Housing Issues, Take 2

[Dom on TD]

As someone has already posted, there are at least 7 macroers running at all times. After you sell housing portal gems, then you take away the casual player's chance totally. Our only chance in the past has been to outrun him to the villa, but now we don't even have that option. This "fix" is weak at best, seems like you're encouraging him, by not doing something significant to stop him. 7 account x 7 servers = 49 possible villas. At only $50/villa profit, he's still has the ability to make $2450.00/month. Did you guys even think about this before you pitched it to us? You know who he is, and you have ways that you could really stop him. I just don't understand why you'd rather interfere with our gameplay and ability to trade housing in order to keep his accounts. I want a villa, and have been looking for almost a year now, but everytime one comes available, I never even figure out where it is before it's bought.

Subscription to AC $12.95

Villa on Ebay $80-$150

Online video game that can support a family from one person "playing" Priceless.

[Honest John]

Originally posted by Dom on TD
As someone has already posted, there are at least 7 macroers running at all times. After you sell housing portal gems, then you take away the casual player's chance totally. Our only chance in the past has been to outrun him to the villa, but now we don't even have that option. This "fix" is weak at best, seems like you're encouraging him, by not doing something significant to stop him. 7 account x 7 servers = 49 possible villas. At only $50/villa profit, he's still has the ability to make $2450.00/month. Did you guys even think about this before you pitched it to us? You know who he is, and you have ways that you could really stop him. I just don't understand why you'd rather interfere with our gameplay and ability to trade housing in order to keep his accounts. I want a villa, and have been looking for almost a year now, but everytime one comes available, I never even figure out where it is before it's bought.

Subscription to AC $12.95

Villa on Ebay $80-$150

Online video game that can support a family from one person "playing" Priceless.

I agree in principal, but lets not over state the earnings.
1. You only need one account to access all worlds at the same time. All the proposed change will do is make a macroer add a 2ed acocunt, maybe three at most. And you still only need one computer to run all of them.

2. How many cottages, villas, mansions come open each month on each world? 4-5 Cottages? maybe one villa, if that? The number of people competing does not increase the available resources. It reduces the income of each.

3. How many people are competing for these? I know people DO get some of the housing each month, not just the macroers. How many macroers are there? At least 2 per world. Devide any possible profit by at least 3 or 4. One person does NOT get them all, by any means.

So, do some math and its not anywhere near the profit some folks seem to think.

That said, its not so much the money they make as its the unfair advantage they have devleoped that sucks. Even if you feel they are not doing anything wrong, then its still an issue of people should not have to go outside the game and pay real money to get have a fair chance to get an in game item. Turbine has not banned these people because they have no proof or grounds to do so. Hes only breaking the EULA, not the COC and its VERY expensive to enforce a EULA.

What these folks are doing is upsetting and wrong in many ways. But, they do not really make anywhere near as much money as some want to believe. COmpalin about what they are doing for the right reasons. No need to inflame the issue more with faulty math.

And, when its all said and done, this proposed change will do nothing to stop this problem. NOTHING. And at most, it MIGHT affect 1-2 people per server per month who just bought a house an want to upgrade to a villa in the same 30 days. Hmm, how ofton might that happen? Even withno amcroer, they would still have to compete with all the other folks wanting a villa. So, out of maybe 6-12 people per month, maybe 1-2 of them would have succedded if the macro were not there.

Bottom, line, this really changes not one damm thing. It has NO effect but to give the apperance that Turbine is doing something.

If the result of a change does not have the desired effect, then a good programer knows, DON'T DO THE CHANGE. How many times have bugs appeared because of a change in the code that had unexpected results?

[Honest John]

Originally posted by Wolfton
Oh ok... I don't visit the boards all that much, as you can see by my post count ;)

LOL. Never a problem to see people post ideas. It good to have more people givng input and ideas. :D

[Shevali]

Don't like. It will take longer to get places now. Quests will take longer for those who don't have gems handy. If the portal hubs are too ugly, why not make them just look better. On the quest to get flagged for weepings there is a tree that is a portal (or is it a bush?) Why not make them trees, or bushes or statues or something? Why not make them like the apartments portal hubs, inside rather than out? Course this is my opinion, and I know some people will disagree/agree but...

Uh uh. Don't like it.

Barriers I don't mind, but muling/tinking on dt will be harder, lol. Maybe just on mansions/villas since they are allegience housing and should have people ready to defend, but no one else can recall to your house, so that would be hard to defend, as are apartemtns, so maybe they should be left off the drop. Apartments will be battle grounds now, all those neighbors so close together.



Shevali

[AC_Guy]

Well from what I read on VN the Gems will always be available after the portals are gone.

So this changes nothing about the ebaying of housing.

They will have 2 months to re-write ther macros to use gems and anyone who thinks they can't or wont is blind to the fact that there is around $1600 to be made a month to do this.

This change or the propsed 1 month timer WON'T I repeat WON'T
slow them down at all.

I hope Ibn will get a chance to comment on what other options might be possible but the timer is just a waste of Dev time.

[bobjava]

Waste of resources, won't stop what it is meant to and will hurt the casual player.

Put more villas in the game or Put extra chest in cottages.

Make cottages recall like mansions and villas.

Fix the problem, not the symptom.

[Dom on TD]

Honest John, I don't think he's making anywhere near that, but the fact remains that they aren't slowing this guy down a bit. They are in fact helping him by cutting his travel time down, and making the time that the villas are available down when they introduce the settlement portal gems. I, along with many others are upset about Turbine's refusal to stop him. What he's doing is screwing people over for money. He's keeping that 1-2 people each month from gaining a villa for RL profit. I play this game for fun, and it's no fun to chase down a villa, and see some guy log off as I get there, because his work for the day is done, while in the process, he shot my chance of getting a villa anytime this month down the tubes.

The point of my rant isn't Niro's profit margin, it's this: If Turbine is willing to ask for our feedback on the matter, then why don't they take real action?

[AC_Guy]

Honest John, I don't think he's making anywhere near that

Nero ALONE ( he's not the only one doing this) sells on average 21 villas a month for around $75 USD each. This is not based on wild speculation but based on his actually ebay feedback.

So YES him and others make that much from this venture. This not a hobby but a business for them.

[ShaunaEyebright]

Isn't is strange how, no matter what they propose to do, there are always a bunch of nay-sayers? When Turbine originally proposed a fix for the house-ebay issue, they wanted to limit the number of times you could use /house available. The 18 or so pages of feedback they got on that was overwhelmingly opposed to that, and the most popular solution proposed by the playerbase at the time (based on a casual read-through) was to limit house purchase to once per 30 days.

So, now Turbine has decided to implement the (seemingly) most popular proposal, and I see them getting blasted for that, as well. :eek:

I, for one, support this measure. It's not going to solve the problem, but it WILL help. If someone else has a better idea, I wish they had brought it up when Turbine opened this discussion the FIRST time. :rolleyes:

[Dom on TD]

This may be what the popular vote asked for, but does anyone believe it will solve the problem?
Did anyone ask for portal gems to the settlement portals, and removal of our means to access those portals at will?
Wouldn't you be upset if you'd been looking for a villa for months, and found out that 1 person was responsible for the ingame purchase, and Ebay sale of more villas than you have personally been inside?
Would this so-called solution pacify you? Well, it doesn't pacify me in the least. I'm tired of house hunting only to see this guy clock out, log off, or whatever he calls it when he's done aquiring a villa to sell and pay his electric bill. The guy needs to get a job and give us 8 hours/day that we might be able to catch one open.

[bule elf]

House is a part of game
wanna nerf , get off all house in ac, or add more than 2000 house in AC.

1 month timer will make me *LoL*
why? see below
Small shard also is a part of game, someone camp small shards and ebay it. assume he have profit. yup yup yup. ppls complaint.
then turbine say next patch pick up small shard have 1 month timer. HAHAHA. use timer= poor porgramer, poor dev. poor decision.

Really just want ask: Hide the coordinates is a big deal to Turbine?

[Honest John]

Originally posted by ShaunaEyebright
Isn't is strange how, no matter what they propose to do, there are always a bunch of nay-sayers? When Turbine originally proposed a fix for the house-ebay issue, they wanted to limit the number of times you could use /house available. The 18 or so pages of feedback they got on that was overwhelmingly opposed to that, and the most popular solution proposed by the playerbase at the time (based on a casual read-through) was to limit house purchase to once per 30 days.

So, now Turbine has decided to implement the (seemingly) most popular proposal, and I see them getting blasted for that, as well. :eek:

I, for one, support this measure. It's not going to solve the problem, but it WILL help. If someone else has a better idea, I wish they had brought it up when Turbine opened this discussion the FIRST time. :rolleyes:

I, for one, commend Turbine for trying. But, this will not help in any way, so why do it? No one has yet explained how this will reduce the impact of the macroers. A solution that actualy worked, even if it had negitiave effects on the rest of us would at least be something worth discussing. This is just a waste of time. And changing code when you know you won't get the desired results is even worse.

I would much rather have real options to discuss than one that quite clearly WILL NOT WORK. Give me real options to dicsuss and I can decide it I want to accept the negitiave or if the cure is worse than the problem.

[bule elf]

One more thing

IF really need add 1 month time. WHY Apartments doesn't need 1 month Timer? Apartment also is a HOUSE, Also have Chest. etc.
Just no one camp apartment? have many apartment still available? if so, ADD more cottage/villa/mansion (who need? ATM)
It's YOUR problem. If you add enough villa/cottage/mansion for players. ALL problem solved.

Timer just for Cottage/villa/Mansion that is let me feeling YOUR turbine againts TO Niro/nero? (sp) and causal house camper ONLY. The causal house camper who also player AC, but they have put interested in CAMP HOUSE. and gaint in game profit.

IF HAVE ONE MONTH TIMER, PLEASE ADD TO APARTMENT TOO. more Fair.

[Hunter]

I like the one month time

but perhaps a week timer would eb better

[Tara Malkav]

Perhaps some apartments\storage could be removed for the lack of interest in them and Turbine could introduce a few more cottages because of high interest in them. On a general day there are usually atleast 100+ available apartments and maybe 1 cottage. Why not remove 100 apartments and add in a few more cottage settlements?

[Sprawl]

Let's say I have 10 accounts. I could buy a house on each account and rotate worlds. That means I could basically have 10 houses per month times eight server worlds (8 now? I forget). 80 houses per month still sounds like a very good business...

Sprawl

[Tara Malkav]

Doesn't Niro usually only buy Villas though? Maybe he'll start selling cottages now.. I don't know. I'm not the kind of person who goes searching on Ebay for game items. :( You also have to take into account how often a villa actually goes up for sale...

[Nemesis-SC]

Very nice sutle approach to this problem.. Now if only your other ideals were as sutle. Quit trying to fix things with a baseball bat and I think you'll see some improvements

[obie]

I have two suggestions to further equalize the houseing bots and the casual player. One or the other would help players

1) put a 5 minute delay between "/house available" commands. Allow the command to be entered as often as wanted, but if less than 5 minutes has passed it woul just would just show the last refresh.

2) Change the wat /house available command works. when entered it would show the houses available. From that point forward and change in houses available would send a message to players watching via a filterable global message. That way bots and players will get the message as soon as the house is available.

[KPD157]

I Posted on Page 9 (http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?postid=42686#post42686) a Way to fix the problem I also created a forum thread Here (http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?threadid=3799&highlight=Housing+Issue) that never got a response from anyone :)

[Tormar]

Why not just ban the folks selling things on eBay as they are breaking CoC? That seems the simplest solution.

[neuro]

(excuse me if I didn't read the 20 pages before to see if this was suggested, if so just ignore it)

How about a timer on the expired housing, 30 days before anyone can buy it except the previous owner. This would stop the grief selling as well as give the owner to catch that missed payment if he so desired the place still. Might cut down on support issues with people losing their housing too.

Just a thought.

[Dom on TD]

Why not just release housing with expired maintenance all at once on the next month? Let the ones that are abandoned be bought by other players so that normal trading could continue, but wait to release the expired ones on the next patch like new housing. Could you change the item too? Give it a new item (one that isn't currently a housing item), so that everyone has an equal chance at it. That would cut down Niro's Villa scalping I would think. Yes, many people would be sleeping or working when they were released, but I'd much rather see villas bought ingame by people that want them than some guy that uses them for a source of income. It's just a suggestion.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by AC_Guy
Ibn:

Just want a clarification on this:

Will we be able to buy the gems all the time or only for 1 month after the portals are gone ?

All the time. In addition, these are portal summon gems, not recall gems, and the portals that they summon are tie-able and recall-able.

[AC_Guy]

Thanks Ibn for they reply !

Any chance you will be able to comment weither you intend to implement the 1 month timer or is there still the possiblity of doing something else ?

After 20 pages of comments it seems to be the least effective at reducing ebay macros.

I just hope you will be able to consider other idea's that might be worth of turbine's time and effort.

[Dom on TD]

Talk about disappointment! 5 days and 19 pages of discussion, and IBN's only response was to a question that was off topic. I'm not dogging you AC Guy, at least you got him to respond;) , that's more than the rest of us could do.

[Ghorak]

Originally posted by Boddhisatva
If it were one villa per account per month it might work. I don't think it'll work this way. Niro can afford any number of accounts at these profit margins. I'm afraid that there will still be no villas available for anyone other than Niro. :/

I once again must say that I feel the only way to end this is to return the housing to the Arcanum when abandoned. The arcanum can then randomly release that housing in the next 30 days or so... or 7 days or 24 hours or whatever.

If Niro cannot abandon the property for the buyer he's out of business.

I'm sorry if this interferes with those that want to sell housing (or give it away) in game but I see no other solution.


This solution has my vote.

[TimTheFoolish]

Do items in the game have some kind of creation date/time? If so, why couldn't you require that the trophy item for a house purchase be "fresh", i.e. found after the housing unit becomes available?

That way a person would have to go looking for a trophy item after a house is released, and stockpiling items for a purchase would be useless.

In fact, if each housing unit that becomes available required a random trophy item, then a person would have to travel physically to the housing unit, find out which trophy item was needed, hunt for the item, and then return to purchase the housing unit.

This is exactly what I did when I finally bought my cottage a couple of months ago.

Tim the Foolish - MT
60th level weapons "master"

[sublimaze]

I once again must say that I feel the only way to end this is to return the housing to the Arcanum when abandoned. The arcanum can then randomly release that housing in the next 30 days or so... or 7 days or 24 hours or whatever.


I vote for this as well.

[Rojon]

Unfortunately that means players can't trade housing.

That's a poor option.

[Willow]

Ok, that's it. I vote that we string Niro up by his pyreals and run away.

No seriously, I've posted ideas on this thread, but if they aren't used, I highly suggest an administrative solution, rather than a player-wide one. If not that, then just make more storage available to the casual player. Then there won't be a market for the Niro's of the world.

WE JUST WANT A PLACE FOR OUR STUFF! :-))))))

[Roadkill]

Ok, I realize I'll probably be called all sorts of names for this but here's my opinion on the best solution to people selling stuff on ebay...

If people would simply quit paying real life money for imaginary items (in game items) there would be no problem. I just don't understand being desperate enough to pay real life money for an in-game item. It is my opinion that the people who are paying real money for in-game items are just as much of a problem... because they encourage those who sell in-game items to continue to do so.

Anyways, thats my opinion...

Let the flaming commence.

[AC_Guy]

I once again must say that I feel the only way to end this is to return the housing to the Arcanum when abandoned. The arcanum can then randomly release that housing in the next 30 days or so... or 7 days or 24 hours or whatever.

A few issues with this I don't see how this would slow down ebay'ers ? THe BOT is still running 24/7 and will STILL buy it the sec it goes up for sale.

It would require that the /abandon NOT fall into this so that legit trading could be done.

[Dom on TD]

Yes, the macoers could purchase them, but they couldn't sell them. Once they release them it goes back to th Arcanum. So it would totally put the real estate agents out of business.

[Draven Jones]

all your doing is putting a bandaid on broken arm. Take it down at the source make RL transactions violate the T.o.S punishable by account termination and fines for selling copywritten Interlectual property.

Then have ebay BAN all AC related sales outside of selling the origional software. Macroers, EBayers will always find a loophole or excuse for what there doing by saying its not in the T.o.S patch the holes and they have no excuses for violating the T.o.S.

Also police the game. I.E the spammers in the marketplaces. Trying to paypal there stuff.

[TimTheFoolish]

Originally posted by Rojon
Unfortunately that means players can't trade housing.

That's a poor option.

OK. Here is a modification to my suggestion. If a player releases a housing unit, they have the option of naming another player as an opt-in for first chance to purchase the housing unit. They have a week, lets say, to find the random trophy item. If the character selected is not able to find the item, the owner is then given the chance to retain the housing unit or release it. Otherwise all housing the is released or otherwise made available by the Arcanum requires a "fresh" random trophy item.

I think that will work and be a reasonable solution.

Tim the Foolish - MT
60th level weapons "master"

[Ot Wintersebb]

I am a casual player. (Just to put my comments in perspective.)

I don't own anything more than an apartment. Why do I even own one of those? Well, the storage is the thing for me. I have one main and a couple of mules to help store stuff I want to save.

For the casual player, storage is the thing.

I imagine that a few players get cottages or villas for the location as well, but I'm not sure.

I never found a house available when I used the command.

I like the prior suggestion to make storage lockers available for rent in the towns. Those who don't own even an apartment can find muling a pain. If we could rent a locker and lock it with a 4 digit key, then muling could be done safely in town at the locker site.

[alderom]

Tim what would stop an ebayer to use that system to sell to his clients? Any way of making it easier to pass housing from one person to another only makes it easier to sell them on ebay. There's no way to distinguish between a normal player and someone who runs it like a business without a ton of resources and insane coding work put into it. Even then there would be a lot of problems probably and refining to do. Returning it to the arcanum is the only plausible solution to stop them because then there would be no way to transfer the house to someone else.

[Moons]

I think allowing someone to buy and release any time, but not being able buy another until a month is up is great.
Even better that it effects all characters on their account.
Can be set to include if they delete toons and make new ones?
iIf you know what your doing, it is relatively easy to get a toon up to the level req to buy a house. You need to be sure someone dont have a blank account, just makes a guy to buy/sell, then deletes it to make a new toon to do it again.
The timer has to be in place even if they deleted all their toons on that account.

[Sabresiberian]

I think the plan of making housing purchases possible once a month will hurt me by making villas in particular even harder to buy; the price will go up and the availability will really be no different since it is so close to 0 anyway.

I play on Harvestgain almost exclusively.

I tried to find housing other than apartments without using a third party program and found that to be impractical. Using 'Real Estate" I found that cottages came available daily, and it wasn't long before I had a cottage for each of my 2 accounts. If cottages were what I wanted I would no longer find 'Real Estate' useful, but what I really want are villas.

Villas come up once in a great while - I would say once every month - and are immediately gone in under 5 minutes usually.

It would be nice to know if these villas are sold on Ebay or if someone made a trade agreement in game for in game items before the villa was made available.

Remember Hoary robes? they were unattainable except by trade for lots of loot until you made them available by hunting again. The price dropped dramatically and now a Hoary robe is worth 1-2 sings on Harvestgain instead of 20, 50, or more sings. It looks to me like you could solve the housing problems the same way, by greatly increasing the housing people want.

On Harvestgain there are always apts available and every day cottages come available. Villas are rare, though. If villas became common the price on Ebay would drop to 0. The trade value ingame would also drop.

The game is not enhanced in any way by villas being so rare, rather it is more tedious and frustrating and way over in my 'not any fun at all' category. The biggest reason to make villas more readily available is to increase the fun factor of the game :)

HEY! Don't take away hubs! They are very useful and my characters don't have to carry arround a load of gems to get where they want to go by shortest route possible. The aesthetics of hubs never came up in my mind; since it has come up I say hubs are so functional that they are beautiful :)

[AC_Guy]

I could have sworn I saw a post by Ibn saying the 1 month timer idea was not happening and that he would start another thread when they had other solutions to propose...

Err but I can't seem to find it...

[StormLaery]

I have another idea. Especially when it comes to the whole selling villa's mansion's on ebay thing....


Random trophy reset.

You see, when ppl buy a cottage or villa from someone else, be it in game, or on ebay (or other third party places), you are not actually paying for the dwelling itself. You are paying someone to release said dwelling, and you are paying for the trophy item said dwelling needs at time or repurchase. Therefor the seller guarantees that said buyer can purchase specific dwelling.

But what if said seller COULD NOT make that guarantee? Once a cottage or villa is released, the trophy item changes randomly. The seller loses his edge, because no one is going to pay someone to release a dwelling if there is a possibility he may still not get the dwelling.

For the mansions, add the trophy item to their purchase, and continue as above.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by annunu
My concern is that these people need upfront warning when they purchase the house such as a window that pops up saying "Are you sure you want to purchase this dwelling? You may not purchase another one within 30 days from now."

That's an excellent idea, I'm sending it over to the team.

[TimTheFoolish]

Originally posted by alderom
Tim what would stop an ebayer to use that system to sell to his clients? Any way of making it easier to pass housing from one person to another only makes it easier to sell them on ebay. There's no way to distinguish between a normal player and someone who runs it like a business without a ton of resources and insane coding work put into it. Even then there would be a lot of problems probably and refining to do. Returning it to the arcanum is the only plausible solution to stop them because then there would be no way to transfer the house to someone else.

The point of my original post was that housing units that were released would require the trophy item to be "found" after the house is released. This would level the playing field for housing units that were released without a buyer specified (or because the maintenence was not paid) since a player could not stockpile housing items, run to an open house, and buy it. This seems to be how the majority of housing units are picked up by the bots anyway. And if the item needed was random for each housing unit that was released, you would have to travel to the housing unit to see what item was needed. How many people would seriously write a bot that has to run to a villa, see what items are needed, go find the items on creatures, and return to make the purchase? Especially with a good chance that someone else will find the items before them?

[Rojon]

Originally posted by Ibn
That's an excellent idea, I'm sending it over to the team.
You know, no offense but it seems silly to me you have enough Envoys to uninscribe items on demand, but not enough staff to deal with the ebaying of housing, and have to come up with these sub-optimal player nerfs...

[bowtrox]

I dont think the timer is a good idea. yes some use houses as a means of making profit in game as well as out of game. so what! to some (myself included), house hunting is like hunting critters. I dont and never have macro'd for a house. so due to a few bad apples you are throwing out the baby with the bath water. maybe we should all complain about rent on our current houses or that we should all have villas. (one villa per acct is only fair) so come on turbine, be the leftists you seem to be and just give everyone a villa, so all the whining will quit. GIVE EVERYONE A VILLA- IT IS ONLY FAIR!!!!!!

[Doug Dennis Sr]

Yes, the alternative suggestion would be the best solutions. That being the timer on the house and not the account.

Originally posted by Flynn
1) Will that timer apply to your entire account, or just each character? If it's by character, then it really wouldn't make too much difference, even on one account a player can still buy 35 villas a month across all white servers, which is probably not far off what any macro-operating players currently do.

2) Most players have more than one account these days. In fact, you're even specifically allowing players to buy just the CD key for additional accounts. Anyone with 5 accounts will be able to buy as many villas as in the example above, and to be blunt, I don't think it'll be enough.

I'd suggest that one month isn't enough, at least not for villas or mansions. It costs $12.95 for the account, and villas are being sold for around $50-70 on Ebay. Even if a macroer only manages to acquire a villa once every 2 months per account, that's still a reasonable profit. I'd say the timer should be four months if you purchase a villa or mansion.

An alternative suggestion would be to put the timer on the house itself, not the player. If you buy a house, that house can't be bought again for another month. That way it doesn't matter how many accounts you've got, you're still not going to be able to sell any macro-acquired property within a month. :)

[Doug Dennis Sr]

Very good idea!!!!!!!

Originally posted by Ot Wintersebb
I am a casual player. (Just to put my comments in perspective.)

I don't own anything more than an apartment. Why do I even own one of those? Well, the storage is the thing for me. I have one main and a couple of mules to help store stuff I want to save.

For the casual player, storage is the thing.

I imagine that a few players get cottages or villas for the location as well, but I'm not sure.

I never found a house available when I used the command.

I like the prior suggestion to make storage lockers available for rent in the towns. Those who don't own even an apartment can find muling a pain. If we could rent a locker and lock it with a 4 digit key, then muling could be done safely in town at the locker site.

[Doug Dennis Sr]

The only thing I agree with this statement is what is the reason for not making villas more available.

Originally posted by Sabresiberian
I think the plan of making housing purchases possible once a month will hurt me by making villas in particular even harder to buy; the price will go up and the availability will really be no different since it is so close to 0 anyway.

I play on Harvestgain almost exclusively.

I tried to find housing other than apartments without using a third party program and found that to be impractical. Using 'Real Estate" I found that cottages came available daily, and it wasn't long before I had a cottage for each of my 2 accounts. If cottages were what I wanted I would no longer find 'Real Estate' useful, but what I really want are villas.

Villas come up once in a great while - I would say once every month - and are immediately gone in under 5 minutes usually.

It would be nice to know if these villas are sold on Ebay or if someone made a trade agreement in game for in game items before the villa was made available.

Remember Hoary robes? they were unattainable except by trade for lots of loot until you made them available by hunting again. The price dropped dramatically and now a Hoary robe is worth 1-2 sings on Harvesgain instead of 20, 50, or more sings. It looks to me like you could solve the housing problems the same way, by greatly increasing the housing people want.

On Harvestgain there are always apts available and every day cottages come available. Villas are rare, though. If villas became common the price on Ebay would drop to 0. The trade value ingame would also drop.

The game is not enhanced in any way by villas being so rare, rather it is more tedious and frustrating and way over in my 'not any fun at all' category. The biggest reason to make villas more readily available is to increase the fun factor of the game :)

HEY! Don't take away hubs! They are very useful and my characters don't have to carry arround a load of gems to get where they want to go by shortest route possible. The aesthetics of hubs never came up in my mind; since it has come up I say hubs are so functional that they are beautiful :)

[Doug Dennis Sr]

Another good idea!!!!! The only issue that comes to mind with this solution is the lost value of owning a cottage or villa and not receiving any value in return if you intend to stay in the game. IE a lot of effort goes into the purchasing of a cottage or villa and if by chance an individual player would want to move to another location, the individual would lose any equity that may have occurred in the ownership of a cottage or villa.

A possible solution would be to establish some type of real estate market within the game. Where players could offer their game house in the game for purchase by another character. One would think that this would resolve the issue of ebay selling. Only in game items could be used for purchase of a house. Which brings to mind, how would you be able to restrict individuals from selling a game house outside of the game. Solutions, a transfer of a house in game could only be done by something such as a writ of housing. It could be something like a deed of transfer that you would have to get from NP. Still the issue is there where an individual would take advantage of this situation and still sell on ebay.

The issue that remains is how can a transfer of game house be done and still restrict any outside of game influence of the transfer.

Originally posted by StormLaery
I have another idea. Especially when it comes to the whole selling villa's mansion's on ebay thing....


Random trophy reset.

You see, when ppl buy a cottage or villa from someone else, be it in game, or on ebay (or other third party places), you are not actually paying for the dwelling itself. You are paying someone to release said dwelling, and you are paying for the trophy item said dwelling needs at time or repurchase. Therefor the seller guarantees that said buyer can purchase specific dwelling.

But what if said seller COULD NOT make that guarantee? Once a cottage or villa is released, the trophy item changes randomly. The seller loses his edge, because no one is going to pay someone to release a dwelling if there is a possibility he may still not get the dwelling.

For the mansions, add the trophy item to their purchase, and continue as above.

[Doug Dennis Sr]

Excellent idea!!!!!
Especially where the trophy item would only become available after the house has been released.

This brings up the idea of how can players benefit from the equity in their in game house. Once a house becomes available, the race is on, which would include getting a deed of transfer, that could be made available to NP from the original owner of the house. The only way they could acquire this deed of transfer would be to give the NP the random trophy item after the house has been released. (Released in the idea that the owner has signed over the house to a NP.) Which gives me an idea of an equity value for the house: XP. (Possible tied into the length one owns a house.)

By creating a situation where the original owner has no influence on the outcome of the purchase of the in game house and is solely controlled by other players interested in purchasing that house, only after an individual has turned over the house to a NP.

As for the game purpose of players enjoyment, just like chess or fishing. Real Estate

Originally posted by TimTheFoolish
The point of my original post was that housing units that were released would require the trophy item to be "found" after the house is released. This would level the playing field for housing units that were released without a buyer specified (or because the maintenence was not paid) since a player could not stockpile housing items, run to an open house, and buy it. This seems to be how the majority of housing units are picked up by the bots anyway. And if the item needed was random for each housing unit that was released, you would have to travel to the housing unit to see what item was needed. How many people would seriously write a bot that has to run to a villa, see what items are needed, go find the items on creatures, and return to make the purchase? Especially with a good chance that someone else will find the items before them?

[Doug Dennis Sr]

Right on with this idea!!!!!

Originally posted by Boddhisatva
If it were one villa per account per month it might work. I don't think it'll work this way. Niro can afford any number of accounts at these profit margins. I'm afraid that there will still be no villas available for anyone other than Niro. :/

I once again must say that I feel the only way to end this is to return the housing to the Arcanum when abandoned. The arcanum can then randomly release that housing in the next 30 days or so... or 7 days or 24 hours or whatever.

If Niro cannot abandon the property for the buyer he's out of business.

I'm sorry if this interferes with those that want to sell housing (or give it away) in game but I see no other solution.

[Doug Dennis Sr]

Interesting idea about limiting the number of /house, could work with several other options.

Originally posted by MaddyFF
Personally, I don't like being limited on what I can do on in game, quests are the exception.



That is not 100% correct, every world has plenty of housing available, it is just that people don't want an apartment, or in some cases a cottage. They want a villa, especially if they are a monarch.

That all said, even though I don't like this solution and might have prevented me from owning a mansion, it would work. I still think limiting the /house available command to something like 10 a day would have been a better solution.

[Shidoshi]

What I would like to see happen to the housing issue is this. If you sell a house on Ebay, and the sale is final, and the house changes hands. Ban the account that did the selling, and suspend for one month and remove ownership of the house that was sold to the buyer.

Every house that is sold for profit, in my opinion is Turbines responsibility. They created the housing shortage by not meeting the demands.

Apartments with 2 chests would easily fix this issue

[AC_Addict]

Please also stop people with inactive subscriptions from hoarding all the good housing. I don't care if they play, as long as they pay.

Yeah yeah, still allow others to pay rent for you, but only if your sub is active.

I understand you wouldn't be able to put this in place until you get the billing system, but can you confirm or deny this is being considered as a valid enhancement?

Thanks

[Doug Dennis Sr]

This brings up an interesting idea. How would this work out with owners of cottages that want to move up to a villa: After a period of time of ownership, the owner would be offered the chance to convert his cottage into a villa.

Originally posted by AC-Vet
The Best Idea yet that comes to mind....

Because of the shortage of Mansion in game, Villas became a substitute mansion for ppl making new clan's. this will make clans plentiful for players to choose from and this having the ability of a central location that clan members could recall too...thus serving smaller clans.....unlike mansions that the monarch has to meet requirements to purchase and maintain....Villas have no requirments....and because they serve as mansions substitues or for wealthy players.

I say from this point on, All Villa's comming to market require a minimum amount of follower to obtain.....IF I been trying to start a clan and have the followers to obtain a villa as a substitute mansion then this should be 1 of the main considerations for purchasing villas.....now for current villa owners, this will not effect you til your villa is abanded by you.....

Just food for thought.
Much rather see alteratives than mass punishment and timers.

[Yggdrasill]

Consider allowing trading of equal value housing (cottage for cottage) for those players that would like to just move locations. That would allow those players that want a change for the local hunting, or even just for asthetics to change locations without a big hastle. Maybe as easy as trading deeds with another writ each?

Of course, the 30 day timer should also be applied here. :D

[Shevali]

Well, I've thought a bit about the barriers. Mansions barriers down would be a fun idea. One monarchy could stage raids on another, and since people could recall there, they could defend it. The only thing that i've changed my mind about, is villa barriers. Most of the villa owners are not monarchs. So that means their vassals can not recall right? I've not tried this, so i may be wrong. So those guys would be on their own with their mules in most cases.

Yeah, some people on dt say drop the barriers etc. But I ask this. If they want them all dropped, then why do all the housing settlements i run into have their barriers up? I think that alone should speak about what people say about barriers.

:)

If you don't want your barriers, drop em. You got the option :)

[Dereth Mozart]

According to something I read in this post, it sounded like you said you don't have the ability to span the timer across worlds, but yet in Leafcull I have an unhoused character that I wanted to get a house for, and in the help section to the right (where you can get some info in general), it said that if for example you buy a house in morningthaw, you can't buy one in another world unless you abandon the first house.
So I'm confused, because that sounded like you do span across worlds to me. Which in a way is a touch unfair isn't it? It means if someone plays in more than one world, and honestly wants to have a house for their characters, they can't without abandoning the original in another world. I can get the wording for you word by word, perhaps I misunderstood, but it sounded clear to me.
I think if it does span across worlds, then why can't characters in another world use the house too? Or why can't they exchange items across worlds, if the restrictions will go across worlds? And what of someone who plays in two worlds, and just honestly needs a house for more storage in one world, but has a house in the other world? It's after midnight, maybe I'm just not understanding clearly, but what was said in this post just didn't match what I read in the help guide online, so maybe you can understand my confusion. :confused:

[Ibn]

Where exactly did you see this reference? I went looking for it in the flip-help and couldn't find it.

At any rate, it's not correct -- it's currently possible for the same account to have a house on multiple worlds.

[AFWriter]

^^^^^^^
/e looks at Ibn's post above.

Ibn speaks the truth (duh!), one account can have a house on each server.

So yep, that's the biggest reason Niro (and his ilk) could care less about the 30-day house timer.

Multiple accounts = not an issue.

Later,

Don!

P.S. Whoa, the new post timer is a weasel .... six minutes! At least it promotes longer and more edited posts -- I hope!

[Dom on TD]

You need to update the ingame help then. Click the "?" in the top right corner, and then click housing, and Purchasing a house. It clearly states what Dereth Mozart posted.

You can't really blame a guy for not trying it since the ingame help told him it wasn't possible.

[Ibn]

Ahhh... interestingly, I do not have the latest version of the file that controls what you see in the flip-help. (That's what the text you get when you click the ? is called.) When I click that, there's nothing about housing whatsoever.

At any rate, yes, that needs to be fixed.

[MachFoo]

Hello,

This is my second post in years, and I was pleased that my first post in years had an effect. Thus I am encouraged to write a second.

I have to admit I skipped to the end of this thread to try and get a read on where it had ended. As I suspected, with a lot of big hard to code wish lists.

My suggestion is not to expand upon housing, but to expand upon Apartments. Apartments don’t clutter up the countryside. I would think they would be similar to coding a dungeon, something you already have the tools for making.

Expansion on apartments could include various qualities and sizes of apartments. Mostly to include more hooks, and chests for players to enjoy, also something more individual as perhaps there could be a random variance perhaps in the room layouts.

Upon admiring Ulgrim’s basement, it was much like what I would like to see available for players. The ability to display one’s trophies, to store one’s weapons and armor in an armory, to have storage areas that look like storage areas, etc.

Also, as far as entering these dungeon/apartments, this could be handled with much of the existing game mechanics. I could go off track with my own examples but will only point to said existing game features as portal gems, scrolls that teach new portals spell, and items you use to activate a portal. Everyone’s imagination could run wild from there.

Perhaps to handle this new load of information, a new server for such apartments and their increased storage capacities for players would be needed. I would like to think this could be easier to integrate than perhaps tampering with the entire world code to suite outdoor housing changes.

What I would like to point out is that it gives the average player, not the elite power levelers, or those who exploit or use 3rd party utilities, or people who resort to out of game buying and bartering, a chance to have decent housing. As is, the housing situation is dismaying to new and casual users. Even the existing apartments can be daunting in finding an open one at times.

You could keep the existing apartments and housing, and just add these as a new feature, lairs, or penthouses, or personal dungeons, however you wish to implement them into the game world. I am speculating that for the efforts and expenditure of time and resources, this would be well spent and your customers would be very happy. Not to mention, it would be very attractive to new players, and old players who have left, taking a new look at the game.

While I am here, I would like to touch on a couple of other suggestions.

#1. Update the graphics engine please. This venerable technology has to be more trouble than it’s worth. AC has fantastic game play, its time not only for its graphics to improve, not just for eye candies sake, but also for performance. You could keep the art for now and improve it later as time and budget allows, but for the sake of quality game performance, upgrade.

#2. Code and implement your own front end for entering the game. I can understand Microsoft wanting to keep a hand on the purse strings until you own this game lock, stock and barrel, but please negotiate with them. Brower based entry into this game for the lack of a more eloquent description, SUCKS! The hoops one has to jump through sometimes to just get into this game will annoy new customers, and perhaps drive them away if initially they can’t get in. The last thing you need is bad press about difficulties getting into the game, especially when you are making a reentry into the gaming market.

In regards to placating Microsoft, I would negotiate that their databases still be used for customer payments and the verifications of such, but all other gateway performances be your responsibility. This way MS is guaranteed their cut of the pie, and are relieved of the burden and responsibility of maintaining the gateway, which frankly they are doing a poor job of. Its good for them, and you and better yet, its good for the players.

Thank you,

Mach Foo

[Tenzin]

Response

1. House as quest. That was the original intention I think. Enhance the quest.

2. Third party tools that enhance the game are good.

3. 1 month timer=== its a quest.

4 Aside: Turbine owns the property, its their realstate. We are renters. Turbine can grant ownership, afterall its a monarchy.

5. Honesty and fairness.

[Zarchon]

I see a lot of complaining about Niro and housing. I agree that non-active accounts should probably not have housing. I understand that Niro PROBABLY doesn't PLAY much, just hunts housing. He then sells this housing on Ebay. How many inactive accounts have purchased these houses? He is getting the housing into the hands of active players, bravo. He isn't supposed to sell anything on ebay. Why? COC? yeah, but why not allow people to sell stuff? Because Turbine will not get their cut. I bought Dark Majesty so that I could get housing. Not a guarantee of housing, just the ability to try and get housing. That cost me $40. Now along comes a guy who gaurantees me a house for half that price. That's a cheap expansion in my opinion only Turbine didn't get the money. And no, I never purchased a house in game. I am one of the people not upset over people selling on ebay or trying to be relators ingame.

[Weary One]

I must chime in to say that I disagree with the limit of how many times or how often we can buy houses.

CapFan and AC-Vet said it best in their replies on pages 3 and 7 respectively in this thread. Those pretty much sum up the reasons for which this idea should be abandoned.

Personally, I am a combination of buyer number 2 and 3 on CapFan's list. I enjoy the goodies left in housing by folks who have left the game. I also love helping guildmates and friends out by giving them the cottages and once in awhile villas when I can get one. The thrill of the house hunt, and the goodies, and the helping people, I love it all!

For all of the people supporting this idea, my guess is that not all of you are looking for a cottage or villa currently. Many of you probably already have one that you are happy with. So my question to you is, although you disagree with the ethics of what the Ebay sellers are doing, how is it personally affecting you? If they put a limit on the house buying, it will affect me and my playstyle. It will affect my ability to provide housing for my guildmates and friends. It will take away a portion of the fun I have in this game.

Turbine, please, don't take away the fun I have in house hunting. Go after the Ebayers in some other way if you have to, but not by changing the way housing works. Make the house buying macros quit working, or make a deal with Ebay to not allow virtual game item sales on their auctions...Just don't punish all of us regular CoC abiding people for the acts of a few.



Oh, and to those of you who think an inactive player shouldn't have housing....I would agree that maybe it shouldn't go on for an extended period of time. But there are reasons (financial, illness, or other) why some of us take a 1-3 month break for RL sometimes. If we have a friend who will pay maintenance for us, I think that is fair. I suppose if someone is gone for say 4-6 months or more, it would be fair to say they can't keep the housing, and let it become available to others again.

[dz366]

I think that selling housing on ebay should be outlawed like it was with selling accounts. Every time I try to bring a new friend of mine into playing the game, the first thing they want to do is to get a house of some sort and not those lame apartments (which I think should be removed and something more appealing put in)
so I usually have to tell them that they either have to pay an outrageous amount of money on ebay to get one, or play till they have an outrageous amount of sings to buy a house, villa. People are making a lot of money IRL and IG being Landlords in the game. I mean come on, they have 6-7 accounts and each owns a cottage, villa, maybe even a mansion. That makes it real hard for people who are coming into the game to use that feature of the game just because of the greediness of others who are hording housing.......Well flame away

[Dereth Mozart]

Well, honestly someone here mentioned that a house cannot be purchased without buying it for a lot of sings etc, but in truth that's not the case at all. I have a house for my characters in TD, and I didn't pay for it on ebay, nor did I buy it in game. What I did was get off my bum, collect one of every housing item there is, keep in tow those and one writ (which I got from the writ of refuge quest), and three M notes. I kept nothing on my main character that would bog her down, kept nothing in my apartment that I cared to keep, and during the off time while waiting for a house to become available, I sat and went through every single housing portal, made note of the fastest and more direct routes, kept myself buffed in case I ran into something bigger, and lastly, searched out the houses, watching the locations of those that appeared to be abandoned and emptied out with the current maintenance not paid.
Yes it's a lot of work, but it gave me something to while away the time while waiting, and I did miss about 5 houses but within a week I got my house and again I say, without paying for it.
I'd like to point out that it's probably not feasible for everyone to be online in the early morning hours, but if you are, that's when I've seen them come up more often.
I have no complaint about finding a house, but I would still like to see those selling them on ebay squelched. Because for one, you're right in saying it's unfair for those wanting a villa. It's taking extreme advantage of others, making a real time profit off something that's fictional, which no one can really keep. If the game were ever closed down, or if the person buying the villa lost their account, or if something else I can't think of just now were to happen, there goes the villa.
I don't know what's worse really, the one taking advantage of others, or those who are fool enough to actually pay money for something unreal. For the price they're selling villa's I'd rather spend that money on myself and enjoy it.
I apologize if this seems wordy, it's just that it's utter nonsense to let people sell something that's not theirs to sell. Owning an account doesn't mean they own what's in the game. Would you like, for example, to have someone sell you a car only to find that it didn't belong to you because the seller didn't really own it?
It's the same here. All things in game belong to Turbine, and we're just leasing the right to use it via our subscriptions.

[Lloth]

The one month timer sounds like a great idea. While I'm clueless about the macro buyers, I'd imagine theres a plugin to do anything in the game. I personally don't think it's right for someone to be able to purchase up mass amounts of housing to sell on Ebay. While it doesn't affect me in the least, what about the new players we are supposed to be seeing coming to the game.

I got my cottage through the kindness of a guildmate that gave me the item I needed and tied the portal to the housing area that it was in.

I understand when people say that even though the one month timer wont stop people from selling housing on ebay, it WILL force them to buy new CD keys to do this. Hopefully the headache of having to handle multiple accts to keep in buisness will get them away from such habits. Even if it doesn't, it will supply more revenues for Turbine which to me means that they will be able to keep our beloved game going and add more to it.

Good idea guys =) I think it's a shame that most online games also have an Ebay market. As one of the poor white trash that like to play online games, I have no interest in spending more money for something that I should be able to get with just work in-game.

[byteful]

I am thinking that Turbine and it's fine group of Dev's, are finally thinking on the correct path

3 WooTs for the Devs

[Sangria]

Looks to me like Turbine solved the housing sold on Ebay issue.

Some had a problem with the way it was handled. They didnt feel Turbine gave them a warning.

I pretty much looked at this thread as a warning. Reading the first page let me know Turbine was not happy with the online sales.

Now they proved it. i dont think there is any question how Turbine feels about selling AC things on Ebay.

[Arch Magi]

I wish Turbine would come out and SAY how they feel on the buying and selling of in game items on eBay. Not just housing, but Sings, Salvage, Accounts, Majors, leveling services, EVERYTHING.

There are still known eBay traders on Harvestgains walking around thinking that they are ok to sell Sings at 3 for a $1 on eBay, and all they have to do is sell their villas in game for Sings, then take them to eBay and sell them that way.



Anyway, that isn't why I'm here. I am here because on the vnboards -> Harvestgain board, I like to make polls to take the pulse of the people there. Here is a link to one regarding housing that I think Turbine and others should look at and possibly implement.

http://vnboards.ign.com/message.asp?topic=66447782

Q: Should Turbine make it so that an account has to be ACTIVE to pay maint on housing?

So far, 86% say yes.

"I'd say... if an account is still active (paying monthly) then more power to them, let anyone pay the rent, but if they stop paying the money, then the stones should "freeze" and not let any rent be made, then go out at its scheduled time... this way its fair to everyone else *and* it doesn't just drop immediately (since there is potentially billing problems that may occur, etc, and you don't want housing being lost over that)" - Johnsixteen