UO Second Age

Maybe, maybe not. When I first started playing here and was looking for a spot to place a two story house, it took me a lot of searching. Granted I was still new so I didn't have easy access to runes to all over the place, but it took me a few days until I finally found a decent location. I do remember during my first and second day of searching, I thought to myself "So there's only about 300 ips, and all I come across is the land filled with mostly empty houses." And to be honest, if I had to camp an IDOC or buy an already placed house when there's only about 300 ips average during the day, then I would've found a different server. It's not absurd to have to buy placed houses during T2A back then, but it is absurd if it gets to the point that I have to buy a placed house with this amount of people on the server.

Kael wrote:It's not absurd to have to buy placed houses during T2A back then, but it is absurd if it gets to the point that I have to buy a placed house with this amount of people on the server.

Why exactly? ....because its not fair somehow?

Never mind limiting accounts or housing would cause a MASSIVE amount of the current player base to quit....... we gotta make sure "we dont scare new players away".


... I guess "its not fair" if someone has 15 houses. Houses mind you that collapse if they aren't used.

Friday afternoon, after saving up for a 2-story stone and plaster, I bought a deed and began looking for a spot.

Less than an hour later, I was able to place it. Near Britain East on the road, no less! No one showed it to me. This was the result of just walking around. This was peak hours, too. This also wasn't an idoc space.

Was I lucky, or is there just still alot of land left?

Lord Cavewight of GL wrote:Why exactly?

Because an average of 300 ips through the day shouldn't be filling up all of the available land space?

But you're very passionately defending something that hasn't happened yet, which I'm not sure why you're getting this worked up about it unless you have or plan to have 15 houses yourself.

Anyways, just because you're fine with having to buy a placed house doesn't mean that every new player to the shard feels the same way as you, especially when they realize the house:population ratio.

Also if we could only have say 3-6 houses throughout all of our accounts, I don't think that would cause a "MASSIVE" amount of people to quit as it's only the minority of people who have 10+ houses right now. And while houses obviously do collapse when they aren't used, with it being so easy to have of co-owners then people who haven't played in years could still easily have someone refreshing their house.

If it ever does get to the point that there is no open land available and the server has a player base large enough to justify it, then I'd have no problems with it. But I don't see the point in arguing until it actually does happen as we all know there's still housing space available...

Duke Jones wrote:Was I lucky, or is there just still alot of land left?

There's still a decent amount of land left, but I wouldn't count on placing a castle anywhere (or maybe a keep, but that is still feasible). It's just that most of the land isn't in "prime" locations, but there's still space in swamps and jungles, and other random parts of the world. Especially for small houses.

I've seen this topic pop up several times in the past, and each time that it has happened, I've taken a cruise around the world to observe the available housing. With this topic I've done the same thing and taken a round trip to observe the housing available on the server.

With this particular run through, I was able to find several larger housing spaces, including at least 1 if not two keep locations as well. Beyond that, there are large (and I do mean large) amounts of housing spaces available for L-shape, patio, and brick houses. And that doesn't include any housing locations that are exclusive to small houses. From that, it is easy to see that there is plenty of housing space available for new players to place without purchasing one.

Also, the mandate of UOSA is to replicate the mechanics of the era, not the feel. If we were to attempt to replicate the feel, we would be forced to consider a multitude of things such as removing GM skills from people who have acquired them, due to their rare nature during the era, or implementing a form of horse lag to replicate the more common connection of the era. Since it is not our goal to do that, it seems unreasonable for us to interfere with accurate game mechanics in this instance while ignoring the others at the same time.

Finally, it should be noted that while we have roughly 250-300 unique clients at almost any time, we do not have only 250-300 different people playing. In many instances, there really are more than two people playing in a given house. And even if we were to assume that each unique IP was equivalent to only one person, the unique IP's that are connected change throughout the day.

Kaivan wrote:Finally, it should be noted that while we have roughly 250-300 unique clients at almost any time, we do not have only 250-300 different people playing. In many instances, there really are more than two people playing in a given house. And even if we were to assume that each unique IP was equivalent to only one person, the unique IP's that are connected change throughout the day.

Sorry I wasn't trying to say that there were only ever 300 people playing, I just meant that at a given time there are that many people playing at once. I understood that it's different people playing at different times, and while that's exactly the same as current games having a much larger player base with thousands of people playing at once at any given time, I should have made that more clear in my previous post. I mainly just meant in relation to how many active accounts there were during the real T2A as opposed to this server.

This is definitely one of the most active free shards available, and I'm very thankful for that.

Kael wrote:

Lord Cavewight of GL wrote:Why exactly?

Because an average of 300 ips through the day shouldn't be filling up all of the available land space?

These house`s decay if not used, Why would anyone care in the first place who has however many houses?

Again, at this point in T2A history I'm not really sure why this topic was brought up. As Kavian and everyone has said, there are tons of spaces, maybe readress this topic if/when housing actually becomes a problem?

I was able to place a Patio last night with no problem.
After searching for 30 min I found 2 places for a Patio to fit, and atleast ten 7x7s, and maybe a L-shaped house.

You've been here a month and you aren't able to place a castle, you don't feel like that is an injustice?

I don't have the gold for a castle, im not worried about stuff that doesn't apply to me. Besides why would I worry about a castle if I can place another patio or equivalent when/if i need to?

Kaivan wrote:I've seen this topic pop up several times in the past, and each time that it has happened, I've taken a cruise around the world to observe the available housing. With this topic I've done the same thing and taken a round trip to observe the housing available on the server.

With this particular run through, I was able to find several larger housing spaces, including at least 1 if not two keep locations as well. Beyond that, there are large (and I do mean large) amounts of housing spaces available for L-shape, patio, and brick houses. And that doesn't include any housing locations that are exclusive to small houses. From that, it is easy to see that there is plenty of housing space available for new players to place without purchasing one.

Also, the mandate of UOSA is to replicate the mechanics of the era, not the feel. If we were to attempt to replicate the feel, we would be forced to consider a multitude of things such as removing GM skills from people who have acquired them, due to their rare nature during the era, or implementing a form of horse lag to replicate the more common connection of the era. Since it is not our goal to do that, it seems unreasonable for us to interfere with accurate game mechanics in this instance while ignoring the others at the same time.

Finally, it should be noted that while we have roughly 250-300 unique clients at almost any time, we do not have only 250-300 different people playing. In many instances, there really are more than two people playing in a given house. And even if we were to assume that each unique IP was equivalent to only one person, the unique IP's that are connected change throughout the day.

Can't say I saw a spot for a keep in my travels, but I definitely saw at least 3 towers in "nice" spots (well... there's two now ), and PLENTY of 2-story house plots.

As for the # of clients and # of IPs... are people having UO parties at their houses or something? Is this what the kids are doing these days?

If we have 300 IPs and 450 clients, my guess is that there's not more than 5 or 10 IPs with multiple different people on them at any given time. The rest are folks with 3 clients up, like me.

saw a keep get placed on friday

Duke Jones wrote:Friday afternoon, after saving up for a 2-story stone and plaster, I bought a deed and began looking for a spot.

Less than an hour later, I was able to place it. Near Britain East on the road, no less! No one showed it to me. This was the result of just walking around. This was peak hours, too. This also wasn't an idoc space.

Was I lucky, or is there just still alot of land left?

Awesome Duke! hope my advise helped at least a little! Drop me a line in IRC or PM to give me a tour!