Housing Issues, Take 2

[Ibn]

Housing Issues, take 2

As I wrote in our last feedback thread (http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2275) on this topic, we've received a great deal of feedback regarding players who use third-party tools to identify and rapidly purchase houses as they come on the market, making it more difficult for casual players to find an available house.

After receiving all of your feedback, we've come at this issue from a different angle. If we can prevent these players from being able to quickly unload these houses and purchase new ones, it will impede their ability to tie up the entire housing market.

To that end, we would like to introduce a one month timer on purchasing cottages, villas, and mansions. Residential Quarters will be exempt from this timer.

What does this mean? All players, whether they own a house or not, would have a field in their housing panel stating the last time that they purchased a house (for these purposes a "house" is a cottage, villa, or mansion) and when they can purchase another one. You cannot purchase a house until 30 days after the last time that you purchased a house.

It is important to note that this has nothing to do with when you lose a house, either through @house abandon or failure to pay maintenance. If you have owned a house for several months and abandon it, you will be able to purchase another house immediately. What you cannot do is purchase a house, abandon it less than 30 days later, and then purchase another house immediately.

Purchasing an apartment in the Residential Quarters does not change this at all. You could buy a house, immediately abandon it, and then immediately purchase an apartment. However you would still have to wait the 30 days before you could purchase another house.

Please let us know what you think of this proposal.

EDIT: This timer is per account, not per character. This should have been in the original post.

[Fist de Yuma]

Sounds ideal. I was worried about someone having a house that becomes a monarch and has to get a Villa or Mansion. With the timer set to buy and not abandon that worry is moot. Great job Turbine.

[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.

[Jovesh]

does "All players" mean each character has its own timer, or is it by account?

[Grayson]

Can't think of a way to get around that one, so looks good to me Ibn :)

[Dargo]

Sounds fairly reasonable.

I'm sure you know this, but just make sure this system is rock solid. Propogate this timer across the whole account, don't lose it if a character is deleted, etc. The last thing you want is the people doing the selling to get a month of tweaking everyone's noses because something was missed.

[Ibn]

Apologies, this timer is per account, not per character. I've edited the original post to reflect that.

[Yew Wan Sum]

Heh, beat me to it by 1 min. Disregard. :)

[AStrange1]

You have my stamp of approval. ;)

[Boddhisatva]

Make it across worlds too. Buy a house on TD and you need to wait a month to buy one on WE. Otherwise each account could still sell a villa per world per month.

Considering what villa's sell for on Ebay it would be worth it to someone to pick up a dozen accounts to stay in business.

[Kreez]

late reply...

Looks good to me. That will slow down eBay profiteering a lot.

Thanks for taking a definitive stance and actively protecting the client.

[Ibn]

Originally posted by Boddhisatva
Make it across worlds too. Buy a house on TD and you need to wait a month to buy one on WE. Otherwise each account could still sell a villa per world per month.

Considering what villa's sell for on Ebay it would be worth it to someone to pick up a dozen accounts to stay in business.

We do not have the ability -- yet -- to have this work across worlds. We may have that power in the future, in which case we would consider this.

[Lycentia]

Sounds good to me.

[Entropathic]

Sounds good.

[dedhed]

nice job. :)

[Tofino]

So profit per villa goes from $70 to $57 to make up for the $13 cost of the extra account? Well, it's a start.

[Lycentia]

Well this will slow him down on the house ebaying some. But if he's got say 5 accounts, which I am sure he probably does since he's got a character in the bottom of hub on each server, then how does this stop him from ebaying houses?

He could still buy 1 house per account and per server each month. That's still quite a bit of houses. But way less than it is now which is good.

[Rauth]

I don't have a problem with this being implemented. If it alleviates the issue any little bit, I think it is worth taking it live. Nicely done.

[Nephi_ac]

Good start! Now is that per account per world? So if I play on say two worlds and obtain a cottage on one world; would I have to wait to purchase a cottage on the second world after the timer was up?

To fairly use the available housing I would also recommend adding the following:

Housing rent may not be payed (by anyone) on housing currently owned by an unsubscribed account.

I would guess that this "tech" maybe difficult; tying the game data base to the accounting data base, but it really needs to be done. It would free up housing to those that play and pay for the game. At least look into it!

Nephi - MT

[Kreez]

At least they've slowed him down to ~8 villas/mo/account.

that's only ~$400 /mo in villas per account at $50/villa.

[DarkMarcsun]

This solution sounds fair, with one caveat:

"We do not have the ability -- yet -- to have this work across worlds. "

If you do, eventually implement this solution to work across worlds, PLEASE don't do so until the new server opens. Given that none of us have any way of knowing when that will happen, I don't feel that, say, upgrading your housing on your current main server should result in being punished by an inability to purchase housing on the new server, especially by those of us who are considering making that our new permanent home.

Thanks!

[Rakulp]

Greetings,

Making it by account does cut down the number...but it is still a high enough number to make it worthwhile to any ambitious Derethian realtors out there.

Example: "Sin-tery 21" likes to sell houses on Ebay to support his beer and pizza addiction. He has 5 or more accounts, which means each month, he can buy a house/villa on any server on every account, and sell it. The money he makes from that is much more than the cost of his accounts. He is affected slightly by this proposed change. He won't make millions, but will still make a tidy profit.

Meanwhile, "honest" people who, for example, may buy a cottage on a Friday...but then gets lucky to buy a villa in an auction on AC Vault on Monday of the next week, won't be able to complete the trade for another 27+ days.

Bottom line...you slightly lower the number of cottages/villas available to be sold on Ebay for real life cash each month...but in doing so, you put a yoke on the backs of people who are just trying to upgrade housing in a timely manner, as the situation arises. And I know this happens...in my guild, we have people who are always looking out for their friends for available housing.

You hit the dart board with this proposal...but far from a bullseye.

Is it safe to say the majority of these houses being sold for real life proft are occuring on Ebay? If that is the case, then why the fear that asking Ebay to remove those auctions will send them to other websites? It's your property...protect it.

[Zariak]

oh boy here we go again... the degradation continues.

So many changes... my heart can't take this. This won't change anything. The really hardcore house hunters will use multiple accounts across all servers. Adding a few more accounts to help with the loss will be easy once you can download a cd key.

[Corbyn_Chase]

I see this a step in the right directions, like many have said, the main offender Niro, has several accounts, so this will at most slow him down, which is a good start. I also agree with a previous poster, that there should be a check to see if housing is owned by someone without a subscrition, and if so, not allow anyone to pay on it. It wouldn't immediatetly cause the house to go up for sale once an account went inactive, only once rent was due. That way it would stop some of the people that have hoarded houses by buying it on a second account, giving full invite and storage use to main account, then cancelled the account that owns the house. If a person wants to hoard multiple houses that's fine I guess, as long as they are paying for the accounts that hold it.

[Flynn]

Thinking about the point Rakulp made about not being able to buy a villa if you recently bought a cottage- Why have the timer apply to cottage purchases at all? They really don't sell for anything on ebay, certainly not enough to make it worth while. It's the selling of villas that's the problem.

[Oldin]

"Purchasing an apartment in the Residential Quarters does not change this at all. You could buy a house, immediately abandon it, and then immediately purchase an apartment. However you would still have to wait the 30 days before you could purchase another house."

Is there no way to change this so that you could buy a house right after buying an apartment then abandoning it? I know alot of people comming back to the game use apartments as a temp solution while they look for a cottage/villa, and this might be annoying for them if they have to wait a month after buying the apartment to get a cottage..

But the fact you said it like you did, im assuming that it will be a limitation on programming it and not your choice to have it like that


Thanks!

[Tofino]

That there is no easy answer to this is the reason that mysupersales.com worked so well in EQ and continues to work well, and that at least one guild on each server exists solely to farm uber stuff to supply Yantis.

[DarkMarcsun]

Oldin, it's the abandoning of the first house that sets the timer, not the abandoning of the apartment. At least that's the way I read it.

[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.

[Kilmor]

Make that a 2 month timer as far as I am concerned. I support every measure taken against Macro/Ebay jerks.

[Corbyn_Chase]

Oldin if I read it right, apartments would not start the timer, the case he was talking about is if you bought a house, immediatly abandoned it, then bought an apartment. the timer was started due to the house being bought, so if the person bought an apartment as a starter, then tried to move up to an cottage or villa the next day he should have no problem, if I read the post correctly.

[Flynn]

Originally posted by Boddhisatva
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.
Unfortunately, I'd be willing to bet there would be a serious outcry if this was done- it effectively eliminates the possibility of trading property for anyone. I've got a cottage at the moment, and there's no way I'd EVER get a villa with this system.

[alderom]

I think the timer on the house would be best. A 1-2 week timer would allow other people time to see it was for sale and they would all have time to get the items together and camp it when it is about to go up for sale. It would also stop all trades for housing since no one could guarantee the buyer would get it.

[Corbyn_Chase]

actually there is, the same chance everyone had when the game first added housing through the arcanam, watch for house to open, and run like mad, except now you would not be competing against people like Niro.


Have to say I like the agent of arcanum idea, the most, would probably favor the proposed idea if the timer was extended to two or three months, as that would put a serious slowdown on "services" like Niro's.

[Rhesus]

Good idea :)

Slows down constant abuse and makes the market for selling real estate for in-game items or real money somewhat soft. Those who want to abuse the system badly enough will still do so, but at much greater personal cost.

[Grinless]

Originally posted by Boddhisatva
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.


Supporting this, probably the best solution.

[MaddyFF]

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

making it more difficult for casual players to find an available house.

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.

[Eruditus]

This is about as good as it can get... now how about secure trading for houses ;)

[Yusuki]

It's okay, I suppose. I'm just wondering why you're treating the symptoms instead of the disease, but as has been pointed out by many in the past, it's your game--do whatcha like.

[Lycentia]

I think that even with this new proposal that contacting ebay and telling them to cancel all trades for in game items on AC should still be looked at. Sure, there may be other ways for people to sell stuff in AC for RL money, like through private messages, emails, and their own website. But, Ebay is the biggest and easiest way to trade and sell items online, so I think that stopping ebay sales would at least cut down on sales of in game items greatly.

[otto mo beale]

Sounds good. Small change I would make is cottages are exempt. There is no big shortage of cottages. With very little effort you can trade for one IG.

Even without this change....
/e 2 thumbs up. Heh now Niro can only buy x villas per world per month....

Hmmm wonder how much this affects him and how many accounts he has.

[Soul Archmage]

You know there are far more important issues and matters that needed attended to rather than this house issue.

What I think you should do is ban people from selling in game items through Ebay or any other auctions outside of game.

When the housing was first introduced, I believe there was going to be a way we can trade and sell these properties to other people in game. So we found a way of doing it. The wrong thing is selling it outside of game to make real money profit.

I am here to give people a chance to get a cottage at a reasonable price in game with in game items only. Or I give them away to my allegaince members. What I think you are doing here is wrong. Its another way to nerf the game and loose more people who are trying to have fun. Without Decal and their programs, this game would be dead a long time ago. People are getting bored and trying to find ways to make it more interesting, for me house hunting has made my interest. Everyone can do it. I do not run a 24/7 macro and hang out at portal room of Hub/Subway.

Like someone else stated, what if you want to upgrade you housing to a villa or a mansion then you are screwed.

Why even have cottages/villas/mansion if you can't trade or sell them to make a profit, no one is concern on majors or other items you find and sell them on ebay or VNBoards, I am sure some of them macro for those items.


I am not for this.


SA

[Ganzor]

sigh... this isn't going to stop Niro in the least...


Let's assume he has 7 accounts (one for each server except darktide). We know he has at least this many unless he's using the "feature" that allows you to log in to AC on different servers with the same account at the same time.


Niro can still sell 49 houses per month. He doesn't even sell that many per month now.

[Fezman]

Sounds like a good start. Do that, make it across servers, enforce the CoC by banning any account that owns housing that is on sale on eBay, and then we should have the problem licked :)

[Aaryna]

Good interim solution. If you're going to purchase surface housing, it should be a pretty permanent decision - not a liquid asset. This timer reflects that.

This, coupled with the ability to take action against those that do this both on eBay and inside AC, is the only thing that will stop it completely... but I assume there are some legalities to be clarified before that is possible. For now, this is a great solution.

Good job. I've been seeing Niro on Thistledown too, so, just in time!

[Long_Dong]

It 's a decent solution if it's easy to code. But I'd continue to look for enhancements to make it better.

It'll at least slow them down. And if Niro or others choose to pay for 12 accounts, then that's money in the bank for Turbine that helps pay for other game enhancements that we can all enjoy.

I still think that houses should have become available, one per account based on account age, offered solely to that player for, say, four weeks. Then if not purchased, it is opened to the public.

For instance. My account has been active since November 1999. When I purchased Dark Majesty, I expected the next time I logged in I'd get a message:

"Thanks for purchasing Dark Majesty. This account has been flagged to purchase a villa (38.9S, 48.4W) or a cottage (77.2S, 55E). You have 30 days to choose your dwelling, collect the items required to purchase it and complete the sale. If you do not purchase a dwelling in this time period, it will be released to the open market."

Offer the dwellings to the oldest standing accounts first, and move on down the the brand new people as communities open.

Then as villas and cottages were added, they'd be made available to newer accounts and so on based on how long that account had been active. Eventually, everyone would be offered a residence.

But instead, it was a mess and I was very disappointed about how they were released. Ah well.

[AC_Guy]

Ummmm.. Weak ?

Ibn although its something it wont even put a dent into what's happeneing.

Here ya go:

eBay created the Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) Program so intellectual property owners could easily report listings that infringe their rights.

Sign up and make a real Stament to your customers it costs Turbine $0 dollars to do this.

[alderom]

I'd like to reiterate the suggestion someone pointed out before again with a little more detail.

Adding the timer to the house would do a few things.

No one would buy houses in or out of game from people again since there would be no way to guarantee them the house.

No need to track ir across multiple servers either via more programming later or manually (not sure which you planned to try to use in the future).

Everyone would be able to see when a house will be on market and have ample time to get the items and camp it when it comes open and have a chance at it.

No one will be able to turn housing into a business ever again either for in game or out of game items.

[Khorps]

I like this idea MUCH better than limiting the /house available command.

After you work on getting the time across all worlds, can you also work on getting in to apply to all accounts using the same Credit Card?

People paying for multiple accounts could still own housing. They just couldn't buy them all at the same time.

****
I also feel the Arcanuum should be involved in assigning housing based on a waiting list. This would have to be done after there is some way to transer housing deeds between players. I don't think we want to end player-to-player trades of housing.

[Jet-eye-nite]

can or will you tag their account(s) on all servers for this timer ? I also think you should look at all "houses" owned now and see if multiples are owned by the same account(s) and Limit the account(s) to 1 ownership per account(s) ( I bet that last statement will get flack) . Make it fair so anyone could have a chance at ownership . Or add chests that can be owned that is from what I see the main reason for a house anyway :D EDIT the waiting list idea is a good idea

[Gouru]

This is a good first step in increasing the cost of business for Villa reselling, and has minimal impact on the regular player base. I can support it.

However, as pointed out earlier, the profit is just too great for solutions that don't increase cost of business to $50 or more per house sold, which this does not do.

Further restrictions can increase the cost further (like timer is on all worlds, not in tech yet, but I did say 'future'. Also increasing house/villa turnover by limiting ownership of non-active accounts, or making apartments more attractive could help.

So in summation. Yes! Good first step. But hopefully not the last.

[Boddhisatva]

Originally posted by Flynn
I've got a cottage at the moment, and there's no way I'd EVER get a villa with this system.

Actually, you'd have a better chance. On those occasions when a villa becomes available for purchase you wouldn't be competing with Niro. You'd be up against other players who are looking for villas to occupy, not sell. There would be far less competition.

[sollo]

Win/win for everyone.

[Astral_Dominae]

I think the timer should be for villas ONLY



cottages and mansions dont sell on ebay... in fact there is a mansion available on WE atm for quite some time and nobody takes it even tho it is free

[Vehementi]

I'm for the "return the house to the arcanum" fix. Can't trade property anymore? Eh, who cares?

[DarkMarcsun]

Sounds like a good start. Do that, make it across servers, enforce the CoC by banning any account that owns housing that is on sale on eBay, and then we should have the problem licked

Tell me where your housing is located Fezman. Then I'll go take a SS, post it on eBay using a throwaway ID and you're banned. Sound fair?

IG bannings from eBay sales will only open up a new way to grief.

[Lycentia]

woah I just wnet to that site Tofino posted and I couldn't believe it. That's crazy! And they have a link for Asheron's Call on the side, when you click it it's saying they are starting it for AC and want peoples items.

lol man the powerlevel is expensive.........good greif.

I wonder whythe game developers for EQ don't sue those people. Maybe some other game devlopers for antoher of those MMORPG's will.

[Boddhisatva]

True, Astral. I see 1 to 3 cottages come up per day on TD. I've nabbed several for vassals in the last few weeks.

Mansions, heh, you can't give them away. No one would ebay them right now. Maybe in the future though. I keep hearing about mansion luv. I think the timer should apply to mansions just in case they become worth selling in coming patches.

The real issue at the moment is villas.

[CapFan]

*sigh* Where to begin?


There are 4 different kinds of buyers for housing.

1. Home owner (Casual Player).

The intended target for the available housing in the game is the casual player who desires to purchase and reside in a home. This player will ultimately occupy the residence for the long term. This type of player, usually due to lack tools, has an exceedingly difficult time “finding” a residence through “/house available” and typical purchase. By the time they
know (If they ever know) the house is gone.


2. Stripping Houses

This player’s sole interest in available housing is to find “hidden treasures” within abandon housing. Because there is no way to know the contents of the chest (other than an guess based on weight), there is a thrill in the hunt and capture. This player will empty the house of its valuable contents (Some even strip ‘worthless’ items so that the house is ‘clean’) and immediately drop the residence. This player is frequently an invisible non factor, as the house is re-made available so quickly, one may not even notice that it was momentarily owned.


3. Real Estate Agent

This player capitalizes on the market demand by installing highly informative tools to alert them of available housing and path finding tools to make the travel time minimal. This type of player then “Sells” the acquired property to buyer type 1 (Home Owner) for a modest or obscene profit. This commonly is done within Monarchies, to provide all monarchy members with needed housing. It is also commonly done on Fan Message Boards, for Plats/Sings/etc. Convenience is paramount, as most players of this type consider the activity “Fun” and helpful to their fellows.


4. EBay Seller

This player has all the properties of buyer type 3, except that he is making actual income from the sale, changing the motivation and dynamics. Because this is a business, Convenience is not an issue. Profit is the only issue. This buyer targets ONLY Villas.



Commentary on proposed changes


The very good news is that the current proposal does not hurt or hinder the intended recipient of the available residences. The bad news is that it does not help them either.

Who does get hurt are “Strip” and “Real Estate Agent” types. Since those who “Strip” the houses are mostly a non-factor, the interesting (and only) target is the “Real Estate Agent”, many of whom are the only viable alternatives for finding desired residences. One might argue that if the number of “Real Estate Agents” is reduced, the market will be relaxed for the end owner. This is in-fact horribly wrong. It will remove the ONLY competition that the EBay Seller has.

The proposed change will in NO WAY hinder the EBay Seller. From a cost/profit stand point, each account (12.95/mo) will earn a minimum of ($80/mo) and as much as ($560/mo). With the removal of in-game “Real Estate Agents”, the margin is likely to be much larger, and availability to the EBay seller much greater. “Nirro” and those who imitate him will monopolize the “Villa Market” on all servers.


-CapFan

[MissMae]

Thank you Devs :)

[Kaadan]

I'm on the fence on this proposal. Doing anything at this point is a step in the right direction, but this will seriously hamper some legitimate players and their playstyle.

On the flip-side, Niro (as well as any other Virtual Real Estate Capitalist) will only be somewhat hampered in their efforts to make RL cash.

I know several players who have made an IG fortune by buying and selling houses (myself not included, tho I can't say I haven't considered it.) When a house comes available they run to it, buy it, loot it, and then abandon it or let it go to the first person to arrives for a mere pittance (as the real value to them lies in the items, not the house.) This is going to kill their ability to continue that practice, which is completely within the CoC.

But, I suppose if Niro and his peers are stifled in their strong-arm tactics of play... then so be it. Just sad that others will still suffer as a result. :(

[rageofmages]

sounds good

[Sek_the_Wise]

Even tho many will not agree, a limit to how many house available commands you get every 24 hours should be in place as well.

A person could have multiple accounts. With just 2 account you could do 2 villas more then likely a month per server. 1 to 2 week auction and you are all set.

I think the thirty day timer is great it will hinder the sale alot but someone who has been doing it along time knows the ropes and the profit from it can easily just buy a villa hand the second account the full villa buy kit and be set.

Limiting /house available to once per hour or a temp ban from using it if you use it to many times in a set time frame would hurt the abuser and not the casual player to badly, especially if you add in a new command /house repeat that will just retell the last list of houses and coords of your last /house available in the chance that you get way to much chat , run thru groups of monsters or need to switch char to get the items needed to buy it.

-Sek

[Zed Salt]

I like it.

-Randy

[Helbereth]

OMG they actually listened.

I posted this comment on the VN boards shortly after making a post here:

http://vnboards.ign.com/Thistledown/b5157/64167561/p2
On page 2:
Helbereth-
"That might work. If they limited your ability to purchase housing per account to say once per 30 days that would kill the market for it. The only people it might affect are those who run around apartment complexes buying all the available ones, looting and abandoning, then moving on. Although only cottages, villas and mansions are really worth anything, so they could put the limit on just those three."

Stole my idea too...

Much more logical thinking than I'm used to seeing come from Turbine of late. With any luck they'll keep it up.

[sursun]

This sounds like a step in the right direction but how about making it a little more complex.

If you buy a new house within 20 days of your timer running out your new timer is increased by 15 days.

This would not effect most players any more then the 30 day rule but would force someone who buys and sells a lot to wait 50 days. I think 50 days is a good number because if it gets any higher it will just cause people to get ton of acounts power level a char and then cancel and sub the acount every other month.

[Frank The Knife]

Thumbs Up!:D

[Korrigan]

This is THE solution. Go on, Turbine !


Helbereth, not to reduce your victory or whatever, but lots of people posted this solution on the boards here too ;)

[Anihc]

IN THE WORDS OF NIKE :


:D JUST DO IT ! :cool:

but also please consider the possibility that "SOME" players that do the things that have caused this issue to rear its ugly head have multiple accounts and can still make 1-15 or more purchases each month.

when people are in it for the money you must really think things out fully ^ this situation still lets a money hungry person get their hands on things if you know what I mean.

I would also add the previous @house available fix to this solution and maybe make the @house a vailable a little less restrictive than the origional solution. With the combination of these two the ebay sales would be greatly reduced.

AND contact ebay to have them stop ac sales all together. So what if it goes to a lesser auction house. More than likely people would be more afraid to use them and sales would still be reduced. If you knock out ebay alone it will just take a huge enough chunk away from this problem and maybe you would not even have to add the @house available option. You could probably even sue ebay for huge sums of money for allowing it to happen.

[Setolc]

It is important to note that this has nothing to do with when you lose a house, either through @house abandon or failure to pay maintenance. If you have owned a house for several months and abandon it, you will be able to purchase another house immediately. What you cannot do is purchase a house, abandon it less than 30 days later, and then purchase another house immediately.

My first reaction. Definitely a step in the right direction.

Second thought. How are timers on account purhcase affected if the character that bought the house is deleted?

I hope the account still remembers that it had once owned a Villa.

Third thought -- cottages & res quarters should be exempt from the 30 day rule.

Do not punish a player that is lucky enough to find a Villa available for trade or just available from upgrading.

/em still hopes for an upgrade to Mansions :)

[Tara Malkav]

Taking into account the fact that the seller still has to wait for an auction to end before getting rid of a cottage\villa\mansion.. I think this will have some effect on the macros.. but I'm not sure how big of an effect that will be. Someone mentioned a 2 month waiting period. I think a 2 month waiting period would be more ideal. The larger the waiting period, the less of a chance that there will be a problem.

[Mayleth]

"Actually, you'd have a better chance. On those occasions when a villa becomes available for purchase you wouldn't be competing with Niro. You'd be up against other players who are looking for villas to occupy, not sell. There would be far less competition."


I must disagree, while you would only be competing against others looking for a villa, you would be competing against all the people that have macros set to try to purcahse a dwelling multiple times per second. No way a human can beat the machine on that one IMHO.

[AlphaSwift]

Without wading through the messages past page 1, I'd say this is a good idea.

One change I would make to completely shut down the ebayers would be ton increase the timer out to 60 or 90 days or even longer. For the ebayers, it will make it less profitable to hold many accounts.

[Shaz]

*gives this the stamp of Shaz's Approval* :D

Look at it this way, guys...

Turbine is taking care of critical issues that NEEDS to be addressed immediately.

Microsoft didn't bother to because it was making them MONEY.

Turbine cares about their players. Microsoft never did.

Shaz

[Pureblade]

This is an excellent start. I think that this will begin to curb some of the ebaying that is going on, but I am sure it will not stop it.

I would definitely like to see a system something like this implemented:

1) Secure house trading between players and/or their other accounts. For example, it would be nice, if I want to transfer my house to another character on my account, if I could do so without releasing it, logging out and logging back in. If I have the items/money/writ I'd love to be able to transfer over. The same goes for player to player trades. The house is not moved over until everything is set, and is never released/abandoned onto the market.

2) If and when a house IS abandoned, I believe it is a great idea to not make it immedietly available. Let it release randomly at some point later, maybe even weeks after it is released. It would be great if you could figure out a way to make the release of these somewhat steady.

However I am very glad that Turbine is taking steps towards reducing the Ebaying of in-game housing. It is too bad that you cannot work with Ebay to remove those auctions, as they are clearly in violation of your CoC.

[RedSeptember_WE]

IMPORTANT QUESTION

You said this timer is per account, not charecter, But what about people who play more than one server..... will the timer count for the whole account in that perspective?

[CapFan]

RedSeptember_WE, IBN answered that. It is only PER SERVER.

Thus a single account could purchase 7 Villas per month, for sale on eBay.

-Cap

[Ganzor]

Originally posted by CapFan
RedSeptember_WE, IBN answered that. It is only PER SERVER.

Thus a single account could purchase 7 Villas per month, for sale on eBay.

-Cap

I think people who haven't read carefully are under the impression that it's across all servers, which explains all the people posting "good job" as if this will make a difference to Niro.

For one $13 account, he can still make $490 a month (assuming $70 per villa)

[Jerryg]

As CapFan said on Page 4, there are 4 types of house buyers
1. The casual player.
2. The Stripper.
3. The Ingame Agent
4. The Out of Game Agent
(the titles have been slightly changed, sorry)

The plan as currently stated, would hurt 2 and 3, I am not sure, and will have to see if 4 is hurt, and it should be transparent for 1.

I would make one modification to the 30 day timer, I would have it start 30 minutes after the house is purchased, this way a stripper, could buy, strip, and abandon with no impact to his play style.
an InGame agent, could buy and transfer a house within 30 minutes, if he/she was fast, and had teh new owner already to go, mostly this would be usefull for providing people in your monarch with housing.
A type 4 person would need to within 30 minutes of the purchase, post the property, and sell it, not imposiable but improbable, for the 30 minute change to be of benefit.

I just hope that when Turbine does own the player DB, they will apply the timers across all worlds.

One thought about the across world timers, tthey could modify the time by how many house the account ownes, 1 house = 30 dys, 2 houses = 60 days, 3 houses = 90 days, etc This is what would kill the type 4 player.

Just my $.02.

Jerry

[ashcall_2]

the timer is too long IMO I suggest either semi-monthly or bi-weekly. To avoid being stuck in a lower level house if you want to advance to the next level of housing. 1 month just seems too long.

[Jasaana]

Good one Pureblade :)
I like the idea of secure trade between ingame. Perhaps even secure trade deeds OR under the housing tab have a trade or 'sign off' deed from there....

Random release to is a pretty good idea. But only if secure trade is ALSO implemented. My cottage was a gift from my Patron, and the idea of him abondoning it, and then waiting for an unknown amount of time (perhaps a time when I wouldn't be online) until it was able to be purchased would be a bit of a frustration....


Also... while I've seen it mentioned but never confirmed (other than you can unsubscribe for a period of time, come back and still have all your personal stuff in tact), do unsubscribed accounts still maintain property if the maintenance is paid?

[Azile]

You all have no clue do you. OMG, now each account we own can only do 1 house per server per month. Times that by all the accounts we have. And don't think for a second we cannot just activate a new account and power a new charater up as needed.

We are unlimited. this changes nothing about selling, but it sure hinders the casual player.

Not that there is anything wrong with it.

It is called "free economy" and "real estate".

You would think you all live in China or North Korea the way you talk and not America or the Free World.

Laughable.

[Zonomar Xisle]

Sounds like a good plan.

Glad to see some sort of action taken in an attempt to deal with the issue.

[Kaadan]

I would make one modification to the 30 day timer, I would have it start 30 minutes after the house is purchased, this way a stripper, could buy, strip, and abandon with no impact to his play style.
an InGame agent, could buy and transfer a house within 30 minutes, if he/she was fast, and had teh new owner already to go, mostly this would be usefull for providing people in your monarch with housing.
A type 4 person would need to within 30 minutes of the purchase, post the property, and sell it, not imposiable but improbable, for the 30 minute change to be of benefit.

^ Good Ideas, Jerry. :D

[Gdinero]

This idea seems like a start, but I'm not sure how much it would impact someone like Niro with multiple accounts & doing this on several servers. I think it will be a lot more helpful for people looking for housing who don't want to buy them from real estate brokers, though.

[Jasaana]

Originally posted by Ganzor
I think people who haven't read carefully are under the impression that it's across all servers, which explains all the people posting "good job" as if this will make a difference to Niro.

For one $13 account, he can still make $490 a month (assuming $70 per villa)


One thing that needs to be examined though....
since the house market will be more open (since people won't be able to buy/sell as quickly) will the demand actually be there FOR villas and cottages to be purchased via Ebay?

As with all things, over time what will end up happening is that as houses become available they will be purchased by those who actually want/use them, instead of someone with just the intention of selling it on Ebay...

so for example if said person currently cycles through 10 houses a month / account to sell on Ebay, that is all of a sudden dropped to 1 house / account....

that means 9 other properties would be available for purchase by legitimate house seekers...(or trade...or so on)... the rush to actually get to a house ASAP (in the case of housing bots) will no longer exist because they will not be able to purchase

[CapFan]

Jasaana, Except that Nirro ALREADY has at least 5 accounts, and can easily acquire more to cycle house purchasing.

The Villa market will NOT be more open, but the ONLY competition that Nirro currently has would be removed.

-Cap

[Rogue Hunter]

While I like the idea of adding a timer I think the whole issue of being able to script it remains.

I think the following addition needs to be added as well:

The "@house available" command should change to where there is a timer on it as well. Even a 30 minute timer would make it a lot less viable to macro, and open up a fair window for all to have equal opportunity to grab it.

So you luck in buying a house falls on when you issue the "@house available" command and less on running it in a tight loop.

Please consider this Ibn. Thanks.

[MaddyFF]

Having fixed dinner and a chance to think about it, if someone has multiple accounts, then it really won't effect them too much. Plus, they will be able to purchase new accounts soon too. Get one account for each world, that is 7 possible purchases per month, per world. Makes that a possible of 49 housing purchases, say you sell them at a cost of $50 per house, that is $2450, subtract subscription cost is talking a profit of $2391 possible a month. Selling just 2 places a month total will cover the costs of the subscriptions, pure profit after that.

It sounds good on the surface, just not sure how much effect it will have.

[Honest John]

Its a start but I dont see how it will affect the housing resellers like Nero very much.

Currently, you can log into all the worlds at the same time with only one account. Thus, Nero only needs one account to do his business. While this does reduce the effectiness of one account, he can still mantain a very health profit margin. All he has to do is add accounts to continue his business andsimply rotate through accounts as each one hits its limit.

If you develop the tech to expand the restriction to one housing transaction per account per month across all worlds, this would greatly reduce the profit margin but would still allow for the activity by simply buying more accounts. Trying to expand this to one housing transaction across all acounts owned by a player would hurt legit players more than the exploiters, even assuming you could do that.

I see no way to prevent this kind of activity wihtout hurting the many legit players. Only by somehow preventing the resell of AC items like housing can your really curb this problem. And, given the problems that presents, I guess one other solution is to make this acvitity a COC violation and ban players. But even then, you greatly increase the risk of harming the legit players.

Perhaps if you make this a COC violation, you could see what house is owned by a violator and flag their account to automaticly abandon the house after they buy it.

If the tech allows, maybe this:

If a player abandons a house and does not buy an upgrade to a bigger house within a 24 hour period, they cannot buy anything except an apparment for, say, 60 days. That way, a player can upgrade, but cannot buy and sell same size units. Nor could they sell a villa or mansion and then get a house and start the cycyle over. They would have to settle for an appartment for 60 days. There still could be a few legit players who could impacted by this, but I guess it depends on a lesser evil thing.

While this would not stop Nero or others, it at least cuts into his profit margin. Kill the profit and the activity will go away.

[Strikefast]

What about someone who over time has made enough cash from the sales of virtual housing to have 5 accounts and use them to purchase and sell that way?

[RAngor]

Interesting idea...but I think you are all forgetting about the other side of the equation. If people stopped paying RL money for these virtual items, this issue would go away.

[Korrigan]

Originally posted by Honest John
Currently, you can log into all the worlds at the same time with only one account.

Not at the same time.

[Willow]

hmmmm .... Azile = Niro????? (lol)

All I have to say is ... Yahoo Turbine, it's a good start. I think many people have good ideas to consider. All I can hope for is that those who love the game for the GAME and not for profit will win out in the end.

It took me a year to get a cottage because of those like Niro. I had to work very hard to negotiate with people who also love the game and know how hard it is for the casual player to get one. I am now starting to see more and more players doing that in order for those who NEED housing to get it.

Cross your fingers that this will work!

[Ganzor]

Actually, yes they can be logged in at the same time. Try it some time.

[Mayleth]

Perhaps something should be put into the AC COC that specifically spells out exactly why the housing macro should not be used. I assume it falls under the category of cheating, but that category is very vegue.

Perhaps a section on UHPM (unattended house purchasing macro) should be added, with it's own admin test. LOL funny thing is I'm only half joking about that. :)

[Korrigan]

Originally posted by Ganzor
Actually, yes they can be logged in at the same time. Try it some time.

Doh ! So basically, I can play on HG while someone else plays on DT with the same account ? I'm too honest, I never thought this would be possible.

I hope Turbine is aware of this exploit :p

[Ganzor]

Here's a slightly more drastic fix...


Make the timer two months.

If you buy and then abandon a house withing the same 30 day period, that timer jumps to 1 year

If you buy and then abandon a house in the same 60 day period, the timer jumps to 6 months.

If you keep that same house for two months, the timer goes away.

Slightly more drastic, but it will put much more of a sting to Niro.

[Honest John]

Originally posted by Korrigan
Not at the same time.

Yes, I can be in all worlds on one account at one time. Have been able to do it from day one. Dual client with 3 computers = 6 worlds at the same time. If the dual client can be expanded beyond 2 instances of AC at one time, I could do it all from one computer.

[AC-Vet]

From were I Sit IBN,
This is punishing ALL players for the act of a few....I for one do not like it for this reason alone. If I purchase a Cottege today and a Villa comes open like 5 days later, I cannot purchase it!! So I cannot get into a Villa for 25 more days...Blahh....This Will NOT DO!! as a solution...I have done nothing at all wrong and I deserve my chance at a villa too....

Take a stance and end this BS now!!!
Seems you guys are really evading the basic issue of selling in game items for cash.....Because this will only slow down the process and render the innocent handi-capped to upgrade to a much desired Villa.....But yet if you challange Housing being sold, you'll need to address ALL in game Items being sold for cash profit...I'm sure you don't have any plans to challenge the Root of the problem, you''ll sit around til it jumps back up and bites you in the @ss again.

So all you ppl cheering this on because you think you have WON over niro and others like him are FOOLED.....what your doing is cheering on nerfing the average player who does nothing but plays for fun.....yes you will cut Niro's cash flow down but you didn't solve the damn problem!!! you just took a punch in the eye and cheering about it....Go Figure!!!

Maybe I too should cheer and just go along with the crowd!

So I take it by Turbines reaction that..SELLING ALL Game Items on Ebay is OK.....as long as you don't word it as Selling a Acct because that part is covered......because your refual to take a stance either for or against...will become your future headaches, thus limiting True Content being put in the game, you'll all be shuffeling around trying to put out each fire as they come up....to actually put in the game quallity and fun.

PS...I'm pretty Disappointed

[Ganzor]

It's been around since release due to the way the Zone works.

I suspect it would be fairly easy to fix if Turbine makes an AC2 style launcher though.

[Honest John]

Originally posted by Korrigan
Doh ! So basically, I can play on HG while someone else plays on DT with the same account ? I'm too honest, I never thought this would be possible.

I hope Turbine is aware of this exploit :p

Its because of the Zone is used to valadate your account. After the Zone passes you off to the game server, it no longer affects the game. The Zone could crash and everyone in game already is not affected at all.

Now, when Turbine takes over billing, this may go away if they drop the Zone from the equation.

[CapFan]

"If the dual client can be expanded beyond 2 instances of AC at one time, I could do it all from one computer."


In this case, "Dual" does not mean two.

I have 4 folders and can run 4 instances on my machine. It is more of matter of the machine's power/ability

I imagine Nirro has purchased quite the machine(s) for his purposes.


-Cap

[DracheDesAngst]

NO NO NO NO NO.. You're missing the point..

Currently, Darktide has nothing but apartments. You need to create more housing. We have a homeless problem and simply changing the timer on when we can search isn't the answer. Stop using bandaid to fix a deep chest sucking wound!

Shees.

D.

[AC_Guy]

In the end it solves nothing.

With these restrictions the value of villas just goes up (people will now get more for them on Ebay).

These people can easily create new accounts just for this purpose.

You have to remember these people are making a living from this, you will have to go alot father then this to even make a dent in this issue.

[Honest John]

Originally posted by CapFan
"If the dual client can be expanded beyond 2 instances of AC at one time, I could do it all from one computer."


In this case, "Dual" does not mean two.

I have 4 folders and can run 4 instances on my machine. It is more of matter of the machine's power/ability

I imagine Nirro has purchased quite the machine(s) for his purposes.


-Cap
Never have used Dual Client so was not sure. Thanks for the info.

[KitEKat2]

I'm just glad someone has finally come up with a good idea-- not a perfect solution but, at least, a good one.

I know that Turbine will do the best it can, especially since they have been catching a lot of flack lately. Not everything can be fixed in one update. At least they are trying.

I say, good job.

[Davidge]

Yes! Yes! Thank you! :) :) :)

This is precisely what I hoped you could do as a major first step towards a solution.

Kudos to Turbine for listening to our feedback and coming up with a technical solution that I feel will mitigate the issue.

[Korrigan]

Then it should be one house per 30 days per account on all worlds ...

Or Turbine needs to fix the flaw that allows several connections with one account (which is required anyway IMHO).

[AC-Vet]

The easiest and most efficient way to fix this is 1 of 2 ways...

Either make Selling Game content part of CoC or

The EASIEST SOLUTION---Just remove the /house available....let ppl stumble on to housing and discover its open.....It's called Adventuring.....

[Honest John]

No, the more I think of it, this just wont stop the problem, only drop the profit margin a little. Maybe they just did not think it through enough but it really smacks of "Doing Something" so Turbine can say they are trying.

I am a big fan of the game and Turbine. But, this is not the solution. I do applaud them for putting an idea out there. Maybe someone will spark a new idea for reducing the impact of this activity. I hope so. But unless Turbine goes after the sellers for voilating the EULA, I see no way to really stop this and other similer activity

[me swat]

Get rid of the villas get rid of the cottages get rid of the apts.

Keep the mansions.

Turbine has expressed opinions on how to get more interest in the cities several times.

Assign each account lockers each with room to hold the equivelent of 3 or 4 chests at player 'server' creation. Locker assignments can be made to each starter town. Make the /house recall cammand portal the player back to the nearest lifestone to the town wherein the lockers are assigned.

Problem solved.

Everyone has extra storage, there will be more mix between levels and different guilds. Starter towns will now be visted by high levels. Niro (and others) can no longer profit from this particular virtual property.

Yes it would require some work on the part of the programming staff. But if lockers were available on the very first of the gui based mmorg (legends of kesmai comes to mind) then I am sure it can be done 15 years later.

[gaandar]

I like the idea. However, I would suggest a slight twist on this. I would suggest that rather a timer on buying another cottage or villa, you have a timer on when you can abandon a cottage or villa. This would prevent a person trading a cottage for a villa from abandoning their cottage, only to find out that their timer is not up and end up losing both the villa and cottage. To prevent abuse, don't permit a character to be deleted if it owns a cottage or villa and its abandon timer has not been reached.

[Liaya]

It's a good start, but I think it won't make too much difference to the Niros in the long run, since these folks likely have many accounts. I wonder how many more than 1 villa per server per account per month he auctions now?

As much as it would hurt the playerbase in terms of trading houses & obtaining housing for friends, I would have to go with the idea mentioned previously of returning abandoned cottages to the arcanum & having the house released by the arcanum at some future random date/time. In this way the Niros would not be able to assure that any house they auction would go to the person that bought it for RL cash.

This seems the only way, in-game, that would prevent, not the Niros from attempting to sell on Ebay, but the buyers from buying. And since Ibn has stated that they have no means, currently, to link Ebay accounts to AC accounts, an in-game solution is needed until such a time as they can accomplish this.

[Honest John]

Originally posted by AC-Vet
The easiest and most efficient way to fix this is 1 of 2 ways...

Either make Selling Game content part of CoC or

The EASIEST SOLUTION---Just remove the /house available....let ppl stumble on to housing and discover its open.....It's called Adventuring.....

This would surly stop the macros :-). But, there is a reason why the command was put in. I don't know if you were around when the first houses came out, but I was. And, I remimber the fustration involved with finding an open house, much less getting the stuff and buying it. It became a simple game of chance, but not for some. Large guilds would spread out and cover all the sites and wait for the houses to open up and grab them. Was not very fair back then either.

[Theran_Bakagin]

This is definitely a step in the right direction.

As many have said, it will not stop the antics we are all concerned about, but it will effect them.

Ibn HAS said in the recent past that targeting E-Bay specifically puts those who DO wish to pay real money for items (the buyers here) at more risk, since E-Bay has a lot of security protocols in place.

All targeting E-Bay does is shift the sales to MANY other locations.. not all with the *koff* stellar *koff* reputation that E-bay has.



With this in mind, I would suggest a 60 day timer for buying a house on an account... what it does do is penalize the person who buys a cottage then immediately finds an open villa... but.. I fear to say that THAT liklihood is fairly slim within the 30 day time period.

A 60 day timer makes the sting a BIT more tough on folks doing real life sales... makes the initial outlay of account payment $26 .. villa sells for $70 (is that the number we are using?) so.. roughly $40 profit.. for a 2 month tie up of the account on that server...

I would DEFINITELY like to see the timers go across servers.... but I am content to wait.

[CapFan]

Theran_Bakagin, that math only works IF the timer were enforced across all servers. IBN said that it can not be (at this time).

-Cap

[WintersebbWilly]

I believe this is my 2nd post here now, as I am again motivated by this hot topic.

To keep it short, I am very concerned at how problem definition and solution issues are conceived by Turbine. As everyone realizes, the motivation that has caused this problem is the selling of in game items for cash. Why is this not made a violation of the CoC? Why are you not immediately changing the EULA and making the selling of in game items for cash against the rules and punishable by a $250 charge in respect of liquidated damages for the very real harm caused to the game. You could immediately charge this amount on the offender's credit card that he is required to provide to play the game. And then you should immediately and permanently banning all accounts associated with that credit card.

There are very clear solutions to this problem if you are serious about remedying it. But I guess for a company that considers 3 day and 7 day bans the proper solution to unattended combat macroing, you will just never get it through your heads why Asheron's Call continues to be widely ridiculed as a haven for cheaters and exploiters and that maybe this has something to do with the server populations decreasing month after month.

[alderom]

The only solution that would take care of everything at once (and easily) would be timers on the houses themselves. No way to get around it with multiple accounts/toons. If the housing itself had a 1-2 week timer letting people know it was going up for sale (after it was lost due to rent or abandoned) then anyone could get the items and wait for it to open. NO ONE would buy houses on ebay then or even from other people because it would be impossible to guarantee that person would get it.

I'm open to suggestions but the only solution to everything I can see was what the other person posted and thats to put the timer on houses someway instead of by accounts/toons/cc.

[BillBraskey]

I have several ideas on this topic.

Many of us have expressed concerns that the 1 month timer will not affect people like nero.

Would it be possible to change the villa/mansion buying mechanism? What I am envisioning is a system where you go up to an open villa and you drop 10 M notes in the slots where you would normally purchase the villa. But you are not buying this villa. You are buying a chance to own the villa. It would work kind of like the casinos. You have a ten percent chance to win ownership of the villa. There would be a one week timer on attempting to purchase the villa.

Basically this eliminates the selling of villas/mansions, thus it gives the average player a better chance of getting a villa. And it would no longer just be a rush to be the first person there, which I don't personally like.

There may be some holes in my idea and it might be hard to code, but I think it is a far superior house buying mechanism than the current one.

[Honest John]

Originally posted by WintersebbWilly
[B]I believe this is my 2nd post here now, as I am again motivated by this hot topic.

To keep it short, I am very concerned at how problem definition and solution issues are conceived by Turbine. As everyone realizes, the motivation that has caused this problem is the selling of in game items for cash. Why is this not made a violation of the CoC? Why are you not immediately changing the EULA and making the selling of in game items for cash against the rules and punishable by a $250 charge in respect of liquidated damages for the very real harm caused to the game. You could immediately charge this amount on the offender's credit card that he is required to provide to play the game. And then you should immediately and permanently banning all accounts associated with that credit card.

B]

It is not a COC violation but it is already a EULA violation. The high cost of actualy enforcing the EULA is most likely the reason they are trying to program a solution in game.

[CapFan]

WintersebbWilly, your "very clear solutions" are both un-enforceable and illegal.

There is no certain way to associate an eBay sale with a specific user or account. Please give me your Villa coordinates so that I can demonstrate.

Billing unauthorized charges against a credit card is fraudulent and illegal.


This is NOT a simple problem, as UCM is not a simple problem. A senseless attack on Turbine based on ones own ignorance of the issues and laws removes any credibility one may have had.


-Cap

[Zero_Washu]

Fine.


PROVIDED YOU MAKE CAMPING SOMEONE ELSES HOUSING STONE ILLEGAL


Until you come out and state that griefing someones attempt to sell a house, regardless of sale method, is wrong there is no point in housing.

Is it griefing or not. I want to know. If it is not you can expect many bots to be camped on villas that are traded on the regular market, let alone any "e-bay" specials.

You are still dodging the number one issue Ibn, and that is, is it griefing to put a bot on someones housing stone just to prevent them from completing a sale.

[Honest John]

Originally posted by CapFan
WintersebbWilly, your "very clear solutions" are both un-enforceable and illegal.

There is no certain way to associate an eBay sale with a specific user or account. Please give me your Villa coordinates so that I can demonstrate.

Billing unauthorized charges against a credit card is fraudulent and illegal.


This is NOT a simple problem, as UCM is not a simple problem. A senseless attack on Turbine based on ones own ignorance of the issues and laws removes any credibility one may have had.


-Cap

Exactly. The only way to really do this is to have someone from Turbine buy the item, complete the exchage in game, then use that as proof of EULA violation. Then ban the account, stop payment if possible and sue the person. Sounds good, but the cost to do so in terms of labor aand legal costs are high.

[Ziggy al-Zog Jr]

I think your on the right track, even though I think 30 days is a little harsh, but I guess I could live with it. Makes it hard to go out and get an open cottage and then give it to vassals/friends/ allegiance members.

It should only apply to the account and to the world. I know a number of people who play on multiple worlds and they should be able to own a house on each world they play on if they wish.

[AC-Vet]

Honest John,
Yes I been around for 4 years....I went through the difficulty of housing, you know what? I still don't have a villa....but I would much rather see the /house available be altered than to agree with this purposal to punish the entire playerbase for the acts of a few.....

I did see a intresting post about housing being subjected to being turned in to the NPC and released randomly back into the market....I really like that idea alot.....this means housing ALL together will be non tradeable, non selling, non gifting....you use it and it goes back into the pool for availablity to all.....

But this will not solve the macro's from obtaining housing and next thing you know, everyone is using one just to get a villa...thats not viable solution either.

If Turbine doesn't want to take a stance on Selling Game content than....lets just look and break down the problem and find a solution.

Problem...The /house available gives exact coords to house for sale...someone botting /house available 24/7 will surely identify a open house before the average player that may check it say once a hour.....This gives the guy behind the bot an advantage over players playing the game.....
Taking the housing out of the economy seems to be a more wise decision...by turning ownership back to the NPC Pool.....This makes profiteering non exsistant.....and fair game play to everyone....because the owner cannot control sales...thus making entire problem go away.

The point you make is valid but I would much rather see Guilds helping clan members than being punished for something I had absolutly nothing to do with......I play for fun, If I come across a villa and buy it. so be it...if not....its ok too...as long as I atleast have a chance at it.....

Thank you for your reply.

[KPD157]

This is the first Time I gottah Dissagree with Ibn on anything :)

I beleive that the one month timer on abandoning would do not really impact the intended players as well as alot of the posters say :)

I suggest that apon Abandoning that the House(Not RQ's) would be not up for sale for a random time 1 to 24 hours from abandonment. Some Feel this would stop trades and I agree so we need to add a new trading dynamic along with the Abandoning Changes :)

I also suggest that when one puts thier Deed in a trade window with someone else that is doing the same thing and that these are not RQ Deeds that hitting the Trade button will in efffect trade house ownership between the Two :)

Also add on when Billing allows a Way to track those who don't pay their Subscriptions and at the beginning of the 30 day till house will be Abandoned Abandon the house due to non payment of Subscritption status :)

All 3 of those suggestions once put in place would totally Fix up any housing problems I can see and force anyone selling on Ebay to go out of business as well as any house jumpers from jumping back to their old house for the soul purpose of looting another house :)

Hope you can get something working that will fix the issue Ibn and thanks for listening to our posts :)

[Honest John]

AC-Vet,
Good comments all. I just don't know if I am ready to "punish" the player base as a whole yet. But if a better soluition is not found, I would support the random release for putting the house on the market combined with doing away with the command. If its going to suck to find one, then make it as truely random and as equal a chance as possible for all.

[Korrigan]

What about giving a M note to an arcanum agent to get the /house available info ? This way, it would not be possible to macro it (or you'd have to be very very very ... I mean very ... rich ;)

[Zero_Washu]

Ibn,


What this does is intefere for those of us who act as agents of opportunity for others. In other words, when I went at it full time I was buying houses for others in the monarchy I was part of. With this new limit you are essentially preventing me and others from doing this.


You still ignore the fact that by condoning people camping house stones that you support grief play. Try and dodge the issue all you want but that statement is true. If someone is permitted to block my sale, gift, or trade of a house to another then that is harrassment. It is purely harrasment when people target specific people who do trades.

[lashmage]

Good work. Thanks for doing that.

[DarkMarcsun]

You could also block /house available from functioning indoors.

[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.

[DarkMarcsun]

"now for current villa owners, this will not effect you"

Yes it will, it essentially makes my villa, which I paid over 200 sings to obtain, worthless.

[Korrigan]

They can make it so that the housing item must be freshly looted (after the house becomes available) instead of being able to stock them up. This would make macroing houses like niro does much much harder. It would also make house trading almost impossible though.

[Zowy]

This will not stop the EBay villa sellers. They will just use however many accounts they need. Cancelling and resubscribing accounts as the supply of Valla's goes up and down. The money the full time ones makes is nothing to sneeze at.

So you end up punishing the whole player base and don't fix the underlying problem. What good does this do? If you are not going to ban the accounts of the big time EBayers, nothing much will change for them. Villa supply is smaller than demand and this is not going to change soon.


You need some method for the secure tradeing / selling of houseing or deeds. Maybe make houseing that is /abandoned or becomes lost due to the non-payment of rent, all be made non-buyable temporaraly and re-opened to buying only once or twice a month? A combanation of several changes are needed if you want to stop or even slow down the Villa EBayers. There is no one simple fix.

The way houseing was done helped to kill towns and continues to be a source of bad feelings to this day. Many people like me only wanted safe item storage, not landscape lagging boxs to fight over ..................

[Zero_Washu]

Ibn,

There are other issues which you will need to acknowledge.


1. The main problem here is that there are not enough houses/villas for all paying accounts to have one.

2. Non-paying accounts can hold property in game because others can pay maintenance. This needs to be fixed.

3. The essence of your message is that your allowing e-bay to continue.

4. Allow people to recall to their MONARCHS HOUSE will alleviate many needs of villas. This one change would help many people out. It would eliminate the need for a commodity which you will not add more villas. In other words, it could be construed you //turbine// knowing this problem are griefing your own player base. You exaggerate the problem by the limits you place on housing.

5. You still refuse to address camping someone ones housing stone thereby allowing people to block trades.

[Jas-of-HG]

As a very vocal critic lately, I feel compelled to give credit where credit is due.

Good idea.

Nice job listening, adjusting, and planning based on your customer feedback. *cheer*

[AC-Vet]

Originally posted by DarkMarcsun
"now for current villa owners, this will not effect you"

Yes it will, it essentially makes my villa, which I paid over 200 sings to obtain, worthless.

Well Bro....I don't agree...you have the villa...enjoy it...if you don't think you got your sings worth then abandon it.....but times are changing and we need to change with them, but not at the cost of punishing every single player for the act of a few.....and guess what? it still doesn't stop Niro and others from still turning a profit, So I will be against this proposal completely and search, along with many others for a more acceptable change....

Sorry I offended you, based on a Idea that would benefit players rather than punish them....was just a idea...besides why not remove housing out of the economy all together....thats absolutly rediculous to pay sings of that quantity for a in game item.....thats no better than Niro himself exploiting cash....it's just more accepted because they were in game items...

[Mageling]

It *IS* a step in the right direction. I'd like to see a longer timer and the timer spanning worlds. Add the spanning worlds to the appropriate documents now and add the tech when it's ready, that way it's not a suprise. Will it Stop the ebayers? probably not, will there some sort of impact, yes.
Also are these folks are sitting at the bottom of subway while waiting? then do the UCM test on them, it *IS* at area monsters can get to and target palyers (which I believe I have heard is a Requirement for doing said test). Move a fairly benign critter there if needed to add a bit more support for the test.

Those who say limit the /house available command are on the wrong track, the folly of that and who it would hurt was WELL pointed out on the first housing thread.

Those that say just add more housing? WHERE? The dev's had said in the past that most of the spots it COULD be added have it already, I don't need any to have any more lag while 'trying' to run somewhere (only to find another settlement) caused by all the textures or whatever it is that causes housing lag.

I also *DO* like the idea of 'underground' cottages or villas, essentially a res quarter with bigger housing stock, especially if it DOESN'T add to surface lag.... If the dev's were to move the exsisting housing settlements to said setup I'd even be cool with that....

[Sabu]

Originally posted by Boddhisatva
Make it across worlds too. Buy a house on TD and you need to wait a month to buy one on WE. Otherwise each account could still sell a villa per world per month.

Can also be bad if you are pickng up a new house on another server.


Maybe a longer timer on selling and picking up a new villa?

[Sabu]

Originally posted by Zero_Washu
Ibn,


5. You still refuse to address camping someone ones housing stone thereby allowing people to block trades.

Is it that hard to wait a little later that day or so just til the guy is gone? worst comes to worst you end up paying maitinence.(2 writs is not THAT hard to get if you work)

[Rebel Yell]

Since he has several accounts that isn't even going to slow him down. After he buys a villa with one account he will just logon a different one for that server. Its not like that many villas come open during a month anyway.

Go back to the drawing board.

[sylphia]

Ibn,
This same idea was proposed by several players in the old thread. Here is my oroginal response to why thatwont work (ignore the part about the /house available command):


Here is a thought. Lets say That you DO add in the /command timer and you ALSO add in the timer for how often you can purchase a house.

Now, I go and set up 4 accounts and PL the toons to 20 in an hour each.

Finding a house once per month on each of those toons is NOT going to be hard (for me), even with the /command change, because as GK said, all I have to do is spend some legtime running from settlement to settlement. Now, all the casual players who are ALSO limited to 1 /house available per day are going to have a hard time finding a house without goign to similar lengths. That means any house that goes up for sale by a player is going to be that much more valuable, because they are harder for the non-obsessive players to find.

So now I am sitting here with 4 accounts, each with a house onit that I spent some time getting. I hit eBay, and since I know it will be 30 days before I can grab a new house anyway, I set up the auction for 3 weeks instead of 10 days. Given the fact that houses are harder for the average player to ge tnow, that means the folks bidding will be willing to pay MORE money to get them. And since I am in no rush to turn over the house just to go get another one, I can let it sit in auction longer without fear of lost profits.

If I find that my profits arent enough, I just buy up more accounts and repeat while I am waiting for the first 4 to sell. Doing this, I can have new houses on the market every few days. I can conceivably lock the market on housing simply by holding the ones that come up and removing them from the general housing pool; this makes the houses I already have for sale even MORE valuable, since they are a much mor elimited resource now.

And I can do this on every server with each account. Suddenly, it looks like the proposed changes will drastically benefit the eBay seller. They will have NO problem funding several accounts with a single sale. I could make a healthy living off of my AC time if I ever decided to go that route.


Add on from another post further down:

If I were to sell a single house at the price Niro sells (roughly $80), that will be enough to fund SIX more accounts for an entire month. Even if I were unable to purchase another house on that server with that account for another month, it provided me with enugh cash to do it 6 more times. There are 7 non-PK servers. That means EACH account can sell 7 houses per month ($560). Even working with only the original account and the 6 accounts purchased through the first house sale, thats $3,920. And that assumes that I immediately sell, rather than holding the housing "hostage" to increase its value. I could easily purchase multiple accounts and buy up a huge chunk of housing on each server, driving the prices up even further and forcing ppl to come to me because they cant catch a house available, since I am buying them all up in-game and seling them out of game.

This isnt a "roof is falling" scenario. This is something I could easily do once Turbine makes purchasing multiple accounts possible again, and that is coming soon. The reason why this is so much more devastaing than doing the same thing for IN GAME items is because the sale on eBay finances the purchase of the additional accounts to do it with. If I were trading for in-game items, I would still have to pay for each account out of pocket.


Edited for math errors.

I agree that something DOES need to be done. This is a serious issue. But it needs to be something that will actually stop the problem, not just shove it in a different direction. This "fix" wont solve the problem; it can, in fact, end up making things worse if the house runner has the wherewithall to actually try this. You actually make it EASIER for a gutsy house runner to corner the market if he is already as good as Niro is and finding and getting the housing.

Understand, I dont like having to shoot down these proposals, but I want to see one implemented that will actually resolve the issue, not aggravate it.

The only way I have seen/thought of so far is to remove the housing that is causing the problem altogether and give everyone free RQs. That wont stop the whole eBay problem, but it will certainly halt it as it pertains to housing. Of course it also brings in a whole other nest of problems, such as VERY ticked off customers who lost ther villas and cottages.

[Wolfton]

You have to wonder, how many people that replied to this are the people that you are trying to stop from macroing? I think that you should do what ever you think will work, ibn. From what I know, someone could just make whole bunch of accounts on this site and have a conversation with themselves to make it look like more than one person and that way, make it sound like a lot of people dissaprove of your tactics, right? Plus, if they can get their buddies to do the same, then that tips the balance even more.
I think the 1 month timer is a good idea, but how about put a saftey mechinism in AC to make the plug-in that allows people to macro for houses not work? I am not good with programming or anything, so I don't know how that works... was just an idea :)

[sublimaze]

Could you please explain why you are not choosing to simply ban the accounts of those who are determined to be selling housing on Ebay?

[Jelly Belly]

Ibn, thank you. I like it.


(Now if you'd address the ebay/Niro angle personally, I'd call you perfect.)

[Volt]

I like it.... if this guy needs to buy 20 acc then turbine makes more money, hires more ppl, makes better updates... everybody wins!

[gaandar]

If someone wants to buy 10 or 12 accounts to be able to continue trading houses, it is probably good for all of us. That's $100-$120 more per month to Turbine to help fund AC.

Edit - lol. Great minds think alike :)

[kirkmeaux]

That's a good start . If it dosen't we'll be with you to try something else.

[Justmee]

I like the fact that its per account, but I think the timer should have been longer.

But overall, I like the move.

[MaddyFF]

Originally posted by sublimaze
Could you please explain why you are not choosing to simply ban the accounts of those who are determined to be selling housing on Ebay?

Why just housing? If going to ban for Ebay sales, ban for any Ebay sales.

But as Ibn said, trying to determine the AC account is the problem.

[Shadow Mouse]

Here's my two cents:

Make the timer only affect Villas and Mansions.
This will still allow players to upgrade from an apartment/cottage to a villa/mansion. Make the timer a little longer (maybe 2 months?) to cut into the e-bayers profit, and then hopefully the whole thing becomes unprofitable when Tubine can introduce tech to apply the timer across servers.

Alternativly:
In the off chance that cottages become much more profitable for ebayers, make the timer only apply to residences of the same type. Players will still be able to upgrade, but those that buy certain housing type (i.e. villa) will be unable to purchase another for the duration of the timer.

Both these solutions don't attack the real problem, but if Turbine is unwilling to speak with E-Bay, then so be it. Also, both these solutions only really become effective if they can be applied to all servers for each account.

[AC_Guy]

The root of this problem is that people are using macros (for the most part) do buy housing.

They then either sell it in game for trade fodder or worse sell it on ebay.

Your current solution is to limit the amount of times an account can buy a dwelling.

Well this may stop some of the IG trading of housing it won’t stop the selling of them on E-bay. It only costs $14 for an account and Villas sell for around $75
So even if they only have 1 account per server (7 white) that’s still around $400 profit a month (not bad).

What I don’t understand is why not just use ebay’s (VeRO) Program? http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/programs-vero-ov.html

It was mentioned that this would drive sales underground and you think this is a bad thing? (No one wants to risk RL cash on a possible shady deal) it would only further deter these time of sales.

As I have said before it cost’s Turbine $0 to invoke and will go along way to stopping the selling of Villa’s (as well as other IG items)

I am really puzzled as to why you wouldn’t want to protect your “intellectual property”.

[_kendal_]

that sounds like a good idea. i cant think of any way that could cause a problem. good thinking

[BillBraskey]

Make it only for villas/mansions and make the timer 12 months.

[MaxV_FF]

What about adding a timer to the /house available command? Perhaps twice a day per account?

It just came into my head, and have not really thought about the implications.... any thoughts?

-MaxV

[MaxV_FF]

nm, I see turbine is already considering something similar.

My origional thought for housing was similar to the 30 day timer... but make it a 60 day timer per housing type per account. That way, you could buy a cottage, then if a villa opened up, you could grab it.

-MaxV

[Regalo]

Jet-eye-nite said this.....
can or will you tag their account(s) on all servers for this timer ? I also think you should look at all "houses" owned now and see if multiples are owned by the same account(s) and Limit the account(s) to 1 ownership per account(s) ( I bet that last statement will get flack) . Make it fair so anyone could have a chance at ownership . Or add chests that can be owned that is from what I see the main reason for a house anyway EDIT the waiting list idea is a good idea

I don't think I understood what he was saying,
Did he mean that you could only own one house per credit card??
He isn't thinking about the folks who have more than one AC player in their family and only have one credit card.
That is a really dumb idea if that is what he meant.
-------------------
I think the 30 day timer as laid out by Ibn makes sense.

Although I don't think that cottages are what everyone is up-in-arms about.... nor Mansions.

[RedSeptember_WE]

I think this new idea will help but is not the answer, Niro has done a wrong onto many players on many servers & we are not going to be happy untill he is put to a complete stop in what he is doing. He has multiple accounts & this new soulutuon will ony slow him down.

Get ahold of ebay & ask them not to allow AC items to be sold
Make unatended houseing macros against the rules
Ban him for what he has already done (we all know he deserves it)

your soulution is not enough.

[MaxV_FF]

Can't ban someone for doing something that was not illegal at the time of action. I would support Nero if that ever happened, as much as I do not like his actions so far.

-MaxV

[Em Bal Org]

Sounds good to me...nice turn around time on a new option.

-Em

[Rojon]

I think this is a bad idea.

I've personally experienced issues with buying housing more than once. I've had purchases "fail" which, with this timer, would leave me out in the cold in being able to buy a new one.

While I applaud the intent, the execution will end up causing more grief.

I'm with Sublimaze. Make the buying/selling of in-game items against the CoC and enforce it against those that do.

And while you're at it, educate the Envoys as to what is and is not illegal in game...

[MaxV_FF]

Rojon, what do you mean fail? Do you mean put all the purchase items in the window, buy your house, it says you succeeded in buying, but you really didn't? Or could you try again?

If you could just try again, then I don't see how this timer would impact you.

At any rate, if a few people failed at purchasing houses, I would still consider this a huge amount better than if Nero continued getting all the houses... sorry, heh.

-MaxV

[Rauth]

Originally posted by Rojon
I've personally experienced issues with buying housing more than once. I've had purchases "fail" which, with this timer, would leave me out in the cold in being able to buy a new one.

If the timer is flagged only when the deed is delivered into your inventory, I'm not sure a failed purchase would have that sort of effect, it just would do nothing. That is assuming of course that they implement it that way.

[Alltu_Tru]

IF they can figure out the "tech" to do it, I would LOVE to see them make it to where a single account (NOT tied into CC info) could only have ONE above ground housing across ALL servers at one time. In other words, I have a villa on SC, that means I could ONLY have apt on any other server.

THAT would stop a LOT more of this ;) add this AND the timer, and you like will see it all go away.

I used to have a villa on FF, a cottage on WE, and a villa on SC all at the same time. I sold the one on FF for ingame items, I gave the cottage to a clan mate on WE. Now I just have apt or nothing on other servers besides SC. Realisticly, why would you need better housing on non-main servers?

I know full well that some people play on several servers, but I have yet to meet someone that plays on several servers equally, they all have had a "main" server and several side where they go to "get away" for a while. If the side servers are not important enough to play for long periods, why should people be able to tie up the housing on that server? (that thought is what made me drop my above ground housing on all but SC).

I think this would do a LOT more good than 30 day timer, and using both would just about kill all the r/l selling.

[Kreez]

I have had second thoughts on my original post on this issue...

The current housing auction solution is nothing more than a placebo.It does nothing to solve the problem and simply imposes a limiter on the profitability of the venture.

It is a visible show of Turbine doing "Something" about the issue, but they sure aren't solving the problem.

It is a bandaid constructed of game mechanics that affect all potential house owners, without dramatically affecting the auctioneer.

It is a Public Relations Placebo that really does nothing to solve the problem.

My Business Model for Online Estate Agent:

Start with 5 accounts.
Villas = $50
That's $50/account/server/mo.
That's $400/account/month with 8 White Servers (after the new one opens)
That's $4800/year/account, or $24000/year, with only 5 accounts.

If Fileplanet release of AC DM allows the purchase of a new account for ~$50
I can go with 10 accounts, double my money and simply live off of in-game profits.

By not making a Code of Conduct ruling on this issue, Turbine is essentially encouraging the behavior. By limiting the current Auctioneer to 1 purchase/account/30 days they are opening a window of opportunity for competition with limited response.


This is not a solution.
Making a Code of Conduct change and enforcing it is the solution.

[Widsith]

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.

I have to agree with Boddhisatva on this idea. I know it would mess with legitimate trades, but if the house is released randomly to the servers after being abandoned, it will make it very difficult to sell on ebay.

If that won't work, then I go with the increase the timer idea and really suggest that you find a way to get this cross-server. Even if you need to hire an intern whose job it is to watch for abandoned houses and then set the timer on the accounts across all servers.

[Ganzor]

Here's another thought instead of just a blanket 1 month timer...

If somebody buys two houses in one month, they get a one month timer.

If somebody buys three houses in one month, they get a two month timer.

If somebody buys three houses in one month, they get a four month timer.

Etc, etc, up to a year long timer.


Minimal impact on the real players, big effect on the house macroers.

[Frieze]

I think a month is too long, but I'm sure I'm in the minority here.

It's going to mean a lot of open housing... It's not rare for 5 cottages to open per day on my server.

I would suggest that the cottage timer be 1 week - mansion and villa would be fine @ 2 weeks - 1 month.

Edit - Or perhaps, just leave cottages out of this. They're surely not the root of the complaints, with lots upset about the Niro situation.

[alderom]

Any timer set for accounts/characters is in one form or another exploitable. There will always be a way to get around it and it would be impossible from a practical point of view since the time and resources it would take to try to find out who was selling stuff for real life cash and bust them in game would take too many resources. By putting in a simple timer ON THE HOUSE ITSELF there would be ZERO way to circumvent it.

If a house was lost from rent or abandoned and went into a hold status that let people know it would be on sale in a predetermined amount of time then it would give everyone a fare chance and would end person to person selling (either for in game or out of game items/cash) completely. Who would pay for a house if there was no way to make sure a certain person got it?

I don't understand really how people think the 30 day timer per server/account would solve anything? They won't be able to track between the servers for one for some time I'm willing to bet simply because the control switch from microsoft to them won't be complete for some time still. Besides that I'm sure it will take a tremendous amount of programing to make a program that is able to check for that across multiple servers. Quite simply overall a timer for each house would make the most sense (even if it was as short as 3-4 days). It would take the least amount of resources, stop ALL house selling, even the playing field, be impossible to circumvent.

[scrumpy_mt]

I have not read all the posts, so I am not sure what ideas have been covered.


Is there any way to allow a player to transfer their house to another player avoiding the normal way a house is purchased when abandoned. This way legitimate ingame trades could happen, but when a house is abandoned it follows a different rule. When abandoned, maybe the house item required for purchasae is random. In addition, adding another step where a toon must recieve a flag from an NPC ingame in order to purchase an abandoned house which will be on an appropriate timer.

[eolorian]

Originally posted by Boddhisatva
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.

The only problem with your idea and why it would be a bad idea is that it kills the roleplay factor for the regular player of selling a house. That wouldn't be fair either.

[Yusuki]

Originally posted by Ganzor
Here's another thought instead of just a blanket 1 month timer... If somebody buys two houses in one month, they get a one month timer... Etc, etc, up to a year long timer.

Minimal impact on the real players, big effect on the house macroers. Not really.

Buy and sell two houses in a month on a secondary account, get a one month timer. Two houses sold on ebay is around $150. A new account is $13, and the first month is free. To powerlevel a noob to 35 takes about two hours.

All this will do is increase the number of CD keys Turbine sells. Edit: House buying accounts, under this new system, are 100% disposable. And the best part? You don't have to buy a ton of extra accounts--you just keep replacing the ones you burn timers on.

This fix might have been a real good idea a year ago--when the game wasn't on shelves--but with new CD keys coming out? Ebayers will just take a couple hours out of their busy house-camping schedule to powerlevel a new house buyer on a new account every couple of days.

[Ganzor]

It's a better solution then the one that is now being proposed. At least this one will generate more funds for Turbine, their latest "fix" isn't going to change a thin with how Niro operates.

[Ariella]

It sounds good but...

Problem 1 - are the new accounts (cd keys) that you will be able to download come with a free month?

If they do, it won't hinder people like Nero at all. How long does it take to level 1 character up to the level to buy a villa?

(I think it's less than a day with a buff-bot. Swear new character to other acct., so he's in the monarch.)

So Niro will fire up a new account, get 1 character to the level needed for purchase, run his bot program on it, and sell it off on e-bay in less than a month. Cancel the subscription before billing even begins, and he's still in business.

Even if they don't get a free month, the prices of villas on ebay make $13 well worth the trouble. :(

[AC_Guy]

To give you all an Idea of how much money is to be made...

Niro7 has sold 42 Villas and made $3230 (based on his feedback) since January of this year ALONE!

And he not the only one selling BTW.

Do you honestly think that the idea proposed will put a dent in this money machine ?

[SCM]

There are two ways of stopping the ebaying of IG items.


Make all items readily available to all players.
Who wants that?
I am sure noone would if you really think about it.

Turbine needs to stand up & make a CoC amendment that reads, in essence, thus:

The sale of any IG item for RL gain is a breach of the CoC & will result in a permanent ban of the accounts involved. Both the seller & buyers accounts will be the target of these bans.

It will take a lot of investigative work at times but it is not impossible.
The buying of new multiple accounts can easily be overcome by banning the isp address of the banned accounts.

Not being a computer guru by any stretch of the imagination I am willing to take any constructive feedback on the ISP banning method.

As an aside I will repeat here what I have posted in the past.

I am against the sale of any IG items for RL gain.
I am also the monarch of the family that Nirro belongs to.
Until Turbine make it a clear cut breach of the CoC & not leave any grey areas open Nirro & the others who sell IG items for RL gain have the advantage.

[HerkJones]

This would work except for one thing, you can't trade houses. Make deeds tradable and this would be sweet.

[AC_Guy]

While changing the CoC or EULA can be done it's a pretty empty threat. Turbine would have to spend $$ and time to prove and enforce it.

Removing Ebay as the conduit is cheap and Simple.

[Ally]

I like this solution much better than the previous suggestion. thanks for taking feedback on the issue!:)

[MC33]

I support this new idea over the old one and I'm glad you are doing something about the housing ebay'ers.

However, there are many posts on the previous 12 pages of feedback pointing out that housing ebay'ers will most likely find it profitable to purchase many accounts to work around this.

I hope you will consider some of the additional feedback people have given on additional ways to stop the ebay'ers if (when) they continue. Some of the ideas were: having your housing timer continue to go up in length if you repeatedly purchase/release housing, having the timer apply across worlds if you gain that ability, or simply just dealing with those people directly and banning those accounts that ebay housing.

[AC-Vet]

"However, there are many posts on the previous 12 pages of feedback pointing out that housing ebay'ers will most likely find it profitable to purchase many accounts to work around this"

Please define Profitable.
I have 1 Account....with this new purposal....I can buy 1 Villa, Sell it on Ebay for 80.00 and play AC free for ever....I wasn't looking to have a second job income based off Game Items sales...that is the only thing turbine is addressing here....They just opened up the doorway how let players play for free......They failed to address the bottom line fact of selling game items for cash profit. and By not addressing this issue they simply open the doorway for players to further abuse loop holes, like I stated above....By them taking the stance of "its ok but we'll limit housing purchases" clearly invites more players to abuse the system...The example I gave about selling a Villa to support my gaming habbit will increase players motivations to get something for free but it clearly doesn't attack the problem at hand.....So will it be more acceptable to everyone if players abuse the system to get free game play and not make enough to buy a car? I think not and I really don't think Turbine can afford to let players play for free either.....

You cannot apply a Band-Aid to a sucking chest wound and expect that the problem is solved.

[Og Jace]

I agree with these changes, although I think 2-3 months would be better since many have multiple accounts, friends accounts etc. Also an aggressive stance for keeping things off Ebay wouldn't hurt either.

HOWEVER....

Not too long ago, my toddler wandered into my office where I left my log in screen up (oops) My main character was deleted by him punching around on the keyboard/mouse. Luckily I saw it in time and was able to recover. But, I did have to repurchase my house, and within this scenario, that may have not been possible. So my request is, make it so the 30 day timer only effects purchases of a House you already do not own.

Or, if this is not possble, take that Big'ol Delete button off the login page.

My 2p's

Thanks

[SCM]

Originally posted by AC_Guy
While changing the CoC or EULA can be done it's a pretty empty threat. Turbine would have to spend $$ and time to prove and enforce it.

Removing Ebay as the conduit is cheap and Simple.

Ebay is not the only conduit unfortunately.

Would you prefer to play a game where the developers put time,effort & cash into cleaning up this type of problem & keeping it clean or have the alternative as we appear to have now?

I believe a "clean" game would attract more clients & the costs of policing the policy would be outweighed by people coming to a fairer situation.
I could be wrong, but I would elect for a game with strict enforcement of the CoC over one that does not, & I think a lot of other people would also.

[Salgrim]

Possible brought up already but....

I don't see how timers could be introduced without hurting the general playerbase on some level

What about changing the dynamic of buying housing? I.E. say whenever a cottage becomes available a lvl 35+ portal opens and you are to complete a quest. Maybe lvl 80+ or even 100+ for villas. Said dungeons would be difficult enough to be hard for a toon to solo. The item for purchasing the house and the item at dungeon would be random and corospond. Maybe even have a timer on getting this item per/account. Would probably be a pain to program and would make housing more difficult to attain. I for one do like a challenge though! ;) But, more importantly would put a serious hurt on housing macroing.

[HeXt]

I like the idea but it's probably still profitable for him to delete a character/relevel one, or just buy a whole nother account. :/

[DadgaSilverhand]

it is lot better than 24 hours limit doing those /house available, but still good idea, but there is few issues.

see one of "concerned" gamer regarding on character select screen, "create or delete" button really need to be reset or have second password for delete menu to prevent "mistakes" by very young child or some other angry gamer or wife/husband/siblings if they going split up. it going to be hassle trying to recover the housings.

anyway, it just slowed down the house bots alittle, they still make money with the alternate accounts and make roughly $500.00 a month or still make more with alts. it just cost them extra $12.95 a month, it's cost as peanut to them to spend.

still this is better solution and it just slow the ebay sales a little until Turbine find a better way to track in future months. you (devs) just need to have "housing purchase /abandon tracking logs" by same account(s) logs.

[Willow]

Soooooo much discussion for something sooooo simple. I really don't have a suggestion that hasn't already been discussed, but I'm just so amazed at how the simple act of purchasing a house has turned into a money making bonanza. I didn't even realize how much drama surrounded it until I read this forum.

I think the best idea is to give housing availability to the Arcanum. Make it fair and/or random. Don't make it easy for those who are only out to tarnish the opportunity for others.

Come on people, let's just play the darn game and leave the money grubbing to Donald Trump.

Good Luck Ibn! You've got your hands full with this one .....

[Regalo]

Originally posted by Boddhisatva
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 totally disagree with the idea of returning the housing to the arcanum then having them release it 'whenever', That is bogus and screws over the larger player base more than it helps defeat the Niros out there.

[Regalo]

Ganzor wrote
Here's another thought instead of just a blanket 1 month timer...

If somebody buys two houses in one month, they get a one month timer.

If somebody buys three houses in one month, they get a two month timer.

If somebody buys three houses in one month, they get a four month timer.

Etc, etc, up to a year long timer.


Minimal impact on the real players, big effect on the house macroers.

This idea makes no sense whatsoever.
If after someone buys 1 house in one month and they get dinged for it how are they going to purchase 3 or 4 houses in one month?? It gets set the moment they first purchase a house... they CAN'T buy more than one a month!

[Flynn]

Originally posted by Flynn
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.

It seems I'm not the only one who thinks a longer timer would be better, but I just realised there's a fundamental flaw in extending the timer- You can just unsubscribe until your timer's up to preserve your profits, and use another account mean time. On that premise, a timer longer than a month is pointless, as it won't do a thing to stop the ebay sellers, and it will impact genuine players far more.

Don't get me wrong, I do think it's a huge step in the right direction, and I know there's a limit to what you can do as long as the covenant crystals have no access to subscription information, but ultimately, I think this solution will only slow the problem a little. Anything that helps deal with it is welcome though.

[kinslayer]

i like

[Logan]

This is a much better proposal as the last one and i total y agree with that :)

(since i wrote exactly that in response of the last one....as many others for sue)

[MaddyFF]

Originally posted by Salgrim
I don't see how timers could be introduced without hurting the general playerbase on some level


Many people don't care about that. As long as they hurt people like Niro they don't care who else gets caught up in it.

[Ganzor]

I didn't word it quite properly.

Basically, my idea involves things only being tracked on a 30 day timer.

Meaning, when you first buy a house, you have one month where you can buy and sell as many houses are you wish.

How many houses you bought or sold in that 30 day period determines when your timer ends.

So for the first month, Niro would be golden. He can buy and sell as many as he likes. But if he buys and sells too many, it will be a year before he can ever buy another house on that account again.


Will it stop him? Not entirely. But it would do two things the current proposal won't...

1.) It will actually change how Niro operates and make it a heck of a lot more work for him. Maybe he'll decide it's not worth his time.

2.) Every time he buys a new account because he's borked his timers, that's money in Turbine's coffers. Essentially every month, he'll have to buy a new account, giving Turbine money from the software and the subscription.


I'm not under the false notion that cash sales can ever be completely eliminated, but it sure can be made difficult for the low lives that participate in it (buyers and sellers), and as a side effect it can generate Turbine a little extra money.

[kryptik]

:)

[bule elf]

1 month timer is very bad idea.

Hide the Coordinates when you type: /house available

if there have house available , just show how many available. don't show the coordinates.


casual player / camper / ebayer <<<<< they all must need find out where is the house located . Most fair to ALL players.


done

[Tar Valon]

Aye, this sounds good to me. A major step in the right direction.

Thanks....:)

[Prosonic]

IBN i can see this working 1 purchase a month per account per server sounds fair for both sides of the fence

Prosonic LC

[Osrik]

I don't think that timers can be the full solution to this problem but it should at least help a great deal. I would however suggest a few changes.

The first thing I wouldn't like to see someone being prevented from upgrading from a cottage to a villa, or villa to mansion, if he gets the chance so would it be possible for the timers not to apply if you buy a higher grade of property than you did last time. This wouldn't help ebay sellers much but would ensure that nobody was prevented from upgrading their property when the chance occured.

The second thing is that given the very limited number of mansions in the game I think the timer on mansions should be significantly higher than that on other property types.

I would also like to see things adjusted so that allows someone to exchange one property for another of the same type regardless of timers so that people are not prevented from moving to be close to friends or whatever when if the chance presents itself. Would it be possible to allow someone to buy a property regardless of timers, providing they already owned an equivelent property. The alreasy owned property would have to be abandoned as part of the buy operation of course. I am not sure if the tech would allow this but if so it would give players a bit more freedom without helping people buying property purely for trade.

[Seun]

I think this is a good first step, but I hope that you will be monitoring the situation as well. I am concerned that a 30 day timer will just cause 30 day auctions and hence, higher real life prices for housing and more profit for those selling it.

There were a few other ideas in other posts that I also thought were very good.

1. Release of the housing at some random time after the house has been abandoned/maintenance is up.

2. Ability to buy back your own dwelling if your character was mistakenly deleted and you were able to restore it, assuming someone else hasn't purchased it. In other words, the 30 day timer should not apply if you bought your housing within the last 30 days, your character was deleted and you were able to restore it and get back to the housing before anyone else did.

Although secure trading of the housing deed would be nice, this just makes it easier for people to sell housing for real life money and be able to guarantee to their customers that they can deliver.

[me swat]

Originally posted by me swat
Get rid of the villas get rid of the cottages get rid of the apts.

Keep the mansions.

Turbine has expressed opinions on how to get more interest in the cities several times.

Assign each account lockers each with room to hold the equivelent of 3 or 4 chests at player 'server' creation. Locker assignments can be made to each starter town. Make the /house recall cammand portal the player back to the nearest lifestone to the town wherein the lockers are assigned.

Problem solved.

Everyone has extra storage, there will be more mix between levels and different guilds. Starter towns will now be visted by high levels. Niro (and others) can no longer profit from this particular virtual property.

Yes it would require some work on the part of the programming staff. But if lockers were available on the very first of the gui based mmorg (legends of kesmai comes to mind) then I am sure it can be done 15 years later.

I have an edit to my own idea.

Apts cottages and villa's can still exist in theory with my proposal above if they are handed out by level. Level 40 apt level 80 cottage level 120 villa etc.

(note) my highest character is level 77.

I am still in favour of keeping all of the chest storage in the main (city) lockers but cottages etc can still be given without chests but keep all the hooks they currently have for 'customization.

Again I reiterate, the only way to remove housing sales is to assign housing equally to everyone.

[Rakulp]

Greetings,

Apts cottages and villa's can still exist in theory with my proposal above if they are handed out by level. Level 40 apt level 80 cottage level 120 villa etc.

How would that work considering you may have a 126+ who owns the villa, but a level 83 and 45 character on the account also?

...or how would you allow guests of different levels?

[me swat]

Based on server's highest character.

AC already can allow all of you servers toons use the house created by another toon of that account so keeping track shouldn't be difficult.

Once a cottage is assigned it can be 'upgraded' automatically to the larger housing without a location move.

Or perhaps you could still have to quest the writs and items needed to purchase the larger housing. the only caveat being that if you don't, that larger occupancy cannot be given to someone else. If you don't repurchase, you remain with the level of housing you currently have.

[April Ranne]

Overall I think the idea of a 1 month timer per account will be a good start to balancing the ability of players to locate and purchase housing yet not totally push the macro profit-minded people out. Some of the other more involved suggestions offered remind me of a basic rule - KISMIF "Keep It Simple - Make It Fun". Thus a 1 month timer per account sems to be the simplest and fairest for all parties, including Turbine. I vote yes.

[Gordian]

Originally posted by Flynn
Unfortunately, I'd be willing to bet there would be a serious outcry if this was done- it effectively eliminates the possibility of trading property for anyone. I've got a cottage at the moment, and there's no way I'd EVER get a villa with this system.

Of course you could get a villa with Boddhisatva's plan. It would only cost the writs, cash and special item.

They would be more available too since Niro would have no reason to horde them. I actually love this idea but I know people would be slighted over their "investments". Now would not be a good time to tick more people off.


Another thing that will help is to not allow others to pay for your maintenance. There is a false scarcity in the game as closed accounts hold a lot of property. If you make it so closed accounts can't have their villa/cottage paid for then the supply increases and the $$ value of villa drops dramatically. That would hurt Niro too.

[AC_Guy]

There current solution only hurts the players, not those who sell on ebay.

even if they make the timer 1 every 3 months it won't stop the them:

Nero fopr example sells 21 villas a month and makes about $1600. Even if he had to have 21 accouts to do this it only costs him $315 a month and he still pockets $1200. Also he is not the only one that dose this on ebay.


This about stopping the cash cow that housing has turned into even if people had to triple the amount of accounts he would still net around $700 a month.

These people add no value value to the game for them its a business and Turbine's current solution dosen't address this in the least.

The only thing they can code that would help is the removal of the cords of the housing, but this again hinders players but would also equally hinder ebay sales.

[Willow]

I woke up this morning with an idea!! (go figure)

The housing items are public knowledge, making it easy for the bots to throw every item asked for in a backpack to toss in the buy screen along with writ and M notes.

Maybe you could still advertise the coords with /house available, make the interested party GO TO those coordinates to see what items are needed (make the items completely different, random but DO NOT publicize them ahead of time!). Make the items more obscure and hard to find. Make it so that those who are interested CAN ONLY HUNT for the items and race to the finish, as it used to be.

Bots can't hunt without someone at the wheel. Timers won't need to be set and everyone has a fair chance at getting housing.

Once again, let's PLAY THE GAME PEOPLE! :-)))

[Willow]

Just wanted to clarify my own post...

Housing items - make them random and obscure. Make sure that they are never the same things twice.

Don't make it so that a bot can carry around a pack with all the "usual" items. He can't carry every item in the game all the time.

No timers would be needed that way, right?

Can anyone else see something I'm missing with this idea?

[Nemis]

I don't think only one fix is going to solve the problem, but...

If you implemented several of the ideas presented above (like player timer, house timer, @house available timer, random items etc), it might work.

Something new: I think the @house available command should also be made less precise.

Maybe make @house available return something like "house available within 30 clicks of 17, -24" Make the radius big enough to cover 2 or 3 settlements so the macro guys can't pinpoint it immediately.

This would prevent the bot boys from running directly to the house instantaneously when it becomes available. They might actually have to search for it, and in many cases someone would probably get there ahead of them.

I do agree that the only absolute solution for the problem you are trying to solve would be to have the Arcanum repossess any abandoned house immediately and release it at some future date (within 30 days or so).

Regards,
Nemis
(currently inactive)

[sylphia]

OK here is a complicated and wierd idea. Bear with me :)

First of all, solve the problem with secure trading for housing. Make it possible for the current owner to turn over his deed to anyone else who does not currently own a house. This is a MUST for the rest of this to work.

When a house is abandoned (not traded--abandoned or lost due to lack of maintainance), it still shows up just like normal on the /house available command. However, it will not be PURCHASABLE for 24 hours. While a house is in an abandoned state, its barrier is increased significantly, so that no one can camp the covenant crystal; set this barrier as wide as you can without preventing players from getting into adjoining houses.

What will happen here is that half the server will be hanging around the house waiting for it to come up. Folks runnig 3PAs to catch a house as soon as it opens wont have an advantage anymore. Sure, there will be alot of competetion for the same house, but schemes like Niro's rely on being able to get to the house before anyone else does and grabbing it. If 20-30 ppl are all camping the same house, it makes this just about impossible.

In oder for this to work, you will unfortunately have to hide the timer on when the hosue will actually come up; otherwise the plug in will just track how long before Niro has to actually go and camp the house to try and get it.

Now the problem I see here is that some folks will set up bots to spam attempting to buy the house and leave the bot running even when they are unattended. Perhaps the Crystal could be made to "disappear" for a few seconds when the house comes up, and then reappear; this would untarget the crystal from the bot and set everyone back on even footing again. Now the thing that concerns me with THAT solution is that the bot might include an auto-detect for the crystal, giving them a distinct advantage yet again.

I really dont want to shut down one exploit just to open it up for another type.

I think the first part of this could work, if someone can come up with a way to break the bots when the house actually comes available. A little help here please :)

Now the reason I want secure house trading in BEFORE this is added is so that the owner can make a trade with someon elese, without worrying about the 24 hour timer rendering the trade void because the "buyer" couldnt grab it. Current owners shoudl be able to transfer ownership any time they want.

And this fix would also be assumig you do NOT add the one month timer to house purchasing, as it would be unecessary.

[alderom]

'First of all, solve the problem with secure trading for housing. Make it possible for the current owner to turn over his deed to anyone else who does not currently own a house. This is a MUST for the rest of this to work.'

HOUSE TRADING IS NOT POSSIBLE!!!

That is completely antiproductive to why they would be adding the timer! Then it would just make sure ebayers could buy houses more easily and better guaranteed than before! Its a simple concept so I don't see why so many of the people here don't see it. House trading helps mass house sellers.

[Harzah]

Overall I approve. I was a little concerned about the instance of a player loosing a house (accidentally) and then not being able to purchase a new one right away but that does not seem to be something that would happen with what you've described.

[Frieze]

Originally posted by Willow
Bots can't hunt without someone at the wheel.
Not to be rude, but there aren't unattended house bots. The only macros used by Niro and others are chat macros with a sound output. Basically it types "@house available" once a minute and dings when something opens. It is no more "cheating" than BS2 or NB2 - all three are only doing a few things that you could do yourself easily, like buff, scan for majors, or type "@house available"

Since he would still run to the house attended, Niro and other house buyers wouldn't be slowed by having to hunt random trophy items. If anything, these are organized people, set up for easiest and fastest travel, who know exactly where to hunt for trophy drops.

[Frieze]

Originally posted by Ganzor
I didn't word it quite properly.

Basically, my idea involves things only being tracked on a 30 day timer.

Meaning, when you first buy a house, you have one month where you can buy and sell as many houses are you wish.

How many houses you bought or sold in that 30 day period determines when your timer ends.

So for the first month, Niro would be golden. He can buy and sell as many as he likes. But if he buys and sells too many, it will be a year before he can ever buy another house on that account again.

*Shrug* With 12 accounts, it would change nothing, and he'd only have to keep one account active per month, so it wouldn't be more expensive except initially.

It's not hard to PL 12 characters to 35. heh... In fact, it would probably be pretty cheap to pay for pre-made characters (people sell those on Ebay too... "custom level XX")

[Davidge]

As I mentioned before, the timer on the house purchase per account is an excellent first step. ;)

I really like Sylphia's comments about secure house trading too. (http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=43610#post43610)

The cat IS out of the bag, we now have macros in public view (I know, they seem to have been around a long time, but its really come to the front recently) that basically squat the crystal on a home who's rent is about to come due and try to buy the house every second.

Secure house trading would be the next logical step towards solving this problem.

[Hopeslayer]

ok i read the entire last post on this.. this time i just read the first page and half.

Is a good idea but like one said.. what happens when you get a cottage. but you happen to be on a week later and a villa opens up.


My point is this. You know for a fact a few of his accounts.(yes he would just get more) but at least Ban the ones you know of so far.


If there is a way to track it.. how about this.


If you Go from a cottage to a villa there is no timer.


But going from a villa to a villa will count.

Now if you have owned a villa in less than a month then you cant buy another.

that keeps them from going to a cottage after a villa just to buy a villa after that.




My beef is this.. I dont sing macro or Major Macro.. Only way i ahve made trades in past was selling villa for ingame items. You are taking this aspect out.



But its a good start in finding a solution

[Zkdog]

Great Idea

[Willow]

Frieze, no, I didn't think you were being rude. I'm just not well versed on how bots work. I guess I thought they were unattended because I've seen so many people lure monsters to Niro in order to knock him to his lifestone. He just stands there with his face in the wall and gets his butt kicked. (lol!)

[Turgis]

While this solution is ALOT more acceptible than the previous I have to agree with the many others that this won't fix a thing as far as NIRO goes. He has several accounts and it will hamper him very little. Heck the guy has 2 villas for sale on TD last I checked and probably has several more accounts waiting for them to open.. it may slow him down but not by much at all.

A suggestion I would have also is if you decide to go with this make it per housing type if possible, it would really suck for a legit player to buy a cottage and then have a villa open a week later that you really want and lose out because of this timer.

[RocketsFireTD]

I have been wanting a villa for quite some time and house macroers have made it impossible to obtain one.

few ideas, make it possible to trade title deeds with people, but only for title deeds (i.e. trade cottage for villa) or deed+other items for deed

also, someone could just delete and un-delete their character to release a house so their customer could purchase it.

just a thought

RF

Edit: possibly, make it so every active acct has a villa as long as their highest character over level 50, if not they have at 20 cottage, and an apartment if lower, possibly make the design of the house be one of the existing house designs, except have it depend on your race, although this would not necessarily be fair to those who have spent money buying villas and such on Ebay it would completely eliminate all housing profits from ebay

[Ryori]

Unless I missed it... I am not an expert so bare with me. I think there are legal issues with the sale of virtual property. No ownership is being exchanged thus Niro is NOT technically selling any of Turbine's IP. The villas are just bits and that's not what is on Ebay. He is selling the service of giving you your villa. Now that creates some other weird issues. I thought EQ went through this and had a lot of trouble stopping it because of these reasons. As long as the seller labels things perfectly - which when I checked him out, he did, then I am not sure what Turbine could do except make it a CoC violation then try to track folks down the hard way to kill the accounts.

Accidental loss shouldn't matter. If I own the cottage/villa and pay my first rent then I'm set for 60 days. So unless you accidentally abandon the house, you should have owned it for more than 30 days if you forgot to/could not pay rent.

Edit: I'm for it. But agree that making it cross server is what would be needed to really put a dent in this. And as noted, maybe clear all timers when the new server opens.

QUESTION: If you could have a dungeon house that had more hooks, two chests and could recall all your toons (multiple accounts included) to that dungeon house would you drop your surface dwellings. Only a friend who happened to be in the same settlement has ever seen any of my cottages. Furnishing them is just for my own fun. If Turbine could create instance housing (no lag issues???) then I would be more than willing to give up my surface housing if it would help things.

[sylphia]

alderom,

Secure house trading is not possible RIGHT NOW; that would be the whole point of the section you quoted. Turbine is trying to figure how to MAKE it possible. Had you bothered to read the rest of the post, you would see that it is part of a larger proposal which would STOP the mass sales of housing. The main body of that post does a pretty good job of destroying the way "real estate agents" do bunisess. But it needs help at the bottom to stop auto-buy bots from taking their place.

Think that limiting housing purchases to once per account on each server will stop it? Read THIS to see why it wont. (http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=42783&#post42783)

[AC_Guy]

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Intellectual property here means using "Asheron's Call " or other Trade Marks for profit when you as the seller do not own them or not been given permission to do so.

It would be no differen't then opening a a Burger Shop and calling it Mc Donald's.

Already companies have used there IP rights to remove the sale of there items from the Internet.

[AC-Vet]

Question about additional housing to Developers

I just thought about something that was mentioned about housing availablity being reached by landscape limits...My thought would be this....I see no physical out side structure for apartments but we know they exsist virtually. holding 225 residents with in it, Why not redesign half the apartments to accomoate villa size capabilitys like hook quantity and storage....you can call them condo's.....this may free up availablity of surface villa's which can be used a mansion substitues like originally planned....most players use the "villa" as a status symbol or a trading tool, but when asked what they like best.. its most always hooks and storage ability as a reply, so there is a hidden oppertunity here to create additional housing, Free up Surface Villas....

And to be perfectly honest, how many players actually use housing as a social gathering point to entertain or visit? not many because I rarely ever see any occupants ever around homes or developments.....they are mainly used for storage.....

Also on a side note: Allowing None account members pay the rent on other players housing is what is making housing unavailable to playing acct's.....Close the pay rent to housing to acct holders only and I bet with 1 month.....30% of housing becomes available....one more note....if you don't want to do this can u atleast put a timer visible on housing stone showing time left before occupancy is open? this is based off someone being evicted for non rent payments past the alotted time....and while you consider this, consider player corps timers visible upon ID....too many lost items that could be returned and yes kept too...if we could see approx when decay process will end...thx

So basically the ideas thrown out here to ya...doable? too much work? non consideration? any reply would be appreciated from Developer.

Anything will be better than this purposed plan that will only slow the issue of housing sales for cash and it opens up more ways to invite others doing it...maybe not on a grand scale as niro but enough to pay for 6 months of free game play by 1 sale alone...So basically what I'm saying is your approach is not practical, you develope the game, game items, I pay you to use them and then sell it to someone else to use......I make enough cash off your item to play for free for 6 months...All I could do is thank you for making this possible....if too many ppl practiced this..then the loss of sales would surely take a hit....I just hope that this doesn't fall through the cracks and become a much larger problem than what is already.

Thnks for time and possible considerations.

[alderom]

'Think that limiting housing purchases to once per account on each server will stop it? Read THIS to see why it wont.'

I KNOW it won't. All the person would have to do would be to buy a few extra accounts and rotate subscribing to them every month or two.

The point I was saying being able to give a house to someone directly makes selling houses in game or over ebay even EASIER. There would be no way around that! Doing anything with people's accounts will do NOTHING to deter them making money off housing. The ONLY way to do this would be to put the timer on the HOUSE ITSELF. That way no matter how many accounts they have or which they use they would be treated like every other person and not be able to circumvent anything to do with accounts. Its what I've been saying ever since the first person suggested it!

The whole POINT of the timer they suggested in the first place was to try to deter ebaying them but with what you are suggesting that would only make it easier for them! Yes in a perfect world it would be nice to be able to do that. In a perfect world I'd like to have a lane I could drive as fast as I wanted (in America) but because of other people and unsafe drivers its not possible.

Do I realize that would effect people who just wanted to give housing to a friend or guildmate? Yep and I've even done it before and had it done to me before but if you did that there would be nothing to stop the ebayers than. Its a balance scale and I consider making it easier for joe shmo to get a house instead of someone buying one off ebay a better choice than the alternative.

[Shidoshi]

I think it is horrible that for one you know there is a housing SHORTAGE issue, and you refuse to remedy that situation within the next patch. Houses being sold on Ebay is ridiculous, you might as well add one villa a month and have Turbine sell it on Ebay, because that is exactly what your doing in my opinion.


Rant over



1.) One month timer is a good idea, and better than nothing at all, but I agree with some of the above posts about people having multiple accounts, and having multiple houses. Not sure if there is, or ever will be a fix for that, but there is your problem.

Dereth is wide and sparse, I would like to see some development in the Dires area, maybe a lvl 100+ requirement as well as some new housing trophy item, only found in the dires. A outpost of housing of sorts, theres a good idea (prime hunting)

[sylphia]

alderom,
Once again you are only taking a part of the post. The secure house trading is PART of a larger fix. Even by itself, it doesnt make the sale of housing on eBay any more or less easy. It is occuring RIGHT NOW without this featrue being in game. There is much more legeitimate use possible with it than illegitimate. And I stress again that if you read teh rest of the proposal instead of getting stuck on the first sentence, you will see that th eprofered solution CAN work, if we can get past the auto buyuing bot problem.

In a perfect world? Do you understand how supply and demand works to affect prices? If I have 10 accounts, I can control 10 houses. If I have 20, I can control 20 houses (rememebr even with the proposed changes this is PER SERVER not just per account). The more accounts I own, the firmer my control over the housing market becomes. The longer I can hold those houses, the more desperate players will become. It will come down to only the players with lot sof cash can afford to purchase a house; not the ones with lots of IN GAME cash, but the ones with money to burn in real life. To support all 20 accounts, I would only have to make 3 sales at Niro's current $80 per sale (plus $20 out of pocket). If I sell 4, I have pure profit. If I up the prices on each minimum buyout to $100, I WILL get that price because I control the housing as it comes out. When I use an account's once-per-month slot to buy and sell a house, I buy another one to replace it at $13 and sell it for $80, netting $67 profit. If I sell a house on the other servers with that account as well, each sale is 100% profit. I will never run out of cash to buy more accounts, and I wil always have a lock on the market.

You may think this is untenable, but I assure you it is not. You may think it wont work, but it will. As long as a house seller can gain significant advantage over other players and grab each house as it comes up, they wil lbe able to ply their trade indefinitely, because there will ALWAYS be someone willing to pay their price; moreso if they know they cant get it any other way. If the market slows down and not many houses are coming up, you unsub your addditional accounts to reduce costs, and only reactivate them when it picks up again. Slapping a timer on buying a house only aggravates the issue; putting a lONGER timer only means that those accounts WILL be unsubbed until their timer is up. And it will not stop the house selling from occuring.

We have to break the way they work in the first place in order to stop them.

[Shidoshi]

I love AC-Vet's idea so much I had to come back and reply on it.




We all use houses, and villas for storage only mainly. Monarchies would be the execption for gatherings. STORAGE is the key word here.

If Turbine gave me a choice between a virtual storage chest that held 100 items, or a villa, I could care less which I received as long as I had the same storage.

Apartments with 2 chests would also free up issues

[GKusnick]

Originally posted by AC-Vet
Why not redesign half the apartments to accomoate villa size capabilitys like hook quantity and storage....you can call them condo'sI suggested something like this a couple of weeks ago:

http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2576

[alderom]

Originally posted by sylphia
alderom,

In a perfect world? Do you understand how supply and demand works to affect prices? If I have 10 accounts, I can control 10 houses. If I have 20, I can control 20 houses (rememebr even with the proposed changes this is PER SERVER not just per account). The more accounts I own, the firmer my control over the housing market becomes. The longer I can hold those houses, the more desperate players will become. It will come down to only the players with lot sof cash can afford to purchase a house; not the ones with lots of IN GAME cash, but the ones with money to burn in real life. To support all 20 accounts, I would only have to make 3 sales at Niro's current $80 per sale (plus $20 out of pocket). If I sell 4, I have pure profit. If I up the prices on each minimum buyout to $100, I WILL get that price because I control the housing as it comes out. When I use an account's once-per-month slot to buy and sell a house, I buy another one to replace it at $13 and sell it for $80, netting $67 profit. If I sell a house on the other servers with that account as well, each sale is 100% profit. I will never run out of cash to buy more accounts, and I wil always have a lock on the market.

You may think this is untenable, but I assure you it is not. You may think it wont work, but it will. As long as a house seller can gain significant advantage over other players and grab each house as it comes up, they wil lbe able to ply their trade indefinitely, because there will ALWAYS be someone willing to pay their price; moreso if they know they cant get it any other way. If the market slows down and not many houses are coming up, you unsub your addditional accounts to reduce costs, and only reactivate them when it picks up again. Slapping a timer on buying a house only aggravates the issue; putting a lONGER timer only means that those accounts WILL be unsubbed until their timer is up. And it will not stop the house selling from occuring.

We have to break the way they work in the first place in order to stop them.

Can you PLEASE for once read my posts? Then can you reread them and understand them?

NO ONE Would buy a house from ANYONE if what I am suggesting happened. There would be NO WAY to get around it! Say someone bought a house before someone got to it. How then would they transfer it to the other person? THERE ISN'T ANYWAYS WITHOUT JUST SELLING THE WHOLE ACCOUNT. And who would want to switch accounts to get a villa especially when they could get it recalled from them?

PLEASE I ask again for you to actually realize what I was suggesting. Your example had NOTHING to do with what I suggested as it wouldn't effect it in any way whatsoever!

edit:

And that is why I'm against house transfers. It would only make it easier for ebayers to transfer it to the buyers. There would be no way to differentiate between whether a house getting transfered was for someone paying cash for it or it being given to a friend.

[Jerryg]

Just had a wild thought.

One of the worys being expressed is that people will obtain new accounts to get around the limit.

One way around this may be to place an aditional requirement on purchasing a house. What if a character/acount had to have been active for at least 6 months before he/she could close the deal with a house stone. Put this restriction on Cotages, Villas, and Mansions, but not on Apartments, so that you do not miff to many new players.

This change would mean that people like NERO would need to plan and purchase new accounts months ahead of time, to even hope to be able to continue their game. Make the timer across all worlds, and then the seller will start to see diminishing returns.

If you wanted to be even more strict, you could have a minimum number of hours played in addition to the account age requirement.

Jerry

[Turgis]

6 month idea = bad, good way to **** off legit real new players since they can make 20 in a day with a good patron a week without.

[Shindi]

Change requires change.

No one wanted to run around and hunt for new housing, HOW RIDICULOUS (sarcasm). More houses where added. New commands where added. Now that it is convenient and easy, we call that unfair because some members found a way to use this to their advantage. Everyone wants to limit others with an advantage so they themselves can get what they are longing for. Make a profit or just make their game play more comfortable.

So, we make a change and we adapt. Dereth is full of enterprising characters that with given limits will find the best, fastest and most economical way to get what they want. That will never change. We all want to upgrade our housing to something better. Whether for profit or for comfort. There is nothing wrong with that. With limited Villas and the demand, I myself have given up on getting a villa. I settle for two account and two cottages side by side (got lucky).

So what is the solution? Change. Drastic or subtle, we need a change. That is why we are all giving our opinions.

With Dereth becoming more dangerous, I feel the current housing may not be safe. Something a little more central like apartments or the suggested condo's will most likely be where we end up.

I myself would like to build my own house. Buy a little plot in a safe underground haven. Build me a house around neighbors I could visit with and help out. Maybe under a city where I can put up shop and better my life. Sell my crafts and make a name for myself. Over time maybe upgrade it, add a fence, a basement, and craft some gems to invite people over. If I feel like selling it and getting a better plot a little further in and safer, all the better.

Who knows what dangers might be out there soon threatening our dwellings. We might all need to gather together to protect our cities and our very way of life. What I don't want to do is fight among ourselves over something that we have any control over. There are not enough villas for all who want them. There is not enough server space to build enough for all. I look forward to what the Dev's come up with.

Thanks for readin,

Shindi of Wintersebb

[Gesica]

Honestly, All Niro has to do is increase the price per villa on eBay. With less villas being sold there, people will pay more for the villa.

If you want to stop people from making profit from the game, stop them from using eBay.

All these fixes that are being proposed are run-around solutions. The direct solution would be to have eBay remove AC listings.

[myuki]

I say take this fix and then add in the 24 hour timer on doing @house available.

Heck, even make it a 6 or 12 hour timer.

This fix is a nice one, but it's only slowing down the housing macroers like Niro, and it's not slowing them down much. In Niro's case (I only use him as the example because he is by far the largest problem in the housing camper arena), he has numerous accounts, I've heard 5-10. So basically he can buy 5-10 villas per month, per account. He is limited now, yes, but not by much.

[nightgaze]

Question:

How does this timer effect someone who has owned their cottage for several months?

Does the 30 day timer start when they first purchase the house? Does it reset after each maintenance payment or just at the initial purchase?

Thanks

[Ifuritah]

DO IT!

[AC-Vet]

Originally posted by GKusnick
I suggested something like this a couple of weeks ago:

http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2576

Sorry Bro, I missed that post, and by no means trying to discredit you, I just read your idea and liked it very much, if by slim chance turbine considered any alternative to the current purposal, I would gladly see the credit thrown your way if they used your idea as the building platform. I was merely seaking out alternative ideas than jumping on this band wagon of "lets cheer the current plan on like most are doing". I for one cannot agree that timers and limiting housing can be the solution here while punishing every player and only handicapping the few that caused the problem in the first place. While thier solution is not practical and opens up way too many oppurtunities for more exploits....I would much rather see housing taken completly out of the trade economy altogether this idea was posted here within the thread also and I would gladly endorse it and credit the player behind the idea.

I hope that this thread is taken to heart by turbine with all the alternatives posted with in here.....there are a tremendous amount of ideas from alot of players and to that my Hat's off to the players...
Thx

[Honest John]

The concept of housing purchasing timers to reduce the ability of people like Nero to buy and sell houses only works if offender only has one account. All this propossel does is require to exploiter to use more than one account. This is simply not a problem as the potentual reward is high enough that the extra cost is well worth it.

I applaud Turbines efforts to do something about this but this simply will have no real effect.

In fact, it does have the potinual to affect a few legit players who may have the chance to upgrade to a higher housing level shortly after getting a cottage. While the odds of this are very low, it could happen.

Please Turbine, don't do this just to be able to say your trying. No change is far better than one that has no real benifit. Postpone this and give it some more time. With all the give and take currently going on, its quite possible some other solution may appear. Let the players have more time to ponder possibilities.

Thanks for trying Turbine, but don't rush and do a 1/2 job.

[obie]

This is much better than limiting the /house available command. I would suggest three changes to make it better.

Allow upgrades. i.e. You own a cottage, you can buy a villa without the wait.

Make Villas and Mansions on a much longer timer than cottages. such as character must be 4 months old and 6 months between buys.

Allow a player only to buy a house on one server. I.e. a "home server".

The second phase, currently planned for May, is the removal of the Settlement Portal Hubs entirely.

The goal of these changes is to remove the ugliness of the Hubs, as well as encourage exploration and travel through Dereth’s wilderness. If there are several Settlements that you visit regularly, you have the opportunity to purchase gems for these Settlements in the month of April, before the Hubs are removed. If you wish to visit your friend’s home, you can ask you friend to purchase that Settlement’s gem for you. We would not be surprised to see gems for particularly popular Settlement destinations being traded in the Marketplace!

The above will kill the house hunters except those with multiple accounts.


(OT: The new letter to the players listing where you are going to take player input is a great move)

[Wolfton]

I don't know if anyone has suggested this already because I havn't read most of the posts (takes up way too much time, lol!). Why not have houses be created with the creation of the first character on a world of each account? And give everyone a house that already is created and does not have a home? That way, no one will be able to sell houses on ebay, or any other place, because everyone will already have one. I was thinking, maybe put the newly created houses in a random settlement until that settlement reaches the max # of houses, whatever it is. Also, have the option of making the house a cottage or villa while making the character so that they can kind of choose how much they pay each month. Another thing, have cottages upgrade-able so that you can have more room if you run out; maybe have the cottage switch to a villa settlement once upgraded. The way to upgrade it could be the cost of a villa currently. About the mansions, I think you should be able to upgrade cottages or villas to a mansion if you are a monarch, with all of the current requirements to buy one. This way, almost all monarchies can have a mansion to go to. Now, along the lines of payment, I think that should be the same as it is now, except, instead of losing your house, you should just not be able to enter it. Or either that, just make the houses completely free except for upgrading it. This way, all the pack rats out there will have space to put all of their junk and the people selling houses for RL money will be out of bussiness.

[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 ?

[Honest John]

Originally posted by Wolfton
I don't know if anyone has suggested this already because I havn't read most of the posts (takes up way too much time, lol!). Why not have houses be created with the creation of the first character on a world of each account? And give everyone a house that already is created and does not have a home? That way, no one will be able to sell houses on ebay, or any other place, because everyone will already have one. I was thinking, maybe put the newly created houses in a random settlement until that settlement reaches the max # of houses, whatever it is. Also, have the option of making the house a cottage or villa while making the character so that they can kind of choose how much they pay each month. Another thing, have cottages upgrade-able so that you can have more room if you run out; maybe have the cottage switch to a villa settlement once upgraded. The way to upgrade it could be the cost of a villa currently. About the mansions, I think you should be able to upgrade cottages or villas to a mansion if you are a monarch, with all of the current requirements to buy one. This way, almost all monarchies can have a mansion to go to. Now, along the lines of payment, I think that should be the same as it is now, except, instead of losing your house, you should just not be able to enter it. Or either that, just make the houses completely free except for upgrading it. This way, all the pack rats out there will have space to put all of their junk and the people selling houses for RL money will be out of bussiness.

The biggest problem to most of your ideas is server load problems and lag. Turbine has already indicated they have no plans to increase the number of houses of any kind on the landscapes. And, they will not increase the capacity of the existing housing for the same reasons. And, as every world does have housing of one kind or another available, there is no real reason to add more. The only shortage is for the kind of housing people want, not housing in general. .

[Wolfton]

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

[grim]

i didnt have time to read all the replies so sorry if this was mentioned already...but have you taken into consideration people using free accounts repeatedly to possibly abuse the timer to sell accounts?

or they may pay the 13 dollar months subscription repeatedly on new accounts simply because each one would net them 80 bucks for a profit of 60+?


just trying to poke holes in it before the people abusing it do :) hope whatever you guys work out for this will put the ebayers out of business.

[Sabre-F86]

I agree, this will put a good sized road block in for the macroers. Well done Turbine.

[Honest John]

Originally posted by Sabre-F86
I agree, this will put a good sized road block in for the macroers. Well done Turbine.

I really want this to work, but. Please explain how this will "put a good size road block" up. Or do anything but slighty reduce the macroers profit margin.

Please, Maybe I just dont understand.

[annunu]

There are still a number of "new" or naive type of players that play Asheron's Call. Some of these do not visit the literature out there about upcoming events.

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."