Housing proposal - long & inconsistant
Sean
And to put it simple: A house needs to be kept in shape. If you don't want
to do it yourself, get somebody to do it, if you don't want to spend any
money on it, why do you have a house?
Perhaps in the future houses will be shared (that "friends" idea..) and then
only one of those that live in the house has to care about the upkeep, the
others just give some money as "rent" to the one who cares for the upkeep. I
think this is a great idea...
Sean
Veil Daemonstar / Chthonic wrote in message <3645C07D...@yahoo.com>...
>> My major bone of contention is the maintenance suggestion, not because it
>> will add to the cost of the building, but because it will force us to
spend
>> more time "working" our characters rather than playing/adventuring with
>> them, unless of course you enjoy playing a "trade" character (miner,
>> carpenter, tailor, etc). Personally I hate having to have my character
>> work, just lazy I guess.
>
>Why does no one realize that with a resource-based maintenance system in
play,
>the solution will not be for every house owner to go out and get the logs
and
>ore himself? I understand the laziness value, but its quite apparent that
those
>who are miners or lumberjacks now have a way to easily make money, ie sell
their
>resources to busy property owners. Is it that hard to see that obviously
this
>system was concieved to give greater value to raw materials? I think the
plan
>is genius. Now you can play a lumberjack or miner char and not have to
>diversify by wasting skill points on carpentry or smithing as well. Most
>people, i think, are having problems looking at the "big picture" when it
comes
>to OSI's new scheme...
>
>
>Veil Daemonstar <Catskills>
> - Dark Avatar of Minax
>
>a.k.a.
>
>Chthonic Dragon <-=UDIC=->
> - ingester of all things eldritch
>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>veil_da...@yahoo.com <email>
>http://minax.home.ml.org <SoM - Mainpage>
>http://www.UDIC.org <UDIC - Mainpage>
>UIN - 532118 <ICQ Number>
>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>
>
Charles Rooney
I've just read the "housing" proposal and while some of it sounds good, some
of it seems to be yet another way of slowing the game down and making it a
little more tedious to play as well as another grope for the "player based
economy" pipe dream.
Firstly, I like the idea of getting rid of tents and forcing vendors inside,
into "shops". If nothing else it should at least rid us of all the empty
vendors cluttering up the world. As for the public building/shops, I think
this is a good idea as far as it goes. Buying will probably be easier but
it won't make selling any easier. Perhaps if a building is made into a
shop, it would need to have a theme or type, eg; a smithy would only be able
to sell armour, weapons, etc ( no scrolls, potions, whatever). The smithy
shop would have player run vendors to sell items and a NPC smith that would
only buy goods ( again, weapons, armour, etc). It would work the same as
the NPC shops now, except that you could only buy player made items/goods.
I think this is as close to a player based economy as would be possible,
simply because over time any one player is capable of producing far more a
particular item than the economy could possibly need or support and there is
far more than one character in this game.
The lock down facility for items and the method of establishing house
ownership are fine, I guess that some characters are going to have problems
proving ownership, but for most this should work. AND I really like the
space around each building idea.
My major bone of contention is the maintenance suggestion, not because it
will add to the cost of the building, but because it will force us to spend
more time "working" our characters rather than playing/adventuring with
them, unless of course you enjoy playing a "trade" character (miner,
carpenter, tailor, etc). Personally I hate having to have my character
work, just lazy I guess.
been a miner. With all the changes that have effected just this skill ( and
others I expect), it now takes me approximately 30 to 45 mins longer to mine
& smelt 1000 ingots than it did when I started. What with the changes to
drop & drag, adding height to ore, etc. Each of these changes has added a
little more time to what is, after all, a very boring & tedious activity and
in turn as added to the amount of my game time I need to spend supporting my
character.
The maintenance proposal will just make this worse, I realise that DD & Co
are determined to slow the game down, even if I don't understand the reason
for it,but, if this trend continues I wont have time to play my character.
I'll spend all my game time working him. This will be especially true for
newer characters. The general slow down of money making skills tied to the
changes coming in for stats/skills is going to put newer characters at a
tremendous disadvantage. The maintenance costs may not even be very high
but I think it's the accumulation of this and a number of changes that are
going to make the cost too high.
Overall the proposal has a lot of merit, but, to be blunt, I won't support
anything that will force me to spend more of my game time working or trying
to acquire raw materials for a building I have already paid the price for.
With the general reduction in the profitability of most money making skills,
the changes to stat/skill advancement and the subsequent impact this is
going to have on character development, maintenance and playability, the
idea of paying maintenance for a house building is at best unreasonable.
Remove the maintenance idea and I can live with the rest.
Sorry for the length, I kept it as short as I could :)
Charlie.
Veil Daemonstar / Chthonic
> will add to the cost of the building, but because it will force us to spend
> more time "working" our characters rather than playing/adventuring with
> them, unless of course you enjoy playing a "trade" character (miner,
> carpenter, tailor, etc). Personally I hate having to have my character
> work, just lazy I guess.
Why does no one realize that with a resource-based maintenance system in play,
Darren Mantle
<cro...@zip.com.au> wrote:
>Excuse me, but I can see what you are saying & am capable of seeing the big
>picture.. Why not pull your head out , I DO NOT WANT TO SPEND ANY MORE OF MY
>GAME TIME WORKING or scrounging around for resources to pay for a house I
>already own and paid through the nose for.
I own my house (rl) and i dont like spending time working to maintain
a house i own.Has to be done though if you want a place with no holes
in the walls a nice paint job etc.I think the idea was to make houses
slightlt less desirable to indidviduals andmore for what they were
originally intended a roleplaying tool.
>I don't like the maint idea, irrespective of what it will do for other
>players or cost my character. And lets face it, the secure trading facility
>isn't exactly safe is it? I've lost track of the number of people that have
>tried to rip me off this way.
>I'm a miner and I spend more than enough of my time mining as it is, I wont
>accept the need to spend so much as an extra minute working. I would rather
>see the world covered in houses first.
>Charlie
>Veil Daemonstar / Chthonic wrote in message <3645C07D...@yahoo.com>...
> Is it that hard to see that obviously this
>>system was concieved to give greater value to raw materials? I think the
>plan
>>is genius. Now you can play a lumberjack or miner char and not have to
>>diversify by wasting skill points on carpentry or smithing as well. Most
>>people, i think, are having problems looking at the "big picture" when it
>comes
>>to OSI's new scheme...
>
>
>
Austin Napa
Erinn
>Yeah.. Veil's right.
>And to put it simple: A house needs to be kept in shape. If you don't want
>to do it yourself, get somebody to do it, if you don't want to spend any
>money on it, why do you have a house?
>Perhaps in the future houses will be shared (that "friends" idea..) and then
>only one of those that live in the house has to care about the upkeep, the
>others just give some money as "rent" to the one who cares for the upkeep. I
>think this is a great idea...
>
>Sean
I'm not against a modest maintenance charge... as long as it's paid in
gold. I know I don't go out and chop a tree down and expect the
plumber to accept the logs as payment for fixing my pipes.
<snip>
--
Erinnyes Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
http://home.HiWAAY.net/~ssweargn/
Erinn
<veil_da...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> My major bone of contention is the maintenance suggestion, not because it
>> will add to the cost of the building, but because it will force us to spend
>> more time "working" our characters rather than playing/adventuring with
>> them, unless of course you enjoy playing a "trade" character (miner,
>> carpenter, tailor, etc). Personally I hate having to have my character
>> work, just lazy I guess.
>
>Why does no one realize that with a resource-based maintenance system in play,
>the solution will not be for every house owner to go out and get the logs and
>ore himself? I understand the laziness value, but its quite apparent that those
>who are miners or lumberjacks now have a way to easily make money, ie sell their
>resources to busy property owners. Is it that hard to see that obviously this
>system was concieved to give greater value to raw materials? I think the plan
>is genius. Now you can play a lumberjack or miner char and not have to
>diversify by wasting skill points on carpentry or smithing as well. Most
>people, i think, are having problems looking at the "big picture" when it comes
>to OSI's new scheme...
It's much simpler to kill lumberjacks and miners and get the material
for free. Craftsmen survive in the game now because they generally
don't hold anything of value to the kewldoods. Make raw material
valuable to the kewldoods and you've declared open season on
Lumberjacks and Miners:(
Darren Mantle
Yes but you are not hiring a maintainer in uo to maintain your house.
You are expected to do it yourself. If you cant or wont hire another
player to do it for you. It is not that hard of a concept.
Austin Napa
Sophist
says...
> I have a house mostly to log off in and to practice my skills in peace,
> without worrying about thieves, noto Pk's and other assorted assholes. As
> for sharing a house if I wanted to do that I would have, the bottom line of
> my post is directed more at being forced to spend more of my game time
> working rather than adventuring.
> As I have said, I have already paid for the house.....my view has nothing to
> do with lazyness, it's about playing the game verses working at the game.
> Charlie.
I wouldn't think this would cut into your adventuring time per se.
Instead, some of the revenue you gain from adventuring would in turn
need to be allocated for the purchase of resources to keep your
house.
Overall I like the idea as it makes houses harder to own, especially
multiple dwellings. At the same time it does make the labourer type
characters a bit more functional game-wise.
Sophist
Sophist
sswe...@HiWAAY.net says...
>
> It's much simpler to kill lumberjacks and miners and get the material
> for free. Craftsmen survive in the game now because they generally
> don't hold anything of value to the kewldoods. Make raw material
> valuable to the kewldoods and you've declared open season on
> Lumberjacks and Miners:(
> --
> Erinnyes Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
> http://home.HiWAAY.net/~ssweargn/
>
Hmm, that's a good point, and one that hadn't crossed my mind. Every
idiot in the game is gonna be hunting tradesmen now. *sigh*
Sophist
J Aitken
>Excuse me, but I can see what you are saying & am capable of seeing the big
>picture.. Why not pull your head out , I DO NOT WANT TO SPEND ANY MORE OF MY
>GAME TIME WORKING or scrounging around for resources to pay for a house I
>already own and paid through the nose for.
Maybe we should wait and see what kinds of maintenance amounts we're talking
about? I'm sure if its 5 ingots a day or similar it wont exactly kill people.
>I don't like the maint idea, irrespective of what it will do for other
>players or cost my character. And lets face it, the secure trading facility
>isn't exactly safe is it? I've lost track of the number of people that have
>tried to rip me off this way.
Good point :(.
>I'm a miner and I spend more than enough of my time mining as it is, I wont
>accept the need to spend so much as an extra minute working. I would rather
>see the world covered in houses first.
I guess thats where most people would disagree with you.
Otara, Napa
Darren Mantle
<cro...@zip.com.au> wrote:
>Well first this is a game, not real life. When I bought my house the only
>maint. it needed was to open the door. And when did houses become a role
>playing tool? For that matter theres bugger all roleplaying in this game at
>present, are you suggesting we get rid of all the houses that don't meet
>your idea of roleplaying?
>Charlie
Ask DD what houses are meant to be. He will tell you they are a
roleplaying tool like anything else in this ROLE PLAYING GAME. If you
are having trouble finding roleplaying you are hanging out in the
wrong places i fear
:(
>Darren Mantle wrote in message <3646d227.30097971@news>...
>>On Mon, 9 Nov 1998 04:09:16 +1100, "Charles Rooney"
>>I own my house (rl) and i dont like spending time working to maintain
>>a house i own.Has to be done though if you want a place with no holes
>>in the walls a nice paint job etc.I think the idea was to make houses
>>slightlt less desirable to indidviduals andmore for what they were
>>originally intended a roleplaying tool.
>>
>
>
>
Austin Napa
Dundee
<cro...@zip.com.au> wrote:
>Why should anyone change there style of game play for this? Isn't forcing a
>particular game style on a player the biggest complaint people have against
>PK's & thieves. Forcing players to gather raw materials means giving up
>either skill points or time or more likely a combination of both. In any
>case I think this is a very poor idea.
Forcing PKers and thieves to spend time doing things other than PKing
and stealing is "bad"??
Hmm.
jx...@po.cwru.edu
>
> It doesn't matter, I don't think it's reasonable to pay maintanence full
> stop. As I've said, even if it only adds 1 minute to the time I spend
> working my character it's unreasonable. The changes that haver effected
> mining over the last 9 months have already taken way too much of my game
> time.
> Why can't they just leave it at deleting the tents,(half the problem), and
> limiting it to 1 house per character? The rest is fairy floss.
> Charlie
>
Becuase thats still too many houses. Even one house per account per
shard is still too many. They need to make people think twice about
getting a house or even sharing a house, and at the very least, the
maintenance thing seems to be working on you....
-Hawke, Sonoma Ranger
AFTER you realize all the atrocities people will do to them. Good point!!
Erinn wrote in message <3645e4fd...@newstoo.hiwaay.net>...
jx...@po.cwru.edu
<snip>
> It's much simpler to kill lumberjacks and miners and get the material
> for free. Craftsmen survive in the game now because they generally
> don't hold anything of value to the kewldoods. Make raw material
> valuable to the kewldoods and you've declared open season on
> Lumberjacks and Miners:(
> --
> Erinnyes Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
> http://home.HiWAAY.net/~ssweargn/
Actually, this makes some other things possible. If that which
lumberjacks and miners carry are now vaulable, and if they can make
sufficient money off of their labor, they might actually be able to pay
warrior-type characters to play the part of guards.
-Hawke, Sonoma Ranger
Robert Collins
>
>Ask DD what houses are meant to be. He will tell you they are a
>roleplaying tool like anything else in this ROLE PLAYING GAME. If you
>are having trouble finding roleplaying you are hanging out in the
>wrong places i fear
>:(
>
I have already had this arguement with Dundee a long time ago, and he won.
UO is not an RPG, it is an envrionment in which you can, if you chose
role-play. Most people do not, and instead to chose to play their
"Character" as an on-line Avatar of themselves.
Gladius
jx...@po.cwru.edu
> <sigh> I understand the housing proposal. Did you understand what I
> was saying? The end cost is the same. It's just different entry
> points. If it's gold that's required to maintain the house, *I* get
> to choose what activity I do to earn it.
Well, the biggest problem here is all those people that tailor
themselves to several hundred thousand gold. I think the idea is to get
people to do something other than tailoring for gold, and to expand
player interaction.
If it's material, I have to
> run all around trying to find someone to buy it from or harvest it
> myself.
NPC carpenters sell wooden boards(for all intents and purposes
equivolent to logs) for 3gp each. NPC blacksmiths sell ingots for 9gp
each. Also, ingots are pretty light, thus fairly easy to place on a
player-run vendor....however, logs are way too heavy, maybe some kind of
refined form could be used instead?
Using raw materials puts a greater strain on already strained
> natural resources. Using gold spreads the draw over the entire
> economy.
Consider how much gold is being hoarded by anybody with a tailor mule.
If we use gold for maintenance, there will be no significant change to
the number of houses, unless that cost is pretty high. And if its that
high, that means all the people with houses will be powergamers....
Yes, it will increase the value of lumber (I'm leaving ore
> out of this as I haven't tried mining yet) but it will also make
> lumber much harder to obtain *and* paint a big red target on my, and
> every other harvester's, back while chopping wood in the forest (I
> already chop wood on a regular basis to make furniture to sell on my
> vendor).
Well, this really depends on how many ingots/logs are
required....besides of which, if miners and lumberjacks can make more
money, they can pay other people to hang around and look menacing.
Ideally, all those people sparring with summoned eles at the banks could
do it out by some miners/lumberjacks instead, and get some gold for the
deal.
-Hawke, Sonoma Ranger
jx...@po.cwru.edu
>
> No it wont work on me....I will keep my house.
So whats the difference? You consider your house to be worth the
maintenance costs, a good number of other people won't, thus the number
of houses goes down.
As stated in the proposal
> more than half the problem is tents, eliminate them and there goes half the
> problem.
Did you read the proposal? Even though number-wise they account for
more than half, in terms of server-load, the account for no more than
1/3.
Add the restictions on how close you can place a building to
> another and that will prevent most of the tents from being replaced by
> buildings as well as prevent most if not all of the deleted buildings from
> being replaced.
So you want the situation to be that every newer character is out of
luck? Not one of them will be able to get a house because all the spots
have already been taken. Is this fair?
> Having to pay an ongoing cost wont stop anyone from buying a house, so they
> may as well bite the bullet and restrict ownership to one per shard.
First off, the ongoing cost will stop people from owning a house.
Anybody that considers the extra work not worth their time will not buy
a house, or will sell off any houses they already have. Do you really
think people are going to buy a house if they can't maintain it? And as
stated before, one per shard is still too many.
> Once again, do you own a house? Your post doesn't say.
What, do you think I could include that little bit of information an
hour before you ask the question? "Once again....." Yeesh. And in
case you don't see my other posts, yes I do, I own a house and half of a
large smithy.
-Hawke, Sonoma Ranger
Sophist
says...
> It doesn't matter, I don't think it's reasonable to pay maintanence full
> stop. As I've said, even if it only adds 1 minute to the time I spend
> working my character it's unreasonable. The changes that haver effected
> mining over the last 9 months have already taken way too much of my game
> time.
> Why can't they just leave it at deleting the tents,(half the problem), and
> limiting it to 1 house per character? The rest is fairy floss.
> Charlie
>
Oh, I thought you originally said that you didn't like the idea
because it would force you to play a laborer thereby minimizing
your adventuring time. Now it's an issue of how your adventuring
revenue is divided? Sorry, can't help when the reasons keep
changing.
As an aside, the reason for the maintenance cost is pretty obvious
imo. They want to limit things more than 1 house per character
because they know that such a limit is pointless and will have no
effect. But they are afraid of the political backlash if they do. So
they've devised this more covert method to achieve the same end.
Personally I'd much prefer them simply say 1 house per shard and
leave it at that.
I originally liked the maintenance approach, and still do in a
general sense. The big failing tho is that laborers are going to be
the new cannon fodder for PK's. What they're packing will actually
have value, thus the dickless will swarm to them, OSI will do
nothing to stabilize the situation because PK=GOOD in their opinion,
and accordingly the system will fall flat on its face.
Sophist
Veil Daemonstar / Chthonic
> No, but this won't force them to do anythinf else, it will encourage more
> players to consider Pk'ing/thieving as a more viable option. And my post
> was trying to point out that most of us dislike PK's because they force
> there game style on those that don't want it (PvP), forcing characters to
> work at getting together raw materials for their house is just another way
> of forcing an unwanted game style on players.
> Do you really think that making house owners pay maint will reduce the
> number of houses, I don't, the other ideas in the proposal will, but I think
> this is just another way of keeping players occupied, you know so we don't
> get bored.....
Considering the amount of times you've posted on this thread, rather angrily at
that, i'd say that you were already bored, no matter how many trees you've
chopped today...
(aren't I a stinker?)
--
Veil Daemonstar / Chthonic
>
> <sigh> I understand the housing proposal. Did you understand what I
> was saying? The end cost is the same. It's just different entry
> points. If it's gold that's required to maintain the house, *I* get
> to choose what activity I do to earn it. If it's material, I have to
> run all around trying to find someone to buy it from or harvest it
> myself. Using raw materials puts a greater strain on already strained
> natural resources. Using gold spreads the draw over the entire
> economy. Yes, it will increase the value of lumber (I'm leaving ore
> out of this as I haven't tried mining yet) but it will also make
> lumber much harder to obtain *and* paint a big red target on my, and
> every other harvester's, back while chopping wood in the forest (I
> already chop wood on a regular basis to make furniture to sell on my
> vendor).
> --
> Erinnyes Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
> http://home.HiWAAY.net/~ssweargn/
So i suppose OSI is dealing with their game problems in the wrong order.
House issues before noteriety issues...Man, are they blind? Do they not se
that their morality system is a joke? Even if they went back to the old
noteriety system, the game would improve.
The Philosopher Primus
> Why does no one realize that with a resource-based maintenance system in play,
> the solution will not be for every house owner to go out and get the logs and
> ore himself? I understand the laziness value, but its quite apparent that those
> who are miners or lumberjacks now have a way to easily make money,
If they can live long enough to get any wares to market. When a pk needs logs to
prop his castle up, he is not going to buy them when they are free for the killing.
Charles Rooney
picture.. Why not pull your head out , I DO NOT WANT TO SPEND ANY MORE OF MY
GAME TIME WORKING or scrounging around for resources to pay for a house I
already own and paid through the nose for.
players or cost my character. And lets face it, the secure trading facility
isn't exactly safe is it? I've lost track of the number of people that have
tried to rip me off this way.
accept the need to spend so much as an extra minute working. I would rather
see the world covered in houses first.
Veil Daemonstar / Chthonic wrote in message <3645C07D...@yahoo.com>...
Charles Rooney
without worrying about thieves, noto Pk's and other assorted assholes. As
for sharing a house if I wanted to do that I would have, the bottom line of
my post is directed more at being forced to spend more of my game time
working rather than adventuring.
As I have said, I have already paid for the house.....my view has nothing to
do with lazyness, it's about playing the game verses working at the game.
Charlie.
Charles Rooney
stop. As I've said, even if it only adds 1 minute to the time I spend
working my character it's unreasonable. The changes that haver effected
mining over the last 9 months have already taken way too much of my game
time.
Why can't they just leave it at deleting the tents,(half the problem), and
limiting it to 1 house per character? The rest is fairy floss.
Charlie
>
Charles Rooney
particular game style on a player the biggest complaint people have against
PK's & thieves. Forcing players to gather raw materials means giving up
either skill points or time or more likely a combination of both. In any
case I think this is a very poor idea.
Darren Mantle wrote in message <3649f224.38288621@news>...
>On Sun, 08 Nov 1998 18:54:12 GMT, sswe...@HiWAAY.net (Erinn) wrote:
>>On Sat, 7 Nov 1998 18:49:36 +0100, "Sean" <se...@teleweb.at> wrote:
>>
>>>Yeah.. Veil's right.
>>gold
Charles Rooney
maint. it needed was to open the door. And when did houses become a role
playing tool? For that matter theres bugger all roleplaying in this game at
present, are you suggesting we get rid of all the houses that don't meet
your idea of roleplaying?
Charlie
Charles Rooney
number of self imposed restrictions, if I removed these I'm sure he would
make a very nice tankmage and there are no real penalties for PK'ing in the
game. That way I could give up having to work my character fullstop.
Alas, I wouldn't, I've put too much time into him to change him that
drastically and being a miner I don't think I could add to their woes
either.
Charlie.
Erinn wrote in message
>It's much simpler to kill lumberjacks and miners and get the material
>for free. Craftsmen survive in the game now because they generally
>don't hold anything of value to the kewldoods. Make raw material
>valuable to the kewldoods and you've declared open season on
>Lumberjacks and Miners:(
Erinn
wrote:
<snip>
>>I'm not against a modest maintenance charge... as long as it's paid in
>>plumber to accept the logs as payment for fixing my pipes.
>><snip>
>Yes but you are not hiring a maintainer in uo to maintain your house.
>You are expected to do it yourself. If you cant or wont hire another
>player to do it for you. It is not that hard of a concept.
>
>
>Austin Napa
<sigh> I understand the housing proposal. Did you understand what I
was saying? The end cost is the same. It's just different entry
points. If it's gold that's required to maintain the house, *I* get
to choose what activity I do to earn it. If it's material, I have to
run all around trying to find someone to buy it from or harvest it
myself. Using raw materials puts a greater strain on already strained
natural resources. Using gold spreads the draw over the entire
economy. Yes, it will increase the value of lumber (I'm leaving ore
out of this as I haven't tried mining yet) but it will also make
lumber much harder to obtain *and* paint a big red target on my, and
every other harvester's, back while chopping wood in the forest (I
already chop wood on a regular basis to make furniture to sell on my
vendor).
Charles Rooney
players to consider Pk'ing/thieving as a more viable option. And my post
was trying to point out that most of us dislike PK's because they force
there game style on those that don't want it (PvP), forcing characters to
work at getting together raw materials for their house is just another way
of forcing an unwanted game style on players.
Do you really think that making house owners pay maint will reduce the
number of houses, I don't, the other ideas in the proposal will, but I think
this is just another way of keeping players occupied, you know so we don't
get bored.....
Charlie
Dundee wrote in message ...
Charles Rooney
more than half the problem is tents, eliminate them and there goes half the
another and that will prevent most of the tents from being replaced by
buildings as well as prevent most if not all of the deleted buildings from
being replaced.
may as well bite the bullet and restrict ownership to one per shard.
jx...@po.cwru.edu wrote in message <36460E84...@po.cwru.edu>...
Charles Rooney
after a day of wondering the wilderness. Does this fit your concept of
roleplaying, can I now have my house without the proposed ongoing costs?????
BTW I don't think there is anything wrong with the crowd I play the game
with or the places we hang out.
Charlie
Darren Mantle wrote in message <36460953.44224599@news>...
>On Mon, 9 Nov 1998 08:02:14 +1100, "Charles Rooney"
Darren Mantle
Ron Findling
>was saying? The end cost is the same. It's just different entry
>points. If it's gold that's required to maintain the house, *I* get
>to choose what activity I do to earn it. If it's material, I have to
>run all around trying to find someone to buy it from or harvest it
>myself.
Which for some, at least, will lead to increased interaction and
roleplaying. And that's a *good* thing.
>Using raw materials puts a greater strain on already strained
>natural resources.
It's not strained at all, the resources respawn, remember? And if the
respawn ends up not being fast enough, that can always be increased.
> Using gold spreads the draw over the entire economy. Yes, it
> will increase the value of lumber (I'm leaving ore out of this
> as I haven't tried mining yet) but it will also make lumber
> much harder to obtain *and* paint a big red target on my, and
> every other harvester's, back while chopping wood in the forest (I
> already chop wood on a regular basis to make furniture to sell on my
> vendor).
If such resources end up being *that* valuable, then hire a guard (or
guards) to protect you. That too can lead to increased interaction and
roleplaying.
Charles Rooney
way to make up the cost, you are right this would be unfair to newer
characters, but, the patch as with most patches will be unfair to someone.
And sorry about the house question, I hadn't seen your other post.
jx...@po.cwru.edu wrote in message <36465081...@po.cwru.edu>...
>Charles Rooney wrote:
>>
Charles Rooney
Charles Rooney
Darren Mantle wrote in message <36473ce8.57431161@news>...
Erinn
><snip>
>
>> <sigh> I understand the housing proposal. Did you understand what I
>> was saying? The end cost is the same. It's just different entry
>> points. If it's gold that's required to maintain the house, *I* get
>> to choose what activity I do to earn it.
>
>Well, the biggest problem here is all those people that tailor
>themselves to several hundred thousand gold. I think the idea is to get
>people to do something other than tailoring for gold, and to expand
>player interaction.
I'd like to see that too. I just don't think the pros out weigh the
cons on this one. Tailoring I'd especially like to see reworked into
2 or possibly 3 interdependent craft skills. I'd prefer a bit more
carrot and little less stick, please <G>.
>If it's material, I have to
>> run all around trying to find someone to buy it from or harvest it
>> myself.
>
>NPC carpenters sell wooden boards(for all intents and purposes
>equivolent to logs) for 3gp each. NPC blacksmiths sell ingots for 9gp
>each. Also, ingots are pretty light, thus fairly easy to place on a
>player-run vendor....however, logs are way too heavy, maybe some kind of
>refined form could be used instead?
I'd feel easier about it if I knew for sure boards and ingots could be
used interchangeably with logs and ore for maintenance. The quantity
sold by the NPC Shopkeep will increase as demand increases just like
reagents or thread do. Otherwise, a shard will only support so many
houses dependant on spawn which depends in part on the how many trees
and mountains are on the shard and on how much log & ore hoarding is
going on. You could lose your house, not because you're broke or
lazy, but simply because there aren't any raw materials available.
Which means people hoard, which further slows the spawn (and
incidentally the server), and so on.
>Using raw materials puts a greater strain on already strained
>> natural resources. Using gold spreads the draw over the entire
>> economy.
>
>Consider how much gold is being hoarded by anybody with a tailor mule.
>If we use gold for maintenance, there will be no significant change to
>the number of houses, unless that cost is pretty high. And if its that
>high, that means all the people with houses will be powergamers....
The powergamers will always win. They'll just change their tactics as
the rules change. That's what makes them powergamers.
I'm not against charging much more for maintenance if it's paid in
gold instead of raw materials. A *lot* more. I just want the option
in there to avoid the hoarding/scarcity circle and the resultant 'open
season' on lumberjacks/miners. Though if boards and ingots can
substitute ... *and* the NPC shopkeeps continue to sell them...
Remember that DD also wants to gut the NPC Shopkeep's inventory. They
might not sell boards and ingots by then.
>Yes, it will increase the value of lumber (I'm leaving ore
>> out of this as I haven't tried mining yet) but it will also make
>> lumber much harder to obtain *and* paint a big red target on my, and
>> every other harvester's, back while chopping wood in the forest (I
>> already chop wood on a regular basis to make furniture to sell on my
>> vendor).
>
>Well, this really depends on how many ingots/logs are
>required....besides of which, if miners and lumberjacks can make more
>money, they can pay other people to hang around and look menacing.
>Ideally, all those people sparring with summoned eles at the banks could
>do it out by some miners/lumberjacks instead, and get some gold for the
>deal.
>-Hawke, Sonoma Ranger
You're much more of an optimist than I <G>. How do I know they won't
take my money and whack me once out of town? Or just abandon me? How
do they know they'll get paid? And how much payment is fair when they
risk their fame, armor and weapons? Fighting elementals in town is
pretty safe, after all, and a band of desperate house owners could be
a pretty fearsome thing;) Kinda negates the new profit margin if not
taking it a step backwards. But yeah, I'd sure like some figures on
the amounts that would be required.
Silverlock
<cro...@zip.com.au> wrote:
>I open the door
>Darren Mantle wrote in message <36473ce8.57431161@news>...
>>On Mon, 9 Nov 1998 11:33:13 +1100, "Charles Rooney"
>><cro...@zip.com.au> wrote:
>>>Ok, my roleplaying druid, roleplays going home, to his house
>
And all that door opening wears it out. Oooops time to replace the
door, and for that you need wood. Also the ceiling leaks and the
hinges need replacing as well, better go buy some boards and ingots to
repair that house or POOF it'll be gone.
--
Silverlock, ICQ 474725
Household Pests? The SW-404 'SpitFire' APRL cleansing system
will remove them, we Guarantee IT! Not responsible for damage
to persons or structures from use of this product.
Dial 1-800-FRY-THEM for info and a home demonstration.
jx...@po.cwru.edu
> >Well, the biggest problem here is all those people that tailor
> >themselves to several hundred thousand gold. I think the idea is to get
> >people to do something other than tailoring for gold, and to expand
> >player interaction.
>
> I'd like to see that too. I just don't think the pros out weigh the
> cons on this one. Tailoring I'd especially like to see reworked into
> 2 or possibly 3 interdependent craft skills. I'd prefer a bit more
> carrot and little less stick, please <G>.
Aye, likewise, but I'm at a loss for better ideas to cut down on
housing, to the point where there will be space for newer characters,
without making housing less pleasant....
<snip>
> I'd feel easier about it if I knew for sure boards and ingots could be
> used interchangeably with logs and ore for maintenance.
It would be nice if OSI was clearer on this....from the dev team, "The
kicker is that the fee is not payable in gold. Instead, it is paid in
logs and ingots and ore and other raw materials." Now what exactly are
we paying with? Are ingots and ore treated the same? And what other
raw materials are being considered? Hmm....thread....raw
ribs....coconuts?
The quantity
> sold by the NPC Shopkeep will increase as demand increases just like
> reagents or thread do. Otherwise, a shard will only support so many
> houses dependant on spawn which depends in part on the how many trees
> and mountains are on the shard and on how much log & ore hoarding is
> going on. You could lose your house, not because you're broke or
> lazy, but simply because there aren't any raw materials available.
> Which means people hoard, which further slows the spawn (and
> incidentally the server), and so on.
Thats a good point. There will be more hoarding.... Well, if we're
given the option to pay maintenance costs in advance, that should cut
down on the hoarding.
<snip>
> I'm not against charging much more for maintenance if it's paid in
> gold instead of raw materials. A *lot* more.
I didn't think of this, I think its a good idea :)
<snip>
> >Well, this really depends on how many ingots/logs are
> >required....besides of which, if miners and lumberjacks can make more
> >money, they can pay other people to hang around and look menacing.
> >Ideally, all those people sparring with summoned eles at the banks could
> >do it out by some miners/lumberjacks instead, and get some gold for the
> >deal.
> >-Hawke, Sonoma Ranger
>
> You're much more of an optimist than I <G>. How do I know they won't
> take my money and whack me once out of town? Or just abandon me? How
> do they know they'll get paid?
Ack, one of those trust things that are so lacking in the game
recently. Doh!
And how much payment is fair when they
> risk their fame, armor and weapons? Fighting elementals in town is
> pretty safe, after all, and a band of desperate house owners could be
> a pretty fearsome thing;)
Well, if desperate house owners become common occurence, the pay might
end up being all the loot on the house owners' bodies....And then we'll
get some big trade war type things going on, with groups of house
owners, miners, lumberjacks, each trying to gain a monopoly over
wood/iron in certain areas, and then we'll be seeing *real* guildwars.
This is not a good thing. Hmm. Oops.
-Hawke, Sonoma Ranger
Zaphkiel
>money, they can pay other people to hang around and look >menacing. Ideally,
all those people sparring with summoned >eles at the banks could do it out by
some miners/lumberjacks >instead, and get some gold for the deal.
>-Hawke, Sonoma Ranger
This sounds good in theory, but it will never happen. The
'guards' you hire will be on ICQ letting thier PK friends know
when you are just about done so they can come harvest you.
You cannot trust anyone you meet at the bank. Or in the
woods. Or in a dungeon.
--Zaphkiel
jx...@po.cwru.edu
Well thats a nice way to play. Paranoia. I'm sorry, but thats the kind
of game I will not play. And I've been playing since April and have yet
to be burned by it.
-Hawke, Sonoma Ranger
The Philosopher Primus
> Zaphkiel wrote:
>
> > You cannot trust anyone you meet at the bank. Or in the
> > woods. Or in a dungeon.
>
> > --Zaphkiel
>
> Well thats a nice way to play. Paranoia.
Fear. Learn the difference.
John Wagner
: "Charles Rooney" <cro...@zip.com.au> wrote:
: >Excuse me, but I can see what you are saying & am capable of seeing the big
: >picture.. Why not pull your head out , I DO NOT WANT TO SPEND ANY MORE OF MY
: >GAME TIME WORKING or scrounging around for resources to pay for a house I
: >already own and paid through the nose for.
: about? I'm sure if its 5 ingots a day or similar it wont exactly kill people.
Interestingly, 5 ingots has a 'current market' value of 35 gp,
or 7 gp per ingot. After the house patch- let us go with ballpark DD's
numbers and assume 5,000 houses. That's a 25,000 ingot per day demand.
Mining, if I guess correctly, pays now about 3k per hour. Thus a
good miner makes about 400 ingots in an hour. The average player plays
3 hours hence a successful miner could produce 1200 ingots in one
play-day. If 25,000 ingots are required the full production of 20 miners
would be demanded per day. Probably that additional demand of 25,000
ingots per day would increase the demand for ingots such that miners would
be in an upper income bracket- hence 4k per hour- hence we get an adjusted
new price of 10-11 gp per ingot, and a daily maintenance of 50 gp per home
on 5 ingot requirement. That gold would go to the miners- and would not
leave the system otherwise. In fact the addition of new gold to the
system without the consumption of old gold would imply that the 25,000
ingots per day, times 10 gp per ingot, would be pumped into an active
economy (miners pockets) and hence 250k gold more per day would be made
active in the economy.
Assume 250k active gold added each day in the economy. Assume the
average player has about 40k gold. Times 10,000 active players I am
estimating 400-700 million in gold actively used (not held by dupers,
canceled accounts etc). Let us assume there is 500 million in gold out
there on say Catskills. If we add 250k per day then over 20 days we see 5
million additional gold in the system- a 10% increase. The price of
ingots then shifts to 11 (10% increase). 20 days later the price has
risen again by 10%, ingots are at 12-13. 20 days later ingots are at 14.
Within 60 days of the policy being implemented ingots will have risen from
their current value of 7, to 14 gp per, a doubling in the cost of house
maintenance. 2 Months after 5 ingots per house per day requirement
Catskills would suffer approximately 20% inflation and a doubling in the
nominal housing maintenance cost, barring other policies.
John Wagner
Moonbat, ii, Cats
John Wagner
[snip earlier discussion with Erinn about increased PK attraction
to miners/lumberjacks-Morgana thinks PKs vs miners already there]
: However, I claim that the new housing maintenance cost will not
: significantly worsen this situation. Smiths can consume ingots
: at a phenomenal rate. There are at least a few hundred smiths
: active on any given shard. At any time and at any bank, you can
: find someone willing to purchase 1000 ingots (Just try it). At
: the rates mentioned in this thread (5 ingots x 5000 houses per
: day), ingot requirements for house maintenance will be a minor
: addition to the already ravenous demand.
[Snip arrows also, the shaft market dwarfs housing demand]
In another post Erinn points out that we ddon't know the
exact numbers- I only pulled 5 ingots per day from an earlier poster
who speculated about daily maintenance cost. However as Erinn quoted from
DD we have 'about 1 hour per week maintenance', Erinn's own estimate
of 100 logs per hour from lumberjacking. We can also add a few estimates of
mine:
1)A 'upper middle' salary, per hour, in UO is 3k per hour- often said.
An 'upper' salary is about 4k per hour. 'Middle class' salary is 2k per hour.
Given the observation that ingots run around 7 gp per now, and assuming a
2.8k per hour income, I personally estimate a good miner produces around
2,800/7=400 ingots per hour. Let us add that bolts, which require shafts and
feathers, sell for 5 gp each. Assume a good fletcher earns 2.5k per hour.
That gives a production of 500 per hour (or about 85 every ten minutes).
Thus I estimate that 'one hour of work' in ingots and logs, evenly divided,
equals 200 ingots and 250 logs per week in upkeep, or per day, about 29 ingots
and about 35 logs.
The figures for numbers of homes is 'about 2500 in the Yew area'- an
estimate that probably includes tents. 5,000 homes is probably an underestimate.
Assuming 10,000 homes in Britain after tent wipe we get a daily consumption of
29,000 ingots and 35,000 logs. Assuming 3 hour play time (a nother quote) that
would employ the time of 29,000/(400 ingots per hour)=about 73 people devoting
their day to mining, plus 70 people devoting their day to lumberjacking. More
later.
John Wagner
The Shard Gold Trading Company
Morgana
Erinn <sswe...@HiWAAY.net> wrote:
>It's much simpler to kill lumberjacks and miners and get the material
>for free. Craftsmen survive in the game now because they generally
>don't hold anything of value to the kewldoods. Make raw material
>valuable to the kewldoods and you've declared open season on
>Lumberjacks and Miners:(
Ingots are already valuable. There are PK-thieves who harass
miners with the sole intent of either stealing ingots or picking
them up off of perforated corpses. This happens mostly up in the
mines north of Minoc where miners use public forges and don't
have a handy bank in which to hide their ingots. Lumberjacks are
also common targets of PK attack because they are often working
in remote locations and they are frequently carrying bows and or
arrows. Nobody carries logs back to town - they're just too heavy.
However, I claim that the new housing maintenance cost will not
significantly worsen this situation. Smiths can consume ingots
at a phenomenal rate. There are at least a few hundred smiths
active on any given shard. At any time and at any bank, you can
find someone willing to purchase 1000 ingots (Just try it). At
the rates mentioned in this thread (5 ingots x 5000 houses per
day), ingot requirements for house maintenance will be a minor
addition to the already ravenous demand.
Similarly, archers consume arrows pretty quickly. Due to weapon
imbalances, about half the population of Britannia are currently
archers. Do you really think that the number of logs required to
upkeep houses will be significant relative to the number of logs
turned into arrows each day?
--
Former Lady Morgan (now Admirable)
Smith on Napa shard
o==}---------
Erinn
wrote:
Depends on how much they're talking about. On the update center DD
said about an hour a week. Here's the quote:
<begin quote>
The most controversial aspect of the plan is house maintenance costs.
However, we do not currently have any viable alternatives, though we
welcome more discussion of the issue. Many players asked for rough
figures on how much time should be spent on maintenance. Our best
guess at this point is one hour a week for a small house, scaling up
to amounts of time that basically oblige multiple maintainers for
castles.
<end quote>
I'm still not sure what that's supposed to translate to:( I chop wood
every couple of days. Takes me about an hour to get 100 logs.. mostly
because the trees are already stripped. Doesn't seem to matter what
time of day I do it either:( It'll only get worse with the greater
demand.
However, DD also said this:
<begin quote>
We have seen the concerns about availability of sufficient materials.
This is something easily addressed when the time comes, so we ask that
people not worry too much about that. :) We can scale the availability
of wood from trees and of ore from mountains to any amount we need in
order to provide enough for house maintenance.
<end quote>
So we're not supposed to worry about decreased supply or,
consequently, the possible increased danger to lumberjacks/miners.
If they're just going to scale things up to meet demand, why do this
at all? Just to make refreshing your house take longer?
The Philosopher Primus
> So we're not supposed to worry about decreased supply or,
> consequently, the possible increased danger to lumberjacks/miners.
>
> If they're just going to scale things up to meet demand, why do this
> at all? Just to make refreshing your house take longer?
DD has a cute idea, and no one is going to move him from it. It does not
matter if it wrecks the game, destroys the company, and begins the collapse of
the universe, it's his idea, therefore it will be.
John Wagner
: In article <72ao2g$h28$1...@agate.berkeley.edu> you wrote:
: [snip earlier discussion with Erinn about increased PK attraction
: to miners/lumberjacks-Morgana thinks PKs vs miners already there]
: The figures for numbers of homes is 'about 2500 in the Yew area'- an
: estimate that probably includes tents. 5,000 homes is probably an underestimate.
: Assuming 10,000 homes in Britain after tent wipe we get a daily consumption of
: 29,000 ingots and 35,000 logs. Assuming 3 hour play time (a nother quote) that
: would employ the time of 29,000/(400 ingots per hour)=about 73 people devoting
: their day to mining, plus 70 people devoting their day to lumberjacking. More
: later.
Last night I was thinking further about this but was called away.
I am going to assume 7,000 people (for calculation convenience) log into
a shard per day on average. Thus 2%(140/7000) or thereabouts will shift
from doing non-mining/lumberjacking to lumberjacking/mining, and this
shift will be demand-driven, propelled by the increased price of ingots
and logs. This in turn will stimulate the economy such that the
remainder will seek to earn even more gold, translating into more
efficient gold mining of the creatures to pay for the logs/ingots.
Certainly the number of houses would diminish from now. However,
people who have gold in any amount would be hit by the inflationary
pressure and be pushed into a money-making business, either harvesting
monsters, entering commerce or lumbarjacking/mining. Just as a retiree in
RL is hurt by inflation, so would casual roleplayers.
Let's say that in response to inflation DD cuts down on gold
spawns. Suppose Avalon Roleplaying City complains it doesnt like to work
hard 24/7 to maintain the guild hall what with skyrocketing costs and
devalued gold. Well in that case adventuring would not pay off very well,
nor would NPC disinterested (tailoring etc) sales hence the only real way
to make money would be from other players. People who
keep houses and play would need to find things of value to these other
players. Things of value might include logs, ingots, shafts/bolts,
exceptional arms, magical arms, runes, potions, bandages, reagents, most
of the usual things that sell well which are good for PVP.
The increased supply of these items in the
marketplace as more turn to such commerce would streamline the
orientation of UO players into miner/lumberjack/PK/merchant/thief roles.
Would on the one hand evolve the economy further but on the other remove
much of the casual aspect of UO.
Already we see a good deal of this but not to that extent. My
warrior on Catskills is content with his 4.7k. But after an inflationary
patch if he wants to maintain a house and keep roleplaying, no. Certainly
my merchant group can pay the bills but many players would not want to
do that sort of thing.
John Wagner
Moonbat, ii, Cats
The Shard Gold Trading Company ICQ 14911644
Ron Findling
>was saying? The end cost is the same. It's just different entry
>points. If it's gold that's required to maintain the house, *I* get
>run all around trying to find someone to buy it from or harvest it
>myself.
If material becomes so valuable that people would rather buy it than
"waste" time harvesting it, then expect a lot of vendors to pop up
offering said stuff. Thus increasing the value of people like miners
and such to the game, which is a *good* thing.
> Using raw materials puts a greater strain on already strained
> natural resources.
There's no strain. It all respawns, and can respawn at a faster rate
if need be.
Besides, too many want and have houses. OSI has to get that number
down, and if that means alienating some people who find the whole
maintenance idea "too much," then so be it.
> Using gold spreads the draw over the entire economy. Yes, it will
> increase the value of lumber (I'm leaving ore out of this as I
> haven't tried mining yet) but it will also make lumber much harder
> to obtain *and* paint a big red target on my, and every other
> harvester's, back while chopping wood in the forest (I already
> chop wood on a regular basis to make furniture to sell on my
> vendor).
Then the lumberjacks and such can hire guards to protect them, because
if wood becomes *that* valuable, they'll be able to afford such.
Thus this could increase the amount of socializing in the game, having
to find people you can trust to do such guarding. Yet again, this is
another *good* thing.
John Wagner
: John Wagner (jwa...@emory.edu) wrote:
: : In article <72ao2g$h28$1...@agate.berkeley.edu> you wrote:
: : [snip earlier discussion with Erinn about increased PK attraction
: : to miners/lumberjacks-Morgana thinks PKs vs miners already there]
: [snip observations]
: : The figures for numbers of homes is 'about 2500 in the Yew area'- an
: : estimate that probably includes tents. 5,000 homes is probably an underestimate.
: : Assuming 10,000 homes in Britain after tent wipe we get a daily consumption of
: : 29,000 ingots and 35,000 logs. Assuming 3 hour play time (a nother quote) that
: : would employ the time of 29,000/(400 ingots per hour)=about 73 people devoting
: : their day to mining, plus 70 people devoting their day to lumberjacking. More
: : later.
on pure roleplayers]
I'd like to point out that I miscalculated the 73 people figure- 29,000
ingots should be divided (400 ingots/hour* 3 hours time) gives (29,000 ingots
/1200 ingots) gives roughly 24 people. Similarly lumberjacking, resulting
in 23 people, total displacement is about 47 people per day into
lumberjacking/mining.
Note that if one hours payment per week were exacted in gold that
would imply 2.1 k per week or let's say 300 gold per day. On 10,000 houses
that would be a daily gold drain of 3 million gold. A person who has 10k in the
bank and a small house could go for almost 5 weeks without earning any extra
money. Assume the 3 million gold were recirculated as monster spawn (2/3) and
NPC gold spawn (1/3), then that would mean 2 million gold on monsters per day
and 1 million gold on NPC's per day. With 7,000 logins if 1,000 are tailor/NPC
sellers that means 1,000 for each; if 2,000 are monsters hunters 1 k on average
for each of them.
John Wagner
The Philosopher Primus
> If material becomes so valuable that people would rather buy it than
> "waste" time harvesting it, then expect a lot of vendors to pop up
> offering said stuff. Thus increasing the value of people like miners
> and such to the game, which is a *good* thing.
When something becomes valuable in the game, people produce it or steal it.
The only things they don't produce as the first choice to obtain are those
things which cannot be produced without a considerable time investment to build
skills that cannot quickly be obtained. Thus there is a market for exceptional
bows, weapons, armor, and none for logs. There is none for logs in spite of
the fact that they are valuable because everyone can have an extra character in
a few minutes to supply their log needs. There is not a good market for ingots
for the same reason (there is a market, but a limited one, and the price never
rises much, staying at 5).
DD has said they will increase ore and log availability to fill the need. This
simply means that this maintenance material gimmick will increase the time it
takes to refresh one's house, and further enrich the pk and thieves, without
adding anything of value whatever to the game.
TAKE IT OUT. LOSE IT. WE DO NOT NEED IT. When the truth is seen (no doubt
once it's too late) we will not want it. Just like inside vendors, this is a
really bad idea.
My plan for limiting buildings by making bigger ones take up more of a player's
building slots would work.
But let's sweeten it up a bit. The problem is that buildings take up space
outdoors? I've suggested that new lands be "found" (just put a new island out
there somewhere, or stretch the world a bit), which is designed just for
efficient placement of housing, some in, some out of guard zone. Properly
managed, a huge amount of housing can be placed in a small area. On its own
subshard server, this player city would have no lag impact on the rest of the
world.
OK, so if we do not want a new land (might confuse someone about The New Lands,
costing a sale), what about underground? Either design a new housplan which is
mainly underground (can be placed regardless of small rocks, hills, brambles,
etc), and only the entry is above ground. The rest of the building becomes a
sod roof, like normal ground, though it cannot be built on. These could be set
adjacent without blocking the landscape at all. They would not even need space
to the front, since the entry could be in the middle.
What about creating a cavern city? Just give us a simple map of a cavern
complex, separated like a dungeon from the rest of the shard (its own subshard
server), which can allow an arbitrary large amount of housing. Make the
lighting eternal twilight (there are lamps, of course), so you can use lights
or NightSight but don't have to.
There are plenty of possibilities for giving us what we want, a house for
everyone. It just takes a determination to do it.
> Besides, too many want and have houses. OSI has to get that number
> down, and if that means alienating some people who find the whole
> maintenance idea "too much," then so be it.
The number of houses does not have to be decreased, and can be significantly
increased.
Alienating means driving us away. Of course, so many are so ready to leave
anyway, this last straw (actually a bale of hay) may be entirely superfluous.
Ron Findling
>> "waste" time harvesting it, then expect a lot of vendors to pop up
>> offering said stuff. Thus increasing the value of people like miners
>> and such to the game, which is a *good* thing.
>
> When something becomes valuable in the game, people produce it or steal
> it.
Or they can buy it. That's what I did with my Anna McCloud character,
except for clothing and leather armor (she knows how to tailor).
Everything else she couldn't loot off of monsters, she purchased.
> The only things they don't produce as the first choice to obtain are
> those things which cannot be produced without a considerable time
> investment to build skills that cannot quickly be obtained. Thus
> there is a market for exceptional bows, weapons, armor, and none for
> logs. There is none for logs in spite of the fact that they are
> valuable because everyone can have an extra character in a few minutes
> to supply their log needs.
I never used mules to help Anna. Not "everyone" does or has done that.
And for those that do - well the problem here then is the muling,
*not* the resource requirements for houses.
As well, woodchopping to get wood and mining to get ingots takes time
- the kind of boring time that not everyone will want to waste on such
stuff. Some have so much money that it won't even be "cost effective"
to mule to get the stuff they need - they'll do better to just buy
what they need.
Thus we'll be able to see a positive flow of gold from those who have
"too much" to those miners/woodsman who typically don't have as much.
Yet Another Good Thing.
> DD has said they will increase ore and log availability to fill the
> need. This simply means that this maintenance material gimmick
> will increase the time it takes to refresh one's house, and further
> enrich the pk and thieves, without adding anything of value whatever
> to the game.
No, if the availability is increased, time for mules and honest
miners/woodsman to harvest the stuff will *decrease,* since it'll all
be easier to find.
> TAKE IT OUT. LOSE IT. WE DO NOT NEED IT. When the truth is seen
> (no doubt once it's too late) we will not want it. Just like inside
> vendors, this is a really bad idea.
You've got a house, I take it? Well then, I guess you're prepared to
give it up?
OSI can't lose no matter what you decide. If you decide to give up
your house because the requirements are too much, then that's one less
house crowding the landscape (which they want). If you decide to put
up with it, then its hard to complain that its too much.
> My plan for limiting buildings by making bigger ones take up more of
> a player's building slots would work.
So everyone would have tons of smaller houses, still cluttering up the
landscape. Your plan is not perfect, either.
> But let's sweeten it up a bit. The problem is that buildings take
> up space outdoors? I've suggested that new lands be "found" (just
> put a new island out there somewhere, or stretch the world a bit),
> which is designed just for efficient placement of housing, some in,
> some out of guard zone. Properly managed, a huge amount of housing
> can be placed in a small area. On its own subshard server, this player
> city would have no lag impact on the rest of the world.
To patch the map in that fashion would cost time and money that OSI is
loathe to spend. They won't even put back in 24-hour GM service,
remember? And all UO players are *still paying* for that.
I think the same can be said about the rest of your suggestions - they
have possibilities, but it seems plain that OSI for now would rather
just make (relatively) minor changes to cut down on the number of
houses. That's the cheapest/quickest way, and doesn't preclude later
more drastic solutions.
>> Besides, too many want and have houses. OSI has to get that number
>> down, and if that means alienating some people who find the whole
>> maintenance idea "too much," then so be it.
>
> The number of houses does not have to be decreased, and can be
> significantly increased.
>
> Alienating means driving us away. Of course, so many are so ready to
> leave anyway, this last straw (actually a bale of hay) may be entirely
> superfluous.
Well, it's like everything else in the game - from what I understand,
OSI is ahead of their projections for the number of players in the
game, so they likely don't exactly feel under the gun to listen more
to their players. They're playing and paying anyways!
Are you going to quit over this, if you're still playing? My guess is
no, you're not.
Polychromic
>Depends on how much they're talking about. On the update center DD
>said about an hour a week. Here's the quote:
><begin quote>
>The most controversial aspect of the plan is house maintenance costs.
>However, we do not currently have any viable alternatives, though we
>welcome more discussion of the issue. Many players asked for rough
>figures on how much time should be spent on maintenance. Our best
>guess at this point is one hour a week for a small house, scaling up
>to amounts of time that basically oblige multiple maintainers for
>castles.
><end quote>
>
>I'm still not sure what that's supposed to translate to:( I chop wood
>every couple of days. Takes me about an hour to get 100 logs.. mostly
>because the trees are already stripped. Doesn't seem to matter what
>time of day I do it either:( It'll only get worse with the greater
>demand.
I can usually get logs faster than that - maybe 400-500 per hour if I
work at it (trees must grow better in the middle of the night).
However, I usually convert all of them into ammunition for my
crossbow. Guess this will hurt archers a bit more than most :(
>However, DD also said this:
><begin quote>
>We have seen the concerns about availability of sufficient materials.
>This is something easily addressed when the time comes, so we ask that
>people not worry too much about that. :) We can scale the availability
>of wood from trees and of ore from mountains to any amount we need in
>order to provide enough for house maintenance.
><end quote>
>
>So we're not supposed to worry about decreased supply or,
>consequently, the possible increased danger to lumberjacks/miners.
I can already predict that this will create log horders. At least
people will be happier to see reapers in the forests.
>If they're just going to scale things up to meet demand, why do this
>at all? Just to make refreshing your house take longer?
Yeah, I don't see the point to this part at all, either. Oh well.
In the new lands no one has a house and it looks like I'll be spending
most of my time in these new lands of plenty :)
--
The Polychromic Dragon (Michael Cecil) of the -=={UDIC}==-
http://www.ticnet.com/mcecil/ mce...@ticnet.com
UDIC d++ e++ N++ T Om+ U12!3!4!5!6!A!WML!7'!S'!8! u+++ uC++ uF uG++
nC++ nR---- nH++ nP++ uLB++ uA+ nI++ nPT nS+ nT+ wM- wC y+S a34
Erinn
Polychromic wrote in message ...
>On Wed, 11 Nov 1998 01:32:48 GMT, sswe...@HiWAAY.net (Erinn) wrote:
>>I'm still not sure what that's supposed to translate to:( I chop wood
>>every couple of days. Takes me about an hour to get 100 logs.. mostly
>>because the trees are already stripped. Doesn't seem to matter what
>>time of day I do it either:( It'll only get worse with the greater
>>demand.
>
>I can usually get logs faster than that - maybe 400-500 per hour if I
>work at it (trees must grow better in the middle of the night).
>However, I usually convert all of them into ammunition for my
>crossbow. Guess this will hurt archers a bit more than most :(
I forgot to re-add in the wastage from carpentry failures (65% skill) when
I said 100 logs an hour:( I ran that off the top of my head and based it
on how long it takes me to make 4 armoires. I never paid much attention
to how fast I actually get *logs* with 65% lumberjacking <G>. I paid
attention yesterday and it's more like 180 logs per hour in the areas I
roam.
<snip>
>>So we're not supposed to worry about decreased supply or,
>>consequently, the possible increased danger to lumberjacks/miners.
>
>I can already predict that this will create log horders. At least
>people will be happier to see reapers in the forests.
No kidding. I'm tempted to start laying in a supply right
:(
>>If they're just going to scale things up to meet demand, why do this
>>at all? Just to make refreshing your house take longer?
>
>Yeah, I don't see the point to this part at all, either. Oh well.
>In the new lands no one has a house and it looks like I'll be spending
>most of my time in these new lands of plenty :)
Well, you're an adventurer and I'm a merchant <G>. My game is my vendor and my vendor needs a house. I'd like to turn the Meeting Hall into a shopping mall since it's already in a justice zone. I may just forget about being a merchant and go kill things instead. We'll see how the housing patch comes down.
Polychromic
to what I read on UOSS earlier.
250 logs per week for maintaining a small house and having a secure
"tent-type" chest seems fine to me. But 5700 logs for a castle? Can
we say "clear-cutting"? Yipes!!!
I don't really mind maintenance costs (after all I have only one small
house that my characters all share) but if the goal is to ultimately
get rid of a large number of the houses then,
First, lets get mechanisms for changing ownership - keys and locks or
whatever, so that established players can sell off their extra homes
either to other new players (lots of them lately) or just back to the
nearby town architect or provisioner.
Second, let's get rid of extra tents and ships. In the new lands, all
the shores are jammed with ships already. I have a ship I never use
really but I refresh because it cost a lot and I might need it again
someday. But I'd go ahead and sell it back if I could recoup some of
the cost.
Third, how about getting rid of the larger homes that aren't public
buildings? If a guild or the mages of Moonglow want to create a
public building, that's cool but what about all the gold duping, pking
game bastards with towers and what not - they should be aggressively
targeted for removal somehow. I guess changing greater maintainable
costs for the larger houses will do this but I'd suspect that making
it possible to sell houses would be more effective.