Test Shard 'Plottery' Officially Sucketh

[a slave girl]

So yesterday the lottery stones said that the Magincia plot drawings would take place at next maintenance.

Not only do I not know when that is on test (didn't used to be on one test when I played there),

But I wake up today and didn't win, buy some more tickets, then run and see some houses are placed.

Check the stone in front of a placed house and I can still purchase tickets for it.

WTF?

I know it's test but sheesh.

 

[a slave girl]

Ooooops! I just got a message scroll top of my screen on test:


I WON A PLOT!


Whoopie!


Yes! It's the won I just bought extra tickets for too.

I bought 14,350 tickets and had a 1 in 5 chance of winning this plot.

80076 total tickets were sold.


Claimed deed it's a gold parchment lease.

Ok the Plottery is less sucketh now.

 

[a slave girl]

Plottery suggestions:


Make Leases gold (already are) for Trammel plots, silver for Fel plots (might already be this way).

REMOVE placement timer from players with a deed in their pack who are in Magincia trying to place.

Of course don't allow people to continue buying tickets after the deadline or the drawing is over.

I own a plot, can't place due to placement timer ( I keep getting the message housing cannot be placed in this area or there is an obstacle), and people are still stopping at the ticket stone and buying tickets, since the stone says they can and they see no house.

I did manage to drop a 9 by 14 but didn't keep it, because I want a 15 by 15, so,

Mark the outline of the 15 x 15 for those with deeds.

I'm thinking my plot might be a bit lumpy for a 15 x 15.

 

[a slave girl]

So the biggest square house that would fit the plot I won is a 12 x 12, (max secure storage 1771 with 40% storage inc).

Plotterty Devs, please do go back and make sure that all the Mag plots can accomodate the promised 15 x 15, (max storage 2473 with 40% storage inc).

Ground curving up or down blocks placement, that seems to be my plot's issue.

My plot also has that dark green jungle grass or weeds, so taking that out of the equation might help also.

 

[Mapper]

If your placing in 2d, Is the play window dragged to the top left? Will help the placement.

 

[a slave girl]

Well I saw other people's glorious large Magincia homes and even though I knew it was probably a bad idea,

I went under my 12 x 12 Mag house sign and said:

I wish to resize my house.

The message said the plot is mine for the next hour, the house tool says I can't place for 7 hours, and also gives me the false message lower left hand corner of the screen when I try to place, yet the plot lease originally said I had 42 days to place the plot (course I already did that so maybe it no longer counts).


Argh!

So my next suggestion, is, if the land can't be flattened out to provide the promised 15 x 15 plots, at least remove the basic 'too many attempts to place in a short period of time placement timer, and the weekly placement timer, just for those who own a writ of lease for a Magincia plot and are attempting to place that specific plot (so some clever someone won't hold a lease for 42 days and suck up all the best idoc plots elsewhere in the game due to no placement restrictions).

Whew.

I logged my char to see if that will remove the 7 hour placement timer.

Doubt it.



So in an hour there might be a Mag plot free to place by anyone.

 

[a slave girl]

If your placing in 2d, Is the play window dragged to the top left? Will help the placement.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm beyond that.

Sorry for not replying sooner, I was in a hurry to try to place, and get my house the proper size and get my ideas for improvement down while I was thinking about them (before I forgot).

House placement in UO is a rather complex system, I know some of the hazards since I am an idocer and used to drop plots at idocs.

I would hate anyone to be disappointed in the Magincia lottery on a production shard due to the complexity of the housing rules.

Like me, I won a plot, got all excited, and raced off to place my 15 x 15 immediately, but rather than happy happy joy joy I hit some placement snags,

'housing can't be created in this area',

'obstacle blocking placement',

'to many attempts to place',

'can't place another house for 7 hours',

all of which took some of the fun right out of it.

That really shouldn't happen.

 

[Sevin0oo0]

@ OP. Nice report, thanks. Seems it's all working pretty normally to me, a lot of people will be overjoyed when the actual time comes. Sounds like Another good reason to pause house decay.

least you didn't pay real money for that experience.

 

[a slave girl]

Haha.


Had to run an errand in real life and when I got back home I checked to see if I could place at my Mag plot yet, since the house tool still said I had to wait 6 hours to place, or if someone had placed over it because my hour to resize was up.

Little house there now says thanks slave girl on the sign.

Lol

So whoever owns it try to get a mailbox and set house to public I will try to drop the deed in it.

You have the plot might as well have the deed also.

I'm heading back to prodo shard so lemme know here if you have the mailbox up.

Not sure I have anything left to test on test, so may not go back there unless you have that mailbox up.

 

[Liquid_Ape]

Does anyone know if any of the Fel plots get awarded?

 

[Crysta]

It really doesn't seem to quite be working right because I just logged on today and "won" an expired lease deed for a plot that already has a house on it. :x

 

[Lorddog]

It really doesn't seem to quite be working right because I just logged on today and "won" an expired lease deed for a plot that already has a house on it. :x

maybe they are using the advancing days command of the planting to expire your deed?

 

[jaashua]

I'm still able to buy tickets for the plots.

 

[olduofan]

can anyone use the new house tile sets yet?

 

[BIGJON]

Well won a plot. So far was only able to place a 14x14. Not able to use any new tiles that I am aware of, they all look the same to me. I will have to wait till my wife gets home. She is the master decorator and will know if any of them are new. I was able to transfer the deed as designed and place with another account. I also was able to transfer the house to an updated account that would show all house tiles available. All I can tell ya so far.

 

[a slave girl]

It really doesn't seem to quite be working right because I just logged on today and "won" an expired lease deed for a plot that already has a house on it. :x

I know this is a stupid question but did you try the right facet?

I kniow the Tram side deed is gold, didnt see a Fel side one, but would be nice if they were silver, like the in game cursors.

 

[Bazer]

bought well over 25k tickets and nada sadly, think i saw that house with the ty note on it, it had a mailbox as well if its the one closest to the moongate area

 

[a slave girl]

bought well over 25k tickets and nada sadly, think i saw that house with the ty note on it, it had a mailbox as well if its the one closest to the moongate area

Thanks!

The house is private still so it won't let me use the mailbox.

They will need to make it public before I can drop the deed in the box.

 

[a slave girl]

Thanks!

The house is private still so it won't let me use the mailbox.

They will need to make it public before I can drop the deed in the box.

Oh wait, I dropped it in it is public.

Was trying to open the mailbox.

Enjoy!



Thanks again for telling me they had a mailbox.

 

[Bazer]

no prob.

 

[RaDian FlGith]

can anyone use the new house tile sets yet?

As they stated in the video, the new house tile set(s) won't be until after Pub 70.

 

[BlissMarie]

I've been logging onto the test shard every morning. I didn't get notification that I won a plot until just this morning.

I tried placing a 15x15 and got the message that housing can't be placed in that area. I tried, unsuccessfully, a few more times, then tried a 14x14, with the same results. I kept reducing the size I was trying to place and eventually I got the message that there was an obstacle in the way. There is some debris near the center of the plot, which blocks placement. I ended up dropping a tiny brick house on my land. (My land! ... kinda. =)

I would think other people will be getting notification they won today, too.

BlissMarie

 

[BIGJON]

Heh today I logged into test to see how many more houses are up. Low and behold I got a message. I am the proud owner of an expired writ of lease to the house I already put up.

 

[Lady Michelle]

Well I saw other people's glorious large Magincia homes and even though I knew it was probably a bad idea,

I went under my 12 x 12 Mag house sign and said:

I wish to resize my house.

The message said the plot is mine for the next hour, the house tool says I can't place for 7 hours, and also gives me the false message lower left hand corner of the screen when I try to place, yet the plot lease originally said I had 42 days to place the plot (course I already did that so maybe it no longer counts).


Argh!

So my next suggestion, is, if the land can't be flattened out to provide the promised 15 x 15 plots, at least remove the basic 'too many attempts to place in a short period of time placement timer, and the weekly placement timer, just for those who own a writ of lease for a Magincia plot and are attempting to place that specific plot (so some clever someone won't hold a lease for 42 days and suck up all the best idoc plots elsewhere in the game due to no placement restrictions).

Whew.

I logged my char to see if that will remove the 7 hour placement timer.

Doubt it.



So in an hour there might be a Mag plot free to place by anyone.

When you place a house on test center, and you demolish it, or resize it you will have to wait the 7 hours to replace your plot. Its has been this way for years on the test center.

 

[a slave girl]

When you place a house on test center, and you demolish it, or resize it you will have to wait the 7 hours to replace your plot. Its has been this way for years on the test center.

Hmm. I played test only from 2004 to 2006 and don't remember that rule.

I know that test shard housing and production shard housing are on different servers, but it would be beyond silly if they don't operate within the same ruleset.

Sort of makes testing anything housing related on test pointless, if it's not going to work the same way on production shards once a publish with new housing related features goes live.

On a side note, I notice that not one Fel Magincia plot has a house on it yet.

Something odd about that or else only 22 people bought tickets and won the Tram plots and the Fel plots went unawarded.


Also I notice that most of the houses placed that are less than 15 x 15 in size are placed more to the upper side of the plot, which makes the lower half of the yard look bigger and just looks plain bad.

Kind of like ladies in long skirts at the ocean's edge, these little houses look like their holding their skirts up away from the water to keep their hems from getting wet.

Once I learned the plot I won wouldn't accomodate the promised 15 x 15 max storage (for a custom) house, I was not happy.

But after a bit, my brain said, well a real city would have different size dwellings, so making some plots not hold max size houses makes sense and might make the town look more realistic.

It doesn't look very realistic, however, when all the smaller homes must be built on the upper side of the plot.

Makes it look like the lower side of the plot has cooties or something that the houses don't want to come into contact with.

 

[BIGJON]

Heh today I logged into test to see how many more houses are up. Low and behold I got a message. I am the proud owner of an expired writ of lease to the house I already put up.

Heh back to back, I wonder how many expired writ's I can rack up................

 

[unified]

Heh today I logged into test to see how many more houses are up. Low and behold I got a message. I am the proud owner of an expired writ of lease to the house I already put up.

Fantastic! I also won an expired writ, and there is a beautiful house there.