CC expires, house gone, people don't return

[Tomarke]

Where is the fun in losing your house if your account goes inactive without your knowledge?

Well, the system was not implemented solely to take advantage of people who can't properly manage their finances, it was put in place to free housing locations which are no longer being paid for no matter what the reason. In this one particular case I am sure the person was reminded at least once by the financial institution which issue the card that it would be expiring and then received at least one notification from Bioware/Mythic that their account was being closed because the card was expired/declined. Once this happened the individual then has a set amount of time to enter a valid form of payment for services before their ingame property is set to decay and their belonging become available to the rest of the community.

So, and yes I am very aware of the sarcasm which exudes from your response, your point is invalid. If you don't pay for the service afforded to paying members you lose it. His account didn't go inactive because of any fault of the game company, it went inactive because of his own mistake. Welcome to adulthood, keep better track of your finances.

 

[yadiman]

You came onto an online games forums

Yep, and I should have expected it, but i thought this community which is smaller and older might act more appropriately. Anyways, truth is, it wasn't even an expired CC but a suspected fraud issue. Not that it matters.

You even stated the IDOC system should be fixed, as I'm sure many people think as well. Many people also realize the billing system has many problems. Well I came here and gave a suggestion.

 

[Tomarke]

Yep, and I should have expected it, but i thought this community which is smaller and older might act more appropriately. Anyways, truth is, it wasn't even an expired CC but a suspected fraud issue. Not that it matters.

You even stated the IDOC system should be fixed, as I'm sure many people think as well. Many people also realize the billing system has many problems. Well I came here and gave a suggestion.

Well, then you should have given accurate information from the beginning. I have read on these very forums about Broadsword possibly being able to help players who were victims of fraud, they might not be able to get back everything but in this situation "some" is better than "nothing". If the account lapsed because of a case of fraud which can be verified by the issuing financial institution then the game producers may be able to help, I would recommend contacting Mesanna (sp.) but I don't know her email as I have never contacted her however I'm sure someone here does.

 

[JC the Builder]

Well, the system was not implemented solely to take advantage of people who can't properly manage their finances, it was put in place to free housing locations which are no longer being paid for no matter what the reason. In this one particular case I am sure the person was reminded at least once by the financial institution which issue the card that it would be expiring and then received at least one notification from Bioware/Mythic that their account was being closed because the card was expired/declined. Once this happened the individual then has a set amount of time to enter a valid form of payment for services before their ingame property is set to decay and their belonging become available to the rest of the community.

Our guild member didn't know his credit card had been declined. The account was tied to an email he never used because he was worried about hacking.

Countless accounts are simply there to hold houses for people. They don't know if they are active or inactive. So currently the only notice is you get 7 days for the decay cycle, which recently has been reported broken with houses disappearing as quickly as two days.

Over the past 10 years another issue has been people who get deployed to the military. They are away for a year or more and basically have to pray that everything goes fine for them. Players in-game have no idea the account has gone inactive until the decay begins. For someone who may only be able to access the internet once every few weeks, that does not work for them.

A few simple changes could stop a lot of heartache for people who want to pay for their accounts. Saying they should just toughen up and start over is heartless. How about you login right now, gate everyone at Luna to your house and then demolish it? Then you start over and see how it feels.

 

[Tomarke]

Our guild member didn't know his credit card had been declined. The account was tied to an email he never used because he was worried about hacking.

Countless accounts are simply there to hold houses for people. They don't know if they are active or inactive. So currently the only notice is you get 7 days for the decay cycle, which recently has been reported broken with houses disappearing as quickly as two days.

Over the past 10 years another issue has been people who get deployed to the military. They are away for a year or more and basically have to pray that everything goes fine for them. Players in-game have no idea the account has gone inactive until the decay begins. For someone who may only be able to access the internet once every few weeks, that does not work for them.

A few simple changes could stop a lot of heartache for people who want to pay for their accounts. Saying they should just toughen up and start over is heartless. How about you login right now, gate everyone at Luna to your house and then demolish it? Then you start over and see how it feels.

Since you made a point in each paragraph, I will number my responses to correspond:

1) I have already addressed this, your friend should have taken better care of his business. He knew it was tied to this email account so he should have taken steps to prevent that very scenario from happening. I feel for him but ultimately the account lapsed because of this own action/inaction.

2) Every paid account in which payment lapses receives a notification email for termination of services, even if it is not played very often and only holding a house. The decay system has been reported broken and if a house begins to decay on a paid account then yes, Broadsword bears the responsibility and should take measures to replace what was lost on a PAID account.

3) I happen to be a 21 year (and change) veteran and have been TDY/Deployed many times. I took responsibility for my accounts prior to leaving by either a) having my wife ensure upkeep in my absence or b) banking my valuables, dropping my houses and canceling my subscription. I took RESPONSIBILITY for MY accounts to ensure that I didn't lose everything while I was away.

4) I have seen nothing in this entire thread which was the fault of the game company or where the person lost their houses due to faulty game mechanics. The OP did state later that the card lapsed due to possible fraud and I then informed him that he should contact Messanna (sp?) as she may be able to help in that case. Oh and when I left the game post-AOS I grabbed a new player from Haven, gated him to my house, transferred my house to him, gave him everything in my bank as well as everything I was wearing and cancelled my subscription. When I came back years later all I had to my name was about 5k in gold and the skills to a template which was barely viable. So, yeah, been there, done that and I did not get a t-shirt. Consider your request c/w.

So just to ensure you are getting my overall point: People should take an active role in controlling the events in their lives which are within their ability to control. Stop being a victim and take some responsibility for yourself and your actions. Is this heartless? I don't think so, just a very hard-learned life lesson.

 

[Viper09]

The system is already fairly forgiving. Be thankful for how decay happends now as comparied to several years ago when you HAD to play to refresh your house by opening the door. But, unfortunately, **** happends. It sucks, but sometimes you have to roll with it. The game is still fun beyond the saved items people keep in their houses.

If that is all that matters to someone, though, then perhaps it's a good thing it got lost. Just the right push to really move on from this game

 

[yadiman]

Since you made a point in each paragraph, I will number my responses to correspond:

1) I have already addressed this, your friend should have taken better care of his business. He knew it was tied to this email account so he should have taken steps to prevent that very scenario from happening. I feel for him but ultimately the account lapsed because of this own action/inaction.

Thank you for the previous info, and i did tell him to contact UO.

But my whole point was that people who this happens to are not likely to return. In a lot of games, if someone accidentally deletes their character, there is a system to restore that character. Was it that person's fault who deleted their own character? or maybe they weren't safe with their password and someone else deleted their character? It doesn't matter to these other gaming companies because they want to keep that person.

and that was my WHOLE point that everyone chose to ignore.

 

[yadiman]

The system is already fairly forgiving. Be thankful for how decay happends now as comparied to several years ago when you HAD to play to refresh your house by opening the door. But, unfortunately, **** happends. It sucks, but sometimes you have to roll with it. The game is still fun beyond the saved items people keep in their houses.

If that is all that matters to someone, though, then perhaps it's a good thing it got lost. Just the right push to really move on from this game

Heh well ya he was a collector. But really that is a major charm about this game to a lot of people.

 

[Tomarke]

Oh, I was very aware of your point and I addressed it in my earliest post by disagreeing with it.

I don't think that game mechanics should be changed for the reasons given in this thread. Are there other reasons to change them? Yes, (i.e. the aforementioned scripting problem) and those reasons will have different intended/unintended consequences which I believe would be more beneficial to the game as a whole.

I feel for the position your friend is in and hope that he is able to recover his stuff, or at least some of it.

 

[yadiman]

Oh, I was very aware of your point and I addressed it in my earliest post by disagreeing with it.

I don't think that game mechanics should be changed for the reasons given in this thread. Are there other reasons to change them? Yes, (i.e. the aforementioned scripting problem) and those reasons will have different intended/unintended consequences which I believe would be more beneficial to the game as a whole.

I feel for the position your friend is in and hope that he is able to recover his stuff, or at least some of it.

Then what is your suggestion? Because we all know that scripting is not going away. I believe even the devs have mentioned that (according to hearsay).

 

[Viper09]

Heh well ya he was a collector. But really that is a major charm about this game to a lot of people.

Well, ok, I guess being a collector is different. But still, if he wasn't logging in enough to notice it does sound like his interest had kind of left :-\

 

[Tomarke]

Then what is your suggestion? Because we all know that scripting is not going away. I believe even the devs have mentioned that (according to hearsay).

Addressing the problem of scripting is not the reason I started posting in this thread. I recognize it as an on-going problem but I do no purport to have the knowledge required to post a solution to it. I started posting in response to the problem you had with the responses you were receiving here on the forums.

Since I retired from the military last year I have been a full-time student pursuing a computer science degree and what I have learned in my studies up to this point has only reinforced my previous certainty that I have no idea how the server side/client code works or how the various game systems interact with each other and it would be futile for me to speculate. But what I can say is that the solution to IDOC scripting is going to be far different than preventing houses from entering decay inadvertently and I am not a proponent of changing game systems just because people lose track of their finances. There are safeguards built in at all levels to give notification to players whose accounts have lapsed. I understand that there are exceptions and if your friend is indeed a victim of fraud then he should be able to work with Broadsword to find an agreeable solution. However, blanket changes based on these occasional exceptions is not always the wisest path to pursue.

I will say that the one thing that needs to be fixed immediately is the account billing system. There are many successful billing systems on the internet to emulate and EA just needs to make that change. Once they do I think we will see a lot of the billing related account problems go away.

I enjoyed having the conversation, thanks. I am going to take advantage of the rest of the spare time I have available to me and go play the game. Again, I wish your friend luck.

 

[Warpig Inc]

The auto renew did not work for all my accounts. In the last rotation I had to go in by hand and tell them plz take my money. We'll see on the next rotation if they all (less one) auto renew.

They need a fish take hold charge for accounts. Pay for a year and can stack for more. The account auto renews for a year and the house (not boats) stay in game. The account cannot be logged in on and the house is blocked from everyone amd in stasis. Adn the account can be brought back fully active with the understanding there is no refund for unused stasis time. Players that get deployed for a year should not have to depend on buddies, cousins or mommy to keep an eye on their stupid video game account/s. Can go the same for someone doing time for a short hual wanting something to do after release.

How many players that could of stasised their account might have returned more likely if they didn't have to depend on others to catch up on some things?

 

[The Zog historian]

The auto renew did not work for all my accounts. In the last rotation I had to go in by hand and tell them plz take my money. We'll see on the next rotation if they all (less one) auto renew.

They need a fish take hold charge for accounts. Pay for a year and can stack for more. The account auto renews for a year and the house (not boats) stay in game. The account cannot be logged in on and the house is blocked from everyone amd in stasis. Adn the account can be brought back fully active with the understanding there is no refund for unused stasis time. Players that get deployed for a year should not have to depend on buddies, cousins or mommy to keep an eye on their stupid video game account/s. Can go the same for someone doing time for a short hual wanting something to do after release.

How many players that could of stasised their account might have returned more likely if they didn't have to depend on others to catch up on some things?

I could go for paying a year in advance, though you realize with that option there would be no need to complicate with a "stasis" mode. So what is EA going to do, change things for the one person in a hundred who is genuinely coming back? I can't imagine there are as many who gave up because of credit card problems as those who couldn't get through the new account management system. As has been pointed out, the present situation is far more forgiving than the old days, when if you went on vacation for more than a week and a half, you did have to depend on "buddies, cousins or mommy" to refresh. Granted, back then a house did not decay based on payment, only having its front door opened while someone held a key. But when I had to drop everything and go out of town for a week, which turned into two, I relied on my best friend to refresh things.

Oh, and pets. Who else remembers having to reclaim and restable pets every week, because each stablehand could hold only so many, and you had to reclaim from the specific NPC? Go on vacation for longer or otherwise forget, and the pets would be deleted unless you trusted a friend with your account info.

 

[Uvtha]

Yep, and I should have expected it, but i thought this community which is smaller and older might act more appropriately. Anyways, truth is, it wasn't even an expired CC but a suspected fraud issue. Not that it matters.

You even stated the IDOC system should be fixed, as I'm sure many people think as well. Many people also realize the billing system has many problems. Well I came here and gave a suggestion.

Honestly I don't think its a TERRIBLE idea to have items stored, but really, how long should they keep the data backed up for people who aren't playing or paying? From my experience, 99/100 when someone loses a house it's because they were abusing the 90 day buffer system to keep their house up while they are not playing/paying for the account (we all do it, and should know the risks), they forgot about it and it collapsed. I hear about that a good handful of times per year, and for that I have 0 pity.

I am sure it can happen that somehow your cc was closed, and neither the bank, nor UO let you know that payment wasn't happening, but I have to imagine its a super rare occurrence, as I get emails from both my bank if/when my card or account has issues, AND from UO when my account is closed. My mother had a fraud issue on her CC a month or two ago, and by god did they let her know all about it, with calls and like 5 letters in a month, so I have a hard time believing was closed due to fraud and no one told him.
Even if that's what happened, it's Certainly not such a common event that they need to invest a big chunk of time designing safety nets and preventing hoarded items from players who quit from getting back into the hands of people who still play the game.

Much sympathy to your friend if they honestly got shafted, but reasonably, its not such a big issue in the greater scope of the game that it needs dev time. Anyway billing will be moving under broadsword control some time in the hopefully not too far off future (if I understand correctly), so that should cut back on billing issues one would imagine.

 

[Smoot]

No other game has a housing system as extensive as UO where the majority of items can be lost if the account is not paid for (max 1225 vrs over 5k)

Yes, i agree with the poster that more people would return if there was an "auto store" feature when your house collapsed.

It would have been good for the game, but the original creators lacked the foresight. This type of game was very new, and originally items werent all that valuable. easily replaced. UO now, in its "senior years" just doesnt have resources for such a major change. We're basically in survival mode, and any innovation takes months or even a year to implement. Its a shame but this just isnt something on the table.

 

[Smoot]

Honestly I don't think its a TERRIBLE idea to have items stored, but really, how long should they keep the data backed up for people who aren't playing or paying? From my experience, 99/100 when someone loses a house it's because they were abusing the 90 day buffer system to keep their house up while they are not playing/paying for the account (we all do it, and should know the risks), they forgot about it and it collapsed. I hear about that a good handful of times per year, and for that I have 0 pity.

I am sure it can happen that somehow your cc was closed, and neither the bank, nor UO let you know that payment wasn't happening, but I have to imagine its a super rare occurrence, as I get emails from both my bank if/when my card or account has issues, AND from UO when my account is closed. My mother had a fraud issue on her CC a month or two ago, and by god did they let her know all about it, with calls and like 5 letters in a month, so I have a hard time believing was closed due to fraud and no one told him.
Even if that's what happened, it's Certainly not such a common event that they need to invest a big chunk of time designing safety nets and preventing hoarded items from players who quit from getting back into the hands of people who still play the game.

Much sympathy to your friend if they honestly got shafted, but reasonably, its not such a big issue in the greater scope of the game that it needs dev time. Anyway billing will be moving under broadsword control some time in the hopefully not too far off future (if I understand correctly), so that should cut back on billing issues one would imagine.

Or they just let it fall thinking they wont ever come back to the game. Even if it was a 7 by 7 with just some deco and one or two things kinda cool to player who lost interest for one reason or another, months or years down the line those things might be on a persons mind and be the final thing pushing them to subscribe again.
Like in other games, if my banks were wiped, or even one third of my items lost i would be much less likely to want to log in and check out the game again.

 

[Aran]

No other game has a housing system as extensive as UO where the majority of items can be lost if the account is not paid for (max 1225 vrs over 5k)

Never heard of ArcheAge?

 

[Tatty Bojangles]

People may leave because there house expires and they lose items but from a developers point of view a large number of the current subscription income comes from people paying a monthly fee because they would lose there items and house otherwise.

Surely 5 years of paying the monthly fee in order to keep your house/castle in tact against someone quitting every now and again because they've lost that house makes sense from a profitable viewpoint. How much of the current monthly income generated through UO comes because of the current IDOC system and people being afraid to lose their castle? I doubt the system will ever change as a result.

Plus, as has previously been mentioned, the game has been structured and built around what is now very old code and game mechanics and as we often see any even very minor changes can have huge consequences throughout the game. Do you really want some developer to start tinkering with the housing code - only to find it accidently makes every house decay or something just as bad? I wouldn't want to be the programmer in charge of those changes.

 

[SpyderBite]

While housing is definitely a very strong asset to UO; it is also it's downfall. The only reason that we have two dozen low pop servers rather than four or five heavily populated servers is because of housing.

Granted, instanced housing wasn't even a gleam in a developer's eye when housing was introduced.

But unfortunately, in hind sight, housing in the manner it was implemented is the cause of many of issues that UO suffers from today.

 

[Aran]

While housing is definitely a very strong asset to UO; it is also it's downfall. The only reason that we have two dozen low pop servers rather than four or five heavily populated servers is because of housing.

Granted, instanced housing wasn't even a gleam in a developer's eye when housing was introduced.

But unfortunately, in hind sight, housing in the manner it was implemented is the cause of many of issues that UO suffers from today.

I'll take the housing over the other thing.

 

[Pirate Roberts]

It's not like a new CC comes in the mail to clue me in that I need to do something to keep UO active. I guess being financially aware and responsible is uncommon.

 

[Alex"Drake Iron Heart"CS]

Bottom line, Keep an eye on your ACCs, and CCs, I am sure many of you use the CC for more than UO, and its not hard to go to bank and ask for a statement to see your movements, so if you lose your house cause you havn't taken the time to check your Accs, well tough luck, even if it means losing it all, and If you quit after that, just means you weren't interested in the game in the first place or you would of checked your statements and ACC billing info.... Losing your house is the ACC holders fault, no one elses, Although that dosnt stop EA/Mystics/Broadsword/UO, from maybe making a Gump that comes up to the persons Acc, or a message when you enter a house, that It might fall to give help out to the person losing the house. One dosn't take the other one out, UO can help my adding more ingame messages, but it boils down really to the owner of the ACC....

I lost my castle full of stuff back in 2001 and I knew I was gonna lose it all cause I hadn't payed, also was a minor then and didnt have a CC, so that was it, came back many years after and now I have more than I had before, Its a cycle. If people didn't lose their house/castles, No one would be able to have a spot to place theirs...... There will always be someone that will benefit from someone's loss and this is not only ingame but in real life too and we all know about it.

About Scripters, well don't go attacking the IDOC scripters that do minimal or no damage really at all to anyone, they just collect what someone didnt bother to look after..... Yeah they might make themselves rich but its not illegal to pick stuff from a chest on the floor for anyone, Its a matter of speed just all, and the non scripters being yelly cause they cannot keep up, I am nor for or against with these scripts.....
If you wanna go for the Scripters, Stop the duping of gold checks, the scripting of skills and other sorts of scripts which are a lot more dangerous and worse for the whole community..... There is soo much more scripting thatn the ones that are visible to the eye, seems like only the IDOCers script, but a lot more people do and for worse reasons.....