Not sure if that is a glitch or they are just smoking the wrong bong but I play on a fairly dead server, I dont have server transfer deeds to rape my server and sell to other servers, there is almost no merchant base on Baja and to afford a castle upgrade is unreal. I've mined my arse off to get the floor tiles, walls ect for my castle and everyone knows how buggy those things are. and after all that work, they want hundreds of millions for a design someone else did. @Mesanna why lot allow us to plot it and build it like we want since it is being price per tile anyways. 

Respectfully,

Amber Witch
Witch, not Trump

The poll needs one more option:
3.  Don't give a hoot.

I'm missing something here tho...when the voting was done, Tatiana was 3rd place, yet the devs chose 5 castle designs, and hers wasn't one of them?  *scratches head*

Seems odd to me

Wait and see how fast castles get converted. Especially on Atlantic. 

Anyone who doesn't have the money to convert will probably be able to sell for a pretty penny now that you can show off how much you have with castle plots. You can really set yourself apart from the masses with a converted castle.

I think castle plots are going to go way up in price.

Don't forget though that you can't even place the new ones - you have to convert an existing keep or castle. That way, you need to buy / build and add the cost of that onto it first!

Even less attainable for new and returning players...

Well that's just very odd, so you have to be in the lucky minority to start with to become super elite! 

Hey, people don't buy Lambo's and Koenigsegg's to commute with. They want something others don't have. They want to be able to show that they have something special, something that you and I don't. This is probably a great way for the developers to give that extra level of glit to those who desire it, and drain pretty good chunks of gold from the economy at the same time.

This is just playing to basic human nature. Pretty nice move actually.

Hell, they could've sold Castle Convert Tokens through the store for 10k or 20k Sovereigns and made a bunch of cash. I'm just glad they put it in the game as a gold sink.

I'll be waiting to see how this all plays out. Will the conversion actually work? How many items went poof in the conversion, etc. I doubt I'd convert anyway, but I will hold off saying that until I walk through a few of them. If it were an empty plot yeah I'd drop the coin. But to own some other persons dream I don't see that happening. I'd like to know if you can still use stone crafting on the new castles. But I've put so much time into adding floors, etc, to my current castle I'll be surprised if anything will grab me enough to switch. This whole thing went so poorly I'm really super disappointed also. This should have been the coolest thing ever for me but I'm left just totally disappointed. I have 3 accounts and I wonder why? I've logged in about 5 times in the past month. This whole thing has turned me off to the game. I doubt I'll drop accounts but I will be hoping for some form of logic or sanity grips those who can make this right and give us our own "customizable" plot like every other house in the game. They've done next to nothing to address the concerns of castle owners. This should have been so simple and done a year ago with next to zero dev work. Custom plots is really the only reasonable option.

We see where this game is going, lets cater to the ultra rich and the minority player base of UO.  This game is really getting out of hand.  These houses did not cost that much to build on TC so where are they getting this cost for the tiles, what is the most a 18x18 custome house costs.

@Bilbo totally agree with you, nobody I know in game is willing or in some cases able to pay those prices, in fact most of them said the new designs were just not worth the cost.

I admit the prices came as something of a shock to me - but when I thought about it a bit I realised. When most of us started a castle was something to aspire to, only the rich could afford them. The main price hasn't changed since 2003 - how long did it take back then to raise that kind of sum? About as long as the new castle prices would take now?
It's not very possible to place a castle now; even on 'empty' shards castle spots are few and far between, and how much do they change hands for on busier shards? 150 mill? more? 

I'll be sticking with my 18 x 18, but on the whole I think the price is in line with the sort of inflation the gold in game has undergone.

At least now the ultra rich rares collectors can upgrade their castles to show off their museum pieces.   Oh well...

IBTL

Maybe ask Messana if next cycle's custom housing could be made less exclusive (i.e. less expensive)?

Maybe they could create tiers of convertible housing?
10 Mil
100 Mil
300 Mil
800 Mil
1 Plat

Those 1 Plat houses would be (semi?) rare. Quite the thing to show off your rares museum in. What are the highest prices in the rares forums? I mean, you could even make a design that cost 10 Plat. Some would certainly get used, and that gold would be removed from the game.

I said this in the other thread, but these are vanity items. They have no function beyond what a basic castle has. They are just for the show.

(@Uriah_Heep, you beat me. You posted about rares museums while I was typing about rares museums.)

jaytin said:

Well that's just very odd, so you have to be in the lucky minority to start with to become super elite! 

I think you nailed it jaytin. Some players don't even have houses, the wealthier do, the elite have castles, and now the super elite have something.

(Plus, Broadsword gets to remove gold from the game, possibly slows inflation, and maybe generates some benefits even for the players without housing.)

So @Petra_Fyde how much did your 18x18 cost you to customize?  I did a Keep on TC and alls I used was the gold they give you.  An 18x18 has app. %50 the storage a Castle has and I will bet you anything that it did not cost you 50M+ to design your house, in fact I bet you you would get back what 1M or less if you demolish your house which is the value of your home and is %100 refundable.  So do these Castle owners get back the cost of the house when they demolish it?

I get that they want to add gold sinks...and this by FAR is a big one...BUT...it's not really logical...I know quite a few people are going to buy gold...honestly there is no such thing as a gold sink because the gold just keeps coming in...how do you think RMT'rs sell so much? Because that much is there ALL THE TIME....so NOW you have people paying real money for gold to 3rd party sites that EA/UO/BS will NEVER see a penny of....that makes sense how?

I know I'm straddling the fence with these comments and I do apologize in advance but to first make a contest that caters to the select few that already own a castle and then dwindle that down even FURTHER by only allowing those with billions of gold to utilize the results...I am sure all the RMTrs are dancing for joy right now.

I'm sorry team...but this is a HUGE mistake...if you must put gold sinks in..don't do it this way, you are alienating a very large portion of the player base and we're all you've got!

@Larisa well said! So they just made the gold sellers richer, do they even have any idea how many of the few players left can afford to buy a new design, even if they did like them?

jaytin said:

@ Larisa well said! So they just made the gold sellers richer, do they even have any idea how many of the few players left can afford to buy a new design, even if they did like them?

Kinda makes you wanna believe what people say about who the gold sellers are, eh?

Larisa said:

I get that they want to add gold sinks...and this by FAR is a big one...BUT...it's not really logical...I know quite a few people are going to buy gold...honestly there is no such thing as a gold sink because the gold just keeps coming in...how do you think RMT'rs sell so much? Because that much is there ALL THE TIME....so NOW you have people paying real money for gold to 3rd party sites that EA/UO/BS will NEVER see a penny of....that makes sense how?

I know I'm straddling the fence with these comments and I do apologize in advance but to first make a contest that caters to the select few that already own a castle and then dwindle that down even FURTHER by only allowing those with billions of gold to utilize the results...I am sure all the RMTrs are dancing for joy right now.

I'm sorry team...but this is a HUGE mistake...if you must put gold sinks in..don't do it this way, you are alienating a very large portion of the player base and we're all you've got!

100% in agreement, Larisa.  I'm sure the gold sellers are ecstatic.

A 31x31 plot costs 525,000 gold and a Castle costs 865,000 so that means the tiles cost 340,000 gold so where are these outrages prices for tiles coming from?

Can any of the contest winners go and check the value of their homes as stated in the housing window.

Mervyn said:

I feel I should ask this question:
how many people who own a castle, do not have over 1 plat? 

I don’t see what the problem is at all.

On Atl and maybe europa this might be true every other shard not so much....
and this is another case of something they should have stated up front. this was a contest that benefited very few and now to cut that number even further with unrealistic prices i don't ever want to hear the Dev say we lack the time or resources again after this giant waste of both for such a small segment of the player base...

Mervyn said:

I feel I should ask this question:
how many people who own a castle, do not have over 1 plat? 

I don’t see what the problem is at all.

I have about 130 million gold total across 8 accounts and I own 5 castles (Sonoma, Origin, Lake Austin, Balhae, and Arirang).  I have custom houses on Atlantic, Balhae, Oceania, Mugen, and Siege.  I own exactly one EM event item that I got from going to an EM event on Balhae. 

I've had a vendor up on Atlantic until a day ago when I changed my house there and managed to make about 14 million gold in three weeks by selling mostly crafting resources. (I was selling cheap LRC suits for 10k until someone bought me out to stock their vendor and sell them for 30k.)  I haven't played quite long enough to own any shard shields, so anything I sell on Atlantic I have to go out and gather myself.   I have a shop on Balhae but sales there are exceedingly slow and the castle I have there has a tree in the courtyard so it's probably not convertible anyway.

So, yeah, if I want to convert any of the other castles to one of the new designs, it's going to be a long, long road to making 300 million gold on any of those shards just by regular game play (i.e., excluding EM events which I can't ever get to, transferring gold from another shard since I have no shard shields, sending things to Atlantic to sell, or by buying it from a gold seller).  

At this point, it's hard to even care anymore.  I feel like I'm just one more player who is too stupid to have figured out how to get rich in UO and therefore the dev team doesn't care about me or other people like me.  We're apparently a dime a dozen and there's no need to worry about whether or not we're going to stick around and keep paying and helping to keep the lights on in UO.  We pay our sub fees and little else and therefore we're pretty worthless.

Sadly @AmberWitch this is what UO is turning into.  I am going back to Baja and try to have fun but it is increasingly becoming harder and harder to see this game going in this direction.  The only good thing going is truly the good people of our shard.

This is Absolutley obsurd on the pricing of these castles.  We are losing fan base and you have a contest getting the hopes up of all these people.  Then they are ready to place and you put these prices on and say its inflation?  Economy?  Whos economy?  Max should be 5 million in customization.   A regular castle is 865k to place.  Why are you trying to make people leave the game? 

well I have a castle on Baja, I have a collective gold of about 50 mill. I wouldnt even have that if i did not have people transfer pets to Atlantic to sell. That being said, a server should be self serving meaning I shouldnt have to transfer my items to another server just to pay for a house. Baja has very limited vendors so selling anything there is not going to make anyone rich. Using paying customers to develop a home so UO can market it is pretty lame. Farming up enough granite to make a current castle into something had good possibilities but most people who have done this can tell you how bugged it is. things falling through floor tiles, tiles coming unhooked or randomly ending up in the moving crate is a complete mess. I'm all for making a castle into a plot that you can build like a normal house. lots of creativity can be done there. 

on a side note, like todays tokens that you have 2 options to choose from, 1 being deco and the other being something you can build after using it to find a constellation is too funny. talk about useless.  some really crummy things coming from UO lately. 

Larisa said:

.....but to first make a contest that caters to the select few that already own a castle and then dwindle that down even FURTHER by only allowing those with billions of gold to utilize the results...

...you are alienating a very large portion of the player base and we're all you've got!

"Select few" cannot also be a "very large portion". 🙂

........

Most of the player base isn't going to care about this at all, because they do not own a castle. More of the player base won't care, because they own a castle and can afford to upgrade to a new design. More won't care because they own a castle and aren't interested in upgrading.

This is about a few people, who already own a castle, who are upset they can't afford a bling upgrade. And, they already own castles.

The histrionics in this thread are ridiculous.

-Peace out-

Twenty one years of ultima online and it is the second time I say this...
"Dear devs, you can kiss my elven..."
---
Bad move introducing a rich vs poor, special vs common battle in a uo core system... the housing tool.
---
It only makes you... you the devs, look more and more like aristocrats... much like the current monarchic system in Trammel 🙂

Obvious trollish posts will be removed without notice. Please be mindful of the terms of service when posting.

Arroth_Thaiel said:

Larisa said:

.....but to first make a contest that caters to the select few that already own a castle and then dwindle that down even FURTHER by only allowing those with billions of gold to utilize the results...

...you are alienating a very large portion of the player base and we're all you've got!

"Select few" cannot also be a "very large portion". 🙂

........

The histrionics in this thread are ridiculous.

Most of the player base isn't going to care about this at all, because they do not own a castle. More of the player base won't care, because they own a castle and can afford to upgrade to a new design. More won't care because they own a castle and aren't interested in upgrading.

This is about a few people, who already own a castle, who are upset they can't afford a bling upgrade. And, they already own castles.

Once again i point out that the fact that this was done for such a small % of the player base despite the fact that things that do affect the majority of players is always put on back burner due to lack of staff, time and resources to further anger everyone lets make everything as unclear as possible not bother to mention these will be gold sinks with higher cost and it appears break house customizing in the process this is a fail all around 

jaytin said:

Well that's just very odd, so you have to be in the lucky minority to start with to become super elite! 

  *salutes*

Rorschach said:

Obvious trollish posts will be removed without notice. Please be mindful of the terms of service when posting.

Pitr said:

Rorschach said:

Obvious trollish posts will be removed without notice. Please be mindful of the terms of service when posting.

That was roleplaying and irony... trolling would have foul language and sarcasm. (adding smiley for peace sake) ... 🙂

Your post seems to still be there.

McDougle said:

Once again i point out that the fact that this was done for such a small % of the player base despite the fact that things that do affect the majority of players is always put on back burner due to lack of staff, time and resources to further anger everyone lets make everything as unclear as possible not bother to mention these will be gold sinks with higher cost and it appears break house customizing in the process this is a fail all around 

I would guess that population being as old as it is, and as low as it is, the percent who own castles (I am talking people, not accounts) may be quite a bit higher than you think.

Uriah_Heep said:

jaytin said:

@ Larisa well said! So they just made the gold sellers richer, do they even have any idea how many of the few players left can afford to buy a new design, even if they did like them?

Kinda makes you wanna believe what people say about who the gold sellers are, eh?

Makes me think of the new player in chat a couple days ago. He said something like "There's stuff in this vendor search they want a million gold for!". Well hang on pal, you ain't seen nothing yet lol

Arroth_Thaiel said:

Most of the player base isn't going to care about this at all, because they do not own a castle. More of the player base won't care, because they own a castle and can afford to upgrade to a new design. More won't care because they own a castle and aren't interested in upgrading.

This is about a few people, who already own a castle, who are upset they can't afford a bling upgrade. And, they already own castles.

The histrionics in this thread are ridiculous.

-Peace out-

This isn't just about castles, its also about keeps... 
There are several different designs that I like but with the cost... its not do-able. And then what happens after the next contest? will these designs be gone from the tool? I'm afraid the design I like would be gone before I can afford it...

What is so disappointing about all of this is that it goes to show that the Devs don't care about the average player. the average player doesn't have lot of gold. Yes I do have a castle but I traded for it and I don't have anything of value that would equal out to what these prices are....

Maybe if they stopped using rares collectors as their 'average player' template....

Rorschach said:

Obvious trollish posts will be removed without notice. Please be mindful of the terms of service when posting.

Busy day huh.   🙂

The new "customized" castle/keep cost is one of the STUPIDEST ideas ever. Right up there with making previous years Halloween points not usable at the new dungeon. The only people who could benefit from this are the ones who sell GOLD. What a steaming pile UO is becoming. At least football season is here, so I can spend time with my FFB teams instead of bothering with UO as much. The current state of UO, combined with the asinine ideas being put forth, not to mention the Devs unwillingness to deal with cheaters/scripters/RMT people, make me not even want to log in to UO. I really wonder just how much longer this game will be around. *wonders to self* "Maybe it's time to start closing some of the accounts before they auto-renew for 6 more months." @Mesanna @Kyronix @Bleak ;

Captain_Lucky said:

Uriah_Heep said:

jaytin said:

@ Larisa well said! So they just made the gold sellers richer, do they even have any idea how many of the few players left can afford to buy a new design, even if they did like them?

Kinda makes you wanna believe what people say about who the gold sellers are, eh?

I love you man. lol Even if you rag on the rares collectors.

ROFL.  You don't fit the profile of the ones I'm thinking about.  You're cool...

@ Mesanna @ Kyronix @ Bleak 

If you sell UO items for R.L. $$$, you need to quit playing UO , and get a BETTER R.L. JOB!

Seems your signature is outdated.  Avatar 1 - 30 is going to make some bank.

Pawain said:

@ Mesanna @ Kyronix @ Bleak 

If you sell UO items for R.L. $$$, you need to quit playing UO , and get a BETTER R.L. JOB!

Seems your signature is outdated.  Avatar 1 - 30 is going to make some bank.

Ya, it's very sad. Yet another reason to consider closing account. 🙁

This whole thread seems like a bizarre complaint about capitalism. 

Church said:

well I have a castle on Baja, I have a collective gold of about 50 mill. I wouldnt even have that if i did not have people transfer pets to Atlantic to sell. That being said, a server should be self serving meaning I shouldnt have to transfer my items to another server just to pay for a house. Baja has very limited vendors so selling anything there is not going to make anyone rich. Using paying customers to develop a home so UO can market it is pretty lame. Farming up enough granite to make a current castle into something had good possibilities but most people who have done this can tell you how bugged it is. things falling through floor tiles, tiles coming unhooked or randomly ending up in the moving crate is a complete mess. I'm all for making a castle into a plot that you can build like a normal house. lots of creativity can be done there. 

on a side note, like todays tokens that you have 2 options to choose from, 1 being deco and the other being something you can build after using it to find a constellat you ion is too funny. talk about useless.  some really crummy things coming from UO lately. 

Leaving the high costs is a slap in the face to everyone who took the time to design, vote, and have asked for something like this for years. A whole lot of goodwill and faith has been lost today.

What I'm seeing is that the devs are once again basing blanket changes on the economy of the highest populated hub shards (like Atlantic) where all the gold goes anyway. Without taking into consideration the economies of the lower populated shards. Yes, castles and keeps are a "luxury" item, but:

- Not everyone has millions or billions of gold to spend. Not even if they have castles.

- Not everyone is drowning in EM rares they can sell.

- Not everyone buys gold.

- Not everyone has all the free time in the world to grind against painfully high hp monsters for a pittance to scrape together enough for something they've been asking for and looked forward to for ages.

I myself don't have a keep or castle, but I feel the decision to turn something that was such a popular and highly anticipated and exciting idea into such a super elite and unattainable thing... it's just cruel, really.

You're basically rewarding RMT because that's about the only option for most who would like to actually use those new designs.

Maximus_Neximus said:

Leaving the high costs is a slap in the face to everyone who took the time to design, vote, and have asked for something like this for years. A whole lot of goodwill and faith has been lost today.

This. And Its not just the money. Its how we got treated , like we were monkeys to study and do tests on. "what will happen if we put in another change to the worse.."  Its disrespectful to all customers . There , my first really dissapointed and   negative post in 18+ years. "Walks away to the river near Trinsic and throws her pompoms in the water.  Atleast one account will go when payment runs out. Two left for now. Third was mainly for the building .

The plot change is optional, if you don’t think it’s worth the gold, you don’t have to choose a new custom design, the storage is the same. 

I don’t really understand the complaint, before there were 0 options. 

Mervyn said:

The plot change is optional, if you don’t think it’s worth the gold, you don’t have to choose a new custom design, the storage is the same. 

I don’t really understand the complaint, before there were 0 options. 

Wow, i see what they mean about siege being the "hardcore" shard now. 

Devs missed a trick here. They should of sold a token to allow players to change the plot on the store for $ rather than use gold.

Dear @Mesanna ,

With respect, it's abusive to give someone a dream then make it out of reach.  It makes people feel betrayed.  I'm sad that Broadsword (or EA or whoever is responsible) would rather punish the fair players than those who exploit game mechanics to farm gold in the first place.  It's not the place of game developers, in a sandbox environment, to control our shard economics via creating "gold-sinks."   I believe their job, as developers, is to stop the ability to cheat which ruins game economics.  

okay so i am very sad to see a dream turned into a nightmare but i slept on it before commenting and i realized what has happened... and you will to once you think about it

the "bosses" needed a way to make their job easier to find out who is buying gold from the 3rd party sites and didn't want to have to do all the work so they have made our dreams their weapon

you buy your gold you upgrade your castle bam they know that if you play on any shard other than Atlantic that you must have bought the gold and they will now be able to ban you for cheating and using a 3rd party site to purchase ingame items

please please my friends remember this is a spell cast on us and we must resist do not be tempted to purchase gold to upgrade remember that beautiful shell of a home that only cost 865,000 gold can be designed to hold all of your leet loot and still look pretty never mind that it is inconvenient to get to some of the areas or that the pavers sometimes fall causing problems or that you can NOT use circle of transparency to see what is behind the walls after you place them...just remember that you are not a cheater or scammer and you are not using a 3rd party site to purchase gold and risk being banned from your favorite game

Safari said:

Dear @ Mesanna ,

With respect, it's abusive to give someone a dream then make it out of reach.  It makes people feel betrayed.  I'm sad that Broadsword (or EA or whoever is responsible) would rather punish the fair players than those who exploit game mechanics to farm gold in the first place.  It's not the place of game developers, in a sandbox environment, to control our shard economics via creating "gold-sinks."   I believe their job, as developers, is to stop the ability to cheat which ruins game economics.  

Maximus_Neximus said:

Leaving the high costs is a slap in the face to everyone who took the time to design, vote, and have asked for something like this for years. A whole lot of goodwill and faith has been lost today.

They can change the cost and make it cheaper.  What they can no longer do is trick us into believing they actually care.

Uriah_Heep said:

Maximus_Neximus said:

Leaving the high costs is a slap in the face to everyone who took the time to design, vote, and have asked for something like this for years. A whole lot of goodwill and faith has been lost today.

They can change the cost and make it cheaper.  What they can no longer do is trick us into believing they actually care.

YES YES YES YES YES

THIS IS SO VERY TRUE

Still wrapping my head around the idea of people complaining about the price of something I wouldn't take for free :P

Amen to that!  😂

I believe most of the outrage lies in the fact that a) this wasn't mentioned AT ALL prior to this and b) the concept that the Dev team seems to think this is an appropriate way to create a gold sink when a large portion of the player base doesn't have near this much gold.

Gold sinks only work in a closed system. When you can pick up 100 million for 20 bucks the gold sinks will never work. I doubt people who have 5 or 6 accounts really care about dropping another 50 or 100 bucks every now and then for gold. Seeing how the gold supply appears to be endless I'm confused why BS doesn't go after that money for themselves. Everyday someone bounces through Legends selling gold and advertising their website usually about once an hour.

Castle upgrade token for $9.95? Would people go for that?

I’d be open to seeing the existing castle design with a customisable element. Imagine if the central block (which happens to be the same size as a customisable plot) could turn into whatever you wanted it to, and you keep the castle walls around the outside... no danger that way of not being able to covert, and you can still use stone furniture to complete your design. 

Classic style meets enough flexibility to build whatever you feel like. I’m fairly sure people would even consider parting for $ or 100+M for the ability to do what they wanted in the first place...

They still need to reduce the prices by 50% 

I think this thread has served its purpose now