Additional points:
- We would never, ever, do something as life-altering as a planned drop of guard zones around towns, without including that information in the publish notes.
- We would NEVER open up house placement inside towns without writing that in big, bold letters, in the publish notes.
- That being said, it was obviously a bug, and exploiting a bug is a direct violation of our ToS.
- To everyone who claims they could have been scammed/will be scammed by legitimate offers of old houses, I remind you that you *can* check Grandfathered status if you are a friend to the house. If you are ever buying a house in the future (not these, do not buy these), I highly recommend you require the owner to friend you beforehand, so you can check the grandfather/modern status, number of visits the house has had, etc. You'll find this on the "Information" page of the house sign.
I don't think anyone is questioning the fact that this is a bug. The issue is that the fact that some houses placed in guard zones are ok while others aren't is very inconsistent and impossible for the average player to follow without clear information from the dev team.
I assume that the original placing in guardzones was also a bug, yet those houses were allowed to remain while this current instance is not. Do those people that original dropped houses in guardzones using that 'bug' have free reign to break other rules found in the ToS? I would hope not but you never know.
Regardless if someone claims that the removal of guardzones was planned or not, someone was clearly doing coding around guardzones in this patch. Maybe its part of something that should be in patch 56 instead of 55. But, since coding was going on involving guardzones, simply things like testing house placement in guardzones could have completely eliminated this issue from the start. Barring that seeming impossibility, a quick note on the log in screen stating that new houses placed in guardzones would be dropped even if they are sitting beside another house in a guardzone that is legal.
As for friending someone to your house, that's just inviting trouble. Anyone that has played UO for any period of time knows that it has serious bug issues. Scammers use these bugs to scam people. Suggesting that someone has to friend anyone to their house before they sell it just solidifies the opinion that the dev team doesn't really understand the playerbase of their game.
Might I suggest a few other changes that might help us all out?
*Make a change to runic hammers so that if someone holds the hammer in their hand, they can see that it is duped or legal. That way, all a seller has to do is hand over the hammer to the potential buyer so that that buyer can be sure its not a dupe. I don't see any issues with that practice.
*Fix the insurance bug by making it so that anytime you trade your gear to another player, it is automatically insured. That way, all a player has to do to be sure that they won't lose their insured items when a pk kills them is transfer all of their gear to that pk before the attack. Then the pk can kindly return those items once it has been assured that they are insured and then kill their target.
*Remove TC since its clear that every person playing knows instantly and without being told every bug that exists in UO. After all, its not like EA overlooks some bugs while acting aggressively against others. Players should be able to know the difference without any communication from EA at all.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. Or, maybe not.
The bottom line is, EA allows some houses in guardzones while not allowing others. Many players don't know which houses are 'grandfathered' and which are not. A simple note on the house signs would clear it up 100%. But, in typical fashion, the answer is to instead take part in an act that just screams "Scam" to be sure that you aren't scammed. Makes perfect sense to me.
