WARNING: Don't make the same mistake I did!

[Saphireena]

If you thought it was a good idea to empty your house of your belongings by releasing them, and then going into customize mode so that they would fall under the house sign, think again. On Christmas Day I did that, and lost everything I've owned, worked for and collected since 1999. Not only that, but the same goes for my son who has been playing for as long as I have. His stuff was in my house. You can only imagine the amount of rares (a few server births too), huge item stacks, vet gifts, rare armor and weapons, rubble, dye tubs etc etc. A fortune worth hundreds and hundreds of millions I'm sure. In addition many items I recently bought off the UO online shop.

(And no, my house did not decay)

Here's how it all happened:
I wanted to demolish my customizable, then rebuild my old castle back up. So, I packed up all my and my son's belongings into dozens of chests and boxes, the idea being to place them on the ground while I demolish and rebuild.

But since there were dozens and dozens of chests and crates, I thought that the most convenient way to "place them on the ground" would be to release all of them, then go into customize mode which would eject them from the plot and create a nice single pile under the house sign. This felt wise, since it would not attract that much attention if someone came along. And even if someone did, all they'd be able to lift is the top one since they'd all be stacked under each other. Also I wanted it to look visually discreet, and not like an IDOC had fell or something!

I have used this trick many many times before without any problems, for instance when wanting to quickly "move" a very heavy chest from the top floor to the bottom without having to drag it along three flights of stairs. But up till now, I've only been ejecting one item or only a few at a time tops. Never 40 chests.

But this time things did not go as planned. Apparently there are only so many stacked items the game code can "eject" or accept under the sign, because after doing so, all that was left was 1 single chest and the rest had vanished into thin air. In any case thousands of valuables. Now lost forever! As if fate were playing a cruel trick on me, ironically, the single chest that was saved was the one where I keep all my empty bags and boxes for when I need them *sighs*.

I called a GM and thank goodness, one arrived within minutes. I really am thankful for that! The conversation is below.

Although it's only stuff, and although I can only blame myself for doing it the easy way (versus hand-dragging-and-placing the chests on the grass), I 'm really so devastated that I can't really find the heart to play anymore. It feels like, if I rebuild my UO life and start all over again, I'd only lose it all again to some other silly bug or at the very least be constantly stressed out knowing there is the possibility. I guess in a real life situation it would be sorta like losing your house, car and having your bank emptied out all at the same time. Sounds a little dramatic, but hey, even though it's merely virtual, it still takes real world time and effort to acquire it.

The main reason I've been paying monthly subscriptions for the game non stop for 12 years (even when I was not playing actively) was to ensure that my house and treasures are kept safe and sound. Considering how easily I lost it now, it feels a bit silly. Well at least it helped keep UO up and running if nothing else.

This experience does have it's good side though. Which is that now I am not tied down to the game in any way. Although I've glady paid the monthly subscription all these years, it has admittedly also bothered me that I am shackled to virtual goods for sentimental reasons. A weight has been lifted off, I'll have to admit. But this is only because I have not been constantly active. I think that had that been the case and would be very involved on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis, this sort of experience would have been many times more devastating. So for those of you who fit this description, please be careful out there!

Thankfully I also got the castle built back up. So now I can at least sell it and somehow compensate my son's loss. He estimated his valuables to be worth around 400 million, so hopefully selling off the castle will cover it. So yeah, if anyone is looking for a castle on a nice spot on Europa, let me know. ICQ #98012982.

It's too late for me, but I hope that on behalf of the other players who have been gathering their fortunes for many many years, that the UO programmers look into this at some point, because surely I cannot be the only one who has used ye olde "release and go into customization mode" trick.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I'm so sorry this has happened to you, and that it's causing you to leave.

I'll be honest, no I've never used any 'tricks' like that. The problem with using 'tricks' is that by doing things that aren't intended you can often get unintended results. It may be a pain to move everything manually, but it's far, far safer because that's how the game expects you to do it.

 

[popps]

I am sorry for your loss, whenever I read any story like yours the loss of my Tower comes to mind. It was years back, when Trammel did not even exist yet and keys were needed to open up the door and it was necessary to open up the door to refresh the building.

Well, for personal problems I could not play for many many months and so relied on a friend to whom I gave the key to refresh my building.

Unfortunately, since it was only Felucca and there was no insurance, on one of the occasions when he went to refresh my Tower he was attacked and killed and looted of my key. The looters basically took over everything I had and I could not even do anything because I was unable to play........

It was not a bug on my case, but bad design, at least to my opinion, when a mistake costs so much to a player...........

Anyways, I also back then was thinking to give up for good playing Ultima Online becaue of my loss but then I thought that, at least for me, it was more the journey which made the entertainment and not reaching the destination. Yes, I lost pretty much all I had, but that could have given me a higher incentive to keep playing to slowly make it back and so I stayed.

This said, I have heard many times of losses because of decay. Perhaps, if the decay rate was slowed down, the number of these losses which brings upset players would reduce significantly. After all, the game is played, at least to my thinking, to entertain oneself and getting upset is not exactly my idea of having fun........

By the way, I did not exactly understand this part of your post:

But this time things did not go as planned. Apparently there are only so many stacked items the game code can "eject" or accept under the sign, because after doing so, all that was left was 1 single chest and the rest had vanished into thin air. In any case thousands of valuables. Now lost forever! As if fate were playing a cruel trick on me, ironically, the single chest that was saved was the one where I keep all my empty bags and boxes for when I need them *sighs*.

I seem to understand that the game engine, when a House goes into customizable way, only retains 1 single chest, all of the others are deleted by the game engine. But how is this possible ?

I have always had traditional houses, so I am not familiar with the customizable ones but it sounds rather odd to me that the game engine would not keep safe storage of all of the House contents when the owner goes into customizable mode.

 

[Hunters' Moon]

"Unfortunately we can not verify the loss of items"

I remember a couple of years back that there was an EM event on Catskills which involved boats. It was in the rules that tamers could not bring pets to the event but they did anyway.Some glitch about the boats of some sort caused the slain pets ghosts to vanish. The Devs,or Messana,stepped in and replaced all lost pets. It is my opinion that the same should be done here.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

"Unfortunately we can not verify the loss of items"

I remember a couple of years back that there was an EM event on Catskills which involved boats. It was in the rules that tamers could not bring pets to the event but they did anyway.Some glitch about the boats of some sort caused the slain pets ghosts to vanish. The Devs,or Messana,stepped in and replaced all lost pets. It is my opinion that the same should be done here.

With as much as was lost here, only a shard "revert" would fix it.

I wouldn't mind if it was my shard. It sounds like it's already been a couple of days though.

 

[popps]

With as much as was lost here, only a shard "revert" would fix it.

Well, since "back ups" are stored for sometime, not sure for how long though, "perhaps" they could run Europa's back up on a standalone, separate server, verify all the player's House contents and then copy it and paste it on the actual Europa server so as to replace all lost belongings ?

Sure, it would require someone's time, not sure how much time would be needed though. Perhaps 1 hour ? No clue.

If all items are in strings of code then copying and pasting all of the House contents from the back up over to the running Europa shard should be fast, if the items would need to be actually recreated on the commercial server one at a time then at least this could be done for the most valuable items like the server birth and most other valuables once they are verified from the back up ?

Why don't you try PMing or e-mailing Mesanna or some of the other Developers as an Urgent matter hoping that she might do something to help ? Never hurt trying.

 

[Thunderz]

Im not quite understanding what you did.

Are you saying you unlocked ALL your chests even the ones you wanted to keep??

If so why? as it obvious they will go under the house sign, then anyone could of picked them up andway, even if there checked they would still notice it and start moving chests and checking them!!! I do if i see anything under a house sign!

Or are you saying you unlocked the ones you didnt want and they went under the house sign and the ones you DID want to keep went puff??

If you didnt unlock the ones you wanted to keep then they will be in your "moving crate".

If you did let the ones you wanted with 100s and 100s of mill of items in then thats just dumb lol, someone could of just taken them for all you know.

Did you know there is a moving crate?? If you want to move a heavy object to another place safely just leave it locked down, go into custome mode and put a wall where it is then when you come out of custom mode it will be in your moving crate just stand where you want the item, relocate the crate take it out and lock it!!

Thunderz

 

[Thunderz]

Well, since "back ups" are stored for sometime, not sure for how long though, "perhaps" they could run Europa's back up on a standalone, separate server, verify all the player's House contents and then copy it and paste it on the actual Europa server so as to replace all lost belongings ?

Sure, it would require someone's time, not sure how much time would be needed though. Perhaps 1 hour ? No clue.

If all items are in strings of code then copying and pasting all of the House contents from the back up over to the running Europa shard should be fast, if the items would need to be actually recreated on the commercial server one at a time then at least this could be done for the most valuable items like the server birth and most other valuables once they are verified from the back up ?

Why don't you try PMing or e-mailing Mesanna or some of the other Developers as an Urgent matter hoping that she might do something to help ? Never hurt trying.

Poops, since how against duping and speeding and how often you bring it up all the time thats a really dumb thing to do as it open up the door for EA to actually dupe for everyone lolzzzz

What stops me say AAAHHHH it happened to me and they do that and give me bilions of mill of items back when actually i told my mate to come pick all the valuable chests up!!!! EA wouldnt know theyd just know i had it at server up that day!!!! Dumb dumb

So now i have 2 of everything i had before



Thunderz

 

[Hunters' Moon]

With her wanting to replace the custom house with a castle in the same place,she wouldn't have been able to keep anything in the moving crate.She was wanting to not draw attention to what she was doing. So to release the 40 crates and customizing the house would have been the easiest way to place all her items into one tile.

Perhaps coding gets overloaded if there is too much placed onto one spot? Thus items were "deleted" to prevent a crash of some sort.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Hunters' Moon, EA have only ever replaced items when the loss was directly caused by a mistake on the part of EA staff or a provable, and witnessed problem with the coding.

This was not a coding bug.

Popps, yes when you customize items locked down in the house are sent to a 'moving crate' if the design change affects where they're placed. If they're not affected they stay exactly where they are. Only items not locked down are ejected from the house, usually this would just be one or two odd items. In this case EVERYTHING in the house was not locked down.
Also, of course, demolishing the house removes all trace of it, including the moving crate and anything that might be in it.

 

[popps]

Poops, since how against duping and speeding and how often you bring it up all the time thats a really dumb thing to do as it open up the door for EA to actually dupe for everyone lolzzzz

What stops me say AAAHHHH it happened to me and they do that and give me bilions of mill of items back when actually i told my mate to come pick all the valuable chests up!!!! EA wouldnt know theyd just know i had it at server up that day!!!! Dumb dumb

So now i have 2 of everything i had before



Thunderz

Well, of course I have no clue how the game's coding works but I recall reading that all Ultima Online items have a "unique" code identifying them.

Therefore, I would guess, saved the stackable items which when added to a separate stack change the source stack unique code into that of the destination stack, all other, individual items perhaps can be checked whether they are still existing on that shard or whether they vanished.

So, the back up code could be used to double check the unique code for the items, then the server could be checked if the items still exist somewhere and if not, then this means that they most likely vanished as the player reported.

Sure, they "could" have been transferred to another server but perhaps there is a log for that movement also stored somewhere. I mean, how many transfers can happen on a shard in a couple of days ? Not many and if a log is stored at least for sometime with what items have been deleted and recreated on another shard because of the transfer perhaps it would be possible to really verify whether items have vanished by accident as reported.

Sure, all this would require some work and time dedicated to it and perhaps it cannot be done on a regular basis but only on very special instances but as I said, perhaps it is worth asking to either Mesanna or any other of the Developers who know the inner workings of the game's software code ?

 

[popps]

With her wanting to replace the custom house with a castle in the same place,she wouldn't have been able to keep anything in the moving crate.She was wanting to not draw attention to what she was doing. So to release the 40 crates and customizing the house would have been the easiest way to place all her items into one tile.

Perhaps coding gets overloaded if there is too much placed onto one spot? Thus items were "deleted" to prevent a crash of some sort.

I wonder, would have things been different if Castles and Keeps' footprints were also available for customization ? Like the player just goes into customization mode, putting everything into the moving crate, changes the footprint to the larger one if there is land space available and then re-locks all in the new footprint building ?

So might this incident be a result of the fact that Keeps and Castles are not customizable ?

 

[popps]

Also, of course, demolishing the house removes all trace of it, including the moving crate and anything that might be in it.

How does code handle the "changing" of the footprint ?

I mean, from a player's perspective this could be seen as demolishing and rebuilding 2 different houses (from smaller to larger footprint or viceversa) as the footprints are different but is it so that game code sees the change also ?

What I am trying to understand, is whether changing the footprint size while items are in the moving crate means deleting the source footprint (and thus all of the items in the moving crate as a consequence....) in order to create a larger (or smaller) destination footprint.

 

[Hunters' Moon]

Hunters' Moon, EA have only ever replaced items when the loss was directly caused by a mistake on the part of EA staff or a provable, and witnessed problem with the coding.

This was not a coding bug.

So then the 'deletion' of items that fall under the house sign is not a bug,but instead an intended feature? If so,why would they add that?

 

[Petra Fyde]

Hunters' moon: I don't know, I'm not one of Mythic's coders. Possibly to prevent a shard crash? A whole 18 x 18's worth of items on one tile would be a bit of a strain?

Popps: Resizing a home counts as a demolish. This was made totally clear in the publish notes UO Herald archive! - Ultima Online Stratics TGN.TV - Get more views!. While I can't, currently, link you to the house information on Stratics, I'm sure you'll find the same information on UOGuide

 

[Hunters' Moon]

Hunters' moon: I don't know, I'm not one of Mythic's coders. Possibly to prevent a shard crash? A whole 18 x 18's worth of items on one tile would be a bit of a strain?

"This was not a coding bug."​

I just assumed that you were privy to some knowledge to issues such as this,that the rank-and-file player is not. My apologies.

 

[Petra Fyde]

no. I may have responsibility for keeping this fansite upto date, but as far as Mythic are concerned I'm just a player paying my subs to access their servers, just like any other.
I have read enough posts about people crashing servers by herding too many creatures into towns to be able to formulate an educated guess.

 

[popps]

Popps: Resizing a home counts as a demolish. This was made totally clear in the publish notes UO Herald archive! - Ultima Online Stratics TGN.TV - Get more views!. While I can't, currently, link you to the house information on Stratics, I'm sure you'll find the same information on UOGuide

Thank you for the informations.

Let me see if I understood it right then...... So currently Ultima Online has no "safeguards" to allow players to safely resize one's own plot, whether using a different customizable footprint or changing a customizable footprint to a legacy House or vice versa ?

As for "safely", I mean without risking one's own house contents either to decay or to passers by......

If this is the case, then this looks to me quite a lacking feature of the game and, considering how much Housing is important in Ultima Online and how much it has led to its success, I think a fundamental lacking feature........

Shouldn't something then be done to allow players to temporarily store, "safely", all of a House contents when changing the footprint of a customizable house or from a customizable footprint to a legacy house or viceversa ?

 

[LadyNico]

Oh, Saph.

There is nothing I can do to ease the pain of this loss. I know you, and I know very well your loss has precious little to do with the worth of the items and everything to do with the memories associated with & the sentiments of the items.

When I returned and discovered someone I trusted absolutely had dry-looted my accounts, leaving me only with my pets, I was angry, hurt and most of all I was just plain done with UO. It was quite some time - months - before I could bring myself to log in to the game. Rebuilding really wasn't an option, much of what I had was simply irreplaceable.

Not including my pets, I have maybe three items I genuinely consider irreplaceable. They really wouldn't be worth much of anything to anyone else. One is my main char's engraved wedding ring, another is a half apron crafted by my tailor on the event of his achieving GM tailoring. I can show you the last item I consider truly irreplaceable:-

While I certainly have a number of items worth a great deal, whatever else I have is yours for the asking, and that includes your son. I know strength of feeling weighs heavily, so I'll simply ask that you sit on my offer awhile.

Some days you just wish you had to do over again. *hugs*

 

[Promathia]

So then the 'deletion' of items that fall under the house sign is not a bug,but instead an intended feature? If so,why would they add that?

But there is a huge difference.

Scenario A - Items are lost DIRECTLY due to employee's of EA. IE, the event you described.

Scenario B - Items are lost due to a "bug" only one person claims of having. A GM didn't come and delete them, a EM didn't design the area causing the items to be lost, ect .


Now, the best thing I can suggest is to Email Mesanna directly. They arent going to revert the shard. The only thing they might be able to do is a make a backup of the shard for themselves, verify the belongings, ect. I dont see them doing it, but hey you can try.


I just also want to say this, people....stop dropping your houses with your items in them. There was a thread before where someone lost stuff doing this same thing (except it was because he couldn't reach the boxes in the air). Buy packhorses, load up your banks, even trash some of your junk.

 

[old gypsy]

I just also want to say this, people....stop dropping your houses with your items in them. There was a thread before where someone lost stuff doing this same thing (except it was because he couldn't reach the boxes in the air). Buy packhorses, load up your banks, even trash some of your junk.

Good advice. I always move everything into bankboxes before I drop a house. Of course, it's easier for me than for many players because I no longer accumulate a lot of items. If they don't stack or if I don't really need them, I don't keep them. I abandoned my "packrat" tendencies long ago.

 

[Myphsar]

Sorry for your loss Saph,
Many years back i did a similar thing wher i had all my items in a moving crete.
When i demolished my house i also demolished ALL my items in the moving crete and it vanished. (they changed it now so you have to have a empty moving crete to demolish now)
@ Lady Nico, sorry to here what happend to you.
To both, If you need anything, just PM me here or gimmi a shout in gen chat or something.

 

[Kojak]

I guess it's just me but I've never understood why anyone would demolish a house with even a single item in it - I wouldn't even consider it - ever

 

[Saphireena]

Hey guys. Since there seems to be some confusion about what actually happened, here's a picture to show the whole process from start to finish. After posting this I'll start going through the responses and reply in detail after that. Remember to use zoom and then use the expand icon in the bottom left corner!

 

[Mapper]

Sorry to hear this happened And I do hope you reconsider staying.

I would never have the balls to risk any of my items though, I'd happily spend the days it would take to store the items safely elsewhere before doing anything like this. But we all learn every day.

 

[Vyal]

A year or so back maybe even longer a dev posted here on Stratics about this exact same thing and reminded people to "NOT DO IT", I don't feel like looking for it ATM but i'm sure it's in here someplace. Sorry about your loss of items also. I have been in this boat before as well, there is nothing that can be done if there was I would have got my items back before as well.

What does it matter now anyway and item is a item and 90% of them can be replaced.. More like 99% of them, just takes time & it will give you something to do for the next two years

 

[sherkborg]

Theres a reason why UO has no one playing. The devs and the company behind UO are still being newbies when it comes to policy, and handling players.

What way is best? Well look at how WoW does it... they redo lost items... they have capable GMs, they ban players when needed AND its easy!

If this was wow, those items would be revert in no time and one happy person would still be playing. Its super easy to do, no roll back needed of a server, the staff just needs to learn that it will probably keep players and be well worth it. Until then they will just let the game rot =\

 

[Lady Storm]

Keep your castle and help your son in play....
Sugar we all have done silly things in UO and this is no time to walk off into the sunset.

The best way to get past this is to go out and see what you can do better this time. Yes you lost precious things...but you can rebuild. I can atest that the rebuild will be good for both of you.
Gold is not hard and many things are out there just like your lost rares.
I have been over the years replacing many items we lost from a disaster that nearly had me pack up UO and walk off into the sunset... 99% plus new items now dot my accounts 1000s more then I had before... with the exception of a handfull items I can say I replaced what was taken and then some!!!

Take it from one who knows full well the cost of such loss. I cant promise you that things made by long gone friends will be out there... but make new ones.

You have good friends.. take up offers to go hunt and reaquire what you and your son lost. We dont quit life when a natural disaster distroys our homes... why let a mistaken act push you off the game. Use this to spur you on to better hights in UO.
Oh btw, many rares are out there on the rares forum... if you need help there are many I can point you to that are honest,trustworthy and great people who deal in them.

Next time you need to shift houses..... call Sugar I have enough accounts to load in who have packies I can loan you to unload 5 castles !!
Hugs
Lady Storm

(the Dev do need to visit the no replacement policy... it has not effected wow in any way to replace lost items..but then again they can trace what a character has had in possession in the course of the life of an account. It might be hard at first but I feel at the juncture of the game that replacement will go further to keep players active. As for Saph's loss, it might take some doing but a dev could use the last back up of the previous day to take it to the dev inhouse shard and load up and virtualy walk her other house and compile the data needed to replace it. They say it cost money... but I for one see it as an investment in UO to do this for long time players such as Saphireena. )

 

[Riply]

Thank you for your warning to others Saph.
I hope you stay on Europa, but understand your pain. I have lost some things
here and there to bugs or my own fault. But stuck with it because I guess I'm
a stubborn old man .

I'm sure a bunch of us would help out to replace some of the things lost.
I have extra xmas statues collecting dust that I would donate to the cause.

 

[Kas Althume]

I'm sorry for your loss. I lost all my fishing stuff that way.

I posted about this bug a couple times here tho. Even how easy it is to reproduce the bug.

 

[Uriah Heep]

My personal take is that they could replace the items, every one of em you had. It's not that they can't, it's that they won't.

Can't afford to get that started up. Replace yours, then they have to replace someone else's, then someone else's, and first thing you know they have customer service customer relations going on.

Can't be having that...

 

[sherkborg]

Could always look into a server transfer now. Maybe atlantic?

 

[popps]

I just also want to say this, people....stop dropping your houses with your items in them. There was a thread before where someone lost stuff doing this same thing (except it was because he couldn't reach the boxes in the air). Buy packhorses, load up your banks, even trash some of your junk.

Since loaded pack horses cannot be stabled, even an account with 7 characters can at the very most count on 7 bank boxes (which usually are already rather packed on top of one's own home....), 6 blue beetles with limited weight capabilities and 5 packies on the character resizing the house plot.

Now, aside from the pain of having to swap all characters to load up items from the house, depending on the House size this could not be enough storage capability to host all of an house contents.

Considering how important housing has been in Ultima Online and how much it has contributed to its success, I'd rather prefer the game to be added a way to "safely" store, temporarily, a house's contents while changing the size of a plot (i.e. in between deleting and replacing a different size house in that given area.........).

 

[Saphireena]

Petra: You're absolutely right. I can only blame myself for taking the risk. But it honestly did not even cross my mind that the chests could actually vanish into thin air like that. Drop under the grass tile? Perhaps, but vanish? No. But yes, since that moment I have been banging my head on the wall quite a bit, cursing my own stupidity.

popps: It must have been a terrible gut-wrenching moment when all that happened. And how horrible for your friend as well for all the stress and guilt they had to go through as well. Thank goodness this kind of thing cannot happen anymore! About giving up UO over loss, well see it's one thing to lose your stuff to another player because we are aware that there are some evil players out there who will take what they can.

However it's another thing to perform a function using the game mechanics and be completely unaware that the code "cannot handle it" and lose everything because the game decides to delete your belongings. From that point on, it makes you wary and scared to use functionalities in the game because you don't know what will break the code next.

As for your question about how a customized house works. So long as your items are locked down, they are safe within a customized house no problemo! Once going into customize mode, they merely become "invisible" so that everything "looks" clean when you start customizing. If the structures you build do not go on the tiles where your belongings were, your stuff will remain where it is after you come out of customize mode. However if you happen to build say a wall on top of a tile that had a chair, that chair will be placed in a moving crate which you can later access.

However if there are items in the house which have not been locked down, the game will "eject" them into a single stack under the house sign. The stack does not have height of any kind, it's just a bunch of items "flat" against each other. And it was this function that I was using intentionally.

As for your pondering on whether this would have ever happened had castles been customizable. Well actually, no it would not have because the whole reason I tore down my castle in the first place, was to have the chance to enjoy house customization. Only recently I was asking about this here on the forums and since it seemed like we still won't be seeing castle customization, I decided to take the plunge, tear down the castle and build 2 18x18 buildings in it's place (the new goldshire houses). However since I got no interest from anyone to come live in the inn and also because I now started playing SWTOR, I felt like the best thing to do would be to tear the 2 houses down and put the castle back up, going back into "UO Sleep mode" while I play SWTOR.

As for changing the footprint of a customizable house, this cannot be done at all. The foundation is a set size and the only way to change that foundation is by demolishing the house and building a differently shaped one. And no, there is no safe way to change the footprint/demolish-and-rebuild.

Hunters' Moon and popps: Well this happened days ago, so I doubt anything can be done anymore. And besides EA has this policy about not returning lost items so I don't expect them to make any extra effort on my part or sway from their policy just for me. In the case of the lost pets and the event, that was a special case and it's possible that not all players were aware of the "no pets" rule, so it's understandable that they would help bring them back.

Thunderz: Yes I unlocked all my chests. I felt 99% safe doing this because my castle is on a remote peninsula and I never see anyone there. Maybe once a month? And since eject places them in a "flat stack", the only chest visible would be the top one. And since the chests were all too heavy to carry, the worse that could happen is someone would lift the top one and be stuck. But even if someone did come along, the odds of them stealing my stuff right in front of me are pretty slim. I'm assuming that most UO players around today are of the more mature kind.

As for using the moving crate, well Hunter's Moon pretty much answered that question. But yeah I could have used the moving crate for phase 1 when I first wanted to get them on the ground floor. However I've had some weird experiences using the "transfer to moving crate by building a wall" trick in the old days, so I didn't trust it.

Hunters' Moon, EA have only ever replaced items when the loss was directly caused by a mistake on the part of EA staff or a provable, and witnessed problem with the coding.

This was not a coding bug.

So then the 'deletion' of items that fall under the house sign is not a bug,but instead an intended feature? If so,why would they add that?

Surely this cannot be an intended feature of the game, so it is actually a usability bug. It's a bug because the game does not protect or warn the player in any way that they are about to lose their item. If a player notices that there is a functionality in the game (this being the fact that going into customize mode will zap your items under the sign) then it is inevitable that the player will also use this to their benefit. What I propose as a fix for this, is that when going into customize mode, any loose items which are not locked down, go into a single moving crate that appears automatically underneath the house sign. This crate would not be accessed from the house sign menu, but instead be instantly visible and would contain any loose bits and bobs that were not locked down. The only person capable of opening the crate should be the person who owned the house they came out of. The crate would be a great and safe way for people to demolish their houses and rebuild since they'd have a safe storage place while they're doing the rebuilding. If the person built a house on top of the crate, it should of course bounce out, like any other items do when you build on top of them. The crate could decay at the same rate as any other items in the game (2 hours is it?). Yeah that's what they should do darnit!

LadyNico: Yes you're right on the dot about the significance of those items. As much as I appreciate the kind offers people have given me here and in private messages to help me get new stuff, it just would not be the same at all and I have absolutely no interest in replacements. In fact I am so done with owning stuff in UO.

Seeing that dinner set was precious, I had forgotten all about it! (had to immediately save that screenie to my hard drive!). And yes it was a perfect example of things that cannot be replaced, I had so many lovely little boxes like that, from friends, or from the romance my Katsienna had with Willy Tough back in the day. A whispering rose from Willy Tough, a Valentines card from Willy Tough, lost forever. All the gifts we exchanged. And all those books... my god. Books with lovely messages or stories from my friends and from Willy. And then of course on a purely material note, there are the server births like my precious music stand with notes, which can be seen here. How I cherished this item so. *sniff* Ah this is only the tip of the iceberg.

And about a friend of yours dry-looting you, I am absolutely appalled and at loss of words. I cannot even imagine how someone could do that to YOU of all people. I'll admit that your experience was many times worse. The feeling of betrayal by a friend cuts so much deeper. :-((( When did this happen anyhow?

Promathia and old gypsy: Yeah actually when I demolished the castle to build the two 18x18 houses in it's place, I did exactly that, storing all items in my characters bank boxes. But the process took a long time and was very tedious because I have so many things, and that put together with my son's things. It was worth doing though in that case because I knew it would take a while to get the 2 houses placed in a nice way and wanted to do it in peace. This time however I knew exactly where I need to place the castle (I had my screenshots to see how to place it) and figured that the whole thing would only last 30 seconds tops. And true enough, it was fast indeed.

Myphsar: Thanks for you kind words and offer. Yeah I can easily see how things can get forgotten in the moving crate before demolishing. I'm glad they've implemented a safeguard against that. However my items were not on the house plot when they vanished, they were next to it really since customize mode bounces them off the plot. So that's what mystifies me.

Kojak: And you're probably not referring to me when you say that (since I had no items in the house when I demolished), but for those who demolish with items still in the house - I can actually see the logic. It would be quite natural for them to assume that demolishing a house is the same as when an IDOC falls. They probably would think that any items that were in the house would actually fall to the ground.

Mapper: Ah yes of course, now I remember you on ICQ Just had to see your avatar to make the connection (I'm terrible with names!). And yes it was dumb and lazy of me, admittedly.

Vyal: Too bad I wasn't actively watching the forums a year ago so I completely missed that dev warning. However I don't think it's very good design if the game depends on players to follow forums to use the game correctly. There should be warning popups and safeguards in the game itself against these sort of things. As for the next 2 years, they will probably be spent in SWTOR instead. Once I've sold off the castle and house in magincia, I'll be closing all my accounts. This will be the first time for me and I think it will give me a sense of release. Because even though I willingly paid all those monthly subscriptions, they did bug me also at the same time making me feel tied down. And just because of stuff. So this is my chance to break free finally. I know for sure that I'll pop into the forums once in a while and might even open my main UO account to sniff around, but for the main part, that's all.

sherkborg: Yes I've had items returned in WoW when a guildies account was hacked and the hacker stole stuff from our guild bank for instance. So I know it happens. However in UO's defence, we have to remember that the engine is a different creature and we can't know just how much more complicated fishing out that data is.

Lady Storm: Thank you for your wonderful and inspirational words of encouragement. If I didn't have other games to play right now, I might just take up your advice and start again, but right now this event was a blessing in disguise because it "frees me" from being tied down to UO and allowing me to afford to play some other games.

As for the castle and my son, well he is not currently playing the game, he has recently moved to playing League of Legends. He still cares about all the stuff he acquired though. However his stuff had no sentimental value, he's more of a power player while I'm a roleplayer. So his stuff actually can be bought with hard cash. But yeah even though he's not playing he's still devastated as well because a lot of work went into getting those items. But I think he'd be absolutely fine with getting replacements. So by selling the castle, I'll not only be free of my last shackle, but be able to keep the gold ready and waiting for when he returns to the game. And I know he will because he has his on and off UO phases as well.

Riply: Thank you for your kind words and offer as well. Much appreciated. But no more item hoarding for me.

Kas Althume: Ooooooh you've posted about this bug!! Gosh, and did you notice any pattern in the behaviour of it? Can you say exactly at what point the game deleted the items? Was it from stacking too many things on the tile, or was it from having items next to the sign upon house demolition? Just very curious to know what was the exact cause.

Uriah Heep: Yes what you say makes perfect sense. If they were to help me, they'd need to help others as well. And their policy clearly states that they won't replace items so that's that. Which is why I haven't even bothered contacting the UO devs. I did however make a bug report. I truly hope they do something about this. I still think that creating a moving crate for loose items under the house sign would be a great thing.

 

[Tazar]

Since loaded pack horses cannot be stabled, even an account with 7 characters can at the very most count on 7 bank boxes (which usually are already rather packed on top of one's own home....), 6 blue beetles with limited weight capabilities and 5 packies on the character resizing the house plot.

Now, aside from the pain of having to swap all characters to load up items from the house, depending on the House size this could not be enough storage capability to host all of an house contents.

Considering how important housing has been in Ultima Online and how much it has contributed to its success, I'd rather prefer the game to be added a way to "safely" store, temporarily, a house's contents while changing the size of a plot (i.e. in between deleting and replacing a different size house in that given area.........).

Bank Boxes: 7*150 = 1050 (if you have the storage increase)
Backpacks: 7*125 = 875
Blue Beetles: 6*125 = 750
Pack Horses: 5*125 = 625
Boat Hold: 7*125 = 875
Total: 4175

If you still need more - you can always start a trial account.

I think the problem is not the storage space - but the time it takes to coordinate packing, etc.

 

[NuSair]

I remember a couple of years back that there was an EM event on Catskills which involved boats. It was in the rules that tamers could not bring pets to the event but they did anyway.Some glitch about the boats of some sort caused the slain pets ghosts to vanish. The Devs,or Messana,stepped in and replaced all lost pets. It is my opinion that the same should be done here.

They CAN verify it, but they chose not too (for various reasons).

 

[eve]

I recently transferred a character from one shard to another, i loaded one packie and at the last moment i was asked to move two things for a friend, decided to move my complete set of the obsidian busts (52, plus duplicates of some) from the quest in haven.

There was a lot going on when i arrived, i unpacked one packie, had a medical emergency and ended up out of game for a few days.

Needless to say, the two rares i was bringing for a friend are gone, I am in the process of finding replacements for each as they were not unique, though somewhat rare.

What really really hurts is the fact that I lost the collection of the obsidian statues.

Just want to add my voice saying that, I, too wish there were someway that this could be traced, and these items could be returned.

 

[R Traveler]

Bank Boxes: 7*150 = 1050 (if you have the storage increase)
Backpacks: 7*125 = 875
Blue Beetles: 6*125 = 750
Pack Horses: 5*125 = 625
Boat Hold: 7*125 = 875
Total: 4175

With all increases there is 7*175 bank storage.
There is one boat per account rule active, so only 1*125 boat storage

On other side two 18x18 houses meant 2 accounts, so double above numbers.

 

[popps]

Bank Boxes: 7*150 = 1050 (if you have the storage increase)
Backpacks: 7*125 = 875
Blue Beetles: 6*125 = 750
Pack Horses: 5*125 = 625
Boat Hold: 7*125 = 875
Total: 4175

With all increases there is 7*175 bank storage.
There is one boat per account rule active, so only 1*125 boat storage

On other side two 18x18 houses meant 2 accounts, so double above numbers.

Besides considering that the above is "theoretical" available space, since usually players do not have all of their bank bozes, characters' backpacks, ridden beetles and so forth all empty (which means that the actual, available space for items could be far less....), there is also to consider that item count is not the only issue, there is also often weight to be considered and only bank boxes have unlimited weight capabilities.

Anyways, regardless, I am still convinced that, given how important Housing is in Ultima Online and how much it has contributed to the success of the game, there should be a way easier system to momentarily store "safely" items contained by a House when needing to change the plot size/type, rather than have to go through the hassle to move everything across 7 characters and a herd of pack animals...........

And this, especially since the game offers 2 separate types of Houses, customizable AND legacy Houses which means that players should feel free to swap their land plot to either type at their free will to enhance their enjoyment of the game.

Unfortunately, without a designed, safe system to "momentarily" store a House contents, currently changing the House type or plot size involves too many risks as the OP reports.

This should be addressed by design, IMHO, to offer players safer alternatives to their enjoyment of the various Housing content of the game.

 

[Hunters' Moon]

Remember when we had functioning guild stones? When you wanted to move the stone from one house to another,there would be a bauble placed in the pack.The guild leader would then place it in his house or a house in which he is friended. Surely something like that could be done with a moving crate.

 

[atlanticScorpion]

Ok forget the woulda coulda shouldas. You now have a castle right. A castle is the only true rare I say. Sure you could sell it and buy some more rares. A castle is the best foundation you could start over with. I have a bunch of sorta rares but what good are they they just sit there and if someone happens to come to my castle they say oh thats nice and thats it.
A great piece of armour or weapon, anything that you can use in game is better that old rares that just take up lock downs. Its not the destination that is important it's the journey. The friends and good times you have had over the years are your true rares that can not be replaced. Everything else is just Pixels. Your in game friends are still here and new ones you have not met yet. Don't let the journey end here. There are many more chapters left in the book of UO. Good luck.

 

[aoLOLita]

Ok forget the woulda coulda shouldas. You now have a castle right. A castle is the only true rare I say. Sure you could sell it and buy some more rares. A castle is the best foundation you could start over with. I have a bunch of sorta rares but what good are they they just sit there and if someone happens to come to my castle they say oh thats nice and thats it.
A great piece of armour or weapon, anything that you can use in game is better that old rares that just take up lock downs. Its not the destination that is important it's the journey. The friends and good times you have had over the years are your true rares that can not be replaced. Everything else is just Pixels. Your in game friends are still here and new ones you have not met yet. Don't let the journey end here. There are many more chapters left in the book of UO. Good luck.

DITTO

 

[Tazar]

There is one boat per account rule active, so only 1*125 boat storage

Interesting theory - but it's not what's in practice as far as I can tell. I know I've had more than one in the water at the same time on the same account.

 

[MalagAste]

Very sorry to hear of your loss.

And thank you for the warning.

I wish there was something I could do to ease your pain. Alas I don't play on Europa.

Best of wishes to you.

 

[LadyNico]

And about a friend of yours dry-looting you, I am absolutely appalled and at loss of words. I cannot even imagine how someone could do that to YOU of all people. I'll admit that your experience was many times worse. The feeling of betrayal by a friend cuts so much deeper. :-((( When did this happen anyhow?

Probably still wouldn't bother urinating on the person if they happened to find themself on fire, but it was a very long time ago now. Little one just turned 9, so a good 8-9yrs ago now.

Once I felt like logging in again (and it was a long time until I did), I just took my pets out, earned what I could to replace necessities. I found I didn't really need all that much. After taming far more than my fair share of blaze pups and selling just two of those, I had far more than I could ever use.

Ultimately, losing everything was...liberating. It's the ultimate reminder that EAMythic owns all the pixels and we just pay to access them.

Time wounds all heels, as they say.

*big hugs*

 

[Tjalle]

Sorry to hear about this Saph.

Of course your debt to me is hereby cleared.


I´ve kinda been in your shoes so I know the disgusting feeling it leaves you with. I remember when I started playing Siege in 2007 or so. I started up my crafter there and wanted to place a small house so I could mine near the mountains. Killed rats in Zento and did escorts to get the 37K needed to place a small one.

What I didn´t know back then was that you could only have one house per account, I thought it was was one per shard.

I placed the small house. ´Twas the most expensive 37K house ever placed in UO.

Two weeks later I was on Europa and recalled to my "storage" house to add some stuff only to land in front of a strangers house plot. I was surprised and thought I was on the wrong server cuz naturally this couldn´t be Europa since that would´ve been my house there, not his. The UO window said "Europa" and I started to feel nauseous cuz I realised I had somehow lost my storage house.

It held multiple tokens (x-fer, adv, soulstones etc), full Tok dyes sets, ethys, artifacts and a bunch of other high-end valuables. I´d estimate the value back then to roughly 1.5 Billion.

I logged off contemplating not to log on again. Next day I realised it was only items. I still had the stuff my characters were wearing and the crafting resources in my other house. That´s when I decided not to chase the "UO wealth" and only aim for what I might need and can use ingame. I must say that it kinda felt better afterwards not having the need to be rich and just play for the moment.

Granted, none of my lost stuff had any sentimental value, it was only... stuff.

So play Star Wars and don´t worry so much about the items lost. I realise that sentimental items are special but they are gone and beating yourself up about it is not gonna get them back. Enjoy Star Wars and maybe one day you can come back and do what I do, just play for the moment.

As someone else said in this thread, it´s the friends that you play with and the moments you enjoy that are the true rares...

 

[Saphireena]

Ok forget the woulda coulda shouldas. You now have a castle right. A castle is the only true rare I say. Sure you could sell it and buy some more rares. A castle is the best foundation you could start over with. I have a bunch of sorta rares but what good are they they just sit there and if someone happens to come to my castle they say oh thats nice and thats it.
A great piece of armour or weapon, anything that you can use in game is better that old rares that just take up lock downs. Its not the destination that is important it's the journey. The friends and good times you have had over the years are your true rares that can not be replaced. Everything else is just Pixels. Your in game friends are still here and new ones you have not met yet. Don't let the journey end here. There are many more chapters left in the book of UO. Good luck.

As much as I can appreciate the good intentions of your response, this kind of approach does not necessarily fit for what I need right now.

1) I've had this castle since building it when Trammel was first published. And as much joy as it has given me in the past, it has also caused me a lot of headaches due to the fact that I have not been able to customize it. In the beginning it didn't matter, I was just happy to have a castle. But believe me - if you've had one for as long as I have, and seen how everyone around you is enjoying a huge part of the game play experience (house customization), having fun creating incredible designs, taking part in deco contests etc. Well it does start to grate on you.

Do you guys know that EA was actually hinting about bringing customization to castles and keeps in their Age of Shadow website which is still up and running?

Age of Shadows FAQ

"You may be asking, "What happens if I already own a house in the great land of Britannia?" Well, good news! You will be able to turn any currently owned house into a customizable foundation. Castles, keeps and "L" shaped houses are the exceptions for now, but keep checking back for updates on this and all other features."

The insinuation they make, that customization would eventually support castles and keeps as well some day was one of the reasons I held on to it all these years. And yes, I kept checking back, and checking back, and checking back. Meanwhile dreaming of all the incredible things I would do once they finally brought it.

Now the castle is completely empty and looming more dark and dreary than ever before. I'm really and truly done with it now.

And I'm not going to sell it for new rares or any other items. I'm going to sell it to compensate to my son who lost around 400 million worth in valuables due to my stupidity.

And although -you- may disregard the value of rares, for me they have been one of the highlights of playing UO. A rare item to me, is like an antique with a fascinating past. Not only where it first originated, but who owned it and how it was used, whether it was a gift from a lover to his lady or part of a huge RP storyline. Each rare item has it's own rich story you know. Then there is the story that begins once you begin ownership of it and become the new guardian of a Sosarian heirloom. From that point on it is your responsibility to take good care of it and protect it, just like the owner of a Da Vinci or Van Gogh would. Perhaps a bit dramatized, but that's how I saw the really rare-rares. They were not mere pixel crack to me. I almost feel a bit guilty for destroying items that have been passed on through out the years since the birth of the servers. They will never again be restored. ((

As for friends, I've actually been a loner when playing UO, and for me the game has been about creating beautiful homes and collecting interesting things. So that is why this is such a huge loss for me, where it would merely be a shrug for someone else who prefers PvP or hunting. I think I have every right to grieve over my loss, even though you would not do the same if you were in the same shoes.

2) The idea of starting all over again would be much better suited to owning a small and cosy house somewhere in a completely new area, rather than mulling about in that cold and empty castle. This is something I might do some day, but for now I need some time to retreat and lick my wounds. Enjoy SWTOR for a while like what Tjalle said.

 

[Tjalle]

Ultimately, losing everything was...liberating.

*nods*

 

[Jhym]

I'm sorry you lost most of your possessions, though as others have said, taking shortcuts in this game is never really a good idea.

I've lost a few things here and there by not paying attention or rushing to finish something, luckily none of my important items.

There are a lot of folks who, I think, don't understand the big deal. It's more than just the pixel, it's also the person you received the item from, the adventure to get the server birth, the first time you crafted your name on something.

I know it's hard to deal with, but truthfully, the memories themselves aren't gone, just the triggers for them. You should sit down and pick out as many of them as possible that you can remember (maybe go through your screenshots) and then write down a paragraph or two about each one that was important to you. Like, how you got it, who it was from, why you kept it, etc. It isn't fun to lose history, whether it's shard history or just your own.

I have about a dozen or two of very important things that are those sort of memories, and I have to check on them now and then (to be sure patches haven't changed a title or removed the name.) Some are from particular folks that aren't around anymore, others are from the first time I did something and are really only meaningful to me. It's funny how it reflects upon my real life, since I know where almost everything I own came from and who or what gave it to me.

Anyway, don't be too despondent, it honestly gives you a clean slate to start new memories and try new things. I've been debating dumping a whole bunch of things myself, I try to purge every few years but haven't for a while.

 

[JC the Builder]

Hunters' Moon, EA have only ever replaced items when the loss was directly caused by a mistake on the part of EA staff or a provable, and witnessed problem with the coding.

They won't replace items even if you can show them the bug. I lost almost all the contents of my house due to a house customization issue. I spent my time placing another house and replicating the steps to verify it. QA responded to me and said yes they reproduced it. They hotfixed it within a week. Still they wouldn't replace any of the items I lost.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling this mechanic is intentional to prevent an exploit. It is an awful way to prevent an exploit. So sorry this happened to you Saphireena.