Voting fraud in castle contest.

Seems very suspicious that all the winning designs are garbage. lol.

Could people create alts and spam vote their own or something?

Pay players with gold for vote 🙂

A lot of the designs are pretty to look at but not very functional or have horrible flow.  I can just see an episode of Love it Or List It UO Castles with the castle owner asking Hillary to improve the functionality of their castle. 

Can EJ Accounts vote?

The thing with the designs is they are anothers idea of what people can use.... some are not as desireable  as they think

I must have missed it (again, as I lost the windows to partecipate in the contest...  😂 ), but where is the page to see the contest designs and/or to vote for them?

Voters over but you can still see the top 20 on TC.  There's a stone in Brit Commons that will take you each one.

Mesanna just refuses to admit she dropped the ball on not doing a customizable plot. The current mess is wrong on so many levels it can't even be justified.

We now have a castle lottery where one person gets their dream castle and the rest of us tear up our tickets and throw them away.

Lady_Storm said:

The thing with the designs is they are anothers idea of what people can use.... some are not as desireable  as they think

 None, are desirable!  There's multiple issues I have with every single one of them.

- too many doors
- steel interior doors
- too many rooms or goofy rooms
- arches PRE installed
- flat-out fugly
- zero, limited or poorly thought out customization options.
- pillars so you can't put up completely connected crenelations
- no hooks or notches so you can fully connect south & east stone walls
- fencing used as railing
- no railing
- stairs you have to run from one side of the plot to the other to go to next floor
- single wide stairs - ppl the plot is 30x30
- designs made into the floor tiles, floor tiles with designs
- too many different and poorly matched floor tiles

Ezekiel_Zane said:

Lady_Storm said:

The thing with the designs is they are anothers idea of what people can use.... some are not as desireable  as they think

 None, are desirable!  There's multiple issues I have with every single one of them.

- too many doors
- steel interior doors
- too many rooms or goofy rooms
- arches PRE installed
- flat-out fugly
- zero, limited or poorly thought out customization options.
- pillars so you can't put up completely connected crenelations
- no hooks or notches so you can fully connect south & east stone walls
- fencing used as railing
- no railing
- stairs you have to run from one side of the plot to the other to go to next floor
- single wide stairs - ppl the plot is 30x30
- designs made into the floor tiles, floor tiles with designs
- too many different and poorly matched floor tiles

Pillars or walls oddly placed is because you can not span 30 tiles without support from below.  The max is something like 20 tiles across.

I'm talking about the pillars on the roofs.  The ones that look more like spikes.  They don't fill in the full tile and so they don't connect with the short walls.

Too bad they cant except the shell and let us customize the interrior

You would think the developers would realize that not a single person is happy about house design contests and would undo what they have and just give people the customizable plots. We do not need 100 prebuilt houses to select from.

AtomicBetty said:

You would think the developers would realize that not a single person is happy about house design contests and would undo what they have and just give people the customizable plots. We do not need 100 prebuilt houses to select from.

I totally second that! I will not pay a copper piece for most of the designs I've seen around, but I will gladly pay 100m GPs for a fully customizable Keep or Castle-sized plot.

AtomicBetty said:

The House design contest is stupid. Should have just charged players a ridiculous amount for a customized plot and been done with it.

It looks tacky seeing all these prebuilt homes now on the placement tool. And with more contests coming every publish or whatever it's just going to get worse.

They could make a separate tool just for the custom keeps and castles. Leave the original tool as it was.

Food for thought. 🙂

The contest had some great artwork in a few of them , however none of those made it to finals and I still haven't seen one I would tear down my castle to change it to from any in the finals. Totally disappointed. Personally I feel the deciding vote should only be 50% from players and 50% from UO Team or bring in outside source to decide winners and if they want to unfairly chose designs not deserving then 25% from players and 50% from UO Team and maybe get Mickey Mouse to vote the final 25%

Killroth said:

Seems very suspicious that all the winning designs are garbage. lol.

Could people create alts and spam vote their own or something? 

I believe some people have several accounts and used them to vote for their own design as well as having friends to vote for them. I think that the dev team should look at all the designs and choose the top 10 or so out of them, not let people vote because people will take advantage of it and do what it takes to get theirs in the list, even though they are terrible designs. Out of this contest, I have only seen one (that made it to the finals), that I could consider doable for my crafters. Other than that, the best ones were ignored, which is disappointing as I saw some really awesome designs. Even the villages, which are not really functional except for role playing...were better than what made it on the list. 

AtomicBetty said:

You would think the developers would realize that not a single person is happy about house design contests and would undo what they have and just give people the customizable plots. We do not need 100 prebuilt houses to select from.

If a paid account gets one vote and EJ Accounts are not allowed to vote then please explain where the fraud is in the voting.

People spent a lot of their time designing these castles. I do not believe there is Fraud. The flaw is that one person designs it and he gets 150 of his friends to vote on it without looking. It is not Mesanna or the Dev's fault. It is the fault of the people, the guilds that do not vote for functionality or flow, they vote for friends. I like that Tim and Ezekiel at least told what they want in a castle instead of just complaining. I have entered every time and come in the finals every time but never won. I will try again with those suggestions in mind. Only thing I do not like about the winner designs is that they are all Block and nothing pretty. Some like all block but some of us want a pretty design. I know some like open, but some cannot make all those walls themselves and want rooms. I am sure there is some reason Mesanna did not make a castle plot designable. I have to agree that would be fun.

By the way, I thought the Devs had a pick. I was hoping it would be a pretty one. I have not seen the official winners list. I wish the devs would pick a pretty one to go with the others.

The castle voting is much more of a popularity contest than a design contest.  Simple as that.

Personally I think they should just put the custom tool on production.  

However, 2 changes that would drastically improve the current contest route would be:

1. A design theme for each contest
2. Independent judges

No 2 people will ever agree on their dream home. End of story. There's the problem. Continue to ignore our pleas for a custom plot cause UO thrives on bitter subscribers. Wait... independent judges? Where are we gonna get those? lol

I agree with @Merus on this, but I have no idea how you could get independent judges. 

Design a castle that allows us to be creative in our own way. Not your version of creative cause it only appeals to you.

Broadsword has employees other than those who work on UO.  If it were me in charge (and barring just making it custom on production) I would have the designs built per the theme on test.  Once it was time for the judging I would copy test, remove all player names from the house sign and have 3 or 4 other broadsword employees judge the designs based on the contest theme.

Sample themes could be:
Japanese Temple
European Fortress
Renaissance Chateau

I'll never own either but I think allowing player customization using only classic walls and tiles would be the best fit for the current playerbase. 

Allowing use of granite would be a bad thing. 

Merus said:

Broadsword has employees other than those who work on UO.  If it were me in charge (and barring just making it custom on production) I would have the designs built per the theme on test.  Once it was time for the judging I would copy test, remove all player names from the house sign and have 3 or 4 other broadsword employees judge the designs based on the contest theme.

Sample themes could be:
Japanese Temple
European Fortress
Renaissance Chateau

Sure the person in the office across the hall you see 100 times a day is going to be impartial lol. Or just end this clear failure and give us plots. I appreciate your way of thinking on this but your trying to fix something horribly broken and there simply isn't a fix for the way things are done currently. This issue grinds me every time I log into the game. At least half the subs in this game are for housing and they are shooting themselves in the foot with this. Maybe it's just me but it seems like building resentment in the player base is probably not the best idea.

Urge said:

I'll never own either but I think allowing player customization using only classic walls and tiles would be the best fit for the current playerbase. 

Allowing use of granite would be a bad thing. 

I agree with that, I really hate the lag caused by granite, every time I visit friend's castles with extra floors and walls the lag is unbearable and my PC was built within the last 2 years!  😂

Captain_Lucky said:

Merus said:

Broadsword has employees other than those who work on UO.  If it were me in charge (and barring just making it custom on production) I would have the designs built per the theme on test.  Once it was time for the judging I would copy test, remove all player names from the house sign and have 3 or 4 other broadsword employees judge the designs based on the contest theme.

Sample themes could be:
Japanese Temple
European Fortress
Renaissance Chateau

Sure the person in the office across the hall you see 100 times a day is going to be impartial lol. Or just end this clear failure and give us plots. I appreciate your way of thinking on this but your trying to fix something horribly broken and there simply isn't a fix for the way things are done currently. This issue grinds me every time I log into the game. At least half the subs in this game are for housing and they are shooting themselves in the foot with this. Maybe it's just me but it seems like building resentment in the player base is probably not the best idea.

I don’t disagree that just giving the players the custom plot option, even with some of the more hideous tiles removed, would be the best solution to making people happy.

However, if we are going to be stuck with the contest, we should get something that actually resembles a “design” contest not this popularity contest farce.  IMO a DAOC developer with no access to player names is far more likely to pick the designs that they like best based on how well the actual design matches the theme.  Not perfect, but would be a drastic improvement on what we have now if you asked me.

Merus said:

Captain_Lucky said:

Merus said:

Broadsword has employees other than those who work on UO.  If it were me in charge (and barring just making it custom on production) I would have the designs built per the theme on test.  Once it was time for the judging I would copy test, remove all player names from the house sign and have 3 or 4 other broadsword employees judge the designs based on the contest theme.

Sample themes could be:
Japanese Temple
European Fortress
Renaissance Chateau

Sure the person in the office across the hall you see 100 times a day is going to be impartial lol. Or just end this clear failure and give us plots. I appreciate your way of thinking on this but your trying to fix something horribly broken and there simply isn't a fix for the way things are done currently. This issue grinds me every time I log into the game. At least half the subs in this game are for housing and they are shooting themselves in the foot with this. Maybe it's just me but it seems like building resentment in the player base is probably not the best idea.

I don’t disagree that just giving the players the custom plot option, even with some of the more hideous tiles removed, would be the best solution to making people happy.

However, if we are going to be stuck with the contest, we should get something that actually resembles a “design” contest not this popularity contest farce.  IMO a DAOC developer with no access to player names is far more likely to pick the designs that they like best based on how well the actual design matches the theme.  Not perfect, but would be a drastic improvement on what we have now if you asked me.

I hate the idea of losing faith in the system but until we start voting on design and not the designer we're going to keep seeing this same thing over and over. 
I would love to see some of the contests have voting members that are just the dev team. I know this will raise the hair of some but my opinion is that this may allow some of the more creative designs to have a chance.

You can not have people that work at BS pick the design because all it will turn into is people bitching at BS for picking shitty designs.

Sarah said:

People spent a lot of their time designing these castles. I do not believe there is Fraud. The flaw is that one person designs it and he gets 150 of his friends to vote on it without looking. It is not Mesanna or the Dev's fault. It is the fault of the people, the guilds that do not vote for functionality or flow, they vote for friends. I like that Tim and Ezekiel at least told what they want in a castle instead of just complaining. I have entered every time and come in the finals every time but never won. I will try again with those suggestions in mind. Only thing I do not like about the winner designs is that they are all Block and nothing pretty. Some like all block but some of us want a pretty design. I know some like open, but some cannot make all those walls themselves and want rooms. I am sure there is some reason Mesanna did not make a castle plot designable. I have to agree that would be fun.

AMEN  Just like in the real world when we vote for stuff.

UO is a sandbox. People, all of them, not just the contest winners, should be allowed to go wild with the design of their house. 
Devs frequently struggle with releasing content that players don't blow through in 2 days. Yet here's a possibility to occupy players for months with minimal dev effort, and yet again nope, we can't have that.
Mesanna's irrational fear of Borg cubes is not only inappropriate in a sandbox, but should be more than offset by the creations that will appear if players are given the freedom.

Sliss said:

UO is a sandbox. People, all of them, not just the contest winners, should be allowed to go wild with the design of their house. 
Devs frequently struggle with releasing content that players don't blow through in 2 days. Yet here's a possibility to occupy players for months with minimal dev effort, and yet again nope, we can't have that.
Mesanna's irrational fear of Borg cubes is not only inappropriate in a sandbox, but should be more than offset by the creations that will appear if players are given the freedom.

I am not sure if it is Mesanna's fear of the BORG cube or if it is more to the fact that a lot of the player base has said a lot about UO having cubes esp those blue tile cubes you see a lot in UO.  Alls I really want is a Caslte/Keep with no interior walls/stairs and all 4 floors the same, they could even keep the same outside walls/design.  While cubes may not look as nice as some of the designs they are way more efficient and gives you max usage of the space.  Sorry I forgot that yes UO is a sandbox and I would love to be able to custom the inside of my Castle.

To boil this tread down to two sentences

Democracy Sucks. The fools won't vote the way I think they should.

I do think it's a good sign that most of the posters are suggesting alternatives but I still think the present system is the best of a lot of bad choices. 

PS If we went with this idea of themes for each contest But who gets to decide if an entry conforms with the theme?

@Tim loved your post %10000000000000000 fact

Bilbo said:

I am not sure if it is Mesanna's fear of the BORG cube or if it is more to the fact that a lot of the player base has said a lot about UO having cubes esp those blue tile cubes you see a lot in UO.  

She stated multiple times that she does not want customizable castles because of borg cubes. It's not a theory.

Tim said:

PS If we went with this idea of themes for each contest But who gets to decide if an entry conforms with the theme?

In my suggestion the independent judges would based on their concept of what that theme might look like.

Without independent judges I think the Devs would have to cull the list prior to the voting otherwise the theme would have no significance... we would be right back to the popularity of the designer, not the design.

Sliss said:

Bilbo said:

I am not sure if it is Mesanna's fear of the BORG cube or if it is more to the fact that a lot of the player base has said a lot about UO having cubes esp those blue tile cubes you see a lot in UO.  

She stated multiple times that she does not want customizable castles because of borg cubes. It's not a theory.

THUMBS UP

Resistance is futile. 

Sliss said:

Bilbo said:

I am not sure if it is Mesanna's fear of the BORG cube or if it is more to the fact that a lot of the player base has said a lot about UO having cubes esp those blue tile cubes you see a lot in UO.  

She stated multiple times that she does not want customizable castles because of borg cubes. It's not a theory.

So instead of us upsetting one person, the one person has decided to upset all of the player base. Well that sounds valid!

Mervyn said:

Resistance is futile. 

Who the hell would want to resist that.  At my age I go out with a smile.

Smoot said:

"or formed an un-biased focus group of players to choose."

Those don't exist.  

Smoot said:

no in game vote in the history of UO has ever been fair.  i dont know why anyone would expect this last one to be different.

the devs should have just picked the houses.  or formed an un-biased focus group of players to choose.

next round im going to make an empty plot and make it win just for hell of it (i did not enter this or any other previous castle contest)

Won't work. They will not allow a plot...  

This whole Desaster is again missed opportunity (no pun intended on the rover...) to plainly print money.

As already stated. People would pay either 100dreds of millions = gold sink or 100 and more cash to get their custom plot.
Even on Atlantic there is so much room where mesanna could place lots of 24x24 or 31x31 plots to sell... 

Somwhere I read it would be too much for the game to handle as those custom houses are not static. Well simple solution. Sell the player a plot and then give them 2 weeks for the built then make the house static with no further changes.. People would still pay like crazy.

Its like so often. They miss out on chances to print basically money from nothing... 

FinleyGrant said:

Smoot said:

no in game vote in the history of UO has ever been fair.  i dont know why anyone would expect this last one to be different.

the devs should have just picked the houses.  or formed an un-biased focus group of players to choose.

next round im going to make an empty plot and make it win just for hell of it (i did not enter this or any other previous castle contest)

Won't work. They will not allow a plot...  

This whole Desaster is again missed opportunity (no pun intended on the rover...) to plainly print money.

As already stated. People would pay either 100dreds of millions = gold sink or 100 and more cash to get their custom plot.
Even on Atlantic there is so much room where mesanna could place lots of 24x24 or 31x31 plots to sell... 

Somwhere I read it would be too much for the game to handle as those custom houses are not static. Well simple solution. Sell the player a plot and then give them 2 weeks for the built then make the house static with no further changes.. People would still pay like crazy.

Its like so often. They miss out on chances to print basically money from nothing... 

Bonnie will rather let the game die before earning a single penny more than EA expects.

JollyJade said:

FinleyGrant said:

Smoot said:

no in game vote in the history of UO has ever been fair.  i dont know why anyone would expect this last one to be different.

the devs should have just picked the houses.  or formed an un-biased focus group of players to choose.

next round im going to make an empty plot and make it win just for hell of it (i did not enter this or any other previous castle contest)

Won't work. They will not allow a plot...  

This whole Desaster is again missed opportunity (no pun intended on the rover...) to plainly print money.

As already stated. People would pay either 100dreds of millions = gold sink or 100 and more cash to get their custom plot.
Even on Atlantic there is so much room where mesanna could place lots of 24x24 or 31x31 plots to sell... 

Somwhere I read it would be too much for the game to handle as those custom houses are not static. Well simple solution. Sell the player a plot and then give them 2 weeks for the built then make the house static with no further changes.. People would still pay like crazy.

Its like so often. They miss out on chances to print basically money from nothing... 

Bonnie will rather let the game die before earning a single penny more than EA expects.

And why is that?

Not a provocative question, I'm really curious...

I don't see why we can't have the best of both worlds. 

Clearly there are a goodly number of players who love to build, rebuilt and edit their customizable house plots. For me, it's been one of the best bits of the game ever since customizable plots came along. Before that, decorating classic home designs was, for many, one of the best bits. Even if you had to go out and die repeatedly, storing up ghost robes to jack up items in your house.

I thought the contest was great fun! Now I'm sad I missed the other contests. The popularity contest, or large guild factor, affecting the voting, hadn't occurred to me. Then I heard it mentioned in chat. Then later saw gates opening to the voting stone, with multiple players pouring through to vote. And now, seeing some of the builds that made top the 20...well...enough said on that subject. 

My wish list on custom house plots is short:

1.  Let players have castle and keep size plots to customize.
     Make it a gold sink, costing a huge amount of in-game gold. Or let us buy it from the online
     store as a high ticket item. I don't care which.
     
     This would give players a whole year to come up with wonderful designs that
     they could later enter into a TC Design Contest! I've no doubt Borg cubes will pop up here
     and there, but I think they'd be in the minority, and the good would outweigh the bad.

2.  Still hold contests if they're popular enough to be supported by players wanting to enter.
          Select 4 winners: Gold, Silver, Bronze and Player's Choice 
               Medaled designs are chosen by Dev's and become available to other players. 
               Player's Choice gets a coveted, custom UO artwork, named and dated trophy.

          Player Votes would be applied only in the realm of Player's Choice. 
          Results of the Gold, Silver and Bronze would be a surprise to us all. 

If players don't like the Dev's choices that end up on the House Placement Tool, don't buy and place that design for yourself. We've loved all the classic designs for a long time. I trust the Dev's can pick good designs to add. And I trust players, who may or may not have stacked the deck, can be satisfied with a one of a kind trophy as the Player's Choice Award.   

Thanks for listening!

     


 

Some great ideas here. But when someone is so invested in an illogical decision I'm not sure a logical argument is enough.

LilyGrace said:

I don't see why we can't have the best of both worlds. 

Clearly there are a goodly number of players who love to build, rebuilt and edit their customizable house plots. For me, it's been one of the best bits of the game ever since customizable plots came along. Before that, decorating classic home designs was, for many, one of the best bits. Even if you had to go out and die repeatedly, storing up ghost robes to jack up items in your house.

I thought the contest was great fun! Now I'm sad I missed the other contests. The popularity contest, or large guild factor, affecting the voting, hadn't occurred to me. Then I heard it mentioned in chat. Then later saw gates opening to the voting stone, with multiple players pouring through to vote. And now, seeing some of the builds that made top the 20...well...enough said on that subject. 

My wish list on custom house plots is short:

1.  Let players have castle and keep size plots to customize.
     Make it a gold sink, costing a huge amount of in-game gold. Or let us buy it from the online
     store as a high ticket item. I don't care which.
     
     This would give players a whole year to come up with wonderful designs that
     they could later enter into a TC Design Contest! I've no doubt Borg cubes will pop up here
     and there, but I think they'd be in the minority, and the good would outweigh the bad.

2.  Still hold contests if they're popular enough to be supported by players wanting to enter.
          Select 4 winners: Gold, Silver, Bronze and Player's Choice 
               Medaled designs are chosen by Dev's and become available to other players. 
               Player's Choice gets a coveted, custom UO artwork, named and dated trophy.

          Player Votes would be applied only in the realm of Player's Choice. 
          Results of the Gold, Silver and Bronze would be a surprise to us all. 

If players don't like the Dev's choices that end up on the House Placement Tool, don't buy and place that design for yourself. We've loved all the classic designs for a long time. I trust the Dev's can pick good designs to add. And I trust players, who may or may not have stacked the deck, can be satisfied with a one of a kind trophy as the Player's Choice Award.   

Thanks for listening!

     


 

I love this idea. Maybe the powers that are in control can look into these ideas more.

I know what a Borg cube is in Star Trek but what is it in UO? And why do people not like it?

TimSt said:

I know what a Borg cube is in Star Trek but what is it in UO? And why do people not like it?

It is a cubic building, without any minimal pretense of a decent look and/or of "architectural aesthetics". A warehouse to deposit items and stuff, instead of a Home, made with plain, or, worse, clashing colored materials.

TimSt said:

I know what a Borg cube is in Star Trek but what is it in UO? And why do people not like it?

A CUBE may not be the best looking but it is by far the most effective way to use space without inside walls or rooms.

Captain_Lucky said:

TimSt said:

I know what a Borg cube is in Star Trek but what is it in UO? And why do people not like it?

There's only one person I know of that really has an issue with it lol

Make it two, at least...

Captain_Lucky said:

Sliss said:

Bilbo said:

I am not sure if it is Mesanna's fear of the BORG cube or if it is more to the fact that a lot of the player base has said a lot about UO having cubes esp those blue tile cubes you see a lot in UO.  

She stated multiple times that she does not want customizable castles because of borg cubes. It's not a theory.

So instead of us upsetting one person, the one person has decided to upset all of the player base. Well that sounds valid!

My beef with this is not even one person vs many. UO is the original sandbox. The whole point is to let people go wild. The only limits should be related to griefing and such.
To me this is similar to forbidding putting Necro and Chiv on the same template, because the combination is abominable!

Bilbo said:

A CUBE may not be the best looking but it is by far the most effective way to use space without inside walls or rooms.

Bilbo said:

A CUBE may not be the best looking but it is by far the most effective way to use space without inside walls or rooms.

That is one of the funniest statements we hear about those kind of houses. 

We need Max space. To display our whatever.

Funny because even the best and biggest display of stuff is completely useless in a neon borg cube. 

I mean whatever float your boat but

if somone can't make a proper design which naturally include interior or display you better should hire someone to do it for you.

Even the 7500 lock downs of a castle fit in 60 boxes in a small storage basement or whatever.

(I was not trying to insult anyone) 

I often disagree with the devs but there should be some rules avoiding cubes

But in times where someone can put thousands of goza and granite in your house Iam not surprised of anything anymore

There are many differing opinions in this community. That is OK.

I dislike the cubes as well, so I don't build them. No other player or even Dev should tell another player how to build their home no matter how stomach churning, outrageous or bland.

Urge said:

I dislike the cubes as well, so I don't build them. No other player or even Dev should tell another player how to build their home no matter how stomach churning, outrageous or bland.

On this I obviously totally agree, with the caveat that I'm equally free to say that FOR ME "Borg Cube" Houses are "stomach churning (&) outrageous"... 🙂 

Ivenor said:

Bilbo said:

A CUBE may not be the best looking but it is by far the most effective way to use space without inside walls or rooms.

To use it for WHAT, for BT sake?

Do someone really needs every square inches of the inside of a House to not be able to use at least a modicum of architectural aesthetics on its exterior? What are they: the UO version of a MacMansion? 😂

OK: sandbox, at everyone its playing style, und so weiter, but, please let be honest: in 90% of cases is pure laziness.

IMO, if a wasteland of max space cubes is the future of custom housing in UO at this point the classic Houses are better: at least they have been created with some regards to their look too.

I.

Here's my bottom line on this, and I"m not a builder of Borg cubes but......I don't care what kind of house YOU have, why should you care what kind I have ?

FinleyGrant said:

Bilbo said:

A CUBE may not be the best looking but it is by far the most effective way to use space without inside walls or rooms.

That is one of the funniest statements we hear about those kind of houses. 

We need Max space. To display our whatever.

Funny because even the best and biggest display of stuff is completely useless in a neon borg cube. 

I mean whatever float your boat but

if somone can't make a proper design which naturally include interior or display you better should hire someone to do it for you.

Even the 7500 lock downs of a castle fit in 60 boxes in a small storage basement or whatever.

(I was not trying to insult anyone) 

And please tell me oh wise one where I said anything about and damn NEON crap.  In case you didn't know your do not have to use NEON to make a max floor space house.

Garth_Grey said:

Ivenor said:

Bilbo said:

A CUBE may not be the best looking but it is by far the most effective way to use space without inside walls or rooms.

To use it for WHAT, for BT sake?

Do someone really needs every square inches of the inside of a House to not be able to use at least a modicum of architectural aesthetics on its exterior? What are they: the UO version of a MacMansion? 😂

OK: sandbox, at everyone its playing style, und so weiter, but, please let be honest: in 90% of cases is pure laziness.

IMO, if a wasteland of max space cubes is the future of custom housing in UO at this point the classic Houses are better: at least they have been created with some regards to their look too.

I.

Here's my bottom line on this, and I"m not a builder of Borg cubes but......I don't care what kind of house YOU have, why should you care what kind I have ?

AMEN

I want a Castle with the same footprint/outside design 4 floors totally open with teleport pads in both SW & SE corners and NO I DO NOT WANT NEON.

I want a castle or keep with a square flat roof that takes up the entire plot so I can have symmetry and maximum footage when designing my roof top garden / oasis. Other floors can be what ever as long as they have flow and functionality. They are there mainly to support the roof.

Bilbo said:

FinleyGrant said:

Bilbo said:

A CUBE may not be the best looking but it is by far the most effective way to use space without inside walls or rooms.

That is one of the funniest statements we hear about those kind of houses. 

We need Max space. To display our whatever.

Funny because even the best and biggest display of stuff is completely useless in a neon borg cube. 

I mean whatever float your boat but

if somone can't make a proper design which naturally include interior or display you better should hire someone to do it for you.

Even the 7500 lock downs of a castle fit in 60 boxes in a small storage basement or whatever.

(I was not trying to insult anyone) 

And please tell me oh wise one where I said anything about and damn NEON crap.  In case you didn't know your do not have to use NEON to make a max floor space house.

I meant it in general. 

I've build many homes over the years also for other persons. Therefore I can say it's totally doable to make lots of display space without going borg. 

Ofc that my personal opinion and other persons may think different. 

What I want to say is that from what I have seen in houses the claim for max usable space nearly never go handy with a nice decoration therefore for me the statement I want big open floors (generally in more or less borg things) ends often in monstrosity.

FinleyGrant said:

Bilbo said:

FinleyGrant said:

Bilbo said:

A CUBE may not be the best looking but it is by far the most effective way to use space without inside walls or rooms.

That is one of the funniest statements we hear about those kind of houses. 

We need Max space. To display our whatever.

Funny because even the best and biggest display of stuff is completely useless in a neon borg cube. 

I mean whatever float your boat but

if somone can't make a proper design which naturally include interior or display you better should hire someone to do it for you.

Even the 7500 lock downs of a castle fit in 60 boxes in a small storage basement or whatever.

(I was not trying to insult anyone) 

And please tell me oh wise one where I said anything about and damn NEON crap.  In case you didn't know your do not have to use NEON to make a max floor space house.

I meant it in general. 

I've build many homes over the years also for other persons. Therefore I can say it's totally doable to make lots of display space without going borg. 

Ofc that my personal opinion and other persons may think different. 

What I want to say is that from what I have seen in houses the claim for max usable space nearly never go handy with a nice decoration therefore for me the statement I want big open floors (generally in more or less borg things) ends often in monstrosity.

                     ^^^ THIS!

Garth_Grey said:

Ivenor said:

Bilbo said:

A CUBE may not be the best looking but it is by far the most effective way to use space without inside walls or rooms.

To use it for WHAT, for BT sake?

Do someone really needs every square inches of the inside of a House to not be able to use at least a modicum of architectural aesthetics on its exterior? What are they: the UO version of a MacMansion? 😂

OK: sandbox, at everyone its playing style, und so weiter, but, please let be honest: in 90% of cases is pure laziness.

IMO, if a wasteland of max space cubes is the future of custom housing in UO at this point the classic Houses are better: at least they have been created with some regards to their look too.

I.

Here's my bottom line on this, and I"m not a builder of Borg cubes but......I don't care what kind of house YOU have, why should you care what kind I have ?

I just wish we could design our own. We all have our own taste and personalities, likes and dislikes. We pay for our accounts, why can't we build our home the way we want to live in them ourselves?? 

Lady_Sparkles said:

I just wish we could design our own. We all have our own taste and personalities, likes and dislikes. We pay for our accounts, why can't we build our home the way we want to live in them ourselves?? 

Lady_Storm said:

The thing with the designs is they are anothers idea of what people can use.... some are not as desireable  as they think

Some of the problems I have had with the designs include: 
Too many large empty open spaces - not everyone wants to or wants to spend the time crafting granite to build walls and too much granite creates lag. Using walls that cannot be crafted means the designer should have definite floor plans and not big square empty spaces.  
To many wall styles on one house. Please, castle stone walls would not have wooden walls just to encase their windows. Three or four different wall styles are no more attractive than too many different styles of floor tiles. People can decorate their own walls and floors with paintings, banners, tapestries, curtains and carpeting. 
I too dislike having to run across 30 tiles to go up to the next floor. I also dislike having to go up a floor at the entrance to go back down to the first floor in order to get to the crafting space. 
Please, it is a 30x30 space - teleporters?? If people want shortcuts they can put in their own when they decorate the interiors. 
It there are a number of rooms, think of a regular house - would you want to go around through a circle of rooms just to get to another room. Rooms should each be open to a common area for greater flow. 
I too have seen a number of nice designs that did not make it into the finals. Voting the way it is set up now ends up being a popularity contest as people with large numbers of friends get to make it into the top 20 when their designs are not even functional.
Perhaps the devs should have set the voting up differently. Let the devs pick out the top 15 or 20 taking into consideration that some people want to be able to decorate the interior while others just want a bunch of boxes piled up on top of one another, while still others want houses that could make good vendor houses. And THEN let the players vote for their favorites.

I disagree with most of your points Toriana. First and foremost I want wide open spaces. I also disagree with most of your other points at least a little. That does NOT make either of us wrong just that everybody has their own taste. The nice thing about the contest is if they keep it up long enough there will be some design that will appeal to everyone. It will not be the same design but diversity is the spice of life.

As for the voting as I said before Democracy Sucks they keep voting the wrong way. Of course the right way is the way I voted. Unless the friend only gets one vote or he is watching over you shoulder as you vote how would he know how you voted?

Note I've yet to pick a winner.