Houses

[Elryin]

Hey all, first I want to say that this is the best UO community that I have ever been privileged to belong to. Everyone seems very helpful in the forums and so far my time with UOSA has been enjoyable.

Now on to my question,

I have run into some major issues with the housing here in t2a, it seems so far that there is no real benefit to having a house here unless storage or vendors is all you are looking for. I am sure that once you get to have a Keep/Tower/2 story this changes due to the fact that they have 2 levels and you can not target people on the 2nd level from the ground.

However I do not really want any of those types of houses (or at least dont want to feel like I am being forced into them just to be safe) my character is a humble adventurer and has no want or need for the elaborate upscale housing. But what he and his friends in the world would like is a place that they can go at the end of a long day of hunting/crafting that is a safe place to hang out without the fear of dieing.

So my question is this, I have a One story house (any one story but the one with the little patio more specifically) how do I keep it safe (assuming that I want it to be a vendor house at some point in the future) what do I do to keep myself and my friend safe from death. Is it even possible? because so far it seems not.

I have had a house matching this north of the Vesper strip and myself and 2 of my friends have died countless times just chilling in the house with locked doors (admittedly at first some of the doors were not locked) but we have done everything that I can think of to secure the house (barring locking the front doors) and yet it seems like someone can come along decide that they think that i should die and kill me. Now this I understand is how some people "play" their characters and I can understand that, however I thought that I would be somewhat protected while inside a house.

So far this does not seem to be the case for the single story houses. It seems that you can just roll up target a person in one of these houses and cast away and they have no recourse. Well unless you consider coming out of the house to "defend" it and then dieing and loosing all your stuff to some assh*le. Last night myself and 2 of my friends were chilling at/around my house and were pked over and over and over not even being allowed to re capture our items. (These friends are new to UO not to mention one is a miner and the other is still very young in game but so far they were having a good time until that happened) I think my buddy on his miner died 5 times before the person lost interest and moved on, I am not very good at this game myself and do not consider myself good enough to protect my friends in pvp. I have never done pvp in any shard (including OSI) and have no interest in it. I understand that it is part of the game and I understand that I risk dieing every time I log on, but I also dont see the point in hanging around a house that you can not get into and killing/attempting to kill the people in/around it for an hour (for no reason other than to do it).

Last nights incident is what spurred this post, not to complain but to see if there is anything (as a pvmer/carebear/non-pvper) that I can do to protect myself and my friends while in my house. So I call on the great community here to help me out with any suggestions that you may have, or what you have done to protect your homes from the disgruntled PK whos wife/husband/mother/father/brother/sister/girlfriend/cousin has made their life so shitty they feel they have to pay it forward to those of us minding our own business and trying to have a little fun playing a game.

Thanks in advance,

Elryin

[Faust]

No matter what house you're in you can be hit by the earthquake spell. However, this does a current hp percentage based damage and you cannot die from it. The only spells that you can die from is chain lightning and meteor swarm. The way to avoid these spells is to be 3 tiles from the epicenter of the spells target. All houses have the ability to avoid the epicenter of these spells. A small house only has one square tile though, which is the dead center of the house. The only "true" way from avoiding getting hit is obviously to be out of line of site behind a wall for example, etc... You can do this by either having the front door or an interior door locked if there are multiple rooms in the house. The most logical and easiest way for better house security is by using tables or blocking items surrounding the doors. Most people typically use this method for security reasons.

[Elryin]

No matter what house you're in you can be hit by the earthquake spell. However, this does a current hp percentage based damage and you cannot die from it. The only spells that you can die from is chain lightning and meteor swarm. The way to avoid these spells is to be 3 tiles from the epicenter of the spells target. All houses have the ability to avoid the epicenter of these spells. A small house only has one square tile though, which is the dead center of the house. The only "true" way from avoiding getting hit is obviously to be out of line of site behind a wall for example, etc... You can do this by either having the front door or an interior door locked if there are multiple rooms in the house. The most logical and easiest way for better house security is by using tables or blocking items surrounding the doors. Most people typically use this method for security reasons.

Thats what I thought too.. However it seems that no matter where you are in the house with the patio you are not safe. I have been attacked wile standing in the center tile of the one room that is lockable with 2 doors locked and all the windows covered with bookshelves and last night died to a lightning bolt. I have tried to sand in the interior corner of that room as well which meets those requirements of being out of LOS and more than 3 tiles away from the epicenter of the casing magic. (All doors are locked except for the one going to the patio from inside the front room)

[MatronDeWinter]

No matter what house you're in you can be hit by the earthquake spell. However, this does a current hp percentage based damage and you cannot die from it. The only spells that you can die from is chain lightning and meteor swarm. The way to avoid these spells is to be 3 tiles from the epicenter of the spells target. All houses have the ability to avoid the epicenter of these spells. A small house only has one square tile though, which is the dead center of the house. The only "true" way from avoiding getting hit is obviously to be out of line of site behind a wall for example, etc... You can do this by either having the front door or an interior door locked if there are multiple rooms in the house. The most logical and easiest way for better house security is by using tables or blocking items surrounding the doors. Most people typically use this method for security reasons.

Thats what I thought too.. However it seems that no matter where you are in the house with the patio you are not safe. I have been attacked wile standing in the center tile of the one room that is lockable with 2 doors locked and all the windows covered with bookshelves and last night died to a lightning bolt. I have tried to sand in the interior corner of that room as well which meets those requirements of being out of LOS and more than 3 tiles away from the epicenter of the casing magic. (All doors are locked except for the one going to the patio from inside the front room)

That probably wasnt a regular lightening bolt. Thing is, earthquake can reach you, but it cant kill you, but if your macroing, such as sparring with another account, the EQ might get you down low enough so you kill yourself.