand Poobah
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I don't think illegally placed houses will decay. Based on past experience, decay and legal placement were not affected by one another. Older illegally placed houses (or ones that became illegal due to something like the yew swamp thing) are given a general amnesty.

It's when a new bug that allows illegal placement and people exploit it that there's a worry that the house will decay or be deleted. Your house *should be* fine, provided your accounts are paid up.
 

Rimeny

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Twitter is just easier to reach me. It goes directly to me, no sifting through threads. Forums require more effort to find the questions. :) Don't worry I'll continue to pop my head in every week, but it just means you might have to wait a few days for me to chime in.

As for the answer to the question. Unentitled accounts over 90 days when we reactivate house decay will start the house decay process. Players will have 5 days to re-entitle their accounts to prevent their houses from falling. We'll be posting more details like this in upcoming reminders about us turning the system back on in future herald posts.
Does this include return to Britain houses?
 

Theo_GL

Grand Poobah
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UNLEASHED
Twitter is just easier to reach me. It goes directly to me, no sifting through threads. Forums require more effort to find the questions. :) Don't worry I'll continue to pop my head in every week, but it just means you might have to wait a few days for me to chime in.

As for the answer to the question. Unentitled accounts over 90 days when we reactivate house decay will start the house decay process. Players will have 5 days to re-entitle their accounts to prevent their houses from falling. We'll be posting more details like this in upcoming reminders about us turning the system back on in future herald posts.
What I'd like to see is stats on Total Houses and Houses to be set to decay on shards like GL, Atlantic, Pacific.

It would certainly be an eye opener. I don't think the devs have any idea of the impact here.
 

Aurelius

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Your house *should be* fine, provided your accounts are paid up.
Probably so - however, this is UO programming, so I'm not greatly reassured. Never mind the recent sudden 'reverts' and server downs, we have a pretty long history of things that should 'never happen' happening, from disappearing ethereal mounts and other equipment, through sheer craziness like the 'walking statues' bug.....
 

Black Sun

Grand Poobah
Alumni
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Yeah, that's why I added the *should be* in there.
I know how things should go is often different from how they do go. ;)
 

flappy6

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
theo must be the guy that blocks all the castle spots with dummy accounts and only turns them on when the neighbors houses fall .... then he places .....then sells the keep or castle at a high rate cuse he has all the other spots blocked up on all the main shards
 
T

tiggertessa2007

Guest
just wonderin are the OSI owned houses gonna go straight into decay also?
 

Jade of Sonoma

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I for one would like to see them change IDOC's. I think all items should be removed along with the house.

This deal of giving stuff away for free is hurting the economy even more. Its more stuff being 'given' to the playerbase which is shrinking. I know that alot of the 'crap' I have is from IDOCS. Thanks for summer cleaning as I was able to turn in half that stuff for points.

I'd like to see the devs run some numbers on exactly how many houses will be removed. Its going to be quite a bit if they do it correctly.

I too am afraid of this happening without warning. I'm packing as many valuables in the bank as possible.
All of what Theo_GL is saying and in his post #56 above, reflects my thoughts also:

Why should the contents of the housing be something no one has to earn? I thought that UO was always about reaching goals. I doubt if there is any way to control human desire for instant gratification or the easier-way to achieve goals.

There will be too many spots for new housing. What happens then? Will Castles and Keeps be placed by those who can afford numerous accounts .. later to be sold for real US$ at extremely high prices?
 
W

Woodsman

Guest
just wonderin are the OSI owned houses gonna go straight into decay also?
Given that they had this huge migration and have been working on the housing/account code, there is no reason why the OSI houses shouldn't fall.
 

Ludes

Babbling Loonie
Alumni
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Stratics Legend
I'm looking forward to doing IDOC's again..

And not only that but maybe I'll finally find me a castle spot.
 

Jade of Sonoma

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I'm looking forward to doing IDOC's again..

And not only that but maybe I'll finally find me a castle spot.
I waited over 12 years before I got the chance to place a Castle, Ludes. I had two accounts, and managed finally to place two houses on Arctic Island where another house next to mine blocked me from having a Keep. Finally that house fell after a few years, and I was able get that spot for another house by quickly opening a new account and placing another house. So I had three houses but .. the fellow behind me got together with me, and by having me drop all three of my houses, at the same time he dropped his Keep, we were both able to place a Castle. It was tough moving all the contents around so it took a lot of trust .. I kept his stuff and dropped a house, while he placed his castle then we did my two houses.

Later I managed to place another Castle when it went IDOC. So I can understand anyone wanting to get the spots that are now occupied by player accounts that are defunk. I hope you do get your Castle.

I fear though that big time money-makers will use every opportunity to make more money off the numerous IDOCS and players like yourself will lose out.

-- sorry for being so negative. I hope I am wrong and that it won't be like that.
 

claudia-fjp

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I had an interesting conversation with a person at CS a few weeks back... (yes I am still having trouble with them on a IP matter)

The gentilman said when asked about house decay because of the lack of info at the time about its return. I was told :

When house decay returns to UO there will be no 90 days wait... no sign the house is in default. The house's on accounts not paid for that are well over the 90 days grace period will just drop when the decay is switched on. (light switch??)

idk What if what he said happened? Can you imagine the shock of seeing house's all around you just poof .... leads me to wonder if we should worry about any bugs in house timers...

It seems my imaginary made up anonymous EA spokesperson was correct after all! I knew EA would rather have thousands of dollars from people scrambling to save their decaying storage houses!
 

Minerva Foxglove

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Im not against house decay if its done correctly. I had 2 or 3 accounts for twelwe years and always payed for, so I shouldnt worry. But if you have subscription to auto renew every 6th month you cant be sure this will work next time. This is what happened to me. My two accounts were linked with no prob some months ago. The first account that needed to renew subscription did so without prob beginning of November. the second account was supposed to follow Dec 1. Instead it was blocked and no way I could use my cc to pay for it. After a week spending more time on solving this than playing UO, I gave up and bought game time code ..using the same cc.. and it worked fine.
So there are still weird things going on and im just concerned things like this will happen to others the day its time to renew subscription and they dont play alot and notice in time. .. Apart from that..it will be interesting..
 

Theo_GL

Grand Poobah
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UNLEASHED
theo must be the guy that blocks all the castle spots with dummy accounts and only turns them on when the neighbors houses fall .... then he places .....then sells the keep or castle at a high rate cuse he has all the other spots blocked up on all the main shards
No I'm not that guy. I am the guy who can find the shift key to make capital letters.


I have houses on other shards that I play where housing is NOT an issue in terms of space. I just don't want to pay for an account on every single shard I want to play.

I think you should have a max of 2 houses per acct as long as not on same shard.
 

THP

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
As for the answer to the question. Unentitled accounts over 90 days when we reactivate house decay will start the house decay process. Players will have 5 days to re-entitle their accounts to prevent their houses from falling. We'll be posting more details like this in upcoming reminders about us turning the system back on in future herald posts.

again does this include all the ''bugged''....
1,come back to brit houses and
2. all of the old un-named classics that litter our landmass too
 

THP

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
As for the answer to the question. Unentitled accounts over 90 days when we reactivate house decay will start the house decay process. Players will have 5 days to re-entitle their accounts to prevent their houses from falling. We'll be posting more details like this in upcoming reminders about us turning the system back on in future herald posts.

again does this include all the ''bugged''....
1,come back to brit houses and
2. all of the old un-named classics that litter our landmass too
bump...still unanswered?? will they all fall...are we going to have another

:lick:''great fall day 2'' the sequel!!!:lick:
 

Ezekiel Zane

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Personally I don't think they've fixed it. If they had fixed it I think they'd be proud of their accomplishment and want to brag about it a little bit. I think we all want these houses to fall and we all would welcome news that these bugged houses have been fixed. I believe the silence is an indication that they are not going to be included when house decay is turned back on.
 

THP

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
but surely it would be sooo easy to code...for all ...now unpiad for accounts to rot.... i could code this on my old speccy zx81.... oh gawwd...sucks again
 

Ezekiel Zane

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
From what little information has been released regarding the WBtB and RtB houses, it seems it's a database issue between the different servers.

It's my understanding that there are game servers, account servers, login server and the housing server. Somehow when they enable all inactive accounts to log in, and they place a house, it doesn't actually get flagged as an active account so when the promo is over no flag is set or reset on the housing server thus leaving all these houses in limbo.
 

THP

Always Present
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
can a dev make a comment plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
 

Berek Halfhand

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Has this happened yet? As some have suggested, I'm one of the sorts that just keeps my account going so I can pop in ever few months to check out things and reminisce... I don't want to lose the largest rune library in the entire game by not paying attention to it :(.

If it wasn't apparent, it's on Lake Superior in Malas just east of the Broken Mountains.
 

Miri of Sonoma

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
It hasn't happened yet but I would keep an eye on this forum. It could happen anytime. You might want to reactivate your account to be safe. Who knows what is going to happen when they turn it back on..they say there will be a 5 day decay cycle but who knows really!
 

atlanticScorpion

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
From what little information has been released regarding the WBtB and RtB houses, it seems it's a database issue between the different servers.

It's my understanding that there are game servers, account servers, login server and the housing server. Somehow when they enable all inactive accounts to log in, and they place a house, it doesn't actually get flagged as an active account so when the promo is over no flag is set or reset on the housing server thus leaving all these houses in limbo.
If this is the case then they should do another week of welcome back to britania so that all account are active and flag all account so if your not paying your house will decay. And also if you are having account payment problems you will be able to log in and transfer your house to a friend or at least save all your stuff.
 

xxmoondancerxx

Seasoned Veteran
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
If this is the case then they should do another week of welcome back to britania so that all account are active and flag all account so if your not paying your house will decay. And also if you are having account payment problems you will be able to log in and transfer your house to a friend or at least save all your stuff.
you should have transferred your belongings the time you did not pay for your accounts. I think they gave everyone enough notice and 2 warnings to let you know you should pay for your account and stop being a slacker...No more excuses....Especially the payment problem. That is not anyone's problem but you own. If the housing decay system was still on you would still have you issues with payments....so nooo excuses. :scholar:
 

atlanticScorpion

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
you should have transferred your belongings the time you did not pay for your accounts. I think they gave everyone enough notice and 2 warnings to let you know you should pay for your account and stop being a slacker...No more excuses....Especially the payment problem. That is not anyone's problem but you own. If the housing decay system was still on you would still have you issues with payments....so nooo excuses. :scholar:
There are a few people who say that they are trying to pay but for their accounts. And for some unknown reason they cannot link or even find their accounts. And the part about being able to access your stuff was not the main reason for a WBtB week idea it was just a perk. I say activate all accounts and link all the payment and housing servers so at the end of the free period EVERY house not being paid for would become comdemmed.
 

Wenchkin

Babbling Loonie
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Stratics Legend
Oh and FYI they seem to have taken out the Maestro option. And no paypal either. So, given I don't want to use a credit card for UO, this could get funny :D I went to change info on my main account before the sub expires next month and ooh, can't do that now. Doh.

If Origin.com can accept Paypal and Maestro and this account management site is new, surely those options ought to be included too? Why make it harder for people to give you money? I can understand adding new card options, but taking others away is plain silly.

Gametime codes are fortunately cheaper, presuming you don't mind a min of 3 months gametime. I just didn't expect Maestro to get pulled from the card options, it was nice having the choice of a sub or gametime.

I hope this is one of those omissions that will get fixed ;)

Wenchy
 

THP

Always Present
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Stratics Legend
There are a few people who say that they are trying to pay but for their accounts. And for some unknown reason they cannot link or even find their accounts. And the part about being able to access your stuff was not the main reason for a WBtB week idea it was just a perk. I say activate all accounts and link all the payment and housing servers so at the end of the free period EVERY house not being paid for would become comdemmed.
Iam afraid that would be far too easy to do!!!!
 

Ludes

Babbling Loonie
Alumni
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Stratics Legend
I am a little surprised they still haven't even explained to us how it's gonna work.

Didn't someone tweet skalski on this?

I'm now thinking the devs aren't even sure how it's gonna work.
 

Salivern_Diago

Lore Master
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Stratics Legend
Jeff has already said how it'll work, I reposted his tweet about it a couple of weeks ago. When decay is turned on, all eligable houses will enter the decay cycle. RTB houses will not, they will need to be reported for manual deletion.

Eligable houses means any/all accounts that are over 90 days inactive.
 

Arrgh

Sage
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All of what Theo_GL is saying and in his post #56 above, reflects my thoughts also:

Why should the contents of the housing be something no one has to earn? I thought that UO was always about reaching goals. I doubt if there is any way to control human desire for instant gratification or the easier-way to achieve goals.

There will be too many spots for new housing. What happens then? Will Castles and Keeps be placed by those who can afford numerous accounts .. later to be sold for real US$ at extremely high prices?
Too many spots for new housing?? Real life $$?? You have to actually have a player base to sell online crap for rl $ best I understand. I can't see this happening anywhere except Atl shard if it happens at all. Yeah, there will be a few people ingame placing and selling on Atl probably for ingame gold, trades whatever but as far as I can see on the rest of the shards, if someone spent RL $$ on buying a home it would just mean they were waaaay too lazy to log-in, walk about and stick a house on their own.
 

Salivern_Diago

Lore Master
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Stratics Legend
Actually if someone buys a castle with real money, then more fool them. Back when selling for real money was allowed, I often saw items go for stupid amounts of cash but I always wished I was the person selling the said items (All that money for lets face it... bugger all).
 

Ludes

Babbling Loonie
Alumni
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Jeff has already said how it'll work, I reposted his tweet about it a couple of weeks ago. When decay is turned on, all eligable houses will enter the decay cycle. RTB houses will not, they will need to be reported for manual deletion.

Eligable houses means any/all accounts that are over 90 days inactive.
Thank you Salivern.. I guess I missed your earlier post on this.
 
G

goldenpower

Guest
Jeff has already said how it'll work, I reposted his tweet about it a couple of weeks ago. When decay is turned on, all eligable houses will enter the decay cycle. RTB houses will not, they will need to be reported for manual deletion.
that's too bad. the RTB houses are a big part of the problem.

very disappointing..
 

BlissMarie

Lore Keeper
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Stratics Legend
I think she is just messing with us.
Her mood says she is relaxed. I sure wouldn't be if there was stuff all over the place.
 

Mirt

Certifiable
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UNLEASHED
that's too bad. the RTB houses are a big part of the problem.
It does sound like we can still report them for manual deletion. Thats at least something but your right getting rid of the bugged and RTB houses would be a good thing for UO.
 

xblade

Sage
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
i just checked the idoc forum and looks like we will be seeing 1 more warning before they will be turned on
 
K

kleos

Guest
i guess those aren't fresh plots. IT's been a while since i've gone for a walk, houses can't be worth that much, cause i see so much empty space....
 

Omnius

Crazed Zealot
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READ - THIS IS A POST WITH ACTUAL INFORMATION FROM EA REGARDING HOUSE DECAY


"All signs show we'll be re-activating housing decay this month. We're 4th and inches. ;) We plan to give atleast a 7 day countdown warning before we flag it back on. Keep an eye on the herald."

This is from Jeff.
 

kelmo

Old and in the way
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4th and inches? Punt.
 
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