Housing rules.

[do0m]

Ive been watching a house for the past 2 weeks. When i first noticed it, it was "Fairly"...
I checked on it today and every day since... still F-ing "fairly".

The 90 day decay rate for houses was NOT T2A. This should be lowered. Not only will it make people log on more often but it will also free up spots for people who ARE PLAYING that want that spot. (Plus the free loot from the fallen house is always a plus)

[Khronus]

yeah and it would make people refresh their houses more often... i have houses that i dont refresh for maybe 2 weeks lol

[do0m]

From what I remember 14 days was the decay rate on houses during T2A.

[Khronus]

that would be nice...

[DemonArkanis]

Agreed, it should be t2a accurate i think.

[Dupre[THG]]

i cant find were it says how long house decay is here lol so im brining it up again, is it 60 days or 6 months or what.

[do0m]

i cant find were it says how long house decay is here lol so im brining it up again, is it 60 days or 6 months or what.

90 days.

[Derrick]

I agree that it's too long as well. 90 days is a long time for sure. The original T2A housing decay was actually a week or less, but you have to take into account the context of those housing rules. The shards were Packed with houses during this era. The fast decay time permitted people wishing to place houses a much better chance of finding a spot. IDOC's were not hard to find at all back then.

One of the reasons for the longer decay rate is a sense of security for older players that might have to take extended leaves, i.e., Job/School. I think for that reason the decay time needs to be longer than say a typical college winter break.

The other concern is for players that haven't been on for a while, and we'll be making this change while they may not be paying attention. Although we said "House decay is 90 days, this may be revised downward in the future", Going from 90 to 14 days, or even to 30 is a pretty drastic change. I know of two specific instances of people that haven't been on for a while that do plan to come back, but those two monitor forums anyway.

I agree with all the points doOm has made. My only issue with making this change is how do we protect the people who don't know. I can't/won't make the assumption that just because I haven't seen someone for a couple weeks that they've quit and won't be back.

[do0m]

I can think of 2 ways to help the people who havent been here for a while.

1) make a post in the forums of the change in big bold letters along with on the main page of the website.

2) Send out emails registered to forum names of the change, give it a week, then implement it.

[Dupre[THG]]

id say 60 days would be an awesome number, usually if someone cannot log on in two months time at least to refresh their house, then they probably quit or dont care.

[leterrien]

I was thinking about this, and how it could be remedied. Maybe there is a way to make the new housing timer implement individually the 'next time' a house is refreshed, so those people who haven't been here won't loose their house from a change in decay rate. Only after they have logged back in (after 89 days) and refreshed their house would the house decay change. Don't know if this is scriptable, just a thought. You could include a pop up message when they first log back on, or when the house is refreshed that could tell them about the changes.
On another note, this is kinda an important change, and should probably be done as soon as possible, before population grows larger.
Just my 2p

[ecetres]

I agree. I think 30 days is a good number. Sometimes I dont get to get on for an extended period of time myself. I think the above script idea is a good way to implement the change. If thats not possible for whatever reason, maybe we should consider waiting 45 days with the sticky bold post about the change and emails being sent out. I know that would be pretty crappy to come back and not have my house. At the same time, if player x is only getting on every 60 days and refreshing their house, they are not really contributing much (no offense to anyone). So why are they just keeping a house on a shard they are not playing on?

[Derrick]

All great suggestions. I think this is something that certainly should be implemented soon.

I think 60 days is too long, I've been thinking 30 or 45. I'm not sure when I'll be able to make the changes, but likely it will be soon. The idea of grandfathering existing houses until the next refresh is likely very doable, and we may even send a warning message of the change on the next refresh.

More feedback on this is certainly welcome.

[Kenrick]

Anything longer than 1 month is simply too long.

30 days please.

[alatar]

I agree 30 days should be the limit if not shorter.