In Dark Ages of Camelot if you place a house in a designated area, you have to pay a lease. What would players think about the possibility of being able to place a secondary house on low populated shards only? The NPC that sells the house deed or the placement tools will only work on lower populated shards. Perhaps players could only place them in Malas/TerMur so as to avoid blocking Castle and Keep placement in Tram/Fel. Players would only be able to select smaller classic house styles, maybe small customizable would be okay, 500 max storage, the housing storage bonus would not apply to these houses. Only subscription accounts can place these houses. Make the cost like 1m/day, this could be changed. Maybe even allow additional houses, but with each additional house increase the lease price. Could make this a store item or feature if you don't like using it as a gold sink.
Alternative concept to personal placement.
Make them like New Magincia Stalls, you rent these little houses from designated areas within the game, they would only be available on low populated shards. They could be like little villages and hamlets. The game could make them fun by creating themes from Ultima lore. If you do this method, you could open it up to EJ accounts who would pay sovereign instead of gold for them. This concept would open it up to Atlantic, but perhaps increase the gold/sovereign price.
What would be the purpose?
1 - Might increase population on lower populated shards.
2 - Might encourage more community engagement.
3 - Might give players more reason to visit low populated shards.
4 - Might help players transition from one house to another.
5 - Gives a returning player, or quitting player time to consider their options.
6 - Gives a spot for visiting xsharders to store their idoc loot or storage for shopping.
So the rich can become even richer?
I'm neither for nor against the idea, if I want to play on another shard for a while without dropping an existing house I use boats, but just for the sake of clarity.
These houses would be of limited size?
They would be rented, not owned - similar to the function of Vaults?
They would be not-transferable, and therefore couldn't be sold?
“this would benefit unsavoury people who travel to dead shards to farm power scrolls without being challenged and ship them back to live shard for free with shard shields.
it’s really unfair on those who risk doing champs on live shards only to have their rewards worth less even though they often have to put in more effort to fend off rivals.
Evidently people will naturally just do what benefits them personally to the deficit of the community. It is very sad”
You could do it like the stalls in New Mag with pre build 7x7 Small Stone Workshop, 7x7 Small Marble Workshop or 8x7 Small Stone Towers only, you select house style with 4 vendors all ready placed in front of building (not on steps). These stalls could be in the cities of Tram and Fel excluding New Mag, inside guard zones only just like New Mag, VvV cities would have to be set up where this area is outside that system. This would allow safe travel for VS to any and all House Stalls.
Included
4 Vendors (normal Vendor fees apply)
6 chests (125 items unlimited weight) 750 storage with 50 extra storage for deco (800 total).
Cost 100M a month paid accounts only so it does not compete with the extra storage system for EJ Accounts
1 Housing Stall per account per shard.
I like all the feedback so far. If this were done right, I think most people who took the time to analyze my suggestion could come up with a reasonable manner to create this utility for the betterment of the game. I have griped about inflation in UO and the real world nearly my entire adult life. I remember what it was like to save up for an all valorite armor set for 1m gold, only to get PKd and lose it within hours of sporting it outside city protection. The staff created this ridiculous loot protection vet reward to save players pennies, and don't address that out of control inflation that makes playing without dying as much possible. How can one even get a power scroll on their own if they die in cheap armor trying to get it. Right now I am helping an entirely new player, and its very frustrating for them, and I've been doing this as being part of the Gentle Rest Inn guild on Catskills for 20 years. I truly hope players understand this idea comes from a good place as someone who invests their time in this game, and wants it to prosper.
Personal side note.
I did notice the personal jabs, and I accept them for what they are. Many people don't understand I broker for FREE, yes that's right, I broker for FREE any item in the game for gold across shards or otherwise. I give free price quotes based on research. I've done this for 18 years now after getting scammed too much. Before weightless gold, I was brokering up to 100 trades for free a day much to my wife's ire. The seller gave me the item, buyer gave me the gold, sometimes via vendors, and I exchanged them. No one got scammed. Occasionally I got a tip, but that was rare. However if someone asks me to save them time and sell something for them on my own time, I do charge a percentage for that. Flamestrike me if that bothers you.
Won't work. Take siege for example. Able to place a second house. What happened? Folks placed and left. Never played. Took up housing space for playing folks. They are standing empty now for around 8 years.
It looks like a solid idea to me. I've long thought it would be cool if there were pre-built houses inside of towns that could be "leased" for as long as someone was willing/able to pay, that could be decorated but not customized. I dunno about 1m gold a day though, even for a gold sink that seems a bit much to me. I do like the idea of multiple houses per account for an escalating leasing price. The price could also scale according to the size/storage capacity of the house, if such options are available.
The downside of this idea is that this could conceivably result in less accounts. I imagine a chunk of Broadsword's revenue comes from house-holding accounts. On the upside, more gold leaving the system and players logged in more to pay for the houses.
Why do you need to lock down a shard shield? Why wouldn't you just carry a few xfer tokens in your pack or bank?
It sounds like you essentially are suggesting a free / immediate cross shard trading post to instantly transfer items without going through the whole process of xfering and waiting 24 hours to be able to xfer again? So in your example; I want something transferred over from ATL to Origin I can put it on the vendor for whatever and then use my char (or account) on the other shard to grab it within the amount of time it takes to populate on vendor search. There is no way that should be allowed, it's way too easy to be abused.
I disagree with your definition of a gold sink. You seem to be defining a business plan (ie you need to make a profit) whereas I'm defining an actual gold sink which you are paying for convenience with a potential for no monetary return on investment. People can justify dropping 30mil a month into a "sink" that goes down the drain if they are getting enjoyment or convenience out of it regardless if they actually make more money from that exact thing.
That said, I do feel like this idea is purely as you are eluding to which is a business plan. It's someone's idea to enrich their own pockets while disguising it as a gold sink. I think people would 100% buy up houses risking 30-50-100mil in a given month at the chance of making 300m+ on flipping those houses all while only using 1 account as not to hurt their real life pockets. Think about it. If each house cost them 1 million goal to upkeep they could have an account with 50 houses on a shard (50M "investment") and just need to sell 1 house for that much gold to be in the profit. As opposed to now that would be at least $10/month x 50 accounts - $500 real life cash on the line to make a few plat? That doesn;t make sense (from a business plan) so that's why you don't see it happening but I bet if they allowed accounts to own multiple houses for gold that would change.
Let's say this you get a wagon 50 item storage. Can be placed in little area of each town God knows umbra can use some love. 10 paying customers get together they obtain village status which creates a small new mag type market as long as they are charged 100 million a month i see no harm
So many great ideas here, and like anything they might add into the game, it may only benefit or attract a few. This is true, how many of us have bought every single store item? Not me. Yet they keep adding more and more. Its a process. As long as it could help and not hurt the UO economy, I am for it. Of course I wouldn't want the Devs wasting time on any idea that would be too time consuming and not very useful. This is why we have these conversation. Bounce ideas off each other. Share comradery and express our passion for the game. For all the naysayers, I appreciate your point of view. Its made me think on it. My mind is not yet changed. I am still curious to see where this goes.
We do have these Britannian ships, and they sell the ships in the UO store, and they add storage to the game on any shard. This idea isn't all that different. Whether it be a lease in sovereigns, or gold for a nice gypsy wagon theme park, or traveling carnival tent town. I can get on board with this. It was not my original intention, but I can imagine promoting a role player event with this concept for farmer markets, a shard to shard trade show, or my personal favorite a Rares Festival where Mesanna doesn't even have to place houses, we just set up for these festivals and trade our rares. Thank you all for indulging me in my flights of fancy.
A traveling market caravan you can buy a vendor slot on it and it travels to each shard for a week... xxx real dollars to do each week..
I feel the issue with UO is the population which is why its a sunset game. Asking existing players to pay for extra house on another shard to provide our services for free... someone just said why make this another job? Why bother to make vendor on low pop shard when new players can't pay, when vets can make millions selling rewards, or high end stuff to larger pop at Atlantic.
Why bother to pay another $10 a month to rent a new house on a low pop shard just to trade items that cost peanuts to help new players.
If really want to help, we are talking about 20 over shards.
I don't know this idea would benefit gold selling players if the Devs implemented this in a way that only benefits the game, like making it only available through purchasing sovereigns. Doesn't remove the gold to make things more affordable in the game to new and returning players, but its a novel idea regardless.
The game is in desperate need of gold sinks so that players don't feel they need to buy gold just so they can afford to play. I am personally running out of gold all the time making scrolled bard tamers, gearing them with 10 mana increase armor, and taming Cus to scroll them. Power scrolls are very expensive. The average returning player has no hope of making enough gold or acquiring the necessary items on their own quickly enough to enjoy the higher instances within the game proficiently. I theorize this is exactly why they are making New Legacy, because it evens that playing field. Everyone starts new and fresh. Meanwhile the out of control inflation on the original version of the game burdens us all.
Is it just me or is most of what being asked for is provided by "Vaults"?
you can rent housing and boats from other players possibly. It seems everyone wants to do things individually instead of involving the community. Set up housing brokers that rent housing and ships.
Remove or severely hinder the ability to play the meta game and make items all shard bound. This would help the game play and help the communities have items to purchase on their shards. The cross shard trading is the meta, not the game. Each shard could have their own economy then instead of every shard having to price according to atlantic prices. They have to price the items at atlantic prices because if they price them lower, then people just buy them up and transfer them, leaving the shard barren of trade goods and people will not play on shards with no economy or items to find/use/buy.
Again I point out the only closed economy in UO is also the only healthy economy...