Thread: Foreclose on housing

Originally Posted by Gandie2

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

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

/signed

The government calls it urban redevelopment. They come in and tear down blighted houses to build new ones. And those aren't even abandoned! If Turbine really wants to maintain a bunch of neighborhoods that no one ever uses, that's their prerogative. But at least make some housing available for those that want it. Or implement in-city housing, which has been suggested elsewhere.

I don't see any mention of any change upcoming in any Turbine posts.

Is it the officially Turbine position to just ignore the players who are getting shafted by their current in game housing system?

I like other people think letting people keep a house they have stopped paying rent on is stupid.

I like others think the neighborhoods and the current active players would be much better off if foreclosure was turned back on. It would make it possible to buy a house in the same neighborhood as a friend.

However, I like at least a few people posting in this thread have stated would let the whole thing drop if Turbine started spawning new neighborhoods on Brandywine in Bree housing.

So how about it good folk at Turbine.

Either Turn back on Foreclosure, which should be easy considering it is how housing originally was implemented, so the software is in place just needs be turned back on.

Or start spawning new neighborhoods. No idea why 250 is the instance limit, but I'm sure their must be a work around.

Originally Posted by 2cents

I don't see any mention of any change upcoming in any Turbine posts.

Is it the officially Turbine position to just ignore the players who are getting shafted by their current in game housing system?

Turbine almost never comments on upcoming changes unless those changes are either really "must do" in nature, or have reasonably firm install dates (and the tech is known to work) or both. Even then, sometimes there is a gap between intentions and execution. Mount b/p/e, anyone?

I like other people think letting people keep a house they have stopped paying rent on is stupid.

You do know that real world foreclosures can take a couple of years, don't you?

I like others think the neighborhoods and the current active players would be much better off if foreclosure was turned back on. It would make it possible to buy a house in the same neighborhood as a friend.

However, I like at least a few people posting in this thread have stated would let the whole thing drop if Turbine started spawning new neighborhoods on Brandywine in Bree housing.

So how about it good folk at Turbine.

Either Turn back on Foreclosure, which should be easy considering it is how housing originally was implemented, so the software is in place just needs be turned back on.

Several posters have suggested turning foreclosure back on. Most further arguments (see upthread) revolve around the timing. What is an open question is: How tightly coupled are timers on escrow linked to foreclosure? The two things should be independent--in an ideal world--but neither you nor I know if that is true in Turbine's code. IF foreclosure is turned back on, THEN it is reasonable (and likely, expected) to have indefinite escrow. Is this possible without a significant rework of code? I dunno. It's entirely possible that the person that wrote the code is no longer at Turbine and no one else can figure out what he did (I put that forward as possible, but not probable. I have seen some pretty baffling code in my time and I've had other people come to me asking what I did in some code that I wrote with a deeper insight into the problem than the person trying to modify it had).

I personally favor a longish--say, 18 months--foreclosure timer, but then I'd also like to be able to do a direct buy-out of maintenance costs, or--alternatively--change the weekly fee to a monthly one. Others argue for a shorter interval. I don't recall anyone arguing for the original 6 weeks, though.

Or start spawning new neighborhoods. No idea why 250 is the instance limit, but I'm sure their must be a work around.

The 250 limit is probably a programming compromise. It may be a 1 byte ID number, for instance, taken down to the nearest visually "round" number. Or it may be a compromise between "unlimited" and concerns over database performance. Or it might have just been considered larger than would ever be filled up. Before foreclosure was turned off and before f2p was instituted, 250 neighborhoods probably was enough for the "foreseeable future".

Depending on the reasons for the limit and how that limit is coded, and what supporting infrastructure (all housing instances have names and somehow those names have to be created. Do you want the job of inventing 4x1000 names?) is, it may be quite labor intensive to raise the limit.

Certainly somewhere there is priority list with "housing revamp" or "housing instance expansion" on it. We can only speculate on how far down the list those items appear, and what the likelihood is that they will ever make it above the line that defines "we have the resources to work on these items, all others will have to wait."

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

My preference would be to first have them change the terminology of housing. Instead of rent, call it (property) taxes, not an unknown concept medieval settings. Then, if you stop paying taxes on your property, it could be auctioned off at a semi-annual (or quarterly) tax auction.

As for the escrow, let the players buy a home owners insurance policy. Pay X amount of cash, and your policy will protect your housing belongings in escrow for Y amount of time if you lose the house.

There are several processes that can take place with respect to locked houses.

For Founders, who don't have to pay a subscription but have either decided to move on to another game and may or may not log on in the future, their houses should be locked for a period of one year (say 1 year plus 1 month grace) from the last logon. Since they paid a fixed sum they should retain their houses but if they've chosen to stop playing, for any reason, they should have a renewable grace period.

For subscription players, their houses should be locked but not foreclosed upon so long as they have an active subscription and also log on at least annually like Founders.

For non-subscription players, their houses would also be locked but not foreclosed upon for a "reasonable" period, say 3 months or maybe as long as six months (plus one month grace) and they have to pay up their rent/taxes or lose their house at the end of the period.

Escrow for possessions in foreclosed houses should be maintained for at least a year or longer (as system resources allow).

They can use My.Lotro as the mechanism for someone to check what is happening in-game without having to log on. Notices of foreclosure can be posted in the player's My.Lotro page.

This might be too lenient but it is just a thought and subject to modification.

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?

I wouldn't be opposed to raising the repair discounts for homeowners within their neighborhood yet I don't like the idea of adding the current crafting professions to having crafting areas within neighborhoods as I believe this will cause town populations/traffic to greatly diminish. However a new Hobby introduced for homeowners that they can only partake in within their neighborhood I would fully support - like gardening

I believe that houses will need to be foreclosed because new players will want houses like the rest of us have. I know that I looked forward to the time when I could buy a house so that I could 'own' a place in Middle-Earth. I remember farming for gold for almost two weeks to afford the deluxe house that I have now and the joy of buying it.
Now if I spent my time building up the gold needed to buy a house and there was not one available, I would have been very upset. Maybe I wouldn't have been upset enough to stop playing, but I would have still been upset.
If housing is going to be limited to 250 instances, then locked houses will have to be foreclosed to allow their purchase by active players. Several good mechanisms have been introduced in this forum notably those by Kafar and by fezzick, rep to both.
I think 18 months is a more than reasonable amount of time for a house to be locked before it is foreclosed. That should satisfy at least 90% of those with truly legitimate reasons for not being able to log in to the game such as overseas deployment which I think (but not sure) is 12 months. (Any vets want to confirm or deny this?).
I also think that items should be held in escrow for an unlimited amount of time, as long as some type of safeguard is is place to prevent misuse of the system. Maybe a lotro store purchasable insurance policy.
Anyway that's my thoughts.

Just because Turbine initially set up too short of a time period before foreclosing on houses when the system first started is no reason to go the other extreme and let players keep a house indefinitely even after not paying or playing for 3 years. Just extend the grace period before foreclosure. I think Turbine can gauge what kind of time period is most appropriate from the responses on this thread. I figure that 2 or 3 years should be the grace period before foreclosure on VIP and premium players. F2P players can be given a shorter grace period of 1 year. If a player wants a longer grace period, become premium or VIP.

If it reaches the point that there are too many inactive F2P accounts, Turbine should look at closing out beta accounts started 4 years ago but never continued once the game went live. Turbine made no money off those players. Then any F2P account that has had no log in for 3 years should be deleted to free up computing space. If a player wants an account kept indefinitely, go VIP or premium.

Originally Posted by ArcaneLore

Just because Turbine initially set up too short of a time period before foreclosing on houses when the system first started is no reason to go the other extreme and let players keep a house indefinitely even after not paying or playing for 3 years. Just extend the grace period before foreclosure. I think Turbine can gauge what kind of time period is most appropriate from the responses on this thread. I figure that 2 or 3 years should be the grace period before foreclosure on VIP and premium players. F2P players can be given a shorter grace period of 1 year. If a player wants a longer grace period, become premium or VIP.

If it reaches the point that there are too many inactive F2P accounts, Turbine should look at closing out beta accounts started 4 years ago but never continued once the game went live. Turbine made no money off those players. Then any F2P account that has had no log in for 3 years should be deleted to free up computing space. If a player wants an account kept indefinitely, go VIP or premium.

I agree with your first statement, because initially people where upset about foreclosure, without escrow, is no reason to not foreclose with escrow now. I'm not a programmer so no idea how hard or easy it would be to extend the current escrow. It seems to me though that the hard work is done in that coding is in place to save all of a persons belongs into an escrow account for Y period. All that needs be done is extend Y till for all practically purposes it is indefinite.

What I don't understand is the length of time you propose as a grace period. As I see it the concept of foreclosure for failure to pay the weekly fee associated with home ownership is either going to be brought back into the game, or not. If it is; anything over a month makes a mockery of the concept.

I've seem people suggest three years. Sheesh. I don't think housing has even been around three years. As far as the idea of multiple periods tied to various things goes, I'd have to say it would be totally unworkable. Whatever policy Turbine has would have to be easy to implement and require little to no man hours to maintain. I don't see having 3, 4, 5, 6 different grace periods all dependent on different factors as being workable.

Let people pay 8 weeks in advance. When they go into default send them an email to the registered email account associated with that account telling them they have 1 month to log in and pay their rent or the house will be repossessed. This gives 3 months of absentee ownership. A very reasonable time period.

As long as there is permanent escrow no one losses anything. They actually gain.

I remember one of my early trips to the forums, not sure why I was here, possibly just checking things out, I ran into this thread about 60 pages long full of people whining about having to pay back rent to unlock their house and get their belongings. I remember thinking how silly the whole thing was and why didn't Turbine just repossess the houses and be done with it. I even posted this thought.

I went looking for this thread recently and noticed more then one person made the statement they would rather their house had just been foreclosed on.

It seems to me some people who are against foreclosure are so out of fear that if they lose their house they will not be able to get another as good. What they don't understand is the whole point of starting foreclosure is to make it so houses are ALWAYS available to EVERYONE.

Though I saw mention of it, I had not realized that there was a physical limit to the number of housing instances and therefore a limit to the number of houses of the various types.

I think that keeping a delinquent (on rent/tax/maintenance) house should be predicated on the idea that the player is going to enter the game at periodic, even if widely spaced, intervals. A Founder whose paid for the privilege of no subscription, a subscription holder, even F2P should all be required to log into the game at least occasionally and thereby show that they have not moved on to another game and continue to tie up a currently limited resource in LOTRO.

At a minimum I recommend that a login be made atleast annually. If LOTRO is now a thing of the past for the player, who has no real intention of playing again or can't be bothered, then the enjoyment of the game should not be limited by consideration for players who have not displayed some effort to keep the game up. As a Founder I pay no current cost (since I paid for the privilege) to keeping an account so I should login at some interval to show I still want to play the game even if only to look around. If I were a subscription player, then my active subscription is probably enough justification for me to keep my delinquent housing since I am paying money for the privilege. If I am anybody else, then I have to show that I have a continuing interest in playing given that I otherwise pay little, if any cost, to have the account.

Naturally if the house is current, then it can be maintained for as long as it remains current. If it goes delinquent then whatever process that may eventually result in it being opened for sale starts and continues unless redeemed or some other condition applies.

I am also wondering whether if the foreclosure process was set to take several years, escrow should be available. When someone decides to abandon a house they may lack the vault space to store all their goodies and they shouldn't lose those things because of that so they have a chance to move stuff to the new one. When someone loses a house due to a very extended period of delinquency (talking a minimum of a year plus a month, for instance where there is no Founder status or active subscription, probably would be longer) then they've shown that they really don't care for the contents of the house or the house chest(s). Having all that go into escrow is a convenience but if they left their house delinquent for the entire period they have demonstrated that those things were not really important since if they had any intention of returning they'd have shifted what they wanted into their vault.

Well, just a thought.

Still no house for me! :-(

I spoke to some lucky soul that said he got one last week. Said he had been checking every day for a month.

Not as long as me. Should have been mine. But guess I just was not lucky.

Maybe Turbine needs make a waiting list. I mean I can't park there 24/7 waiting for someone to abandon a house. And that seems to be the only way new people will ever get one.

So how about it. Give the housing broker the ability to take names for the next house to become available?

Originally Posted by 2cents

Still no house for me! :-(

I spoke to some lucky soul that said he got one last week. Said he had been checking every day for a month.

Not as long as me. Should have been mine. But guess I just was not lucky.

Maybe Turbine needs make a waiting list. I mean I can't park there 24/7 waiting for someone to abandon a house. And that seems to be the only way new people will ever get one.

So how about it. Give the housing broker the ability to take names for the next house to become available?

The only one full is the Bree one, can't you buy a house in one of the other neighborhoods, or do you really really want only a Bree one?

Originally Posted by Unique

The only one full is the Bree one, can't you buy a house in one of the other neighborhoods, or do you really really want only a Bree one?

My point is he should not have to.

Originally Posted by Unique

The only one full is the Bree one, can't you buy a house in one of the other neighborhoods, or do you really really want only a Bree one?

The point is I should not have too. Though I did say earlier that "IF" when I first started looking for a house, the housing broker or some other 'in game' mechanism had informed me that "NO" more houses in bree - ever! I'd probably have bought one some where else.

But having waited and checked and waited and checked and picked out what house I'd buy when the new neighborhood opened up, which was going to be any day now because everyone said a new neigherborhood opens automatically, - then change my mind and pick a different one and check and recheck for new houses . . . That it is a quest. (then one day someone told me to stop waiting - there would be no new neigherhoods untill Turbine made a change)

So YES! I want my bree house like the 6500 people before me that bought them. I'll even take a used one from one of the 4500 people that stopped paying rent.

Every other person that played Lotro for the last 3 years has had the priveledge to buy a house in bree housing. Why not me! Not sure how many that is, 300,000 subscribers, 400,000 - 1 million - no idea but how ever many it is they all had the priveledge to buy a house in bree if they so chose. Now I and others don't.

Originally Posted by Gandie2

I have spoken with people in game who are new and are pretty upset at the idea that no new neighborhoods are spawning and that all the shuttered homes of players from years past sit unused. I'm surprised more don't come post here. I know I was talking to a group last week in OOC that were all upset and I said, 'well go post on the forums'. They were all talking like they were tabbing out right then. But later I checked and there where no new posts. I do remember one of them asking me incredulously if I actually thought posting would make a difference. Maybe that has something to do about it.

Looks like the skeptic had it right. Turbine seems to be studiously ignoring this issue, and your posts do not seem to be getting their attention.

Guess no matter how wrong it seems to the people affected by this problem and how much they feel Turbine should address it, Turbine does not give a ...

Originally Posted by tharkun3

Looks like the skeptic had it right. Turbine seems to be studiously ignoring this issue, and your posts do not seem to be getting their attention.

Guess no matter how wrong it seems to the people affected by this problem and how much they feel Turbine should address it, Turbine does not give a ...

Please Turbine, give us a hint that you care about this......

Originally Posted by Carlborn

Please Turbine, give us a hint that you care about this......

I need more then a hint at this point. I had every intention of not re upping my subscription because of this. But then I went ahead and did it for three more months.

But the end of these three months if nothing is done about this I'm out of here.

yeah I know turbine ain't going to miss my lousy 10 bucks a month. I've had this discussion before over other games. The fact that my 10 bucks is not going to make turbine break out in a sweat is not a good reason for me to keep giving money to a company that does not care to address an issue I feel they should.

Voting with our feet is the only vote we have. It may not effect their bottom line but at least I won't have to be thinking I'm giving my 10 bucks a month to a company that has no regard for me. They don't need my business. Fine. I like the game but I'm sure I'll like the next one as well.

I understand both viewpoints.

On one hand, you don't want to alienate players who are returning after an absence (whatever the reason FOR the absence).

On the other, you don't want to alienate players who are ACTIVELY PLAYING.

Call me crazy, but it seems more sensible to me to ensure you don't lose existing customers on the hope you might get some back at some unknown point in the future. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, right?

My suggestion is this. Forclose on all houses that are shuttered after ONE MONTH of abandonment. All belongings will get put into escrow where they will remain indefinitely. In addition, the former owner will recieve a token for a new house of the same type, so if he DOES return, it will not cost him any more than it would have if he came back to an abandoned house.

Houses forclosed upon would become available for sale.

You can't expect someone to continue waiting two years for a game element that others are enjoying. That's unrealistically long. You can't favour absent players over current ones. That's just bad business.

I really don't know why I have to keep saying this, it's blindingly obvious.

Originally Posted by Tiamo

I understand both viewpoints.

On one hand, you don't want to alienate players who are returning after an absence (whatever the reason FOR the absence).

On the other, you don't want to alienate players who are ACTIVELY PLAYING.

Call me crazy, but it seems more sensible to me to ensure you don't lose existing customers on the hope you might get some back at some unknown point in the future. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, right?

My suggestion is this. Forclose on all houses that are shuttered after ONE MONTH of abandonment.

At this point, I don't think anyone is seriously arguing against foreclosure. What is debated is the length of time before foreclosure takes place. One month is way too short. Two years is probably too long.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Why is a month too short? To begin with you can pay up your rent in advance, and then if my scheme is followed you would still get a token to get a new house if you even ran out of THAT time. You wouldn't lose anything (except possibly a plum location).

WooT!

Three new nieghborhoods opened in bree on brandywine.

I still think nieghborhoods would be more vibrant if Turbine forclosed on dead beats. But I got my house so I'll stop whining.

For anyone else that has been waiting, go get them while they are hot!

Me and two buds snagged three in one nieghborhood. None of us took the one on the hill though.

It took me a while of waiting and checking (every day) to get my 4 Wending Way address. But it is disheartening to see that almost every address is basically boarded up and empty. I don't think it's unrealistic to repossess houses that have been abandoned by their players.

That said, I like the token idea. You leave? Fine, your house is gone, but you can get a replacement, and all your stuff is still in escrow so you dont really lose anything.

Yesterday, I saw another character in my neighborhood at the Vault-keeper. It is the one and only time I have ever seen anyone else in my neighborhood, ever. I was so astonished I actually stood there for a few minutes, trying to talk to them.

...they were afk.

This is the other reason for forclosure. It's not just that there are no houses available, it's that there's no one in the neighborhoods. Forclosure won't assure the presence of more people, but it will sure help. Beyond that, we need stuff to DO in the neighborhoods (and I don't mean combat or quests, necessarily).

Anyway, that's another thread.

Originally Posted by Yula_the_Mighty

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 like that idea, and while you're at it add a stable master for the return trip!. If the common areas were just before you entered the neighborhood, I think it'd make for many more social situations. And the game needs things to make the 'multiplayer' in MMO work better, IMO. Sometimes it seems like I might as well be playing a single player game, unless I'm doing skirmishes (another messed up thing... another topic). Bulletin boards for ppl to post on outside homesteads, in town centers.... Ways to hook up with people crafting things you need, etc. Anyway, it'd be nice if the neighborhoods added to the social interaction, instead of detracting from them... and I think this idea would help that.

Originally Posted by 2cents

WooT!

Three new nieghborhoods opened in bree on brandywine.

I still think nieghborhoods would be more vibrant if Turbine forclosed on dead beats. But I got my house so I'll stop whining.

For anyone else that has been waiting, go get them while they are hot!

Me and two buds snagged three in one nieghborhood. None of us took the one on the hill though.

This was going to be my suggestion... just double the amount of neighborhoods and leave the abandoned houses be... it's a win-win

Originally Posted by SCHawks73

This was going to be my suggestion... just double the amount of neighborhoods and leave the abandoned houses be... it's a win-win

Not really, it's definitely a loss if there's no one but you in the neighborhood.

Originally Posted by Tiamo

Why is a month too short? To begin with you can pay up your rent in advance, and then if my scheme is followed you would still get a token to get a new house if you even ran out of THAT time. You wouldn't lose anything (except possibly a plum location).

One month is too short because it is trivially easy to have an interruption in game play that exceeds that, even if you add in the ability to pre-pay your house maint for 6 weeks.

Medical conditions, family trauma, moving, job issues, military deployment (the original reason for dropping foreclosure) are among the reasons why someone might not play for an extended period of time.

Just to give a single example that I'm familiar with... The treatment for pancreatitis will put you in the hospital for 2 to 6 weeks. Under the strictest version of your "one month", that would cause someone to lose a house they might have had for some years. You sure you want to go there?

Turbine should, in my opinion, err on the side of caution. Yes, foreclosure should *probably* be brought back. The real discussion is over how long it should take. Since people have done comparison to real world foreclosure, one could use the length of time a real world foreclosure as a guide to how long Turbine should wait. Current data suggests that it should be somewhere between 15 and 24 months by that measure.

As I already noted, 2 years is probably too long. How long would you be willing to see it take before you consider it to be "too long"? Bear in mind that I suspect that the length of time people are willing to consider may very well be--roughly--a constant fraction of their real world age.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Originally Posted by whheydt

One month is too short because it is trivially easy to have an interruption in game play that exceeds that, even if you add in the ability to pre-pay your house maint for 6 weeks.

Medical conditions, family trauma, moving, job issues, military deployment (the original reason for dropping foreclosure) are among the reasons why someone might not play for an extended period of time.

Just to give a single example that I'm familiar with... The treatment for pancreatitis will put you in the hospital for 2 to 6 weeks. Under the strictest version of your "one month", that would cause someone to lose a house they might have had for some years. You sure you want to go there?

Turbine should, in my opinion, err on the side of caution. Yes, foreclosure should *probably* be brought back. The real discussion is over how long it should take. Since people have done comparison to real world foreclosure, one could use the length of time a real world foreclosure as a guide to how long Turbine should wait. Current data suggests that it should be somewhere between 15 and 24 months by that measure.

As I already noted, 2 years is probably too long. How long would you be willing to see it take before you consider it to be "too long"? Bear in mind that I suspect that the length of time people are willing to consider may very well be--roughly--a constant fraction of their real world age.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

3 months sounds fair.

thing is, it's not too hard to set up your houseing so someone else can pay for it if you'regonna be absent for a period. yes someone who has an emergancy that seriously screwsa them over might be the victem. but by and large it'll mostly get ridda inactive players.

Originally Posted by BrianDavion

3 months sounds fair.

thing is, it's not too hard to set up your houseing so someone else can pay for it if you'regonna be absent for a period. yes someone who has an emergancy that seriously screwsa them over might be the victem. but by and large it'll mostly get ridda inactive players.

I'm not sure 3 months is short enough, though I can see why a month might be too short. In any case, this is something that could be negotiated.

I'm not sure you can judge a person's age based on the timeframe they suggest. I suspect I'm of an older generation, yet I want a shorter period than some. The thing we're after is to free up housing quickly enough that people who are interested don't lose interest while waiting. As I say, 3 months may still be too long for this.

Keep in mind, by my suggestion, a person would have nearly three months anyway. They would have 6 weeks (paid up in advance), plus one month (4 weeks) after the prepaid rent runs out. 10 weeks seems like plenty of time to me.

Originally Posted by Gandie2

Who knows. We might actually run into neighbors if all the houses where not owned by people that haven't played in 8 months.

Originally Posted by Tiamo

Not really, it's definitely a loss if there's no one but you in the neighborhood.

Judging by what the OP said, and what I have noticed in my 'hood, it would be about the same activity level, the only difference is one neighborhood would be potentially full of yard cosmetics and the new one wouldn't... but has the potential of having people move in, and you can see them outside putting up their decorations and stuff... ehh... all speculation I guess, I see your point.

Originally Posted by SCHawks73

Judging by what the OP said, and what I have noticed in my 'hood, it would be about the same activity level, the only difference is one neighborhood would be potentially full of yard cosmetics and the new one wouldn't... but has the potential of having people move in, and you can see them outside putting up their decorations and stuff... ehh... all speculation I guess, I see your point.

That's the thing... You never have to see a single one of your neighbors to know you are living in an active neighborhood.

Active players who use their homes, pay upkeep on them, and visit them are likely to put up the occasional new yard decoration, or like me, revamp the entire yard for the season.

Inactive players and those who don't pay their upkeep will eventually have their home foreclosed on, and you can watch as their yard goes empty, maybe decide you like that lot better and scoop it up, tell a friend, family, or kin member that a home opened up on your road, or just wait to see who your new neighbor is going to be.

And ultimately you do stand a slightly better chance of running into neighbors, or seeing events held in your neighborhood, if there are active players occupying it.

Originally Posted by Gandie2

Who knows. We might actually run into neighbors if all the houses where not owned by people that haven't played in 8 months.

Not likely. You have to multiply (1) the percentage of active players who are online at the same time by (2) the percentage of time playing that's spent in the housing neighborhood by (3) the percentage of time in the neighborhood that you're outside or in public areas where you can be seen by (4) the percentage of the neighborhood that's within visual range by (5) the number of houses in a single instance. Even with every single house owned by an active player, the chances of running into someone there just by chance would be far too minuscule to consider realistic. For the most part, the only way you're going to see people in your housing neighborhood is if you invite them there. It's not going to just happen. An occasional change in yard decorations is the most you'll ever see for having an active neighborhood.

Originally Posted by Tiamo

I'm not sure 3 months is short enough, though I can see why a month might be too short. In any case, this is something that could be negotiated.

A year and a day, it's good enough for Bilbo, it's good enough for me.

Originally Posted by Tiamo

I'm not sure 3 months is short enough, though I can see why a month might be too short. In any case, this is something that could be negotiated.

I'm not sure you can judge a person's age based on the timeframe they suggest. I suspect I'm of an older generation, yet I want a shorter period than some. The thing we're after is to free up housing quickly enough that people who are interested don't lose interest while waiting. As I say, 3 months may still be too long for this.

Keep in mind, by my suggestion, a person would have nearly three months anyway. They would have 6 weeks (paid up in advance), plus one month (4 weeks) after the prepaid rent runs out. 10 weeks seems like plenty of time to me.

keep in mind when I said 3 months that was a "high end estimate" sort of a "well let's give a comprimise to people who whined when you could lose a house" approuch.

quite frankly personally speaking I'd be quite fine with a foclosure a week after failure to pay rent.

as you yourself said you can pay for up to a month and a half in advance, so you should be ok, very few people take vacations for longer, and people who do, well let's face it, they should proably make arrangements to keep payments up.
you can give maintaince permissions to other peoiple after all

Originally Posted by BrianDavion

keep in mind when I said 3 months that was a "high end estimate" sort of a "well let's give a comprimise to people who whined when you could lose a house" approuch.

Sigh... We're still fairly far apart, but you're entitled to your opinion.

quite frankly personally speaking I'd be quite fine with a foclosure a week after failure to pay rent.

Never been smacked upside the head with real life? I can think of a variety of scenarios that could reasonably happen that would cost someone their house with a foreclosure that fast.

as you yourself said you can pay for up to a month and a half in advance, so you should be ok, very few people take vacations for longer, and people who do, well let's face it, they should proably make arrangements to keep payments up.
you can give maintaince permissions to other peoiple after all

You'd be surprised at how many people never thought of having someone else pay their maint fees.

There are countries on this planet that are as work obsessed as the US and 6 week vacations are very nearly routine. All it would take is some real life problem well into a long vacation and by the time that person got back to paying attention the game...no house.

There still has been no direct addressing the military deployment issue. Therefore I would suggest that, if foreclosure is done in under 12 months, there be a process by which someone could notify Turbine that they will not be in a position to play LoTRO for a long period--but they fully intend to come back to the game--and any foreclosure actions will be put off until after the expected return (that is, the foreclosure clock will stop for the requested duration). Other than by specific request, Turbine will set the foreclosure interval at the point where (from their own records) it appears that an inactive account won't be reactivated, with a 90% confidence level.

Alternatively, the current system is kept in place for all accounts for which either active payments are being made, or the house is held by a lifetime account. (That is, VIP accounts get the current system.)

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

much as I have sympathy for members of the armed forces, and would like to see some sort of device in place for people whose life tends to take them far from the computer for prolonged periods of time, I do think that something needs to be done with regards to houseing to keep houseing avaliable.

however, I think what we need to do for a start is move back, identify the problem and where it can be addressed..


first of all, Trubine needs to evict people. not maybe contiunally however, they should in octoberish (perhaps with the release of isengard?) go back and evict all characters from houses whose accounts have not been active in a year or more.

then, and this is gonna be contriversal..

increase the cost of houseing.

Make Basics sell for 3 gold, and a deluxe for 7 gold. yes I know this is incrediably pricy but hear me out for my reasoning.

first of all, there's been a fair bit of inflatation in game now, 1 gold is NOT hard to make. secondly making even a basic house cost 5 gold would put houseing out of reach of free to play players. to get a house you'd have to be premium at the very least. (another alternative is to make access to purchaseing houseing something you have to buy for TPs. make it cost say 500 points)
by restricting house purchses to people who have put money into the game, you have a reasonably good chance that the people who buy houseing are at least going to stay active. right now as it stands, I suspect a huge amount of the houseing shortages are due to F2Ps buying houses, and then leaveing the game after a week.
making houseing a VIP only thing is proably the best SHORT TERM decision, turbine can of course grandfather in any F2Ps that already own a house.

Originally Posted by BrianDavion

much as I have sympathy for members of the armed forces, and would like to see some sort of device in place for people whose life tends to take them far from the computer for prolonged periods of time, I do think that something needs to be done with regards to houseing to keep houseing avaliable.

Agreed.

however, I think what we need to do for a start is move back, identify the problem and where it can be addressed..


first of all, Trubine needs to evict people. not maybe contiunally however, they should in octoberish (perhaps with the release of isengard?) go back and evict all characters from houses whose accounts have not been active in a year or more.

I think that's an acceptable limit.

then, and this is gonna be contriversal..

increase the cost of houseing.

Make Basics sell for 3 gold, and a deluxe for 7 gold. yes I know this is incrediably pricy but hear me out for my reasoning.

Those prices will put even basic houses out of the reach of f2p accounts (cap is 2G). 7G is already the price of deluxe houses, so your proposal doesn't change them at all.

first of all, there's been a fair bit of inflatation in game now, 1 gold is NOT hard to make. secondly making even a basic house cost 5 gold would put houseing out of reach of free to play players. to get a house you'd have to be premium at the very least. (another alternative is to make access to purchaseing houseing something you have to buy for TPs. make it cost say 500 points)
by restricting house purchses to people who have put money into the game, you have a reasonably good chance that the people who buy houseing are at least going to stay active. right now as it stands, I suspect a huge amount of the houseing shortages are due to F2Ps buying houses, and then leaveing the game after a week.
making houseing a VIP only thing is proably the best SHORT TERM decision, turbine can of course grandfather in any F2Ps that already own a house.

Interesting.... Controversial for sure, but interesting. In order to keep it from being an effective exchange between TP and in-game gold, it could be that you buy a "writ of housing" that entitles you to buy a house for 500TP, and then you spend in-game funds to actually buy a house. How you raise the 500TP is left as an exercise for the reader.

Any of this would have to grandfather in *everyone* who has a house, of course.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Personally...I'd rather see a mechanism put in place to upgrade my house on my existing lot, instead of having to abandon it and find another lot with a bigger house on it. I have a stream running thru the rear of my lot, and that was the deciding factor for my purchase. I just wish I could get a bigger house to put on the lot, and not lose the investment I have in it already.

Originally Posted by whheydt

Agreed.


Interesting.... Controversial for sure, but interesting. In order to keep it from being an effective exchange between TP and in-game gold, it could be that you buy a "writ of housing" that entitles you to buy a house for 500TP, and then you spend in-game funds to actually buy a house. How you raise the 500TP is left as an exercise for the reader.

Any of this would have to grandfather in *everyone* who has a house, of course.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

that's exactly the idea, you buy a writ of houseing that enables you to purchase houseing, much like how rideing works.
combining this with active removal of inactive players from houseing after prolonged periods of time, it's not solve EVERYTHING, but it'd certinly free up some houseing, and IMHO more importantly from a busniess pov to turbine, it'd free up server resources. every house held by a player whose left with no intent of coming back are a drain on turbine's server resources, it's in no ones intrests to have huge swaths of houseing occupied by people who played for a week or two then got bored and went onto something else

Originally Posted by BrianDavion

that's exactly the idea, you buy a writ of houseing that enables you to purchase houseing, much like how rideing works.
combining this with active removal of inactive players from houseing after prolonged periods of time, it's not solve EVERYTHING, but it'd certinly free up some houseing, and IMHO more importantly from a busniess pov to turbine, it'd free up server resources. every house held by a player whose left with no intent of coming back are a drain on turbine's server resources, it's in no ones intrests to have huge swaths of houseing occupied by people who played for a week or two then got bored and went onto something else

One wonders if there's a way to spread the word that, if you're leaving the game with no intent to return, common courtesy dictates that you abandon your house....

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer