NEWS [UO.Com] Contest Housing Pricing Update

[UO News]

9/14/2018 Greetings, Thank you to everyone who has provided feedback on the cost of the contest houses. We will be updating Origin & Baja this afternoon to reflect new prices. Izumo will receive updated pricing with its next normally scheduled maintenance. The cost of these homes for Siege Perilous will be reflective of the increased value of gold on Siege compared to production shards. The new costs for new homes will be as follows, Production Siege See you in Britannia, UO Team

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[Miri of Sonoma]

Thanks for reconsidering!

 

[Angleswings]

 

[Amber Witch]

Thank you for listening and changing this.
*gets pom poms out again*

 

[Flagg]

That was fast. Thanks for seeing the light.

 

[Mrsbug]

Much better, Thank you

 

[Archnight]

Well I said there was a zero too much hehe

 

[Sinder Shayde]

They are listening!...Yay, thanks Dev's

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

While the "adjusted pricing" is better, it still doesn't excuse the fact (and much bigger problem) that "someone" ACTUALLY THOUGHT THE ORIGINAL PRICING WAS A GOOD IDEA, and allowed it in the first place.

 

[Mene (DF)]

That's what I'm talking about. Sometimes we only need to shout loud .... and we should this more often in the future!

Looks much better now.

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

I am very curious as to how the Devs try to spin this, BUT the "update" hasn't even made it to the "official *cough,cough* Forum yet. ROFLMFAO

 

[Flagg]

While the "adjusted pricing" is better, it still doesn't excuse the fact (and much bigger problem) that "someone" ACTUALLY THOUGHT THE ORIGINAL PRICING WAS A GOOD IDEA, and allowed it in the first place.

Oh come on. : D I'm all for torches and pitchforks when stuff looks grim. This particular misstep got patched before publish ever went live. Takes some creativity to keep complaining about the pricing situation now.

 

[ShriNayne]

They do this all the time, they do something horrible and we all complain and become outraged then they lessen the horror and we all instantly think they did us a big favour, the real question is why do they inflict the horror on us in the first place, are we part of some cruel social experiment?

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

Oh come on. : D I'm all for torches and pitchforks when stuff looks grim. This particular misstep got patched before publish ever went live. Takes some creativity to keep complaining about the pricing situation now.

What part of my post is incorrect? Surely not the part about the Devs not being able to understand/or care how bad of an idea that was, when literally EVERYONE else realized it immediately. In my opinion, it says that 1) The Devs, for whatever reason, knew how bad it was, and didn't care, or 2) the Devs were CLUELESS as to how bad it was. As to which is a worse/scarier scenario, THAT is up for debate. @Mesanna @Bleak @Kyronix

 

[Flagg]

What part of my post is incorrect? Surely not the part about the Devs not being able to understand/or care how bad of an idea that was, when literally EVERYONE else realized it immediately. In my opinion, it says that 1) The Devs, for whatever reason, knew how bad it was, and didn't care, or 2) the Devs were CLUELESS as to how bad it was. As to which is a worse/scarier scenario, THAT is up for debate. @Mesanna @Bleak @Kyronix

So just to be clear..you remain frustrated about a bad decision that got rapidly fixed before the patch ever arrived to any production shards besides Origin?

 

[ShriNayne]

It always goes the same way, this is the price they had in mind but they knew people would complain, so they temporarily gave us a much higher price, so that when they then rolled out what they wanted we all just accepted it with no complaint!

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

So just to be clear..you remain frustrated about a bad decision that got rapidly fixed before the patch ever arrived to any production shards besides Origin?

No, "just to be clear", what bothers me is the fact that, for whatever reason, such a HORRIBLE decision was somehow allowed to made IN THE FIRST PLACE.

 

[CovenantX]

Sometimes I wonder if they do these things on purpose, then change them just to get praise... anyway.

Now to have the mask & pendant restored to something actually useful again...

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

Even over an hour after this topic was posted on Stratics, there is not a WORD of it on the "official" Forum. ROFL

 

[Flagg]

No, "just to be clear", what bothers me is the fact that, for whatever reason, such a HORRIBLE decision was somehow allowed to made IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Pretty sure almost all of the UO devs are humans. Humans are great at making bad decisions sometimes. That much is a given. Admitting you are wrong, being able to take a fast U-turn, being able to listen people giving you criticism.. these things aren't as much a given.

 

[Riyana]

I'm still not crazy about the prices, but I'm glad they reconsidered.

However, that this was done this way in the first place, especially after so many other missteps, inspires little confidence.

I maintain that the winners should get free conversions (if they want them).

 

[Riyana]

It always goes the same way, this is the price they had in mind but they knew people would complain, so they temporarily gave us a much higher price, so that when they then rolled out what they wanted we all just accepted it with no complaint!

This. The modus operandi seems to be to throw things at the wall and see what sticks--what generates interest and what generates ire. It's reacting instead of thinking ahead and anticipating.

It is very obvious that some parts of the game have gotten a lot of forethought and attention (see: astronomy), and equally clear that others have gotten absolutely none at any point (see: this contest).

It's actually part of why I'm not crazy about the prices still. It feels like a weird reverse bait and switch, a manipulation tactic. It probably wasn't--there wasn't enough critical thought put in beforehand for that--but it feels like it nonetheless.

 

[ShriNayne]

I agree with you completely @Riyana the whole thing stinks of manipulation. Nobody could have actually thought the original prices were fair and even at the much reduced cost neither me nor my husband will be changing anything, just not worth it.

 

[Slayvite]

Oh come on. : D I'm all for torches and pitchforks when stuff looks grim. This particular misstep got patched before publish ever went live. Takes some creativity to keep complaining about the pricing situation now.

Erm ok, i'll take that challenge.
Why does it cost more to upgrade the Keep than a Castle??? (option 1 &6)

 

[Keith of Sonoma]

Pretty sure almost all of the UO devs are humans. Humans are great at making bad decisions sometimes. That much is a given. Admitting you are wrong, being able to take a fast U-turn, being able to listen people giving you criticism.. these things aren't as much a given.

Hypothetical situation: Let's say I walk up and oh, unexpectedly, kick some guy in the gonads. I apologize ONLY AFTER I am called out on it by everybody who saw it happen. Is it not still very scary that I actually thought it was OK to kick some guy in the gonads? Obviously so. Some things we should just have enough common sense to say, "You know, this just isn't a good idea". I suggest that the original "custom housing cost" falls into that category.

 

[ShriNayne]

@Slayvite oh that's a good point, they need to reduce that Keep further, still won't buy one, but it does need to go down a bit more!

 

[Dai43]

As we all know, you cant please everyone. They made a bad decision, we complained, they fixed it. I for one am just happy to see that they listen to us. They could have just left the pricing the way it was and said deal with it. Nice to know our opinions matter. Happy Friday to all

 

[Eric Ravenwind]

I got a keep, and it looks like I won't be able to convert to any of the new designs. I don't have that much gold lol

 

[Cyrah]

Happy Birthday @Dai43!

 

[petemage]

@Mesanna still has gold sellers in the EM program and at other places. This was a cheap try at given them a bone. There is still no "change token" in the official UO store. Glad they reconsidered, but their credibility is still close to zero. Cheap try..

 

[MrMightySmith]

The scarier thing is while everyone thinks the Devs made a huge mistake with the original prices I actually think they didnt in a way. They wanted to make a gold sink in this game to get rid of some of the gold. I feel with the new bank system they know how much gold is floating around and the numbers they picked, aka 200m-300m would be a number that actually had some effect on total gold in the system. The scarier thing is how much gold is floating around this game and how skewed the markets really are because 300m is alot of gold but relatively it aint that much at all these days.

 

[Nexus]

Hypothetical situation: Let's say I walk up and oh, unexpectedly, kick some guy in the gonads. I apologize ONLY AFTER I am called out on it by everybody who saw it happen. Is it not still very scary that I actually thought it was OK to kick some guy in the gonads? Obviously so. Some things we should just have enough common sense to say, "You know, this just isn't a good idea". I suggest that the original "custom housing cost" falls into that category.

Except what happened here was after kicking the guy in the gonads, you instead shouted spider (gold sink excuse) and kicked him again before offering an apology.

 

[Ender]

Oh good, now it's only slightly unaffordable for me instead of ridiculously unaffordable.

 

[Basara]

Maybe the person editing the code originally can't see commas and put an extra 0 in.... Editing the server isn't done through a client interface after all.

 

[uokings7]

I'm glad they dropped the prices. I'm not excited about the new designs but I at least wanted to try them out to see what could be done. Hundreds of millions took away that possibility. At 29 million, I can swing that. The interior of the keep is absolutely repulsive to me but the storage is what counts. If I can change that keep box into something more useful, it will be better than what we currently have. However, my guard is not let down after this entire mess just because they reduced the prices for us. I will rethink doing any further contests if the result is going to be what we got this time. I understand it's the flagship contest to a series of contests and they need to work things out but literally every step of this has been painful and it doesn't inspire hope for future contests. The voting system was horrible. The timeline was horrible. The end result was disappointing. And finally the kick in the balls with the super high prices was gut wrenching. It's hard to recover from that. As much as I like Mesanna as a person (I've met her a couple times in person), she really fudged this.

They should have:

1. Given a theme for the designs that kept everyones designs closer to each other.

2. Given EXACT timelines from the beginning.

3. Scrutinized the entries before letting players vote and brought the list of entries down to 25 or so. Then vote.

4. Definitely not turned a contest that excited people and get them completely dedicated to it then rip it out from under them by making it a gold sink.

Hopefully, since this was the first round, they actually go over all their mistakes and adjust accordingly. I'm guessing that they will but after all the missteps I don't have faith in that.

PS: I posted on the "Feedback" thread for this publish that they need to reduce the prices for the house designs and it got deleted and I was told it was already the subject of another post. What? Can't give feedback on the feedback thread because its been said somewhere else?

 

[Dai43]

Happy Birthday @Dai43!

Thanks, lol I have no idea why it says its my birthday, it was a couple weeks ago. Maybe because I have not logged in here in a while??? but thanks a mil anyway

 

[skett]

I woke up still lol over the prices

Finished empty out 1 of my keeps, then seen this went back in game made sure it was empty with all my characters on that account and removed my payment renewal

Prices are still way to high lol

WAFJ this team is ....

 

[Lord Frodo]

Pretty sure almost all of the UO devs are humans. Humans are great at making bad decisions sometimes. That much is a given. Admitting you are wrong, being able to take a fast U-turn, being able to listen people giving you criticism.. these things aren't as much a given.

Making a bad decission as one person is one thing but unless the dark lady herself said I am doing this no matter what any of you say is another matter. You can not tell me as a group and supposedly knowing their playerbase and giving a **** about us that they allowed this in the first place. They knew it, they tried to pull a fast one, they got caught and now we are supposed to be tickled pink with these new prices that IMHO are still overpriced.

 

[Lord Frodo]

Hypothetical situation: Let's say I walk up and oh, unexpectedly, kick some guy in the gonads. I apologize ONLY AFTER I am called out on it by everybody who saw it happen. Is it not still very scary that I actually thought it was OK to kick some guy in the gonads? Obviously so. Some things we should just have enough common sense to say, "You know, this just isn't a good idea". I suggest that the original "custom housing cost" falls into that category.

LOL So what they have done is move the foot from his gonads to his knee and still thinks it is ok.

 

[Pawain]

I agree with @Keith of Sonoma s first two posts then we went for the nads.

 

[Slayvite]

If people really want to complain about the UO management, they should email Rob Denton over at Broadsword Online Games and tell him they are in danger of losing the funding for DAoC (our subs).
Something will be done quick smart then as we all know, we've been basically paying to re-vamp that game for them as that is their No. 1 priority....

 

[Angleswings]

If people really want to complain about the UO management, they should email Rob Denton over at Broadsword Online Games and tell him they are in danger of losing the funding for DAoC (our subs).
Something will be done quick smart then as we all know, we've been basically paying to re-vamp that game for them as that is their No. 1 priority....

careful what you wish for.

couple years ago, some people here managed to piss of the Devs and in result of that ,we didnt get any valentine or Halloween gifts. than some other issues happened and they created the official forum and now we barely hear from them here and now you are suggesting us to contact her boss and complain about?. Rob Denton said few years ago that Mesanna was the last producer of UO, you really want to go that way and cause the end of UO??

Yes, I agree with everybody that this whole thing was poorly planned and I am glad that they heard us and fixed, but I was reading all the posts again and again and some people here all they do or post is complain about over and over and over, I mean really?? if you hate them so much, that is causing you to be so negative, I think is time to take a break and try something that will make you happy. This is a game.

 

[Slayvite]

careful what you wish for.

couple years ago, some people here managed to piss of the Devs and in result of that ,we didnt get any valentine or Halloween gifts. than some other issues happened and they created the official forum and now we barely hear from them here and now you are suggesting us to contact her boss and complain about?. Rob Denton said few years ago that Mesanna was the last producer of UO, you really want to go that way and cause the end of UO??

At this point no UO would probably be better than Mesannas UO.
The only reason they keep getting away with shafting us over and over is because they know the majority of us left in UO have invested huge sums over the 21 years, to the point where we cannot simply "walk away".
I've played this game just over half the years I've been alive and that's more than just an addiction
They know that as well as other people, so they know they can just keep on handing out sloppy 2nd rate garbage now and we have no option but to accept it.
If the game was closed down then atleast that would be a closure we could probably accept rather than "quitting".....

 

[MalagAste]

I am thankful they saw the light and reduced the pricing... that previous pricing was ridiculous for the average player... yeah a few fat cats could stand to spend a few hundred gold but the rest of us aren't that rich...

A big thanks to the team for listening to reason. I'll leave it at that.

I still have zero intent to use any of those designs but it's all good.

 

[Great DC]

The real question after lowering the prices is, will they actually try to put in place other gold sinks. They put out there that it is a important thing, I personally still have zero to negative faith in the team to follow through on anything worthwhile to the game.

Afterall the only thing people really wanted was I slightly customizable normal castle menu. Remove a few walls and add some functionality to the dead spaces of the original castles. Instead they wasted way too much time on something and produced more issues then it resolves. No offense to the designers of those buildings but they are all awful looking to me.

 

[Finley Grant]

ok great now we have prices which are more or less ok, but ehh when can i get the nice house i actually want for that lower price?

 

[MalagAste]

The real question after lowering the prices is, will they actually try to put in place other gold sinks. They put out there that it is a important thing, I personally still have zero to negative faith in the team to follow through on anything worthwhile to the game.

Afterall the only thing people really wanted was I slightly customizable normal castle menu. Remove a few walls and add some functionality to the dead spaces of the original castles. Instead they wasted way too much time on something and produced more issues then it resolves. No offense to the designers of those buildings but they are all awful looking to me.

Then you should have voted for my castle... I think it was #68 I see it had 14 votes... was the customizable base castle by Newcastle Arms.. I also did a customizable base Keep by Ariel Thorne... I'll try rebuilding them when/if they let us have another crack at it... but yeah... extremely disappointed.

 

[Uriah Heep]

While the "adjusted pricing" is better, it still doesn't excuse the fact (and much bigger problem) that "someone" ACTUALLY THOUGHT THE ORIGINAL PRICING WAS A GOOD IDEA, and allowed it in the first place.

Exactly.

They do this all the time, they do something horrible and we all complain and become outraged then they lessen the horror and we all instantly think they did us a big favour, the real question is why do they inflict the horror on us in the first place, are we part of some cruel social experiment?

We are!

No, "just to be clear", what bothers me is the fact that, for whatever reason, such a HORRIBLE decision was somehow allowed to made IN THE FIRST PLACE.

It's her game, she can do what she wants. She has all but said so in the past

Hypothetical situation: Let's say I walk up and oh, unexpectedly, kick some guy in the gonads. I apologize ONLY AFTER I am called out on it by everybody who saw it happen. Is it not still very scary that I actually thought it was OK to kick some guy in the gonads? Obviously so. Some things we should just have enough common sense to say, "You know, this just isn't a good idea". I suggest that the original "custom housing cost" falls into that category.

We are the guy getting kicked. And it's our fault because we all just keep standing there waiting for the next kick.

Making a bad decission as one person is one thing but unless the dark lady herself said I am doing this no matter what any of you say is another matter. You can not tell me as a group and supposedly knowing their playerbase and giving a **** about us that they allowed this in the first place. They knew it, they tried to pull a fast one, they got caught and now we are supposed to be tickled pink with these new prices that IMHO are still overpriced.

Yeah. Kyronix even doubled down on it. I guess when they saw that even the cheerleaders were burning their pompoms like they were Nikes, they knew they had overstepped waaaaayyy too far.

Like I said before, you can get them to change those prices, but you can't make them change their attitude towards us.

*sits back and waits to see what's next to be crammed down our throats*

 

[ThulsaDoom]

Pretty sure almost all of the UO devs are humans. Humans are great at making bad decisions sometimes. That much is a given. Admitting you are wrong, being able to take a fast U-turn, being able to listen people giving you criticism.. these things aren't as much a given.

Except they were not wrong. A castle is a luxury in this game and an upgrade is a LUXURY. True, some don't have 300m on hand but that's why you save. Casual player can make 25-50m a month and in a few months they can afford that luxury upgrade. The backlash from the community was uncalled over this issue. They do not see the big picture of removing gold from this game and how it will help the game overall. Again this is 2018 and everyone who flips burgers wants $15 a hour and free medical.

 

[Flagg]

Except they were not wrong. A castle is a luxury in this game and an upgrade is a LUXURY. True, some don't have 300m on hand but that's why you save. Casual player can make 25-50m a month and in a few months they can afford that luxury upgrade. The backlash from the community was uncalled over this issue. They do not see the big picture of removing gold from this game and how it will help the game overall. Again this is 2018 and everyone who flips burgers wants $15 a hour and free medical.

I'm very fortunate to live in a country where the notion of somebody, anybody, not having a rather "free medical" sounds completely flawed and alien to me. Notion that free healthcare is a luxury outside of reach of them pesky """burger flippers"" is utterly revolting to me.

Anyway, it prolly wouldn't have been a great idea to lock a huge majority of the community completely out of the first significant change in housing in well over 15 years. lol.

Among those who would have been able to afford this grand..luxury you speak of,it would have turned into a question of value. Would I pay 200 mils to turn my keep into something not too different from what stone-customization enables? Hell no. I have very hard time imagining any of the keeps out there getting changed into the new design had that 200 mil price tag sticked. Regardless of how many billions the keep owner has piled in bank. I'd guess almost everybody looked at the new designs and figured "that ain't 300 millions worth" 300 mils buys you an old castle in most servers with ease.

Those luxury items you buy to rub on the face of them dirty """burger flippers""" need to have value in order to get bought. I'm not sure if a new prefab somebody else designed would have tempted that many people even out of those who can afford it, had the pricetag been 300 mils. That 300 mils is actually two brand new, old school depressing ice island Fel castles on most servers I bet, heh.