Well now I am curious..as brought up by my ~Glass is half empty~ counterpart
I don't see how they could accurately make a distinction between party-goers and non-party-goers. They didn't collect email addresses or account names for the party signups (which was a serious oversight that has the potential to cause major issues at the party), so there really isn't a way to solidly match people up.
The terms of this raffle remain nebulous. Is it per player? Per email? Per master account? Per UO account? What if one person wins three castles on different accounts? What if one person wins a castle on the stone then wins another at the party? Is that possible? And will they allow it? And do they even have the capability to safeguard against it if they wanted to?
I think it's pretty cool they are giving away so many great houses!
There are for sure 6 castles and 2 Clops Luna houses, so that is a minimum of 8 people who are going to receive extremely valuable houses for free.
Also a suggestion for the people who win the castles: make sure to put them on Atlantic. Even if you don't play Atlantic, you can just sell it for a ton of gold and use that gold to buy a castle on your real shard, plus you will have many platinums of profit still on top of that.
Meh. No thanks.
You know, I DID win a grandfathered castle once, at the 16th anniversary party on Test Center. It was the prize for a trivia contest. When it became clear I was doing well, I started getting numerous party invitations. It was fairly distracting actually, as I was trying to concentrate on the event. After I won I finally accepted one out of curiosity. It was someone offering 3B to place it on Atlantic for them. Now I was on top of the world that day, mind, but that was pretty aggravating. There I was feeling like I'd won the game and people are just seeing me as a mark of opportunity and hassling me before I even get off the stage.
And no, I did not take my castle on Atlantic and sell it. It was MY prize and I took it on MY shard, and anyone else who wins a castle should absolutely do what they want to with it. I barely play on Chesapeake anymore, but watching that castle go up and using it for years was worth more to me than some Atlantic wheel and deal (that quite frankly would have been pretty risky for me anyway as I would have had no choice but to rely on third parties to eventually shuffle the money to where I actually wanted it).
I say if someone wins a castle and wants it on Balhae, more power to 'em. Don't forget that "grandfathered" SHOULD mean that you can keep your current house on that account, as I did. That can be a significant factor to people who already have housing they value, whatever its worth is or isn't in Atlantic gold. Atlantic may be the center of intershard commerce, but not everyone plays that way.
