Thread: Foreclose on housing

Please. Come on. There has not been a new house for sale in Bree housing (on brandy) for 4 months. Yet I go into my friends nieghborhood to check houses to see if maybe I can msg someone and pay them enough gold to move out so I can buy the house and 90% of the houses are shuttered due to lack of rent payments. I add the name to friends list and the people have not been on since 4/12 or 5/16 or 6/20. God only knows if that was 6/29/10 or 6/29/09.

I see posts people whinning that the cost to re open a house is too much. Ok Fine. Re posses them when the rent is not paid. This is the way it should be. Who knows. We might actually run into neighbors if all the houses where not owned by people that haven't played in 8 months.

Seriously. There is no reason to leave these houses in these peoples names if they do not pay the rent.

*********************** KICK THE BUMS OUT!!!!!! ********************

Originally Posted by Gandie2

Re posses them when the rent is not paid. This is the way it should be.

That's how it worked for the first 15-18 months after housing was introduced, and the flames & whining over that was a wonder to behold. This was the remedy.

I do understand one of the reasons for it: if they ever want to have much chance of getting an ex-subscriber back, they cannot evict players from the only piece of Middle-earth they actually owned. That said, a two year absence is probably a sufficient time so few people will be coming back. If people have been gone for two years, put their stuff in escrow, evict them from the house, and give them a token good to buy another house of that size. Even that ought to free up a non-trivial number of houses.

Khafar

Originally Posted by Gandie2

Please. Come on. There has not been a new house for sale in Bree housing (on brandy) for 4 months.

Unless something has changed in the last 3 months, there will always be some houses for sale, just not perhaps the one you're after, assuming you're after a specific address. The addition of new neighbourhoods is automatic once the houses in other neighbourhoods have sold.

I waited and checked daily for several weeks for my first house in Bree, and a couple of months for 4 Wending Way in the Shire.

I agree tho that any houses left vacant for a decent amount of time should just be reset, the current system is daft. I like Khafar's house token idea too.

Sounds to me like someone is trying to make a big deal about nothing. There are always houses available as has been mentioned. I don't think it is LOTRO's responsibility to check and see if people have legit reasons for not being "In game", or not paying their rent. Please one player by pissing off another? Doesn't really make sense to me.

Originally Posted by Khafar

That's how it worked for the first 15-18 months after housing was introduced, and the flames & whining over that was a wonder to behold. This was the remedy.

The whining wasn't over the house being taken away, it was over the fact that the escrow would expire after a few weeks. If someone left for three months with full housing chests and every decoration slot filled, they would come back to nothing. No refund, nothing from their housing chests, none of their decorations.

IMHO, it should have been an either/or situation. Extending the escrow would have solved the problem, as would locking the houses indefinitely. Doing both just seems redundant and causes new problems that otherwise wouldn't exist.

Originally Posted by Killien

Unless something has changed in the last 3 months, there will always be some houses for sale, just not perhaps the one you're after, assuming you're after a specific address. The addition of new neighbourhoods is automatic once the houses in other neighbourhoods have sold.

Not from brandywine myself, but have heard (one link below) that this is Not happening any more...
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...-homes-in-Bree.....

Originally Posted by WriterLOTRO

Please one player by pissing off another? Doesn't really make sense to me.

Except that that's not really the case here; more like Possibly piss off 1 player by pleasing Multiple players... since in some servers (Brandywine, being one of the most populated seems to be hit more) may have multiple players trying to get a house and None are available unless you count Kin houses...

Originally Posted by Khafar

That's how it worked for the first 15-18 months after housing was introduced, and the flames & whining over that was a wonder to behold. This was the remedy.

I do understand one of the reasons for it: if they ever want to have much chance of getting an ex-subscriber back, they cannot evict players from the only piece of Middle-earth they actually owned. That said, a two year absence is probably a sufficient time so few people will be coming back. If people have been gone for two years, put their stuff in escrow, evict them from the house, and give them a token good to buy another house of that size. Even that ought to free up a non-trivial number of houses.

Khafar

I quit playing for several months before Moria was released.

When I came back I FULLY EXPECTED my house to be decayed an gone. Why else would there be an escrow broker at every bank, right?

It was a nice surprise that it wasn't.

However, I wouldn't have been heart-broken had it decayed, that is what I EXPECTED.

They really need to turn housing decay back on. Not only is it annoying for those that can't get a house, but the housing zones are complete ghost towns. I haven't seen anyone else running around in my neighborhood since SoA. I swear I'm the only active player in it.

Not to mention, it also pains me to run by houses of friends who will most likely never come back to play knowing that it will be nothing but an empty shell of a remind they won't be back.

Originally Posted by Sneezer

When I came back I FULLY EXPECTED my house to be decayed an gone.

I think you're unusual. People get attached to things they feel a sense of ownership to, and if their house was gone or their character had been renamed (or worse... gone too), they'd be pissed. I certainly would be.

I haven't seen anyone else running around in my neighborhood since SoA

I've seen a grand total of one player in my neighborhood (twice) in the past 3+ years. This isn't going to solve that problem, because there are just too few houses in each neighborhood, too few reasons to be outside, too few reasons to spend any time at houses, and too little line-of-sight to other houses in order for it to make a significant difference. Neighborhoods were always pretty much "empty" in that sense.

The only meaningful reason to kick out players who have been gone a long time is to give current players a better shot at getting a house they want (like... in the same neighborhood their kinship house is in, or at a particular address in any neighborhood). I think that in general, it should be "first come, first served"... even if you've left for awhile. But after some length of time, few people are going to come back. Turbine knows what that interval is based on past experience, and can use it to decide when evictions should occur.

Khafar

Originally Posted by WriterLOTRO

Please one player by pissing off another? Doesn't really make sense to me.

This works both ways. Currently, they are pleasing the people not paying upkeep and the ones not playing, and pissing off the people who want to move in, that are actually playing. Does this make sense to you?

Originally Posted by IMAWIN

Currently, they are pleasing the people not paying upkeep and the ones not playing, and pissing off the people who want to move in, that are actually playing. Does this make sense to you?

Well, it wouldn't be so bad if they were still opening up neighborhoods. They ought to look at that first, but my suggestion up above would help too.

The best predictor of staying (and paying) for these games is simply how long you've already played it. Some non-trivial percentage of players return to a game they've played long-term, even if they've left. So the calculus isn't as simple as you're implying: a new player who wants a house today and will only average staying for 6 months isn't necessarily as valuable to the game company in the long term as a player who's played the game for 3 years and has been gone 6 months. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but they have enough data to look at longer-term trends, not just what it looks like today. That's why I suggested 2 years... it's got to be far less likely someone will return after being gone that length of time.

Khafar

Originally Posted by WriterLOTRO

Sounds to me like someone is trying to make a big deal about nothing. There are always houses available as has been mentioned.

I am not from Brandywine but the OP made me curious because I've heard it before so I went and looked instead of assuming that they were just throwing a fit.

It is indeed true that there is not a single regular or deluxe house available at the Bree homestead. I have to assume that they have reached the 250 instances per homestead limit for the Bree one although I didn't count.

Maybe submitting a bug report would bring it to their attention so they can check if that is the case or something is wrong with the automatic instance generation.

BTW, I don't agree with taking away anyones home, they bought it, the payments they have missed are not rent they are for maintenance, which means their house is locked until the maintenance is payed and the property repaired before they can enter.

Originally Posted by JeanCarlo

Not from brandywine myself, but have heard (one link below) that this is Not happening any more...
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...-homes-in-Bree.....

I stand corrected, that is strange indeed.

My inner roleplayer causes me to usually return my characters to their house (most are currently hanging out in 21stHall). In two years I've only seen 3 other people in my instance (Domhyl, Thorin's Halls), which greatly reduces any sense of immersion or vitality in the game.

Definitely free up redundant houses (Kafar's ideas seem appropriate) and then entice people back to their housing instances: raise the repair discount from 15% to 20%, provide a useable crafting area and consider adding farming fields (making it easier to make items/food and leave them in your house chests for your other characters). Superior crafting could be accessed through some new doorway/structure upon gaining sufficient/significant rep?

Originally Posted by Bootroz

Definitely free up redundant houses (Kafar's ideas seem appropriate) and then entice people back to their housing instances: raise the repair discount from 15% to 20%, provide a useable crafting area and consider adding farming fields (making it easier to make items/food and leave them in your house chests for your other characters). Superior crafting could be accessed through some new doorway/structure upon gaining sufficient/significant rep?

The problem with moving other activities into housing estates is you'll pull people out of the cities\towns. I agree that having active neighbourhoods makes for a nicer feel, but having dead towns will potentially damage the game as a whole.

Having neighbourhoods that reset houses after 3-6 months inactivity with a permament escrow, and token for another house definitely seems the best idea. Neighbourhoods will be pretty much self-sustaining and refreshing.

Originally Posted by Bootroz

Definitely free up redundant houses (Kafar's ideas seem appropriate) and then entice people back to their housing instances: raise the repair discount from 15% to 20%, provide a useable crafting area and consider adding farming fields (making it easier to make items/food and leave them in your house chests for your other characters). Superior crafting could be accessed through some new doorway/structure upon gaining sufficient/significant rep?

The difficulty is the instance itself. With a max of 30 owners in an instance. You are never going to see people.

I've mentioned this before. You move all the duplicated facilities out of each instance. Instead of 200 vault keepers on Brandywine in human housing. There is only one vault keeper. All the owners of human houses have to use the same NPC. You will start seeing people.

There is nothing that can be done about the folks that hide in their houses. Each character in their own private instance.

I think it might be best to wait a month at least before taking action.

fact is we've only JUST passed the "3 months since F2P" mark. I suspect we're gonna see an explosion of kin house purchases soon

Originally Posted by Killien

"The addition of new neighbourhoods is automatic once the houses in other neighbourhoods have sold. "

Something has happened on Brandywine and it has not just been the last 3 months. More like 6 months there have been ZERO count them ZERO houses in Bree for sale.

People are often fond of telling me the reason something is like it is in a game is the developers wanted realism. I always say if I wanted reality I would not be playing a game. But come on. In what reality alternate or game based is not paying rent/taxes/homeowners dues not cause you to lose your house?

Make the escrow brokers hold stuff indefinitely. Take the house back. I do like the idea of giving the cost of the house as a refund. I also at one time made a suggestion that Turbine allow players to 'resell' their houses using the housing brokers. Let us list a house for sale. Heck we could even make a profit. Or at least let us sell it back to them.

If they (Turbine) had a policy in place that non payment of rent (Maintenance) cause us to lose our house but also allowed us to sell our house back to the housing broker people who were leaving the game for a period of time would pick up their stuff and sell the house back.

Now that it is free to play Turbine could and should start this and Email the accounts of people with houses that have not paid rent and tell them that they have 1 month to log in and take care of their house. Either selling it to the broker or paying rent. After that they will have 6 more months, or forever, to get their stuff off the escrow broker. They could explain in the Email that Lotro is now F2P so that the person does not need pay for a month to log on and take care of their house.

Anyone that does not just take the house and give the toon a refund at the escrow broker.

yes, pretty please do something about this. No reason to let these people hold onto these houses indefinetly. Send them an email informing them their house is going to be repossessed. Give them a month to remedy the situation the poof!

Bye Bye deadbeat.

Why a policy of letting people keep their houses without paying rent ever got started is beyond me.

Would be nice if we could get a token to buy a new house of equal or lessor value on getting repossessed. Be even nicer if we could just go sell it to the housing broker like someone said.

Originally Posted by Killien

The problem with moving other activities into housing estates is you'll pull people out of the cities\towns. I agree that having active neighbourhoods makes for a nicer feel, but having dead towns will potentially damage the game as a whole.

Uhh...

Due to the lag issues in Bree and Thorin's hall, they had to setup instances of the towns because too many people were in them.

Honestly, pulling people out of the towns and into the housing areas would be more of a SOLUTION than a problem.

Originally Posted by Khafar

I think you're unusual. People get attached to things they feel a sense of ownership to, and if their house was gone or their character had been renamed (or worse... gone too), they'd be pissed. I certainly would be.

1. We don't pay "maintenance" on our toons.
2. I could understand someone being mad if they made toons decay. SOE did this w/ SWG and I won't ever go back because of it. It made a lot of people angry who came back and their characters were gone. Character do however require a bit more time investment than houses in game.
3. Deleting toons and Housing decay are totally different matters. There are only so many housing spots available, only so much real estate. But there is unlimited capacity for toons. So it makes sense for housing to decay and not toons.
4. If someone quits playing, I don't see their toon standing around in game (because they won't be logged in, duh). Yet houses are persistent. When I goto my housing neighborhood, I have to see all of these empty houses owned by people who don't play every time I'm in the neighborhood.

I hope this clears the distinction between housing decay and deleting toons up for you.

LoTRO is the ONLY game I have played that doesn't have housing decay. Even UO introduced it because they were having issues with no more housing room available because people who had quit playing the game owned all of the housing spots. Origin/EA figured that out back in the 90's......

Btw, as far as the whole "I bought it, I own it, it should never decay thing...." please tell me that if you quit paying property tax on a house you own that you wouldn't get booted out.

They need to reinstate housing decay due to the numerous issues of not having it. You will always have whiners who complain about their house decaying, but that's what the escrow broker is for and houses only cost a few gold.

Originally Posted by Sneezer

When I goto my housing neighborhood, I have to see all of these empty houses owned by people who don't play every time I'm in the neighborhood.

Irrelevant - they're going to look "empty" to you whether they are or not. As I've pointed out numerous times, the chances of you seeing people in your neighborhood is going to be quite low whether there are all active players in that neighborhood, or none. When I first moved into my house, you know how many players I saw in my neighborhood the first 3 months I was there? One. Total. I know those houses had players in them, but I just never saw them. We weren't logged in at the same time, we weren't at our houses at the same time, we weren't outside at the same time, we didn't have line-of-site to each other, etc.

I hope this clears the distinction between housing decay and deleting toons up for you.

One of your points was that characters are unlimited while housing is limited. So... how would you feel about people all losing their character names after they've been gone for awhile. People argue for that all the time around here, because so many "good names" are taken and aren't being used by active players. Would it make you feel nice and warm inside to come back after 6 months, only to discover you'd lost all of your carefully chosen names, and had rename tokens for your stable of characters named "Renamed_abc1" through "Renamed_abc11"? I suspect not.

Whether you believe it or not, people get quite attached to their homes, and they're not going to be happy to have them just go "poof" if they're away for awhile, coming back to the game to find themselves locked out of their own house, with someone else living there. The whole point of these instanced neighborhoods was that they could grow to meet demand.

please tell me that if you quit paying property tax on a house you own that you wouldn't get booted out.

Comparisons to real life are irrelevant.

As I said, I'm OK with them doing some decay after some suitably long period of time. Try 2 years, see how that goes... evict those gone for that length of time, and put their stuff into escrow. If the screaming that causes is tolerable, try 18 months.

Khafar

Originally Posted by Sneezer

Uhh...

Due to the lag issues in Bree and Thorin's hall, they had to setup instances of the towns because too many people were in them.

Having too many people in one spot is a good problem to have in terms of creating, but then managing, a vibrant community.

Originally Posted by Sneezer

Honestly, pulling people out of the towns and into the housing areas would be more of a SOLUTION than a problem.

The dynamic layering mechanism is\was the solution. Making potentially hundreds of micro-instance hubs (ie: neighbourhoods with all the required amentities and vendors) will only dilute the population further.

First, Please lets not derail this thread and make it into one about making housing livelier or if towns have too many people. It is a discussion about the FACT there are ZERO houses available on Brandywine; and have been zero for some months. I've only been checking and watching Bree but I did check once Thorins and it too had zero. No idea if this persists. Don't care or I'd go find out.

People have talked about if Brandywine has reached it's max instances or something. No idea. All I know is there are Zero houses availble and having grown tired of this I thought I'd see if I could convince someone in X neighborhood to part with their house if I offered enough gold. To this end I went into the neighorhood to get owners names and add them to friends with the idea of msging them when I saw them. Suprise. I checked 14 houses around my friends house and none of them had been on more recently then 4/6. The only question is was it 4/6/10 or 4/6/9?

Also all of course said I could not go in because the house was closed do to failur to pay rent/ taxes/ upkeep.
Remembering housing from other games where if you did not pay rent you lost your house, and remembering all the moaning people have done on these forums about having to pay gold to get back into their house after letting it close, I thought easy solution. Reposses these shuttered houses. Put them back on the market.

As far as the argument below goes;

Originally Posted by Khafar

Whether you believe it or not, people get quite attached to their homes, and they're not going to be happy to have them just go "poof" if they're away for awhile, coming back to the game to find themselves locked out of their own house, with someone else living there. The whole point of these instanced neighborhoods was that they could grow to meet demand.
Khafar

There is a simple answer. When turbine starts repossesing houses, when these people come back they will have no proplem finding the identical house available. Possibly even in the same nieghborhood. It will look the same even if in different nieghborhood. They can decorate it the same and move right in and if turbine gives them a token or gold equal to the cost of their current house it will cost them less then reopening their old house.

Originally Posted by Gandie2

There is a simple answer. When turbine starts repossesing houses, when these people come back they will have no proplem finding the identical house available.

Unlikely I'll find the same one -- my house goes almost instantly in any neighborhood that opens up. Very unlikely I'll find it in the same neighborhood, and that too matters to people: they're in the neighborhood with their kinship, a gaming friend, spouse, whatever.

As I said, start by evicting people 18-24 months gone from the game (while storing their stuff in escrow), and see how that goes. It'll still open up a non-trivial number of houses, without evicting those most likely to return to the game. And give them 2 week's notice of what's about to happen via an e-mail, providing them a chance to come back and reclaim their house if they wish. That will minimize the screaming, be fair to everyone, and open up a good number of houses in current neighborhoods.

They also need to look into why no new neighborhoods are spawning on Brandywine, and fix it. While they might open up 20-30% of the houses (or whatever) this way, they may eventually get up to this population again.

Khafar

I had an Idea ( suggestion ) I have on other threads, I will mention again here.

The Idea mainly is Housing Vouchers.

Here is the Scenario:

Dino Fred Jim and Jim and Barney and Sally-Sue all live in the same neighborhood.

Dino Fred and Barney have maintained active accounts since the stone-ages, Jim and Sally-Sue haven't played in a very long time.
Betty and Wilma both would like to move into the neighborhood with Fred and Barney and Dino.

So Jim's house first goes into Escrow, and locked.
Jim's house will always remain in his name if no one 'votes him out'.
However, Wilma really wants Jim's house.
So, Fred goes into the town center, goes to the escrow broker, and clicks on Jim's name ( on a list )
Then he selects "evict Jim from neighborhood" he then gets a message, "Jim will be evicted when a total of three active players in this neighborhood has voted to evict him!"
(( Note that Eviction options only become available if a house goes into Escrow ))
Barney and Dino follow suit, evicting Jim.
Jim Will return 6 months later. Jim's house that Wilma now has was a tier 2 house.
When he does, he will have in his escrow a voucher good for a tier 2 house, in any neighborhood.
Now, as soon as the last person to vote out Jim had voted, the house becomes Immediately ( no waiting ) available.
This way it is first come first serve for the neighborhood, ( and people that h ave waited for this opportunity ).

Now on to Sally-Sue's scenario: ( tier 1 house owner )
Sally-Sue has one vote on her house to evict her, when she returns. The others have not acted yet to vote her out.
When she logs in, she has the option in an action icon, pop up saying;
" Your house is in Escrow, you will need to pay back rent on this before it can be used again. One of your neighbors has opted to vote you out of the neighborhood. If you'd like to move to a new neighborhood See the Housing Broker before you pay your past due rent, and you will be able to purchase a voucher for a new house in any neighborhood at half price. This offer is only available to escrow houses of the home owners!"

Sally-Sue would much rather move into a neighborhood near her kin house anyways, so she chooses to see the Escrow Broker. Now she has a menu, to buy a house voucher. Since she is tir 1, that one is available to buy at 500 silver. tier 2 ( at 4 gold ) is unavailable for her. ( but would be available for a tier 2 house owner )

Sally gets her voucher, and rather than paying the 900 silver to have to reactivate her house, she chooses, to move to another neighborhood. Sally can immediately buy a new house in any neighborhood except the one she just left.
She must wait 24 hours to purchase in the neighborhood she just left. ( To prevent abuse of the system as she is saving 400 silver, and it wouldn't be fair for those wanting that space if someone opted for the voucher, and then bought back their old house. ) Once again Sally's house space is available immediately.

When someone leaves a neighborhood:
In any case when any one player moves out of a neighborhood, a mail should be sent via the game, to all players that own a house in that neighborhood.
"Greetings from the Housing Broker!
A new home, at Wending 2, has become open! Tell your friends, family and kin!"

This would prevent a lot of hassle,
( I have been waiting like 2 years for someone in our neighborhood to come back, so I coudl offer to buy him a new place so a kin member could have his house, instead what happened, is he re-upped his account, and abandoned his house. Before any of us knew, someone new has moved in, and they do not want to sell :/ )

Kinship housing:
We all hope this happens, we all have ideas on how it should ( I have massive posts on my ideas for it which you can search Hoppa_Joel on this forum and read about )

When/If Kinship housing becomes available, we need an option to move to these new kin only neighborhoods.
So seeing the "kinship housing broker" in the neighborhood of the kin house, would allow you to buy a house voucher at half the cost of what a tier'd house would be; tier 1, 500 silver, and tier 2 at 4 gold. Soon as you use this voucher in the neighborhood on a for sale sign, Your old house goes into escrow, with all your belongings and becomes immediately available.

( secondly, remove all kin houses from all neighborhoods, turning those into tier 3 mansions )
Offer an item placable by the kin leader or successor, called a "meeting Hall sign" ( this would go in the same spot the forsale signs go, they could be various designs to look like tavern signs or work place signs etc )
This gives the entire kinship a new "portal" return skill.
"Return to Meeting Hall"

( which brings us to naming our houses )
Say I wanted to name my house, " The Ward End" because I wanted it a tavern.
I'd type in the house name "The Ward End" and when you walk onto the property you woudl see in large letters
" The Ward End, " in smaller letters " Home of Hoppa, myrtle court 2"



___________
Since this is a new revised addition to my housing ideas slightly I'll repost this post onto it. As well.

Originally Posted by Khafar

Unlikely I'll find the same one -- my house goes almost instantly in any neighborhood that opens up. Very unlikely I'll find it in the same neighborhood, and that too matters to people: they're in the neighborhood with their kinship, a gaming friend, spouse, whatever.


Khafar

Ok so now my question to you is. Why should you get to reserve this house in perpertuity while not caring enough about it or the game to pay up keep once a month?

You like this house and want to keep it. Log in once a month and pay rent. Now that it is F2P you can't even say you are not going to pay $10 to re activate your account just to pay rent 'in game'.

I'm sure it is a nice house. But in truth I am also sure you could and would be just as happy with another house.

I can hear you already screaming. No I won't be just as happy with another house. I WANT MY HOUSE!. Well I want A HOUSE, and I'm sure 90% of the people if given their druthers would chose yours, the 29 people in each instance of your housing area that did not get that ONE house are perfectly happy with the one they have.

So unless you are as special a little flower as your house. You like the other people who don't have that special house will find contentment wihtout it. If you are such a special little flower that that house and that house alone could give you happiness then arn't you lucky that turbine made that house or you would be forever stinted and never achieve completness in your life.

Now that houses are truly filling up, I would hope they will address this with some form of repossession. IMHO, if they made escrow permanent and just kept the rent piling up until it was the price of the house the put items in escrow and freed up the house, few that returned would really have a complaint. A normal house would take 20 weeks to be foreclosed, a deluxe house 46 weeks to foreclose, and kinship hall would take 50 weeks to foreclosure.

If your gone that long, I think reserving a space that someone else would want is asking a little much. If they kept the items in storage in escrow, they would be ready to go. They may be better off, since they could get the items that were in the house, verses when the house is foreclosed their stuff is locked inside and they cannot access it.

Hopefully they will address this.

I know I came back after a while, it took a couple weeks to get my houses out of hock. If they were not there, no big loss, I would have missed the stuff inside though. Now I keep my valuables on storage mules, just use the house chests for decoration storage.

Originally Posted by Gandie2

Ok so now my question to you is. Why should you get to reserve this house in perpertuity while not caring enough about it or the game to pay up keep once a month?

Simple: because I got it first, because the rules for nearly the past 3 years have been that I could expect it would still be there if I took an extended break from the game, and because Turbine's housing system is supposed to auto-expand to create new neighborhoods when necessary. If that's broken, fix it. And if they need to start evicting those least likely to return (gone for a long time with no prior returns) because the server's up against the stops for housing, do that. But don't just start pitching people out after a relatively short absence, or the screaming will begin anew.

People do get attached to their houses, and they've been told for years now that they'd be there when they returned. It's sort of like character names - people around here keep on asking for "good" names held by accounts get freed up after awhile, with the old owner of that name getting a rename token. That's just a really bad idea IMO, at least if they actually want for returning players to stick around. Losing their names would be infuriating (even though there are plenty of other names they could adopt).

Khafar

Originally Posted by Khafar

If people have been gone for two years, put their stuff in escrow, evict them from the house, and give them a token good to buy another house of that size.

This suggestion has been around for years. It's a good suggestion. Lots of people are behind it. IMO it's the best solution possible.

Originally Posted by Cammunition

This suggestion has been around for years. It's a good suggestion. Lots of people are behind it. IMO it's the best solution possible.

I would like to add the idea - that people be able to sell their house back to the housing broker. Going forward this might eliminate the foreclosure problem. I'm sure most people know in advance if they are going to stop playing the game for a period and if they also knew they could pick up thier stuff from thier house and go to the housing broker and sell it back they would.

I do also suggest turbine do a mailing to the email tied to the account that owns a house letting them know that it will be repossessed one month from the date of the email and that the game is now F2P so they can log in for free to take care of the rent or to pick up their belongings and go sell the house to the housing broker.

I know DAoC did a similar thing. They (DAoC) always had it set up so that if rent was not paid you lost your house. But they also had 'Porch merchants' that people could put stuff for sale on and one could set their housing preferences to have rent automatically deducted from the porch merchant. With the amount of money these merchants could hold and the amount of items they could hold for sale people could stop playing for 5, 6 years and still own their house.

I could go on explaining the whole situation in DAoC housing instead, long story short, I had a very desirable house in a desirable neighborhood and a porch merchant set up to pay rent forever. After being gone from the game for some time I got an email telling me my house - while the rent was not due - was going to be foreclosed on because I was no longer a subscriber and I could prevent this by reactivating my subscription. I was not miffed and actually was pleased. I still liked people who still played and still thought one day I might go back and I would miss my housing location. I also thought it was a long over do change. I had disliked all the people that had absentee ownership when I was in the game and knew it was a good change even though it meant if I went back I'd not have my house.

So to sum up. It is a game and the house(s) in question or things people who play the game use while playing the game. People who are not playing the game, when they get an email informing them that there is a change in policy and they have a month to log in to pay their rent, well have the nothing to complain about. It is a change for the benefit of the people who it most concerns. The people who are actually currently playing the game; in which this game object resides.

AWESOME IDEA!

I agree 100 MILLION percent that houses ought to, and NEED to, be foreclosed on ASAP.

As far as this notion of having to SEE other players in your housing neighborhood to know that it is active and you have actively playing neighbors in game... hogwash!

You don't ever need to see a single other player to have the sense of living in an active neighborhood. Many active players periodically change their yards, they may open up their houses for visiting, you may notice some absentee owner's stuff disappear, only to be replaced a few days later by NEW items and a new neighbor you can welcome into your community.

I for one am tired of seeing almost every one of my neighbors locked out homes that have not changed owners, or scenery, for almost as long as I've been in my current home (nearly a year). I want them ALL gone.

Some want you to have to scroll through a list of hundreds of almost entirely absent owner housing instances, so that the 1% of players that MIGHT be rage-quit upset that they lost their house after returning from a year long hiatus (despite finding their belongings safely stored in escrow) are appeased. I say NO WAY.

Now that LotRO is F2P there is little excuse for most people not to log in to take care of their housing upkeep.

So... I say foreclose on houses after 9 months of not paying upkeep (even if they are logging in). You don't need to immediately take away the home and put their items in escrow, but clear the lot of their items and make the place available for purchase. If they return and nobody has taken the lot, they can get their house back with everything in place after paying the back upkeep. If they don't, the lot and house can be purchased by another player, and their items will be held in escrow indefinitely or for 30 days after they log in.

Feel free to send them E-mails to let them know the status of their house and how to save it.

Originally Posted by StavroMuellerBeta

The whining wasn't over the house being taken away, it was over the fact that the escrow would expire after a few weeks. If someone left for three months with full housing chests and every decoration slot filled, they would come back to nothing. No refund, nothing from their housing chests, none of their decorations.

IMHO, it should have been an either/or situation. Extending the escrow would have solved the problem, as would locking the houses indefinitely. Doing both just seems redundant and causes new problems that otherwise wouldn't exist.

Actually, that was before escrow even existed. They both added the escrow system (though with a two-week limit) and changed the housing loss from a foreclosure to a lock-out both at the same time. Just adding the escrow system would have been enough if they would just have made it permanent. Why it's still two weeks only is a mystery to me. If they'd just extend the escrow to be permanent, then they could certainly add foreclosure back in.

Preferably, as Khafar has pointed out, it should be after a long absence. Or perhaps the length of time could be tied to account types and length of time actively playing, since a long term player still maintaining a VIP subscription is much more likely to come back than someone who just tried out the game for free for a couple weeks a long time ago. The F2P system draws in a lot of people who just want to check the game out and see what it's about. Many of them might only play a week or two before moving on to something else, but if they happen to buy a house during that time they then hold it indefinitely under the current rules, even long after they've forgotten that they ever played LOTRO.

Originally Posted by Hoppa_Joel

So Jim's house first goes into Escrow, and locked.
Jim's house will always remain in his name if no one 'votes him out'.
However, Wilma really wants Jim's house.
So, Fred goes into the town center, goes to the escrow broker, and clicks on Jim's name ( on a list )
Then he selects "evict Jim from neighborhood"

Never gonna happen. And never should. If people are being evicted not by the system and Turbine's rules on house ownership, but by other players, there's no end to how much hatred would be engendered. Your ability to keep your home is not a popularity contest.

Originally Posted by Niwashi

Never gonna happen. And never should. If people are being evicted not by the system and Turbine's rules on house ownership, but by other players, there's no end to how much hatred would be engendered. Your ability to keep your home is not a popularity contest.

If you go back and read what I said,
Everyone gets a voucher for a house of the same tier.

This is in a sense exactly what everyone wants.
Turbine to give us an option to free houses, and for us not to lose anything.

It goes a step further, and allows us to make a neighborhood of a kinship rather than a entire kinship minus one house, where the guy leaves and doesn't come back.

I don't see any hatred involved. I see common sense.

What Everyone else is proposing is yoinking away everything.

What I propose, is a method to either allow the person to retain the building indefinitely, or having the neighbors of the housing that are active, an option to control their neighborhood and allow it to grow rather than stagnate, which is one of the concerns and complaints.

Gonna slack on this and not read the entire thread.... but my thoughts going off of some of the stuff I have skimmed:

1) We need tech to generate a token that allows a player to acquire a house, without buying a house.... these tokens can be sold from the store, but only for standard and kinship houses.

2) Escrow never expires.

3) A house will be released after the user has failed to pay rent for 3 years. Kin houses don't generate tokens because the only time they are released is either with a move, or when a kin fails. I'm split on the idea of giving someone a token to get a new house due to that long of an AFK.... the big thing is not having your decorations evaporating, because some of the decorations can be quite painful to get.

UO had the best housing system in any mmorpg imho, at least until they started added those ghastly new design elements(ice-blue housing tiles, etc). No instanced housing, it was actually part of the landscape as you ran around the world though the devs did decide where houses could fit, but it was possible to make a whole little town with all your friends. You could visit other player's houses if they left their doors unlocked(you locked down your items and made your chests only available to yourself or co-owners to protect yourself from theft), you could have up to approximately 2500 items per large house, you could either buy a premade design or just the pad and then design your own, etc etc.. the good old days.

Re the topic, i agree that foreclosure should be a part of the housing situation and that token idea sounds great, since they could make it so you could sell the token/s back to recoup your initial cost of the house and then the player could do what they want with the escrow items. Because the storage in these houses are so limited, they're just not worth the hassle imo, especially now that we can finally trade among our own chars with the shared bank storage.

Originally Posted by Hoppa_Joel

It goes a step further, and allows us to make a neighborhood of a kinship rather than a entire kinship minus one house, where the guy leaves and doesn't come back.

I don't see any hatred involved. I see common sense.

There would most certainly be hatred involved if the person whose house you took away comes back and sees that he lost his house because of you even though other people who were away just as long (or longer) haven't lost theirs. Maybe his kinship is there too and he was really attached to the location. You just broke up his kinship because you feel your own kinship is more important than his. You would get situations where larger kinships bully smaller ones, kicking members out of homes in neighborhoods where both kinships have their kin houses.

The nearest thing I could see as remotely possible would be to set up a waiting list of people who want a particular home, and the person would need at least one other person with a paid up home in the neighborhood to vouch for them. (In order to prevent larger groups from crowding out smaller ones, this would not be a vote — it would make absolutely no difference whether it was one other person or a dozen. They just need to know someone in the neighborhood.) If the house gets foreclosed, the person highest on the waiting list who got vouched for by someone already in the neighborhood gets an email notice that it's available and 48 hours in which they're the only one who can buy it. If they don't buy it within that time, it goes up for general sale and anybody can buy it. (A few details: The lockout then foreclosure pattern would occur just as many people in this thread have suggested: a long interval before foreclosure and all items plus perhaps a replacement voucher go into permanent escrow.The waiting list would become available when a house is locked-out. People viewing a house would see not only that it's locked out, but how long the owner has to reclaim it before it would go back up for sale. A person could only put their name in for one waiting list at a time.)

Even this pattern would only be feasible once they fix the problem of not having enough houses. There should always be multiple standard, multiple deluxe, and multiple kinship houses available in each housing area, and Turbine should be spawning new neighborhoods when necessary to maintain that (which will be much easier once eventual foreclosure is set up). That way, the people putting their names in those waiting lists aren't people who simply want a home (which they could get anytime they want) but people who specifically want that particular neighborhood.

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

Gonna slack on this and not read the entire thread.... but my thoughts going off of some of the stuff I have skimmed:

1) We need tech to generate a token that allows a player to acquire a house, without buying a house.... these tokens can be sold from the store, but only for standard and kinship houses.

2) Escrow never expires.

3) A house will be released after the user has failed to pay rent for 3 years. Kin houses don't generate tokens because the only time they are released is either with a move, or when a kin fails. I'm split on the idea of giving someone a token to get a new house due to that long of an AFK.... the big thing is not having your decorations evaporating, because some of the decorations can be quite painful to get.

"3) A house will be released after the user has failed to pay rent for 3 years. " ?????????

Why are you, and some others suggesting these crazy lengths of time after failing to pay rent before foreclosure??

Three years???????? /boggle . Lengthen the number of weeks we can pay in advance to 6 or 8 for people who have to be away for 4 weeks at a time. Which some people do. Then make at max 3 days to a week of not paying rent before foreclosure.

The exception being people who are already locked out for failure to pay. All these houses should have an email sent to the registered email for the account telling them of the change and that the game is now F2P so they do not need re subscribe to pay rent and that they have one month to get their house out of hock or it will be repossessed.

Three years ?? what the heck is that??

Originally Posted by Gandie2

Three years ?? what the heck is that??

You're a serviceman (or woman) and get deployed to Afganistan (or somewhere else in the world), and don't have the luxary of playing an MMO. Three years should be MORE than enough time to serve and return home. (And please forgive my ignorance if it is not).

IMO, it doesn't feel right to shaft the people who quite literally fight and die so we can enjoy the life we have.

Originally Posted by Almagnus1

You're a serviceman (or woman) and get deployed to Afganistan (or somewhere else in the world), and don't have the luxary of playing an MMO. Three years should be MORE than enough time to serve and return home.

What about an initial interval of six months that can be extended to two or three years on request? (With the request possible from the website. Not everyone will have access to the game, but I think nearly anyone can manage at least occasional access to the internet.) When someone's house is locked out, they could get an email telling them they have six months in which to pay their upkeep or lose the house unless they request an extension. That email could provide a link to the page where they can request an extension. (Perhaps it could also give them another option to instead abandon the house from there, thus freeing it up even more quickly for someone else.) If they don't respond to the first email, they could get another reminder email with the same info when the six-month deadline is getting close.

That way if someone has really left the game and isn't coming back, their house is available again in a reasonable amount of time, but someone who can't or isn't going to play for a long time but plans to come back eventually can keep his house at the location he had. I think in combination with permanent escrow for items left in abandoned or foreclosed houses, that would be a reasonable solution.

Originally Posted by Gandie2

Three years ?? what the heck is that??

I suggested 18-24 months, which is what I believe is a reasonable interval at which relatively few people will be returning. This system has been first-come, first-served for a long time now, and it's nearly 3 years since Turbine quit foreclosing on homes - people who have taken extended breaks from the game (for various reasons, including long-term deployments) were told that their homes would be there when they returned.

After 18-24 months, I expect few people are going to return, so it becomes less and less of a problem to evict them. And given that the housing system has been in place for 39 months now, that would still mean a lot of homes would get freed up.

Khafar