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Why Are Paying Customers Being Silenced on Critical Topics?

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  • LilyGraceLilyGrace Posts: 1,118
    Lokea said:
    Somebody said there's an IDOC in a few hours on Atlantic, a Minoc castle, so we'll see who ends up with it.

    I haven't looked yet as I'm getting ready for Mistas, but if it's in Fel, it's going to be hilarious. Note: IDOCs for billing problems or somebody rage-quitting are not funny as that represents the loss of a UO player, However, a castle in Fel on Atlantic has a lot of potential for humor.

    D'oh! I wish I'd read this soon enough to be a fly on the wall for it.

    I'm in agreement with Lokea and others who are not interested in raffles. In a raffle players with a large number of accounts will always have the advantage. Maybe an argument could be made that it's fair since they pay more each month, but it's no way to make the majority of players happy on the whole. Certainly not happy making for new or returning players. And it takes away long held traditions and fun, like back when placing houses wasn't overrun by cheaters.

    On the other hand I don't think it's fair to keep hammering at Atlantic players, telling them in effect they've made their beds with choosing to play and live on Atlantic. I read that all the time, like there should be a punishment for playing there. You can't fault someone for wanting to play on a highly populated shard.

    That said, I think there is a fix for it, but lots of people don't want that either. If moving in-between shards and shard bound equipment didn't make things so restrictive, players would be able find housing elsewhere and go where they want to fight, join groups, take part in events, etc.

    And with that said, I've come to see how the ability to move that freely between shards could disrupt established, happy, healthy player communities. That would not be a good thing. I'm speaking strictly regarding moving between shards, not at all about shard bound items. Shard bound items, without a means to turn items account bound, blows. I mean really, really blows. Like, takes a trip to Tijuana gets all liquored up and blows hard. 

    Anywho, I'm guessing multiple people have probably already suggested this so, forgive me if I'm repeating something that's already been hashed out...

    Why not create satellite shards that are just for housing? Same rules apply, only one house per account. You have a satellite moongate that brings you to your shard's Housing Only area. No mobs there to fight. You can't farm resources. You can't train skills there. You can put your house and all that goes into running and enjoying it there, deco, utilitarian items, resources, etc., including vendors.

    What are the down sides? There very well may be things that make this a bad idea. Like what? Off the top of my head it seems doable and a good solution to housing shortages on some shards.
  • PawainPawain Posts: 11,101
    Like, takes a trip to Tijuana gets all liquored up and blows hard. 

    I think you are overestimating how many posters are interested in what I'm doing on my vacation. 
    Focus on what you can do, not what you can't.
  • LilyGraceLilyGrace Posts: 1,118
    Pawain said:
    Like, takes a trip to Tijuana gets all liquored up and blows hard. 

    I think you are overestimating how many posters are interested in what I'm doing on my vacation. 
      :o :D :D  
  • LokeaLokea Posts: 267
    LilyGrace said:

    I'm in agreement with Lokea and others who are not interested in raffles. In a raffle players with a large number of accounts will always have the advantage. Maybe an argument could be made that it's fair since they pay more each month, but it's no way to make the majority of players happy on the whole. Certainly not happy making for new or returning players. And it takes away long held traditions and fun, like back when placing houses wasn't overrun by cheaters.
    I am in fact interested in raffles/lottery as a solution.  It's auctions that I'm against.

    Right now, this is what happens with an IDOC:

    IDOC -> Botters/Scripters Place -> Wealthy Players Buy House

    Under an auction, this is what happens with an IDOC:

    IDOC -> Wealthy Players Win House

    All that's changed under an auction system is that the botters/scripters are cut out of the process, and in fact, given that the botters/scripters are wealthy, they may very well end up with the house anyways. And yes, plenty of them will transition from 100% profit under the current system to only 25% profit, because it's ultimately still free money to them, and we've seen them change their business models multiple times over the past couple of decades. Regular/returning/casual players never have a chance.

    Under a raffle system, limit the number of tickets to one per account, and then it doesn't matter if the people we are talking about have 50 accounts, if there's a thousand accounts that enter, there's 950 other accounts that have an actual decent shot at winning the plot.

    I lived through the New Magincia raffle/lottery, and there was no limit on the amount of tickets and whether you were doing the 2,000 or 10,000 gold tickets, but we all at least had a fighting chance at getting something.

    You can read the analysis and results for yourself, straight from the UO devs:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20110822221846/http://mythicmktg.fileburst.net/uo/media/pdfs/Magincia%20Lottery%20Analysis.pdf

    And that analysis is insane - they broke it down by actual individual plots. There were later comments from the devs discussing how quickly the gold that was taken out of the game for the lottery was replaced, as well as what they would have done different, but I can't find those - they were in response to some player questions on maybe Stratics or UO Forums (neither of which did  a good job of archiving their old stuff with archive.org).

    Anyways, I'd prefer a ticket system (even as high as 100,000 gold for a ticket), just with the caveat that it's one ticket per account.  At least all players would have a better chance at an IDOC than the current system, or a system with the highest bid.
  • LokeaLokea Posts: 267
    LilyGrace said:

    On the other hand I don't think it's fair to keep hammering at Atlantic players, telling them in effect they've made their beds with choosing to play and live on Atlantic. I read that all the time, like there should be a punishment for playing there. You can't fault someone for wanting to play on a highly populated shard.

    It's not so much about hammering at Atlantic players, but I understand and have seen that mentality, and maybe my comments came across that way, in which case I apologize - I was treated very nicely on Atlantic when I poked around upon my return (I was even given gold and some gear, which I was able to pass on to another returning player whose original home was Atlantic, unlike mine).

    It's just that it is really an Atlantic-only problem, so any major solutions should be confined to Atlantic's situation.

    Are there bots/scripters placing IDOCs on other shards?  I have no doubt, I've occasionally seen such people hit IDOCs on LS (I haven't seen any in Fel doing that but definitely saw it on Tram) and I know there are a few flippers on LS that try to acquire high-value spots and try to drive the prices up. I'm sure it happens with other shards, and I'm sure high-interest plots (castles and prime keeps) draw the botters/scripters out.

    But when researching keep and castle spots and prices on non-Atlantic shards for my own keep/castle acquisition, I saw plenty of high-value properties going for months without selling and prices being dropped.  Properties that would go for multiple plat on Atlantic would sell in the low to medium hundreds.  

    The reason being that Vendor Search means a lot of us no longer care about "prime" spots in Luna, and on every non-Atlantic shard, any of us could easily place a max-storage customizable plot, and on most we can even go place an 18x18 or a tower if we spent a little time looking (one could do it in mere minutes on most shards).  We are not faced with an Atlantic problem of paying somebody an insane amount of gold for a decent-sized spot with the alternative of placing a 7x7 or 8x8 like it's UO in 1998  There's even keep spots available on a lot of shards in Fel and even Tram, and when I came back and surveyed all of the shards, I even saw some Luna plots on the smaller shards.  

    TLDR: non-Atlantic shards don't have the issue of a lot of prime or max-storage real estate being held by flippers/realtors/scripters/botters, so any solutions should leave us out.
  • LokeaLokea Posts: 267
    LilyGrace said:

    That said, I think there is a fix for it, but lots of people don't want that either. If moving in-between shards and shard bound equipment didn't make things so restrictive, players would be able find housing elsewhere and go where they want to fight, join groups, take part in events, etc.

    And with that said, I've come to see how the ability to move that freely between shards could disrupt established, happy, healthy player communities. That would not be a good thing. I'm speaking strictly regarding moving between shards, not at all about shard bound items. Shard bound items, without a means to turn items account bound, blows. I mean really, really blows. Like, takes a trip to Tijuana gets all liquored up and blows hard. 

    Anywho, I'm guessing multiple people have probably already suggested this so, forgive me if I'm repeating something that's already been hashed out...

    Why not create satellite shards that are just for housing? Same rules apply, only one house per account. You have a satellite moongate that brings you to your shard's Housing Only area. No mobs there to fight. You can't farm resources. You can't train skills there. You can put your house and all that goes into running and enjoying it there, deco, utilitarian items, resources, etc., including vendors.

    What are the down sides? There very well may be things that make this a bad idea. Like what? Off the top of my head it seems doable and a good solution to housing shortages on some shards.
    This I can mostly agree with you on!  The only real solution to housing shortages is not trying to manipulate the price of housing, but instead the amount of housing.  I live in what was/is one of the fastest growing cities in the US, and I see the literal issue of housing being bought up by flippers/corporations and the impact as more people move in play out every day. I see near-by apartment complexes having to maintain or drop their rates when new projects open up.

    Rather than creating new land masses, I wonder if we could tap into some other solutions:
    1. Increased storage for smaller homes. I saw item storage driving a lot of people wanting larger properties. I've even known people who acquired keeps/castles because they needed the storage.  What if a 9x9 up through a 14x14 gave you the same storage as a 15x15 through 18x18?  What if you could get the same storage in a 17x17 or 18x18 or tower as a keep? Could the servers handle it?  I would think so, as long as they aren't loading the contents of every home whenever a player shows up outside (there maybe a toggle in the EC).
    2. Instanced housing in the cities? Would a lot of people be willing to move into Sosaria's cities if they had decent storage?  Vendors would be tricky but maybe handled through Vendor Search or through a better/more condensed situation like New Magincia's stalls - a farmer's market of sorts that doesn't load unless you step inside. I have a home that borders a Zento wall/gate, and I love seeing NPCs around and being able to run over to the bank or various workshops. Wouldn't it be interesting if people lived in the actual cities, lived in homes that matched the local architecture and right next door to NPCs and NPC shops, and not just the Luna situation where you get beautiful homes that could fit into a medieval setting placed right next to Ye Olde Borg Monstrosities.  I would move to Britain in a heartbeat (West Britain, mind you, I'm a refined person!). It would bring life back to the cities.
    3. Let's talk about moongates - I think I mentioned it in another post, but I'll try to get a thread started about an old article form July of 1997. The original UO devs intended for people on different shards to be able to play together by simply going through a moongate to a shard and meeting up with their friends/guilds from other shards.  Right now, cross-shard play is limited to players with plenty of real-life money to burn, people who are making money from moving goods between shards (which screws with economies on all shards and lets a few people have an outsized influence on things) or people who have paid accounts of at least 14 years old (thankfully non-consecutive).  What if say shards were clustered based on region they originated in?  The Asian shards were clustered, the Pacific, Central, and Atlantic shards were clustered together, etc.  Clustered, not merged.  I as an LS player couldn't hop over to Atlantic or Pacific, but if I were on say Atlantic, what if I could easily move to Catskills, while still hanging on Atlantic when I want to? I could find a decent house on Catskills, and still get everything I need supplies or goods-wise on multiple shards.  If I'm a vendor, I'm able to sell to all kinds of shoppers from other shards. If I'm needing people to go hit up a dungeon with, I will be able to find them if I have multiple shards I can visit/work with, etc.  The possibilities are endless, and it could bring life back to smaller shards, while reducing the housing crunch on Atlantic.  Are the cross-shard traders going to be mad?  Maybe (but they'll have more shards to access and not be paying a lot).  Could there be a drop in revenue from shard transfers?  Maybe, but if you limit people to just a few shards within their shard's original geographic/timezone designation, there will see be costs that can be recouped.  I think player engagement would go up.  I would certainly be shard-hopping, as would many others.  Events like the Riftborne/Mistas thing woudl be easier for those on smaller shards, etc., etc.  I'll post the article later, it was interesting in general as a snapshot of UO in mid-1997 before it launched.
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