Calling all Ultima players to ask the Dev's to change house IDOC rules

Thorakh

There are two main scripters getting all the 18 x 18's houses , Keeps and Castles in the game. These two have single handedly also raised the cost of housing to outrageous amounts of gold. The current way to determine if a house can be placed, after an IDOC, is by casting recall, and if you can recall you can place a house. This method makes it very easy for scripters to write code that detects this faster than other players and these two scripters get the nice housing spots every single time. I propose that the timer be truly random after a house falls with no methods to determine if a house can be placed, so that it cannot be scripted by these two players.

Zayin_Mort

I have now tried to place a house on Atlantic at a couple of 18x18 idocs. Even using a EC macro that spams recall (using the client only - not cheating), I have discovered that these scripters does not use the "recall trick" to determine the placement time. They at 3 occasions placed even before my recall spell was shown. So I went on google and searched a bit and found below statement:

"When the house collapse an invisible tile is placed at the SW corner of the previous , also known as "no draw" tile. That tile contain the info of when the area will be available to replot. There is quite a few people using a script that can read that tile and when the tile vanish, they can replot the house in .0000001 sec."

So it seems that the ordinary player have absolutely no chance at all for placing when a scripter is at the idoc site.

The same guy placed all 3 houses and instantly put up for sale. I guess he is from one of the gold seller sites??

So, maybe they should get rid of that invisible tile to that normal players have a fair chance?

Bilbo

To the OP your beginning statement is totally false and if you want the DEVs to take you seriously then you need to make true statements only.  I am on Baja and I know of a few castle spots and more keep spots and a ton of 18x18 spots.  If you want to complain about Atl then complain about Atl.

Bilbo

Thorakh said:

There are two main scripters getting all the 18 x 18's houses , Keeps and Castles in the game. These two have single handedly also raised the cost of housing to outrageous amounts of gold. The current way to determine if a house can be placed, after an IDOC, is by casting recall, and if you can recall you can place a house. This method makes it very easy for scripters to write code that detects this faster than other players and these two scripters get the nice housing spots every single time. I propose that the timer be truly random after a house falls with no methods to determine if a house can be placed, so that it cannot be scripted by these two players.

If they are running a script then they will still get the spot even with the random timer because they will just let the placement script run until they get the spot and you are still trying to place the right way or are you going to hang around for an undetermined amount of time to maybe get that plot..  Banning the script account or disabling the script is the only way to fix this.

PrissyP

horrible idea, leave as it is

Vladimir

There is so much involved on placing houses that new players have no idea, old tricks, oil cloth on the tool and so much more that old folks like me, beat the scripters 100% the time. but this new generation want everything hand out to them. go learn how to play the game u love.

Danpal

Listen Mesanna said the next change idoc is just deleting them all.  So in that case the house will fall and no one will be there to place or collect items.  

Your just have to walk around like the old days looking for houseing spots.

Ben

Every rule change will bring about an exploit, so long as there is a demand. Because so many people believe that UO is Atlantic shard, there will be a shortage of plots to place a house. I used to play on Atlantic. After a few years away from UO, I came back after moving overseas and play on an Asian shard. There are plenty of places to place a house, even a castle. Though there are not as many other players, I would have to say I enjoy playing my days playing again as much as at any time when on Atlantic. I keep a character alive on Atlantic simply for some interaction and shopping for goods I will later transfer to my new home shard. The situation will only change when the demand for housing on Atlantic changes. One idea that could work is if the many game design houses in the country and cities are turned into apartment rentals. With a few design tweeks by the developers, buildings in the towns could be available for rental, pretty much in the same way a vault is secured now. You could rent a room or a house, be allowed some storage and decoration rights, and in time, the financial incentive to all of those plot hoarders would be removed, while at the same time giving a multitude a place to call home until that day they get lucky. In the meantime, there are all those other shards just waiting for homesteaders.