Why Are Paying Customers Being Silenced on Critical Topics?

Mariah · July 16

Apologies for allowing this thread to become so toxic. I was unable to get the internet connection I was hoping for from my holiday hotel.

Lokea · July 16

creampie said:
Nope you are totally wrong

No I'm not - nobody buys a house with the intent to sell it for less than they paid.

And if you're talking about gold sinks, if gold sinks worked, they would have put a lot more of them into the game over the last 20+ years (we'd see more high-value items being sold for large prices by NPCs for instance). But they don't work (outside of Siege and Mugen), because gold is constantly added to the game through monster loot, champ spawns, chests, and selling to NPCs.

In the early 2000s around the time that house customization was released, the devs even mentioned the problem with gold sinks in an economy where gold is always being added on a daily basis - if you don't slow down or reduce the gold being added to the game, then it's meaningless. I remember bidding on New Magincia plots (I want to say some were 2,000gp and others were 10,000gp) and while it took a lot of gold out of the economy and around 10,000 or 15,000 players did the lottery system (the devs released a detailed analysis but I don't have it handy), ultimately they said that gold was eventually added back into the game as people continued to do the things that added gold to the game every day (monster loot, chests, etc.)

And even if Atlantic has thousands of players, there are not prime 18x18s and keeps and castles falling every single day, which makes it sporadic, and what you are talking about would be coding a gold sink that applies to a single person at each IDOC who wins the bid. On smaller shards, unless it's a really unique piece of land, people could just wait a few days and place, so the dev resources put into such a system would be a waste.

Selling IDOCs to the highest bidder would do one thing though - keep prime real estate in the hands of certain people, and out of reach of a lot of players.

If you want to go that route though of disposing of IDOC spots and call it a "gold sink", do like New Magincia originally did, make the tickets cheap and unlimited. You would get a lot of gold out of the system from a lot of people (instead of just one person at a time), and at least the regular players would feel like they have a small chance against the wealthiest players.

keven2002 · July 18

Mariah said:

Apologies for allowing this thread to become so toxic. I was unable to get the internet connection I was hoping for from my holiday hotel.

No need to apologize Mariah; I think this sort of discussion (and having Kyronix respond) is actually good to allow and kind of shows customers aren't really being silenced at all unless they are breaking the rules.

Enjoy your holiday!

Seth · July 19

keven2002 said:

Mariah said:

Apologies for allowing this thread to become so toxic. I was unable to get the internet connection I was hoping for from my holiday hotel.

No need to apologize Mariah; I think this sort of discussion (and having Kyronix respond) is actually good to allow and kind of shows customers aren't really being silenced at all unless they are breaking the rules.

Enjoy your holiday!

Yes, there is no gain from constant praise, and nothing in the real world is perfect.

We need to allow room for honest, even negative, feedback—as long as it’s respectful and not in violation of the TOS. Vulgar or purely toxic comments have no place, but pretending everything is fine when it’s not helps no one. Improvements only come when we acknowledge what isn’t working.

__Psycoder · July 22

I was about to post a really long reply to both @Kyronix and @Community Manager but I will skip that. I am trying to make improvements in my life by staying away from people that trigger me.

With that being said, I will add 2 points here.

@Kyronix, look at the message I sent to you about the ban from last year. Look at the post here. I was in front of my computer when I was banned for being AFK last year. I was in front of my computer when I was banned for being AFK this time as well. At this point, I am curious about what is expected from me. Should I press my face to the screen and then send you a picture whenever I am playing UO? And the main issue here is that, you have known about nonono for years, but every time this topic is brought up he gets the benefit of doubt. At the same time, I am banned even when I am in front of my computer, the GM will not spend 5 seconds to send me message, or transfer me to jail. At this point, I am confident that nonono is receiving unfair advantages that me and many others are not receiving. What is causing this?
I would like to apologize for the vulgar language, but there is no other way to explain it in a way to captures my anger about this. If condom had broken at the same time you acknowledged the housing issue at Atlantic, my kid by now would be old enough to **** talk about the UO housing issues. That is including 9 months pregnancy and couple years to start talking. Yes, this problem has been around this long... Why is it that some players get years long benefit of the doubt, where as the others are not given 5 seconds to prove their innocence?

@creampie and @Lokea here is what I came up with in 5 minutes.

Remove the timer from the house placement tool. Players are able to place a house, sell, trade, etc, with a house that they placed.
After an IDOC, a stone/lottery entry placement is spawned at the place of the house. Players can enter the lottery, if they win they get the old house that was there (without any items in the house obviously).

13x13
To be able to enter the lottery for 13x13 and smaller houses, your account must have paid membership for the last 3 months consecutively. Otherwise you cant join the lottery.
If you win the lottery for 13x13 and smaller houses, you cant sell, demolish, trade, the house for 3 months. You also can not enter other lotteries for 3 months.
Each entry for 13x13 and smaller houses starts with something like 5k non-refundable gold.
Every time you enter a new lottery, the entry price for you is doubled. so it goes 5k, 10k, 20k, 40k, 80k, 160k, 320k, ...
The only way to reset the doubling price is that you either win, or you don't bid anything for 3 months.
Players can manually start the 2 week IDOC process if they want to get rid of the house. After 2 weeks, the house is IDOC and this process starts again.

16x16
To be able to enter the lottery for 16x16 and smaller houses, your account must have paid membership for the last 6 months consecutively. Otherwise you cant join the lottery.
If you win the lottery for 16x16 and smaller houses, you cant sell, demolish, trade, the house for 6 months. You also can not enter other lotteries for 6 months.
Each entry for 16x16 and smaller houses starts with something like 20k non-refundable gold.
Every time you enter a new lottery, the entry price for you is doubled. so it goes 20k, 40k, 80k, 160k, 320k, 640k, 1.28mil, ...
The only way to reset the doubling price is that you either win, or you don't bid anything for 3 months.
Players can manually start the 2 week IDOC process if they want to get rid of the house. After 2 weeks, the house is IDOC and this process starts again.

18x18
To be able to enter the lottery for 18x18 and smaller houses, your account must have paid membership for the last 12 months consecutively. Otherwise you cant join the lottery.
If you win the lottery for 18x18 and smaller houses, you cant sell, demolish, trade, the house for 12 months. You also can not enter other lotteries for 12 months.
Each entry for 18x18 and smaller houses starts with something like 160k non-refundable gold.
Every time you enter a new lottery, the entry price for you is doubled. so it goes 160k, 320k, 640k, 1.28mil, 2.56mil, ...
The only way to reset the doubling price is that you either win, or you don't bid anything for 3 months.
Players can manually start the 2 week IDOC process if they want to get rid of the house. After 2 weeks, the house is IDOC and this process starts again.

Same thing with castles/keeps.

The idea is to

Punish repeat bidders.
Discourage bidding if you don't want to use that house.

I am sure these ideas that I spitted out in few minutes could be improved a lot. I just wanted to show that when there is a will there is a way.

Lokea · July 22

@__Psycoder you have some solid ideas, but by making the bids more expensive the bigger the house, it perpetuates the problems we currently have, and prime spots will most likely eventually still go to the people you don’t want them to go to - they are very good at adapting to changes in the game.

I get trying to tie the accounts down to the houses long enough to maybe scare off the house traders/flippers who tie up too many houses, but those restrictions are really complex and will also scare a lot of regular people away and arguably they impact the casual players more than the people you don’t care for.

I know it may seem for various reasons that everybody has a lot of gold in the bank, but that’s simply not the case. It’s especially true for returning players who left years ago with a million or maybe five or ten in the bank and thought they had a lot until they come back and see horses that were just introduced last month selling for billions, based solely on their color.

This kind of stuff needs to remain incredibly simple in order to work, and it needs to be designed with all players in mind. And don’t think in terms of gold sinks like some do - gold sinks should be ongoing and shouldn’t penalize causal players (and we should look at how some are generating new food everyday but that’s another thread). Teleporting to vendors is a good example. Making it expensive for a shot at a nice housing spot isn’t.

The restrictions you propose should all be the same regardless of the size of the plot, and they should give the casual players as much of a chance as the House flippers/RMTers, and they also shouldn’t tie the casual players down. Doubling the lottery tickets in price for every ticket bought literally prices the casual players out. Keep it simple - you can buy one ticket per account, maybe 100,000 gold, and that’s it. It’ll take plenty out of the economy if people care about that sort of thing.

Lokea · July 22

Lokea said:

And don’t think in terms of gold sinks like some do - gold sinks should be ongoing and shouldn’t penalize causal players (and we should look at how some are generating new food everyday but that’s another thread).

Errrr...I was hungry, I meant gold, not food. How a large amount of gold is apparently still entering the game every day should be looked at, but that has to be on the dev side and not something they could ever discuss publicly. We knew in the past what methods led to large amounts of gold entering the game, but it's different now.

keven2002 · July 23

Just my 2 cents here.... but I liked the idea about just making the plot (replacing whatever was there) an auction. Make there be some sort of "house auction" NPC in Brit commons that allows people to see the plots and place their bids (kinda like New Mag stalls?). You put in your max price and the bids will automatically be placed on like a 50k increment. Once the auction is over; the highest bidder has the gold automatically taken from their account. Any house that is not bid on will be left empty; free for anyone to place.

This removes most of the "profit" from placing a house and everyone has a chance to partake without relying on scripts or having 50 accounts active. I'm sure the 18x18 will still be expensive due to supply/demand but I think the smaller plots that aren't in prime spots would become cheaper for those that want a house bc the "realtors" likely aren't going to be able to outbid everyone on every house when that might mean they end up with the smaller house they can't sell for a profit.

Side note... this is essentially just ATL right? Seems like all other shards there are plenty of spots to place a house.

__Psycoder · July 23

All of these ideas are good with three exceptions IMHO.

Whomever got the house after the IDOC, should not be able to sell/transfer/demolish the house for 12 moths.
Accounts must have been paid consecutively for the last 12 months before they can join the auction/lottery.
Accounts that has won the auction/lottery cant join another auction/lottery for 12 months.

Lokea · July 23

__Psycoder said:

All of these ideas are good with three exceptions IMHO.
Whomever got the house after the IDOC, should not be able to sell/transfer/demolish the house for 12 moths.
Accounts must have been paid consecutively for the last 12 months before they can join the auction/lottery.
Accounts that has won the auction/lottery cant join another auction/lottery for 12 months.

You've just ruled out a huge chunk of players:

Returning vets who took a break and just returned
People who are nervous about committing to a house for 12 months because they either aren't sure they will want to remain in that house for 12 months or who may want to change shards.
People who are nervous about committing to a house for 12 months when they might come across an even better house.

What you haven't ruled out are RMTers and flippers who might be willing to shell out $120 for a year to sit on it and then still sell it for a few plat and sitll make a profit.

Lokea · July 23

keven2002 said:

Just my 2 cents here.... but I liked the idea about just making the plot (replacing whatever was there) an auction. Make there be some sort of "house auction" NPC in Brit commons that allows people to see the plots and place their bids (kinda like New Mag stalls?). You put in your max price and the bids will automatically be placed on like a 50k increment. Once the auction is over; the highest bidder has the gold automatically taken from their account. Any house that is not bid on will be left empty; free for anyone to place.

This removes most of the "profit" from placing a house and everyone has a chance to partake without relying on scripts or having 50 accounts active. I'm sure the 18x18 will still be expensive due to supply/demand

This auction scenario still keeps the largest/best houses in the hands of the RMTers/flippers/etc. who have a lot of gold, so what's the point? Why put dev resources into this when the outcome is literally the same - the people y'all complain about will still end up with the houses whether they place with bots or they outbid everybody else.

It does nothing to fix the situation of a small number of people controlling available/unused real estate.

You want to bring up New Magincia, go back to the 2k and 10k raffle system we had for the original 15x15s over a decade ago.

Lokea · July 23

keven2002 said:

Side note... this is essentially just ATL right? Seems like all other shards there are plenty of spots to place a house.

Any of these alternatives being pitched should only apply to Atlantic. On most other shards you can freely place towers and 18x18s.

__Psycoder · July 23

I believe some of the ideas in this thread are valid, I also think some of mine will be a good addition despite the objections.

None of us has the data the devs have. So I suggest we keep brainstorming. When the devs have the bandwidth to start looking at this, they can go over the ideas here and use the ones that match the data they have.

Lokea · July 24

__Psycoder said:

I believe some of the ideas in this thread are valid, I also think some of mine will be a good addition despite the objections.

None of us has the data the devs have. So I suggest we keep brainstorming.

We know this much - if there was some kind of bidding system where the plots go to the highest bidder, then the very same people you complain about will still control the available plots, because, surprise, surprise, they are going to have the money for it.

__Psycoder · July 24

Lokea said:
We know this much - if there was some kind of bidding system where the plots go to the highest bidder, then the very same people you complain about will still control the available plots, because, surprise, surprise, they are going to have the money for it.

I agree with this. IMHO, a lottery, where people entering lotteries too often are punished is better. Just my 2 cents though.

keven2002 · July 24

Just an FYI about the "lotteries"... that's probably just as bad given the "pro house people" have like 20-50 accounts which means they are going to get 20-50x more chances than a single player with a single account. Then they get the house and sell them...we are back where we started.

Auctioning the plot wouldn't discriminate on how many accounts someone has... only the amount of gold that person is willing to pay. By giving "free" housing, it's just going to keep being a problem bc people can make a ton of profit (place the house for maybe 200k and sell for 200mil) by selling compared to an auction where people who are interested can bid what they want... if they miss out then they can check out the next auction... I'd guess people making a living on placing/selling houses wouldn't like this idea because it pretty much removes 90-99% of their profit margin.

That said.... those people with 20-50 accts might be what is helping keep the lights on so maybe that's all the Devs are focused on right now.

Lokea · July 24

keven2002 said:

Just an FYI about the "lotteries"... that's probably just as bad given the "pro house people" have like 20-50 accounts which means they are going to get 20-50x more chances than a single player with a single account. Then they get the house and sell them...we are back where we started.

Auctioning the plot wouldn't discriminate on how many accounts someone has... only the amount of gold that person is willing to pay. By giving "free" housing, it's just going to keep being a problem bc people can make a ton of profit (place the house for maybe 200k and sell for 200mil) by selling compared to an auction where people who are interested can bid what they want... if they miss out then they can check out the next auction... I'd guess people making a living on placing/selling houses wouldn't like this idea because it pretty much removes 90-99% of their profit margin.

That said.... those people with 20-50 accts might be what is helping keep the lights on so maybe that's all the Devs are focused on right now.

People who have 20-50 accounts may have more chances than a single player with a single account in a raffle system, but it's not a player with 20-50 accounts versus a single player with a single account vying for a spot - if a thousand people enter, odds are that it's going to somebody who is not an RMTer/flipper.

Auctioning the plot to the highest bidder will still put the prime spots in the hands of the people you don't want controlling the housing market. You think that it will hurt their profit margin when the reality is they are sitting an amount of gold you might not be able to imagine, and sure they may give up on a few smaller plots (but we are talking about spots they probably don't care about anyways), but they are still going to win the prime spots, and we are back to square one.

firec · July 24

The housing prices are what they are, and will continue to be that. Are people going to start paying 20 plat for an undesirable house just because nonono paid 20 plat for it? Absolutely not.

The housing prices will all run on supply and demand. On Atlantic, currently one guy controls all of the liquid supply. He gets it for free, or, at the cost of his time to setup his cheating and pay for his cheating accounts. He then sells it for a 100% profit. If he suddenly has to start PAYING to get those houses, then in order to make a profit, he would have to raise the price on his houses. Would people pay for that higher price? I know I wouldn't (I also won't buy a house at this time because of the threat of incidentally supporting non ono.

I don't think the lottery system would work, he controls more accounts than the average person. Which as a result, he would still control more houses than the average person. This would at least put a dent in his ability to control the supply, but not one that's significant enough.

OR

Hold up. Just a thought.

Instead of wasting hours, days, weeks, years - discussing solutions to this "problem", why can't we just ban this guy and all his accounts, all at the same time, and delete everything? To me that sounds like the simplest solution to this problem.

And if he comes back?

Do it again. And again. And again. Until he gets the hint and doesn't come back.

https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/167056/houses-burning-players-banned

Pawain · July 24

Since names are being put here.

No no no
Scribbles
AR

Are they the same person?

firec · July 24

Pawain said:

Since names are being put here.

No no no
Scribbles
AR

Are they the same person?

Are we not allowed to use names? Sorry, I'm actually a returning player and am unaware if this is allowed or not.

Pawain · 1:57AM

firec said:

Pawain said:

Since names are being put here.

No no no
Scribbles
AR

Are they the same person?

Are we not allowed to use names? Sorry, I'm actually a returning player and am unaware if this is allowed or not.

Not if you are accusing them of something. I was referring to names earlier in the thread, I did not notice your post specifically.

I do like your Or option.

Theo · 6:01AM

creampie said:

Why complicated solution lol.... if you want a raffle after a idoc only put a stone and the high bidder receive it after 24 hours super easy. None will buy to resell because the price will be the market price.

This right here is the answer. Crazy good gold sink and no way for house sellers to make a profit. If the most someone will bid is 2plat and the house seller buys for 2plat - no profit.

This is super easy to implement. Just do it like and auction safe. 1 day auction on the house sign. Called out like idocs for one day.

Also - the house placement cooldown should NOT apply to toons in the middle of resizing their own home. I should get as many attempts as I want in my housing resize window.

Lastly gold sinks absolutely work in game to reduce the money supply. The problem is gold sinks are too small to soak up any meaningful amount of gold. Imagine you paid a tax of 10m per day on your house in uo and 1m a day to stable a pet and each death cost 20m. Now how soon till you are out of gold? Gold sinks do work IF there are enough and big enough to matter. 5k gold when I die is nothing when event chests drop 1700 gold and I can get 2-3 per minute. Housing auction gold sink would soak up lots of gold and eventually bring house prices down.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

Why Are Paying Customers Being Silenced on Critical Topics?

Comments