Bugged Houses

[Hoffs]

I have been speculating for the past three months on whether the way last September's RTB campaign was handled would lead to them being able to put all the bugged houses from the previous ones into decay.

Well, ninety days later on Siege and there are at least seven innocuous houses that I have in my list of potentially bugged plots that have suddenly started decaying. Yet the vast majority are fine. Perhaps one possibility is that only those accounts now linked to a Master Accounts are affected, as only these had the promotional time period associated with the accounts which would have scheduled the corresponding house for decay at the end?

Anyway, has anyone noticed a mini wave of decays on any other shard?

 

[MalagAste]

The ONLY way they could finally get rid of all those RTB houses is if they told EVERY house on EVERY shard that it was unpaid. Force every house to check for current payment.... At 30 days most of us would pay our account.... or a payment would be scheduled.... However I'm not sure exactly because I pay my accounts in 3 or 6 month blocks... so I'm going to assume that it would ping back at some point that I'm paid... But those houses that aren't being billed don't have a billing set up and are RTB houses would never say they are being paid.... and should go into decay.

I asked point blank to Mesanna if I suspect a house to be a RTB house do you have to go and check each one? Do you go check if it's a paid account????

Never got a response. I know of 2 for sure RTB homes. I haven't reported them because well honestly I want them there so I know when it's fixed. They are still standing and still just fine. I would love for them to actually go into decay and fall... but I seriously doubt that will ever happen.

 

[Olahorand]

I think its not that easy, since this could hit also houses which are intended to stay up (like the old Haven Large marble, which exists on each shard back from the time of councellors).
We don't know all the exceptions, in which such houses or accounts have been approved regulary, and even one of these houses put in decay and lost wrongly will for sure hurt more nowadays than leaving all the RTB houses intact on the most shards to give at least the impression of the shards still being somewhat full.
A similar issue are these 2 line named houses, which were once owned by OSI and somehow went to Private without owner ID.
I know, we can report them, but what will happen then? Will these be dropped at any time in the future or will they put back into normal decay cycle? The first would not be very motivating to report these, since it does not help to salvage history.

 

[Hoffs]

If you know houses that are bugged, you can report them to Mesanna. You need to lock a runebook down on the steps of your house with runes to the two OSI houses inside. Then send her an email with the coordinates of your house and giving her permission to remove the book. Also tell how you know the houses are bugged (i.e. they are old OSI houses). At some point she should come on to the shard and delete them instantly, but the contents will usually be left.

 

[MalagAste]

Well there are the 2 I "know" about ...... but then there are another 20 or 30 I wonder about.... they never have anyone there...... haven't for years.... still have the exact same deco from christmas 6 years ago.... yet no one ever comes or goes. But there they sit.... year after year after year... now I can't tell if they are RTB homes or not never knew the folk ever. Not seen them in game ever..... the place sits year after year after year..... but I don't know them from mud. But I have no way of knowing if the account is paid month after month or if this has has sat here year after year because it's a RTB house and was placed there ages ago by someone that never intends to come back.

The two I know about one told me it was a RTB house the other placed it during RTB and he most definitely had no intention of coming back or playing beyond the few days of RTB. But again..... I haven't reported them because well ....... Why? What I want to know is why is it my job to know who does and doesn't pay for an account????? I have about 6 accounts that I could have placed a RTB house on but didn't.... Do I think it's fair that there are several people playing now using and abusing the RTB housing?????? NO I do NOT. I'd like a free second home too. I'm saying it's beyond time that something was done about folk getting free second housing. I pay for all my homes. Other folk ought to do the same.

 

[Olahorand]

At some point she should come on to the shard and delete them instantly, but the contents will usually be left.

This doesn't help since nobody is capable to patrol such houses permanently to check if they are gone, so reporting them would be identical with letting the items decay.

 

[Poo]

this is how i see it.
i have like 7 RTB houses.
5 of which where placed on the first go around.
now those accounts arnt even listed anywhere.
when we migrated to the new billing system i wanted to link them and when i entered them they came back as not even existing.
so how would they ever find those houses if they cant even find that the accounts themselves arnt even listed as being around... ever!

what i think happened is this.
many people made extra account with AOS came out.
why?
because we all where given a free code that we were suppose to give to people to lure them into the game.
so most people just used those codes themselves.
like i did.
so when those accounts got turned on with the original RTB events a lot of us placed houses on them.

now fast forward to today, those accounts are nowhere to be found because they have never been paid for, not even once, so EA just let them fall off the list.

so the houses are there for good because with the last RTB event you cant even log IN on those accounts because they are gone gone.
so i loose the characters i made on them, but i have houses that will never leave the game.

yaaaa for history lessons!

 

[jack flash uk]

Well before I left I had 50 plus plots and houses in from years ago, all over Europa, So fed up with the Devs and way the game was going,NOWHERE, some people know where some are, good luck tagging the rest

THEY WILL NEVER ALL FALL

Mesanna, if you want info PM me, I can show you where to start looking, It will give you the date/year there was a problem

Ask the Idocer's, they know them all but its gonna cost ya!!

 

[Olahorand]

I am fine with RTB houses, as long as they are used by current players.
See them as compensation for the stories told to us before the invention of the one house per account rule, which made many players drop their houses on other shards - and later these stories were a lie, since all the non dropped houses got grandfathered without enforcement to select a primary house.
Again, since the grandfathered houses blocked placement of larger houses for the owners going with the time, these partially had to be dropped also, so why would you judge such players to use the RTB system to keep their former grandfathered houses or a replacement for them?
And as of now I really don't see a problem any more with lack of housing space - even on Atlantic you can place a smaller house within a few minutes of searching.

 

[Poo]

oh wow.
one of my RTB houses is in dropping cycle.
but its one of the ones that IS actually attached to an account.

so the old AOS accounts RTB houses are A-O-K still

 

[Olahorand]

Oh wow! I just managed to set one of my castles into decay! Gated a char from another house free account to a place to build up a plot. Well, after confirming the placement I figured, that this sleepy person here placed with the gater instead of with the gated character.
I really hate the current setting, which enforces you to trade the now condemned house away and after 7 days back to the original account including having to set up all the coowners and friends again. At least both accounts had the increased storage and the house had no vendors.
Why can it not be that simple again as before the one house rule, that if you have only one house on the account, this will be uncondemned the next day independend from how you set it into decay initially?

 

[Eddie123]

i have 3 wbb houses one on atl one on gl and one on siege and my siege one is in decay process none of they accounts are linked but all 3 accounts could be linked if i wanted they are on my list of accounts to my email..

maybe they are trying to "fix" the wbb houses on siege first?
anyone else have a wbb house falling on any other shards than seige?

 

[Olahorand]

I did just see one on Drachenfels slightly worn, which belongs to a friend, who stopped playing a while ago (and had this as RTB house from what I know.)

 

[Theo_GL]

i have 3 wbb houses one on atl one on gl and one on siege and my siege one is in decay process none of they accounts are linked but all 3 accounts could be linked if i wanted they are on my list of accounts to my email..

maybe they are trying to "fix" the wbb houses on siege first?
anyone else have a wbb house falling on any other shards than seige?

Yes one of mine on an asian shard is falling. It is super annoying bc i use that house to play on that shard. Im cleaning it out and stuffing things in the bank and friends castle. Its crazy becuase that shard has like 200 houses total on it. You could place a 1,000 18x18's. Housing space is wide open.

isn't it time that UO gives us 2 houses per account provided they are not on the same shard? I know most players would like this so they can shard hop to where the action is without paying for an acct on every shard.

 

[Olahorand]

I share that annoyance and agree with your statement.
From my own point of view:
Since I pay already for 5 accounts permanently, there is no way to keep more paid accounts running for my historical grown multi shard activities. And if I would do for 2 houses due to their historical character, this would mean that the most accounts go into a limited payment mode ... effectively reducing the income for EA. There is simply no point any more to horde more paid houses - with all the free space they barely have any ingame value.
All the stuff accumulated and the items would disappear in bank boxes, which makes no sense to anybody.
A good way to cater the active players "abusing" RTB houses and keep the frustration level low would have been an amnesty, with announcing the fix, grant older accounts the ability to own a second house on a different shard, enabling RTB to move these houses for good and let all the other RTB houses go.
*Salute*
Olahorand

 

[THP]

The ONLY way they could finally get rid of all those RTB houses is if they told EVERY house on EVERY shard that it was unpaid. Force every house to check for current payment.... At 30 days most of us would pay our account.... or a payment would be scheduled.... However I'm not sure exactly because I pay my accounts in 3 or 6 month blocks... so I'm going to assume that it would ping back at some point that I'm paid... But those houses that aren't being billed don't have a billing set up and are RTB houses would never say they are being paid.... and should go into decay.

I asked point blank to Mesanna if I suspect a house to be a RTB house do you have to go and check each one? Do you go check if it's a paid account????

Never got a response. I know of 2 for sure RTB homes. I haven't reported them because well honestly I want them there so I know when it's fixed. They are still standing and still just fine. I would love for them to actually go into decay and fall... but I seriously doubt that will ever happen.

This would in essence be very very easy to do...they just cant be assed ...more likely because uo would look very very very empty indeed when u take into account ''over half'' of every shards housung is unused / bugged housing......the fix would prob take a hours work for one member of staff!!!!!!!! [whatever]

 

[flappy6]

th

this is how i see it.
i have like 7 RTB houses.
5 of which where placed on the first go around.
now those accounts arnt even listed anywhere.
when we migrated to the new billing system i wanted to link them and when i entered them they came back as not even existing.
so how would they ever find those houses if they cant even find that the accounts themselves arnt even listed as being around... ever!

what i think happened is this.
many people made extra account with AOS came out.
why?
because we all where given a free code that we were suppose to give to people to lure them into the game.
so most people just used those codes themselves.
like i did.
so when those accounts got turned on with the original RTB events a lot of us placed houses on them.

now fast forward to today, those accounts are nowhere to be found because they have never been paid for, not even once, so EA just let them fall off the list.

so the houses are there for good because with the last RTB event you cant even log IN on those accounts because they are gone gone.
so i loose the characters i made on them, but i have houses that will never leave the game.

yaaaa for history lessons!

thats sounds right

 

[Theo_GL]

This change is hitting luna houses. I've found several on multiple shards that are falling. Not a surprise here. They haven't even found 1/2 the RTB houses and already UO is going to look pretty empty. Not sure this is a good thing for the game. I guess everyone can now have their castle but there is going to be alot of wasteland. Alot.

 

[claudia-fjp]

This change is hitting luna houses. I've found several on multiple shards that are falling. Not a surprise here. They haven't even found 1/2 the RTB houses and already UO is going to look pretty empty. Not sure this is a good thing for the game. I guess everyone can now have their castle but there is going to be alot of wasteland. Alot.

Empty and unused buildings to not make the game though. A facet stuffed with 1000 bugged houses and no players is still a wasteland. At least if they fix it people who still play the game are happier. I know several who have played for over a decade and only recently got their first castles and many more who have never had one but would love to have one.

 

[flappy6]

you mean people that been hoarding the spots will now have to pay for the plots,i just ran through malas ATL for last hour and found 1book full 1/2 look empty but never know,and im not even done with malas yet

 

[flappy6]

BETTER YET maybe if you wouldnt have been cheating the game for 10 years people would have stayed to play because they coulda had a better house..........did you really need to have 5,10 15 50 houses? prolly some in prime spots as you say luna houses are falling,lol, wow guess well never know

 

[THP]

I have been speculating for the past three months on whether the way last September's RTB campaign was handled would lead to them being able to put all the bugged houses from the previous ones into decay.

Well, ninety days later on Siege and there are at least seven innocuous houses that I have in my list of potentially bugged plots that have suddenly started decaying. Yet the vast majority are fine. Perhaps one possibility is that only those accounts now linked to a Master Accounts are affected, as only these had the promotional time period associated with the accounts which would have scheduled the corresponding house for decay at the end?

Anyway, has anyone noticed a mini wave of decays on any other shard?

Well iam seeing quite a few houses in decay...all in the same state which is sww...at the moment ....guess.like a mini - big fall day i guess......like the 2 weve had in the past!!!....BRING IT ON....time to get searching the lands u hoarders

these accounts/houses seem to be ones that are not linked to any master account

 

[THP]

BETTER YET maybe if you wouldnt have been cheating the game for 10 years people would have stayed to play because they coulda had a better house..........did you really need to have 5,10 15 50 houses? prolly some in prime spots as you say luna houses are falling,lol, wow guess well never know

really??? housing as not been a problem in uo for like 5-6 years now.....anyone can place a max secure ..thats like 15x15 or similar on ''any shard'' with a little searching around

 

[THP]

Empty and unused buildings to not make the game though. A facet stuffed with 1000 bugged houses and no players is still a wasteland. At least if they fix it people who still play the game are happier. I know several who have played for over a decade and only recently got their first castles and many more who have never had one but would love to have one.

Err castle spots are like 100-120 per shard....are u happy thats all your population is now on your shard??

 

[THP]

Yes one of mine on an asian shard is falling. It is super annoying bc i use that house to play on that shard. Im cleaning it out and stuffing things in the bank and friends castle. Its crazy becuase that shard has like 200 houses total on it. You could place a 1,000 18x18's. Housing space is wide open.

isn't it time that UO gives us 2 houses per account provided they are not on the same shard? I know most players would like this so they can shard hop to where the action is without paying for an acct on every shard.

Allowing one house per account per shard would be better...the lands are desolate waste of unused empty space already......

 

[flappy6]

5-6 years?these houses,castles,luna houses have been stolen from players who payed to play for 10 years! they quit longer than 5 years ago because i remember when a small house was 2 mill on greatlakes,oh wonder why that was..... dont be so defensive for cheating your on here bragging about how you have 20 free houses.....

 

[Olahorand]

The RTB houses on other shards under my control were almost placed in spots (mostly Felucca), nobody bothered to place himself, and are now often the only house in the range of a few screens.
My RTB houses on Baja (which replaced a small grandfathered house a few years ago) and Cheasapeake are going to fall, also one house, which I did hold for a former guild member. And i assume the others will go as well in near future.
And all these houses were in use, heck I even intensivated playing on these shards recently.
But as said, I dont want and cant effort to pay for services which have been included some years ago as a normal feature, as the worlds were much more cramped than it is now even on ATL.
Paying 5 accounts for more than 10 years should count something more than a shed as 15th year reward which again can only be placed on top of the single house.

 

[claudia-fjp]

Err castle spots are like 100-120 per shard....are u happy thats all your population is now on your shard??

No, but I can't do a damn thing about that. I also know there sure as hell aren't as many players as there are houses and if the bugged ones were gone those people that HAVE stuck around could have the castles they want.

As for the ones decaying being ones not linked to master accounts it's not all of them. I know a few that aren't decaying, not paid for and not linked.

 

[THP]

No, but I can't do a damn thing about that. I also know there sure as hell aren't as many players as there are houses and if the bugged ones were gone those people that HAVE stuck around could have the castles they want.

As for the ones decaying being ones not linked to master accounts it's not all of them. I know a few that aren't decaying, not paid for and not linked.

Big Fall Day 3 is coming.........your wish...our command...the shards will look a lot different in a week

book 2 days off........share the wealth........1/5th - 1/8th of housing on most shards will fall

 

[claudia-fjp]

Big Fall Day 3 is coming.........your wish...our command...the shards will look a lot different in a week

book 2 days off........share the wealth........1/5th - 1/8th of housing on most shards will fall

That's just it, I don't think it's problem solved quite yet. I know of dozens of bugged unpaid for houses that still aren't decaying. Both linked and unlinked. I do agree a few bugged houses are falling now though but a small fraction. Makes me wonder if they have some poor intern going through the housing and account server databases.

 

[THP]

its not small..........i got 2 runebooks full in less than 1/8th of my shard

 

[claudia-fjp]

A large number can still be a small fraction. What if in the same area the number of actual bugged houses would fill 5 runebooks? All I can say is out of all the houses on multiple servers that I know for a fact aren't paid for not a single one is showing a sign of decay.

 

[Olahorand]

Still new houses are added every day into the decay round - my RTB house on Cheasapeake got slightly worn today, yesterday it was still fine.
An "RTB village" placed by someone else years ago added two houses to the decay cycle last night.
So no, it has not ended yet.

 

[claudia-fjp]

I wonder if they have some poor abused intern going over the housing and account server databases house by house. lol

 

[Hoffs]

There is not going to be a big fall day, more a big fall month. I go around my shard every day and I'm finding 2-3 new RTB decays each time.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I don't have any RTB houses, when I decided to spend some time on a strange shard my chars lived on a couple of boats.
I believe this clean up may be in preparation for the house changes Mesanna mentioned on Atlantic last week.

 

[Theo_GL]

There is not going to be a big fall day, more a big fall month. I go around my shard every day and I'm finding 2-3 new RTB decays each time.

My tally:

Asian house - In decay (Keep) - most housing on shard castles - this spot will go unplaced.
Sonoma - standing
Legends - standing
Catskills - standing
Great Lakes : Fel house in decay near yew gate
Other 6 houses standing - all in malas and most with 18x18 open plots next to them. None will get replaced

Again - housing is plentiful - we should get 2-3 houses per account provided different shards. Especially since they have introduced items (davies locker, scroll of trans book and shard shields) that REQUIRE you to have a house. I would like to use my pink book on shards I do spawns on but I can't without a house.

With this game - most people play because of the housing. That is its differentiator. Mess with housing and you mess with people. I'm ok that they pull the empty houses - but give us an option to play multiple shards. Limit us to a 12x12 - fine - but don't tell me I need 7 accounts to play 7 shards. I'm not paying $80/month so I can escape GL one in awhile.

 

[THP]

My tally:

Asian house - In decay (Keep) - most housing on shard castles - this spot will go unplaced.
Sonoma - standing
Legends - standing
Catskills - standing
Great Lakes : Fel house in decay near yew gate
Other 6 houses standing - all in malas and most with 18x18 open plots next to them. None will get replaced

Again - housing is plentiful - we should get 2-3 houses per account provided different shards. Especially since they have introduced items (davies locker, scroll of trans book and shard shields) that REQUIRE you to have a house. I would like to use my pink book on shards I do spawns on but I can't without a house.

With this game - most people play because of the housing. That is its differentiator. Mess with housing and you mess with people. I'm ok that they pull the empty houses - but give us an option to play multiple shards. Limit us to a 12x12 - fine - but don't tell me I need 7 accounts to play 7 shards. I'm not paying $80/month so I can escape GL one in awhile.

bang on report but 5 out my 9 are decaying and i guess the others will follow suit....hey it was never my fault....i was never gonna spend 10 quid per account just to drop them.....its EAs fault and it good to see they have got around to fixing it after 6 years!!!!!!........we need to place one house every shard...even then the lands would only be half full at best

 

[DJAd]

I believe this clean up may be in preparation for the house changes Mesanna mentioned on Atlantic last week.

Ooooooh, sounds interesting. Are there any more details about this Petra?

 

[DJAd]

I don't know if I like the idea of multi houses per account (like 7+) . I still think all the plots would get snapped up and remain dormant most of the time. You can only play on one shard at a time right?

Maybe 2 houses per account would work. Hey they could even introduce a second house plot as a vet reward or something.

I do however think that larger custom plots would be nice. Maybe not as big as a castle but definitely same or larger than a keep.

 

[Petra Fyde]

Ooooooh, sounds interesting. Are there any more details about this Petra?

not really, RownElizabeth mentioned in a post that Mesanna said something on Atlantic about the 2nd house on Siege that had been talked about, and I think that Siege players will be able to place a house on the other shards too, but I wasn't there so I'm not very sure.

 

[DerekL]

I don't know if I like the idea of multi houses per account (like 7+) . I still think all the plots would get snapped up and remain dormant most of the time. You can only play on one shard at a time right?

This. I can recall seeing house after house with names like "Drizzt's storage locker" or "K1ll7 gu1ld spar3s" littered over the land - empty except for crates and chests stacked floor-t0-ceiling. (In the pre-fire beetle days, it was very annoying to come across rows of these near remote prime mining spots, and nobody even bothering to put out a public forge.) I have no desire to encourage pack rats.

Also, it was allowing multiple houses (along with housing decay being turned off for several years) that resulted in even 7x7's going for six and seven figures in gold, and larger houses going for three and four figure in real dollars. (A marble villa I had a vendor at on LS went for $500 on eBay!) I have no desire to return to those days either or even start down that road.

That being said, I'm OK with multiple houses, so long as they are sharply limited in number per account and sharply limited in size. There's too many people with multiple accounts likely to toss up a rarely used house on a rarely visited shard just because they just might need one some afternoon when the hamsters powering their prime shard have gone on strike. Yes, our population is a fraction of it's peak, but we cannot forget that we *do* get new players and returning vets - and they need a chance to place a decent house on a shard of their choice.

All that being said, I wasn't here for the RTB flap, whatever that was. (As I'm one of those returning vets.) Anyone care to enlighten me?

 

[Theo_GL]

All that being said, I wasn't here for the RTB flap, whatever that was. (As I'm one of those returning vets.) Anyone care to enlighten me?

So disclaimer - I did not write the code for this but I'm basing the behavior on my observations.

The way it looks like Devs handle housing decay runs a script that says 'Select all accounts that went inactive exactly 90 days ago' For each account - mark the house as in decay. From there the decay process starts.

The script does NOT do =>90 days likely for speed since there are hundreds of thousands of accounts older than 90 days. They assume that they don't have houses on them as they would have been decayed at the 90 day mark.

The problem with this is that if you miss running hte script for a day - a house passes this barrier and then is never found. So it stands forever.

The better way to handle this would be to 'Select all houses from houses, accounts where House = account and account = inactive >90 days' That would then expire everything older than 90.

At any rate, when they turned on Return To Britannia they opened up all old accounts for log in but they were not marked as active. You could place houses. So then when the program ended the houses were never found because the accounts had been inactive way more than 90 days so the 90 day sweeper script would never find them. Thus the houses stood forever. You friend your main account to the hosue and voila - storage space on other shards. Now you can't redesign the house, place vendors or whatever but you can lock and store things.

Finally they are fixing this by what looks to be manually taking a swath of account names each day and decaying the houses. This is creating a new set of decaying houses each day. They are about 2/3 of the way through based on my list of houses. I have about 15 total across shards and so far about 9 are down. Dont' worry - I've cleaned them all out for the most part and certaily have enjoyed watching 10-20 people camping them for hours and wasting their time. I did enjoy filling a public house with repair deeds on GL. Ha ha.

At any rate, the shards are getting VERY empty. Most shards you can place 18'x18's almost anywhere and some shard have open Luna housing.
We are finally starting to see exactly how desperately empty shards are at the moment.