If you could make just one change...

[Evilminion]

First off, a plea for civility here. This is absolutely not a request for rants, and not an invitation to flame either the game developers or your fellow posters. I for one believe that Ultima Online is a wonderful game, and I enjoy every minute I spend playing it, even the ones in which I'm going oooOOOoOoo. (Which are frequent. I like taking risks. I really like taking stupid risks. Go figure.) So, please, if you want to froth incoherently, bash other people's suggestions, or get all stabby on the dev team, take it to the Rants & Spiels forum. My intention with this thread is to spark cheerful and constructive discussion about what we, as players, would most like to see added to, removed from, or changed about our preferred MMORPG. So there's the question: if you had a magic dev wand, and could wave it to change any one thing about Ultima Online, what would that one thing be?

Personally, I would like to be able to customize the walls, floors, and roof tiles of keeps and castles. As a die-hard collector, I envy the profusion of storage space in these structures, but as a die-hard decorator, I can't bear to sacrifice the customizability of an 18x18. I wouldn't mind keeping the basic layout of a castle, but it would be wonderful to modify the architectural elements to suit my own taste!

--------------------------------------

Awwwww, my babies are almost grown up now! Just a few more clicks...

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

1 house per shard per account.

Not because I want to have a house on every shard but because I would like to be able to move or resize the house on LS on my primary account without condemning a house I'm owning for a friend on Chessie in the process, that way I'd in theory be able to move the house next to my cabin which is held by my secondary account.

 

[Sneaky Que]

If I could go back in time and change something about UO it would obviously be UO:R's implementation. However changing that now would not be a good idea. Its one of those things that really can only be done once, we are now stuck with UO:R's... issues.

Oh, and if I had that time machine? AoS would be the next on the list...

...and UO2 and UXO would of been released like they should have, and the WoW we know today would be not exist...

*sigh*

 

[Evilminion]

Sorry, I guess I wasn't really clear. What I'd like to know is what one thing you would like to see changed now; not a revision of the past, but something that could conceivably be implemented in the current version of UO.

 

[love2winalot]

NO 3rd party program would be able run while UO is running. This would include UO assist, and ICQ.

To compensate, a couple of the UO assist features would be implimented into the game. ICQ would not. Being in a dungeon, and then being able to call for friends to come help you is not possible in any envirement, and should not be possible in game. You can use in game communication crystals to call for help.

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

ICQ is not a 3rd-party proggie in the sense that it interacts with the client. But if you wish toi go this route, add Vent and Teamspeak. Add UOAM, and all the other UOPro programs as well.

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

Get rid of the Diablo-esque show-everything about this weapon/shield/armor piece and bring back true worth of Item ID and Arms Lore.

 

[Halister Marner]

Thinking over things, I was going to say removing dupes, then I thought more, and pondered removing 3rd party programs. However, thinking of one massive change, but yet a single change, I could narrow it down to this:

Remove insurance, or make it not function in Felucca. (Yes yes I know about Siege )

 

[Alvinho]

Installing Punkbuster or something along those lines, and forceing an acceptance of terms with the next patch release, if you do not like it no need to patch or continue playing Ultima Online on EA's servers. This would also stop the free shards from takeign EA's patches/ideas and implementing them on their server.

Sure it woudl block and ban some customers becasue they are useing unapproved programs but it woudl also show that EA is not putting up with the bull**** and make the game a better experiance.

Oh and a note for those who are blocked from playing it would involve a temporary ban that a Developer would look over the information why your account was flagged to verify through a screen shot before service was denied of the tool bar showing the offending program so there is no accidental bannings, only a temporary halt of play, which once the bugs are worked out and programs that should not be flaged are not blocking game play, are resolved. Of course with the begining if an account is temporarily banned and once investigated was shown to not warrent a ban would be credited a month or 2 of game time for the inconvience

 

[Inspector]

If I could make one change I would give everybody a val hammer with 300 charges to level the playing field between the super rich and the super poor.

 

[Cogniac]

Add in the ability for guilds and/or alliances to "own" the in-game cities and make improvements to them; I.e. pave unpaved roads, add and/or decorate parks, replace wooden walls in buildings with stone walls, add docks, etc. It could also cost a fair bit of money to do (10k per tile? 100k per tile?), thus creating a nice, optional gold sink.

Now, I'll be the first to point out that they'd have to do a lot of work to prevent people from griefing the system by building walls over all of the entrances to Trinsic, or making every building in Britain a borg cube, or covering every tile in Buc's Den with fountains, or filling the Moonglow teleporter park with giant phalluses. But it could still be an awesome system.

 

[It Lives]

No Xsharding and aos. oops thats two I have many more as well.

 

[Revenant2]

Change as opposed with bug fix.

Well.

I'd want a thing to exist within the UO client to where you can pick among 6 - 8 hand-equippable weapons and items (weapons and spellbooks basically, also empty hand ideally) and insta-switch to them via hotkeys. The speed of the switch would be just like "EquipLastWeapon".

The effect would be that dexers would be able to use "combos" of their weapons specials more creatively in the field, and mages would be able to rapidly and intelligently swap around different items (such as scrappers, 1-handed mage weps and 2-handed mage weps).

Right now, dexers are limited to 2 weapons that they can swap around like this (via EquipLastWeapon), which limits them to 4 weapon specials that might be picked from without having to do a complete disarm and rearm (which really puts a halt on the swing speed timing). And mages cannot insta-swap spellbooks at all and any weapon/spellbook swapping they do is done through a third party program which is always going to do a disarm/rearm, never a quick swap like client.exe can do (EquipLastWeapon-speed).

Mages should possibly not be able to use the function while a spell is "in the air", though. You don't really want mages to swap onto a scrapper for just long enough to achieve SDI and then have swapped back onto their mage wep when the spells are actually landing. Being able to do exactly that would be too scriptable sorta and not in-line with the existing balance of things. You'd want to create a thing where someone could swap onto their scrapper, cast spells, then swap back fast to the mage weapon in between spells, not during.

 

[RoycroftLS]

What I'd like to know is what one thing you would like to see changed now

Remove those aspects of the game that encourage scripting. Some of the activities in game are so repetitive and monotonous that I sometimes wonder if they were created just to be scripted... A few examples:

- The collection reward items.. how it takes ~89,000 bucklers to get the Mace and Shield glasses, for one.

- Heartwood quests that require each item be manipulated twice (crafted and then marked as a quest item). And then it takes hundreds of attempts of the same quest to have a realistic chance at the best reward.

- Lumber and mining resources that respawn on such a short timer that only 10 or so different locations are required to create an endless harvesting cycle.

- Peerless and event bosses that have over 100 items on their corpse when looting rights go public and only four minutes to sort through it all.

- Skill training that rewards you for using the skill impractically. Bards can gain repeatedly off the same couple creatures trapped in their house, and fighting skills can be brought to legendary in low-risk situations like fighting a golem.

- And lately, the spring cleaning rewards that require turning things in twice per item to get the points.

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

UOA has 4 settings. However, taking the one poster up above who wants that eliminated as well as ICQ ... I'd find myself mighty cramped with the current abilities of 2D or KR in this regard.

 

[Salty Pete]

If I could only make one change to UO.....

Damn that's rough. Which is worse Neon coloring or item properties? Skills above GM or additional stats? Insurance or instanced corpses? Localization or "enhanced" graphics.....

The change I would make would be simple: I would revert UO back to this point: http://update.uo.com/design_22.html

 

[Ravenspyre]

UXO would of not been cancelled right before it's beta phase, and actually allowed to continue. The development team would of actually had a chance to finish UXO, and the game would of been released to the public, giving UO a new face that everyone could play again.

 

[The Home Guild]

No Publish 16

 

[Daelomin]

Balance out Casting speed and Movement for every connection. If that would mean decrease the server speed cap, then be it.

Some people can cast spells twice as fast as an average player due to very good traceroute to the server with no jitter and very few hops.

The connection issue has always been one of the most imbalanced things in uo. It was turned for the better when "no-rubber-banding on spells" was put in, but its still very unfair.

Without using any additional programs, some people can cast Greater heal at the same speed as another player cast mini-heals. This has been in game since its launch and people never question it.

 

[Orvago]

UXO would of not been cancelled right before it's beta phase, and actually allowed to continue. The development team would of actually had a chance to finish UXO, and the game would of been released to the public, giving UO a new face that everyone could play again.

This is very close to my wish as well. I just wish that the current UO would be imported/migrated/upgraded to UX:O.

 

[Connor_Graham]

Cut the time it takes for the game to tell you "You must wait to perform another action" in half so I could actually loot a corpse without half the junk flying back to where I dragged it from. making me essentially having to loot twice. I find it ridiculous that my hand can perform mouse movements faster than the game allows.

 

[kennykilleduo]

Get rid of the Diablo-esque show-everything about this weapon/shield/armor piece and bring back true worth of Item ID and Arms Lore.

Item id and armslore added so much more fun to the hunt.
( Silver Katana Supremely Acc Vanq )

No Publish 16

This is very close to my wish as well. I just wish that the current UO would be imported/migrated/upgraded to UX:O.

WOW , this section is still open? , one can dream of better days.

 

[Erekose]

Get rid of the Legacy client. That would also kill most scripting, at least for quite some time. That's the only real change I want.

 

[Starla]

Remove all the dupes ^^ we all know its impossible...

 

[Emil Ispep]

I like your idea, Evil. There are many many un-used tiles and walls in UOs folder that would make housing look better. Also, has any thought been put into the ability to place a second house as part of a 10+ year vet reward? Its no big deal, really.. but with the lack of players i see no problem with the "one house per account" rule being tweaked.

Rather than a fence made out of water barells, i would like the ability to place a real fence around my houses.. (placement permitting) like if your neighbors live right on top of you, you cant have a fence..

Housing def, for me =)

 

[Connor_Graham]

Also, has any thought been put into the ability to place a second house as part of a 10+ year vet reward? Its no big deal, really.. but with the lack of players i see no problem with the "one house per account" rule being tweaked.

If they were to do that, it shouldn't be a 10 yr reward. 5 yr maybe, but not 10. That way people that still have put a significant amount of time in would be rewarded for it, and the newer players would have a perceivably achievable reward to aim for. If it was a 10 yr, someone that has been playing for, say, 2 yrs, would look at it and immediately think they'd never get to see it. Even someone that's been playing for 4 or 5 yrs might perceive it in the same way.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

Something new thats not just an extension of something they can already do for the bard class. Rehued/new art items (bamboo flutes), more charges (replenish), more chance (slayers) are all just extensions.

I think the best idea kicked around for bards was a songbook of effects, with minimum skills made up of the total music, peace, prov, disc. The book would have some form of healing, curing, travel at the lowest level 100 (50 music 50 w/e), some direct damage abilities and maybe area damage abilities for the full bard template. Skill and book obtained in a similar way to spellweaving.

 

[Revenant2]

Cut the time it takes for the game to tell you "You must wait to perform another action" in half so I could actually loot a corpse without half the junk flying back to where I dragged it from. making me essentially having to loot twice. I find it ridiculous that my hand can perform mouse movements faster than the game allows.

Hell yes!

I remember when this change went in (it was many years ago) and how slow and clunky it made the client feel. I thought at the time, surely this is a temporary fix for what they needed? They wouldn't leave it like this...

...and then like 8 years later I come back and that sh*t is still in there, I was like wow you'd think they woulda come up with some action queuing by now to replace that nastiness.

 

[Emil Ispep]

If they were to do that, it shouldn't be a 10 yr reward. 5 yr maybe, but not 10. That way people that still have put a significant amount of time in would be rewarded for it, and the newer players would have a perceivably achievable reward to aim for. If it was a 10 yr, someone that has been playing for, say, 2 yrs, would look at it and immediately think they'd never get to see it. Even someone that's been playing for 4 or 5 yrs might perceive it in the same way.

Yea thats true i guess.. im just going off of the current system. 9 years to ride a polar bear..

*throws in pile*

Im 122 mths, and i still ride an ethy horse. Looks the coolest =) and my cape doesnt float.

 

[Llewen]

Get rid of the Diablo-esque show-everything about this weapon/shield/armor piece and bring back true worth of Item ID and Arms Lore.

I love that. I would still want the detailed information, but I would like it to be available only with arms lore and item id. However, I would like to be able to share that information, or sell it.

I could see it working this way. You id a weapon or piece of armor, then you right click it and get a small context menu which says, "Describe this item", when you chose that option, you get a little targetting cursor with which you target another character and when you do that the other character can now see all the properties of that item.

For a trade window you could get the same option which would work the same way, however there would be a second option which says "Describe this item for a fee". If you choose that option the item changes hue, and then when the owner of the item adds something else to the window they can choose to check the trade window.

When you choose to check your trade window you get the items or gold that the owner of the original item added to the trade window, the hued item is identified, and the original owner trades the unhued items/gold and keeps the hued item. It may sound complicated the way I've described it, but it actually is quite simple.

HOWEVER, if I could change one thing in UO, it would be to add the anti-cheat functionality of an application like PunkBuster to the game. That would be my one big wish.

 

[AEowynSP]

Crafter/fisher/herder weapon similar to the SC mage weaps we already have.
-27 sewing kits, frying pans, rolling pins, crooks, smith tongs ect...
Yes I know it's silly but still it's my wish.

 

[Cear Dallben Dragon]

I would remove insurance from fel, and possibly the ability to recall and have more functional moongates. then i would guard protect the road system leaving short sections that lack the man power to be guarded, these could be ambush zones. then i could guard protect covetous, deceit, and maybe one other dungeon with higher level monsters.


theni would kill all of the trees in tram

 

[Stephanus]

I think I would add the ability to live in the actual towns in game. To preserve the look and feel of the towns only allow town specific tiles decided on by a vote of the residents, and no cubes, houses need some sort of roof. To accomodate more people possibly have apartment style buildings that allow people that can't afford houses to be able to rent a room.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Eliminate the Trammel ruleset...la

 

[Connor_Graham]

Eliminate the Trammel ruleset...la

Which would end UO for good.....la ti da

 

[Tamais]

Bring back our shard events. I know we players can do events, but it was fun and part of the history to have the shard events

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

I'd want a thing to exist within the UO client to where you can pick among 6 - 8 hand-equippable weapons and items (weapons and spellbooks basically, also empty hand ideally) and insta-switch to them via hotkeys.

KR + UnEquip/Equip Macros + hotkeys. And it does it pretty instantly I might add and not ust for hand-held items, but entire wardrobes. You can put them in the Macros window and keep them hidden or add an icon and put them on a hotbar based on your own prefernces.

 

[Llewen]

I think I would add the ability to live in the actual towns in game. To preserve the look and feel of the towns only allow town specific tiles decided on by a vote of the residents, and no cubes, houses need some sort of roof. To accomodate more people possibly have apartment style buildings that allow people that can't afford houses to be able to rent a room.

I proposed something like this years ago when housing was such an issue. I hate the way in UO houses plug up all the wild areas. You should only be able to build a house in designated areas, you should have to pay a tax, and you should be able to "rent" rooms and shops inside cities.

Back then cities being deserted wasn't as much of an issue, but if you want to bring cities like Britain back to life, this would be the way to go. Smaller rooms would be cheap, and you wouldn't be able to furnish them, while you could rent larger shops and rooms and furnish them as you wish, although there should be strick limits as to where you can place something like a forge (ie. only in a designated shop, or shop like area).

The problem now is that the cat is truly out of the bag, and housing isn't a pressing issue anymore. No one is happy anymore with anything but an 18X18, so the idea of renting a room, or a small house, inside a city might not fly.

However it could be implemented the way housing changes have been implemented in the past, with current housing being "grandfathered" but unable to be transferred to another account, or resized, and construction of new housing in any place but designated areas curtailed. I'm sure this will never happen though, but if I were responsible for developing a new MMO, this would be the way I would go with housing.

The benefits would be tremendous I think. No more stupidity of the someone's shop plunked outside the most dangerous dungeons, and in swamps infested with bog things and poison elementals. Coherent towns, with real communities and real markets, and business areas, would be the result.

Housing could have been implemented in a much more imaginative and intelligent way than it was.

 

[Stoutblade]

Ok, so this is really insignificant in terms of how the game plays but it's one of the things that I miss the most from the old UO. I would like to put changing seasons back into the game. Before the Tram/Fel split the leaves would change colors in the (North American) fall, then shed their leaves in winter. Then the leaves would return for spring and summer. For some reason that just made the world feel alive to me. Now all we have is sunny California (aka Tram) and Narnia (Fel, which has no leaves and therefore appears to be in permanent winter).

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

Ummm the only time I remember that was during a small batch of test clients by Pandemonium which only added the "spring" setting which later became the basis of the Trammel foliage.

Nothing else was done until Winter 2006 when they added snow during NA winter/Christmas.

I do not recall ever seeing an automated seasonal change in UO unless it were in beta or before.

 

[Llewen]

The problem now is that the cat is truly out of the bag, and housing isn't a pressing issue anymore. No one is happy anymore with anything but an 18X18, so the idea of renting a room, or a small house, inside a city might not fly.

However, if the housing rules were changed to one house per account, per shard, I think a change like this would be a roaring success.

 

[Flora Green]

There are too many things to list that I would like changed from releasing all the housing tiles to (of course) new generations of plants. I would like olive trees where we could press our own oil and then cook with it. Chefs hats people have requested for years and new clothing in general such as a new skirt for females in combat or the ability to wear the elven skirt. Things like AOS gone, more than one house per account, my hatrd of item properties, dupes, house scripting and such go without saying. BUT, in all honesty the thing I dislike most is Luna proper. Whomever came up with the idea to lump every single shop in one area adjacent to the bank along with allowing houses INSIDE THE WALLS should have been fired on the spot for even thinking it. I don't want to live in the past, but I really miss seeing 20+ people at a time at Vesper bank or activity at Skara an Trinsic banks. And not even during peak times.

 

[Revenant2]

...

I'd want a thing to exist within the UO client to where you can pick among 6 - 8 hand-equippable weapons and items (weapons and spellbooks basically, also empty hand ideally) and insta-switch to them via hotkeys.

KR + UnEquip/Equip Macros + hotkeys. And it does it pretty instantly I might add and not ust for hand-held items, but entire wardrobes. You can put them in the Macros window and keep them hidden or add an icon and put them on a hotbar based on your own prefernces.

K.

I meant make 2d do this. I dont use KR and don't forsee changing clients, regardless of whatever ******** names I get called by that guild that keeps leaving those dumb Pro-KR books all over the ground.

 

[Juicy Fruit]

Make 2d backpacks like they were in 3d, Resizeable. Came in handy for keeping you back pack organized and anything that spawns in your backpack can be seen as well as your rings and braclets didn't fall under your rune books or such

 

[Revenant2]

I proposed something like this years ago when housing was such an issue. I hate the way in UO houses plug up all the wild areas. You should only be able to build a house in designated areas, you should have to pay a tax, and you should be able to "rent" rooms and shops inside cities.

Back then cities being deserted wasn't as much of an issue, but if you want to bring cities like Britain back to life, this would be the way to go. Smaller rooms would be cheap, and you wouldn't be able to furnish them, while you could rent larger shops and rooms and furnish them as you wish, although there should be strick limits as to where you can place something like a forge (ie. only in a designated shop, or shop like area).

The problem now is that the cat is truly out of the bag, and housing isn't a pressing issue anymore. No one is happy anymore with anything but an 18X18, so the idea of renting a room, or a small house, inside a city might not fly.

However it could be implemented the way housing changes have been implemented in the past, with current housing being "grandfathered" but unable to be transferred to another account, or resized, and construction of new housing in any place but designated areas curtailed. I'm sure this will never happen though, but if I were responsible for developing a new MMO, this would be the way I would go with housing.

The benefits would be tremendous I think. No more stupidity of the someone's shop plunked outside the most dangerous dungeons, and in swamps infested with bog things and poison elementals. Coherent towns, with real communities and real markets, and business areas, would be the result.

Housing could have been implemented in a much more imaginative and intelligent way than it was.

When I started up a private shard (it was successful for it's time), there was no player-placed housing allowed in the normal areas of the world. Housing could be gotten in one of two ways:

(1) The existing NPC buildings were in many cases available to be sold to players. The players had trouble furnishing them because of the limitations of the server software, so GMs would have to help secure the containers and so-on.

The sizes of the places varied and people seemed happy with some of the smaller buildings. The smaller places within towns had appeal and charisma if only for being right in town. The little houses on Nujelm beach were sold, the small apartment-like things within Britain and Minoc, and bigger mansion-like buildings went too.

GMs would go around putting signs on the buildings that were available for sale that would list their price. Players who wanted a house would page a GM to purchase it. I recall that people were limited to one in-town type house each.

On UO production shards I have trouble seeing how one would do this, the software's really not set up for it. If something similar were desired, they might open up a new area of the world that looks charismatic and town-like, behaves town-like in that it has bank etc, allows house placement, and has roads in it that forces different-sized houses to be placeable. It would need to be much larger than any existing towns to accomodate the real goal (which would be to have a real city-like thing where people might place housing). It would preferably exist in both trammel and fel, some of the people who would want to participate in such an interesting thing might have a red or two and wouldn't enjoy being excluded just for that.

(2) The area of the world known as "Green Acres" was opened up via a big portal in Britain, and people could place traditional housing there. The normal world area (it was all Felucca) had practically no player-placed housing (like, one person got a building in right as I was making the Green Acres setup and he in the end got to keep it).

There was lots of open space in the normal shard areas to run and fight and kill stuff, no dodging around houses, no spawn getting stuck at people's doorsteps, and so on. This was a refreshing thing at the time for players, as the regular UO shards were packed with what seemed like everybody else's houses. People were happy with the arrangement.

 

[Llewen]

On UO production shards I have trouble seeing how one would do this, the software's really not set up for it. If something similar were desired, they might open up a new area of the world that looks charismatic and town-like, behaves town-like in that it has bank etc, allows house placement, and has roads in it that forces different-sized houses to be placeable. It would need to be much larger than any existing towns to accomodate the real goal (which would be to have a real city-like thing where people might place housing). It would preferably exist in both trammel and fel, some of the people who would want to participate in such an interesting thing might have a red or two and wouldn't enjoy being excluded just for that.

They would have to redesign the "cities" and towns and make them more dense for this to work in the current scale. I think it could be done, but it would take some work. The maps could also be completely rescaled, but I'm sure that would present a major challenge. I think it could be done as well, but it would take even more major planning and work.

The best time to plan player housing imaginatively and intelligently is in the initial stages of the MMO's development. After that implementing something like this would become a major effort.

 

[phantus]

Remove all item properties from armor and leave only stats and minor status affects. Then give each character a set amount of points to spend on properties they want to use given their current skill and skill level.

Example:

If you wanted 100LRC you would have to have a mage related skill and spend your points to reach 100. Prolly make it so magery give a max possible 50% and med gives a 50% max. Same with Nec and SS. Eval would unlock SDI and LMC. etc, etc etc...

The main point would be to make armor less effective overall and give everyone a level field in gear. Also, it would eliminate the ability to have max stats in everything, which is just ********.

 

[Revenant2]

They would have to redesign the "cities" and towns and make them more dense for this to work in the current scale. I think it could be done, but it would take some work. The maps could also be completely rescaled, but I'm sure that would present a major challenge. I think it could be done as well, but it would take even more major planning and work.

I don't think they could really do this in the production environment. The amount of work involved in 'worldbuilding' would be huge, the patch to the client would be huge, the amount of space that the redesigned towns would take up would want to clash with areas where people have already placed housing, UO Automap would not match. A big negative factor is that the towns as we know them today simply wouldn't be there any more, and UO is too old a game to be rearranging under people's feet like that.

I wouldn't want them to mess with the existing towns in this way. If they seriously desired to do something like this they'd clearly want to just make a new thing from the ground up in a new world area.

 

[Stoutblade]

...

Ummm the only time I remember that was during a small batch of test clients by Pandemonium which only added the "spring" setting which later became the basis of the Trammel foliage.

Nothing else was done until Winter 2006 when they added snow during NA winter/Christmas.

I do not recall ever seeing an automated seasonal change in UO unless it were in beta or before.

Well, it was during the first couple of years at least. I can't say for sure they kept it up all the way through to the Tram/Fel split but it WAS in the game (at least on Great Lakes, which is the server I played on during the early years).

 

[Llewen]

I don't think they could really do this in the production environment. The amount of work involved in 'worldbuilding' would be huge, the patch to the client would be huge, the amount of space that the redesigned towns would take up would want to clash with areas where people have already placed housing, UO Automap would not match. A big negative factor is that the towns as we know them today simply wouldn't be there any more, and UO is too old a game to be rearranging under people's feet like that.

I wouldn't want them to mess with the existing towns in this way. If they seriously desired to do something like this they'd clearly want to just make a new thing from the ground up in a new world area.

I tend to agree with you, but I don't understand why other MMO's having seen what has happened in UO, haven't done this sort of thing. Of course MMO's like WoW dealt with the issue by not allowing for any housing whatsoever, the same way they dealt with the tricky issue of doors in a 3D environment.