Even better, a posting from Vex in June of 2001(recorded at this link) (there's a picture of the carpet buying menu at that link also):
Howdy! Here is an update on the plan for floor tiles.
As y’all recall, we did have them on Test Center at one point. They were working fairly well, but there were some strange and hard to resolve bugs with them. That, combined with an extreme need to focus on more important things, required us to shelf them for a time.
The biggest issue with the floor tiles has always been that they are surfaces, meaning players and creatures can walk on them. When we make them dynamic objects able to be moved around by players, it opens up a huge can of worms with regards to exploitation. Imagine being able to build a bridge over water, or a staircase up the side of a mountain.
Much of the implementation of Floor Tiles was designed to make it impossible to place them anywhere except on the floor of a house. But that turned out to be a much more difficult proposition than originally imagined. The UO server just wasn’t designed to be able to place such limitations on objects. Making the server capable of that is nontrivial. We tried to get around it by writing a bunch of code specific to the floor tiles, but that turned out to be a nonoptimal solution as well.
So, we’ve gone back to the drawing board, and come up with what we feel is a far better system. Here are the basics of it:
1 – Floor Tiles Will Be Craftable. Tailors will create carpets. Tinkers will create stone tiles, and Carpenters will create wooden floors. In order for this feature to function as a gold sink, players will be required to purchase expensive components to use to craft the items. Because of this, the ability to craft floor tiles will not be based on a skill check. Instead, it will just require certain minimum skill levels and have a 100% success rate at or above the required skill.
2 – When crafted, floor tiles won’t exist as movable objects. Instead, they will exist virtually in a special container with its own interface. To place a floor tile, the player will double-click the container and get a menu of the tiles in it. The player selects one, and the tile drops to the floor at the player’s feet. It will not highlight – it will behave more like a static object rather than a dynamic one. Floor tiles will not need to be locked down (in fact, they may refuse to be locked down). The floor tile container will include detailed instructions. Once placed, a floor tile can be retrieved back into its original container within 1/2 hour. Pieces that have different facings will be able to be rotated, so it won’t be necessary to get one of each corner piece of a fringed rug. You’ll just need 4 corner pieces. Once a floor tile has been in place for 1/2 hour, it becomes permanent. The container will also have features to make it easy to see its contents in a secure trade window or on a vendor.
3 – Floor Tiles Will Have Special Decay Rules. The idea here is to experiment somewhat with the concept of a recurring gold sink and a continuing market for player crafters. The basic idea is that carpets will decay after 30 real-life days, but will be the cheapest to create. Wood tiles will decay in 60 real-life days, and be more expensive than carpets to create. Stone floor tiles will decay in 90 real days, but be the most expensive to create. The hope is that players will feel it is worth the gold to replace their custom flooring every so often, creating a continuous demand for new floor tiles. This means that the market for this player-crafted item should never dry up, and since the components are fairly pricey it should act as a continuous small drain by which gold coin can leave the game’s economy.
I am interested in any feedback y’all may have, good or bad.
And further down on that page:
Vex –
Unfortunately, I’ll be limited to just the floor tiles redesign and reimplementation for the immediate future. House decoration is an important aspect of the game and we do want to add more options, eventually. But for now all I can say is that we’ll keep ideas like the bearskin rugs, etc. in mind for a time down the road.
Vex –
We (the design team) actually disagree with the idea of taxing houses, on the principle that it would be taking something away from the game without giving anything back. It’s not good to “nerf”; it’s much better to modify and enhance. So, it’s not likely that we’ll nerf housing by implementing property taxes, but we are not averse to attaching ongoing maintenance to new optional enhancements like custom flooring.
Vex –
Considering the huge variety of floor tiles available (240 or so), and the fact that many people will likely prefer to construct floors piecemeal (in order to make mosaics and oddly shaped rugs), I think it would be in the crafter’s best interest to make the sale before actually creating the flooring.
I will make sure to include a way in the interface to view samples of all floor tiles in a menu and unambiguously identify each of them. This will make it much easier for the buyer and the seller to communicate. I expect some crafters may try to sell pre-made floor packages on their vendors, but for something like this the personal one-on-one touch seems to be a necessity.
Obviously, I will also make certain that the Factions price adjustment feature won’t affect the price of the components. I’d also like to make the price of the flooring components absolutely fixed and unaffected by the normal price adjustments that NPC shopkeepers apply as their stock diminishes. This way, buyers will know exactly what it costs a crafter to create flooring. Then, it’s up to the crafter to make a sale and a profit on a level playing field.
Vex –
Regarding cost, the idea is that the components will be less expensive than the previous in-testing prices for the tiles. I think a good initial target price might be 1,000 gp per month per tile, for the components. This means that a 5x5 reflooring of a small house would cost 25K per real month to maintain. 25K isn’t a lot of money at all, these days. It will be interesting to see what prices crafters would charge. The floor tiles are supposed to be big-ticket status symbols. Cool decorations that take a little extra effort to maintain. I don’t think that price is too expensive or too cheap, especially considering the floor tiles wouldn’t take lockdown slots.
The idea of making them repairable is an interesting one, worthy of exploration. I personally enjoy redecorating my own villa every so often; it gets boring with the same look every day for months on end. If this idea were implemented, I would want crafters to do the repair rather than the owner; otherwise the whole idea of continuous demand for the crafter’s services is shot. Unfortunately, there is currently no good way to securely trade for services. Considering the number of blacksmith repair scam calls our GMs get, I would be extremely hesitant to add another crafter-performed service to the game. It’s much better right now to deal strictly with goods.
Regarding having to move other items to lay carpet, the idea was that the tile would move to the floor at the player’s feet, requiring only that the player be able to stand in the spot where the floor tile is to go. It is probably a better idea to just use the targeting cursor.
It may be possible to allow the floor tiles to be floated using the decoration tool – some of them would make good shelves, for instance. The big thing is making sure they only exist inside houses.
