OSI Updates

[Borg]

The following points summarize the current state of player housing/house decay within Ultima Online, and will continue to remain true:

Players are allowed to have one house per shard, per account. These houses will need to be refreshed manually.

Some older accounts may still maintain more than one house per shard, per account (but no more than one per character on that shard). These houses will need to be refreshed manually.

Acquiring a new house will put all other houses owned by that account on any shard into Condemned status, disallowing them from refreshing and forcing them to decay.

Players are allowed to own grandfathered houses on more than one shard.

In addition, two new elements will become a part of this system:

Players may opt to only own one house per account, period. In exchange, that "primary house" will be automatically refreshed for as long as the account remains active. (See "Primary Houses" below for more details.)

Note that your account is considered to have opted in to this new "one house per game account" rule if you place a new house or have a house transferred to you. Further, once this new housing system becomes active, any inactive account that is reactivated will also automatically be considered to have opted in to this new "one house per game account" rule.

Houses that are owned by inactive game accounts will decay within 2 days, and will not be allowed to be refreshed for as long as the account remains inactive.

Housing states: Houses will be classified as one of three "House Refresh Types": "Automatic," "Grandfathered," or "Condemned."

The house refresh notation can be seen by double-clicking a house sign and accessing the house menu; only those who can access a house's sign-menu will be able to see this house refresh notation.

Note: Only a house's owner, co-owners, and friends will be able to see the current state of decay ("This house is slightly worn," "this house is somewhat worn," etc.) of a house, which will be done by single-clicking that house's sign.

These states will be updated upon any placement or acquirement of a new house, and/or changes to the owning account's active/inactive status.

Below is a more comprehensive breakdown of the housing refresh states.

Primary house: This house is owned by an active game account, and has been established by the player to be that account's primary house. Note: setting a house as an account's "Primary house" will automatically force all other houses owned by that account, on any shard, to become Condemned.

The house refresh state on the house menu-gump will be listed as "Automatic." Primary houses will automatically refresh themselves-in fact, these houses will no longer display any decay stage, as the house no longer decays.

The typical situation for this could be said to be a player who has decided to only maintain one house in all of UO, in exchange for that house never decaying for as long as the game account remains active.

See "Primary Houses" below for more details.

Grandfathered house: This house is owned by an active game account, but has not been established by the player to be that account's primary house.

The house refresh state on the house menu-gump will be listed as "Grandfathered." Grandfathered houses will decay "as normal," and will proceed through several decay steps before disappearing after approximately 11 days. However, owners and friends will be able to manually refresh this house and begin the decay cycle anew by opening and closing any of that house's doors.

A typical situation for this could be said to be a player who plays on two shards and has a house on each. Each of those two houses will need to be manually refreshed over time, and the player may decide to manually refresh each once every week or so.

Another typical situation for this could be said to be a long-time player who is maintaining more that one house on a given shard on his one account. Each of those two houses will need to be manually refreshed over time, and the player may decide to manually refresh each once every week or so.

Condemned house: This house is owned by an active account, but has been put into "Condemned" status due to that player placing, or acquiring, a newer house, on any shard. In other words: the newest house becomes the Primary house, and all other houses, on all shards, become Condemned.

Any house owned by an inactive account will also be considered Condemned. (Reactivating that account will allow one house to become a Primary House, and all other houses on that account will remain Condemned. See "Primary Houses" below for more details.)

The house refresh state on the house menu-gump for these houses will be listed as "Condemned." This house will not be able to be refreshed. It will decay within 48 hours of becoming Condemned.

Note: setting a house as an account's "Primary house" will automatically force all other houses owned by that account, on any shard, to become Condemned.

A typical situation for this could be said to be a player with any number of houses on any number of shards who has obtained a new house, and all houses other than that newest house on that shard will become Condemned.

Another typical situation for this could be said to be a player who has closed an account and left behind one or more Condemned "ownerless houses."

Implementation: the changes to housing/house decay will occur in three phases.

House Status Assessment: All houses within UO will be marked with one of the above housing states during this phase, based on their current house status. This phase will last until the associated "Publish 16" (of which these feature changes are part) is active on all shards, during which time all houses (except Condemned houses) will continue to be automatically refreshed. Once these feature changes and Publish 16 are on all shards, we will move quickly to the next phase, "Establishing Ownership."

Establishing Ownership: This phase will begin phasing out the possibility of "ownerless houses"—those houses that are owned by an inactive UO account—and allow co-owners the option of claiming their respective ownerless houses as their own. Those co-owners, in order to claim such an ownerless house, must either not already own a house on any shard or be prepared to have all other houses owned by that account to become Condemned.

The right of claiming an ownerless house will be "first come, first served," where the first co-owner to access the house and claim it will become the new owner.

If all of a given house's co-owners pass on this ownership claim option, the house will be marked as "Condemned" and allowed to decay at the start of the third and final Implementation phase, "New House Decay Rules Begin."

New House Decay Rules Begin: This final phase begins the new house decay rules: all Primary houses will auto-refresh forevermore, Grandfathered houses will need to be manually refreshed, and Condemned houses will not be able to be refreshed and will decay within 2 days (as per the rules specified in the "Housing States" section above).

Primary Houses: Players will have the option to make one of their houses within Ultima Online as their Primary House. Owning a Primary House will have certain benefits and restrictions.

A Primary House will never need to be manually refreshed; Primary Houses will always automatically be refreshed.

When a player declares one of her houses to be the Primary House for that account, all other houses owned by that account, on all shards, will be set to Condemned status (and decay within 2 days).

If a player has placed or has had a house traded to him, he may not place or have another house traded to him for a minimum of one week. However, that player can still give away any number of houses without restriction-he simply can't collect any more until one week has passed since he last obtained a house.

If a player's account becomes inactive, all houses on that account will become Condemned. If that account once again becomes active then that account is considered as having automatically "opted in" to the Primary House system, and one house will be compelled to become a Primary House while and all other houses on that account will remain Condemned.

Co-owners: The co-owner feature for houses will continue to exist, with all the rights and privileges they currently enjoy, although being a co-owner will no longer count against your house ownership status.