More and more of the housing areas are looking like ghosttowns. Please please Turbine, you must add some foreclosure.
If ppl are worried that they will be kicked out from their house change the rent to be monthly instead of weekly. That way players can pay 6months in advance and if they don't they will be removed and their house put up for sale.
I thought that was how it worked. It should work like that. If they fail to pay, the house should go back on the market within a reasonable amount of time.
I agree. Kick the bums out when they fail to pay! Hehe.
Yeah, some of the more "crowded" neighborhoods that I've gone to just to see what things look like are all unoccupied, forclosed houses.
Srsly. This is going to ruin my LOTRO property value...
Pistolet Pranning - Hobbit of The Shire
"Whose fault is it if the mightiest of heroes cannot take a joke?"
I'd love to see those who don't use there houses or pay upkeep booted out. From what I've seen some players don't pay the rent and just use the house as a free port since that is still allowed.
Having contacted quite a few in the neighbourhood to see if they'd be willing to move, it's just a shame to see houses not used. Hopefully once mylotro opens up for us europeans, I'll be able to search for a players other characters and find out if they're still playing.
Honestly, the problem runs much deeper than just deadbeat homeowners.
The fact is, no one spends any time in thier neighborhoods because there is nothing to do there. There's no reason to visit a neighborhood, even if you DO live there.
In Galaxies, the housing was in the actual world, so passers by might go through town. Here, it's an instance, so there are no passers by, people only enter a neighborhood on purpose.
However, there IS no purpose. You can't craft in a neighborhood. There's no vendors, no quests, NOTHING.
Unless they're going to give people a reason to go to a neighborhood, clearing people out is pointless.
Mandli: Now I know how the elves feel. All the magic is leaving Middle Earth.
Honestly, the problem runs much deeper than just deadbeat homeowners.
In Galaxies, the housing was in the actual world, so passers by might go through town. Here, it's an instance, so there are no passers by, people only enter a neighborhood on purpose.
Sounds like Anarchy Online, which has entirely ghost-cities out in the middle of nowhere, where the guilds that built them dissolved years past. They did nothing but clutter up the landscape.
Unless they're going to give people a reason to go to a neighborhood, clearing people out is pointless.
Three points:
I sort of agree with this for most neighborhoods. With just 30 houses per neighborhood and the houses being so spread out, you're simply not going to see people very often in most neighborhoods anyway. I didn't, not even in the first few weeks after they went live. Only a few of those in your neighborhood are even likely to be logged in when you are, let alone be in the neighborhood at the same time.
Giving people good reasons to routinely go to neighborhoods in this game would just be a bad idea. Instead of having a handful of natural places for people to "hang out" in the game, there would be hundreds. Thousands on some servers. This would make the game world feel much more empty, make it harder to find groups, etc.
However, that doesn't mean they shouldn't address this. On Brandywine at least, they've run out of neighborhoods for some races. There's a max of 500 per race, and they've hit it. Without new neighborhoods being spawned, it becomes vital for some of the old ones to get a spring housecleaning.
One notion I had was to make each HOUSE an instance rather than each neighborhood.
Virtual apartments are certainly a commonly used method. In FFXI, everyone shares the same "house" entrance, which is available in each of the larger cities. In EQ2, there are multiple house entrances, and some subset of players shares each of them.
My problem is what you mentioned: I like having a house in a beautiful neighborhood, one that I can decorate both inside and out. Sharing a house facade with 147 other players doesn't really appeal to me at all.
I couldn't agree more. Either kick them out, or create some more neighborhoods. All the desirable houses near the gates are taken, and 90% are locked due to nonpayment. On my server, there are only about a dozen houses available period in the Shire homesteads, and less than half of those are the deluxe ones which most regular players are going to want.
It's such a struggle to find a house, and yet we have people not paying for who knows how long and still keeping their houses while the rest of us struggle to even find a decent place!
Last edited by Littlemew; Jun 06 2011 at 01:22 PM.
However, there IS no purpose. You can't craft in a neighborhood. There's no vendors, no quests, NOTHING.
Hun???
You missed the vendors that sell crafting materials, potions, traveling rations and all kinds of other good stuff. In addition, there is a sparing area where you and your opponent can use your soldiers. Or look at each other's soldiers There is a pair of Skirmish NPCs for buying trait upgrades. You got vault, shared storage, wardrobe and escrow access.
There is a nice discount on buying local. 20% if you have a deluxe like I do.
Yes. There are quests that you missed - the housing quests.
Out of your list, the only thing you can not do is craft. Maybe someday, Turbine will add a common crafting area that is shared by all the neighborhoods in a racial area. It would nice if all the NPCs were moved to this common area.
Unless stated otherwise, all content in this post is My Personal Opinion.
From what I've seen some players don't pay the rent and just use the house as a free port since that is still allowed.
Without making any judgment at all about how complex a programming would be, changing *that* to disallow ports to houses in arrears (or in arrears after a short period) would be a good idea. It might even get people to either pay up or abandon the house (though it'd probably help a bunch to allow one to abandon a house without paying the arrears).
You missed the vendors that sell crafting materials, potions, traveling rations and all kinds of other good stuff. In addition, there is a sparing area where you and your opponent can use your soldiers. Or look at each other's soldiers There is a pair of Skirmish NPCs for buying trait upgrades. You got vault, shared storage, wardrobe and escrow access.
There is a nice discount on buying local. 20% if you have a deluxe like I do.
Yes. There are quests that you missed - the housing quests.
Out of your list, the only thing you can not do is craft. Maybe someday, Turbine will add a common crafting area that is shared by all the neighborhoods in a racial area. It would nice if all the NPCs were moved to this common area.
I didn't miss them, they're irrelevant. Who is going to go from the 21st hall, using a travel ration, to buy things in their neighborhood that they can buy in the 21st hall? Or pratically anywhere else?
I've never seen ANYONE use their soldiers in the neighborhoods (possibly because there's never anyone else there).
Housing quests? Go to Bree and get a rug? Wow, that's riveting, isn't it.
If you're suggesting that these things are enough to bring people to the neighborhoods, I'd have to say you're delusional (no offense). The neighborhoods are deserted, and it's because there's nothing of any interest there.
Now, if they put some of the Festival action in the neighborhoods, that could help. Don't make us go to Frostbluff or some other generic nowhere, put the content in the Neighborhoods.
How about some issues with bandits in the area, extorting the locals? How about some crafting nodes? I mean, it makes NO sense that in order to get dressed I have to go to the local bank because I can't access my wardrobe from the wardrobe in my bedroom. It makes no sense that I can't cook myself dinner in my own home. It makes no sense that I can put static flower bed decorations in the yard, but I can't plant actual flowers and pick them for sale or decoration of my home.
Housing has a lot of potential that they're just flatly ignoring. Much more important to add another generic skirmish. Housing has nothing to do with combat, so it's not important to them (though it's important to many of us).
Mandli: Now I know how the elves feel. All the magic is leaving Middle Earth.
I didn't miss them, they're irrelevant. Who is going to go from the 21st hall, using a travel ration, to buy things in their neighborhood that they can buy in the 21st hall? Or pratically anywhere else?
Hunters & Wardens, that's who. Check your supply of travel rations... Not enough on hand to do a lot of running around? Then drop by your house and restock at 20% off. I try to maintain between 50 and 100 travel rations on hand. The cost of one ration to restock at a discount is trivial.
If I'm going to craft a LOT of stuff and I need full stacks of purchased components...then I'll port to the housing instance and pick up at a discount. For a handful of components, no, but lots of them...you better believe it.
Hunters & Wardens, that's who. Check your supply of travel rations... Not enough on hand to do a lot of running around? Then drop by your house and restock at 20% off. I try to maintain between 50 and 100 travel rations on hand. The cost of one ration to restock at a discount is trivial.
If I'm going to craft a LOT of stuff and I need full stacks of purchased components...then I'll port to the housing instance and pick up at a discount. For a handful of components, no, but lots of them...you better believe it.
--W. H. Heydt
Old Used Programmer
In other words, you pop in for 15 seconds once a month to resupply and then pop out again.
Somehow, I feel like there could be more to the housing than that.
Mandli: Now I know how the elves feel. All the magic is leaving Middle Earth.
Now, if they put some of the Festival action in the neighborhoods, that could help. Don't make us go to Frostbluff or some other generic nowhere, put the content in the Neighborhoods.
While I agree with you that putting some actual content into the Neighbourhoods is pretty much the only way to get people to spend time there, the way they're set up and the number of abandoned houses put a limit to what could realistically work. Most if not all of it would have to be solo stuff, because you'd never get enough people together for any group activities in most instances. So the few players still active in their Neighbourhood would do their stuff and then be gone again.
I'm afraid the housing will remain a failure without a substantial redesign and I doubt Turbine intends to spend the effort necessary.
I don't post much but here goes. Prior to changing how they handled housing, I didn't like the 'threat' of losing your house etc if you had to be away from the game for a few weeks. Things come up etc. But the change has caused many of the houses (especially in the older neighborhoods) to be boarded up for non payment. It makes lots of 'empty' neighborhoods. I don't really care about having a lot of interaction with neighbors in the game but a lot of people enjoy having a home in the same neighborhood as their kinship house. I realize that this doesn't work for larger kinships but the smaller ones often try to do this. It's nearly impossible now because the houses never go up for sale. When I bought a house on my second account, I waited and waited for a house to go on sale. I checked every day for weeks in my neighborhood. And, eventually, one opened up and I grabbed it. This was prior to the change of course.
Yes, people will whine if they leave the game and lose their house but there are solutions to this. (You will never please everyone we all know that) Board up the house for a specified period of time. Give them 3 months or 6 months to come back to the game. If the player doesn't come back during that time put the house back on the market. Put all of the stuff in permanent escrow so they will never lose their decorations or items from the storage chest. As far as buying a new house goes....they are on their own. The initial purchase is not really where they soak you anyway...its all in the rent. Sure it's a small investment but if you don't have the money to plunk down on a house you probably can't afford the rent anyway IMHO I am currently paying for 1 kinship, 1 large house and 1 small house and sometimes houses for my kinnies when they aren't online so it's not really a big deal if you are actively playing the game. It's the people who don't play much that have trouble paying the rent and maybe they just need to decide whether or not they really want to bother having a house? I would actually get rid of my small house If I thought I would be able to obtain a larger house in my neighborhood but since that won't happen I am stuck with the small one.
What is the purpose of rent if not to open up housing if people don't pay? What exactly am I getting for my money? I can honestly testify that I have never once seen anyone mowing my lawn or watering my plants. There are currently several yards in my neighborhood with large patches of clover and some that still have their Yule trees up in June. :-) And don't get me started about tacky yard ornaments. We've never once had a homeowners association meeting and after 4 years the pizza delivery guy still can't find my house. LOL But all kidding aside, rent should be a tool used to open housing up to new buyers...otherwise it really serves no purpose.
my issue with housing is that there are houses and addresses that I would like to live in but will never be able to as they are boarded up in every instanced neighborhood and will never become available as imho many of these people have perma left the game...
now if you want to spawn more housing fine... but otherwise then I am for kicking people out of their house after a period of no longer than 6 months... I just cant think of a reason why we should save housing for a person for longer than that...
if you are f2p then login once every 6 months and pay your upkeep (its really not that much) its free to login so I dont see the issue, a few gold can keep your house going for years...
if your vip and take a break and dont want to pay the $$$ you will drop down to prem and still be able to login to pay your upkeep at least once every 6 months...
if your vip and take a break and dont want to pay the $$$ you will drop down to prem and still be able to login to pay your upkeep at least once every 6 months...
I'm a lifer. I've taken breaks from the game that were over 4 months, and I'm very likely to disappear for up to a year at points in the future. However, I will be coming back, to check out the next expansion if nothing else. I do not want to lose my house, ever, and I expect that there will be a way for me to avoid that. Part of the reason I bought my life membership to the game was specifically so I could come and go as I please, and housing is putting a crimp in that by only allowing to pay maintenance 6 weeks in advance. At least it will only go into arrears if I'm gone longer - not cause me to lose it entirely.
Combining some ideas from various people, what would make me happy:
Let us pay our house maintenance for up to one full year in advance.
If someone has been in arrears for 6 months... send them an e-mail notifying them that they have 30 days to reclaim their house, or be evicted.
When someone is evicted, all their stuff is put in escrow, and they get a token good to buy another house of that size.
Doing this would probably open up at least 1/3 of all the houses in LOTRO 30 days after it began, and would guarantee more would be opened up each month thereafter. It might also be another way to get at least some ex-players to come back and give the game a try again (so they can reclaim their house before they're evicted). That would be a good thing too, IMO. The more people who get eyes on the game, the more are likely to stay.
now if you want to spawn more housing fine... but otherwise then I am for kicking people out of their house after a period of no longer than 6 months... I just cant think of a reason why we should save housing for a person for longer than that...
.
Spawning more neighborhoods wont fix anything down the road. The new owners in new neighborhoods will percentage-wise have the near same rate of game abandonment as the present situation.
No the homes themselves have to be re-aquired for sale. This is the simplest best solution. At some point turbine is going to have to stop holding them for their former owners. I'm sure the many reasons they might do this have been ground to dust and re-ground again.
They have to make a decision..please the past or please the present and future. Since all their profits are now and future I think the choice they have to make is clear and singular. Foreclosures need to happen for a happy present and future player base.
Spawning more neighborhoods wont fix anything down the road.
If you're talking about making neighborhoods more "lively", that's pretty hopeless for most neighborhoods even if they're full of active players (and the exceptions are going to be particularly active kinships who just like hanging out there). When I first moved into my neighborhood the day they launched, it was as "active" as it was ever going to get. You know how many times I ran into someone in my neighborhood in the first month, even when it was all new and people were excited about it? Twice. In a month. It hasn't been more than 10 times in 3.5 years.
Why is that? It's basically because the neighborhoods have too few houses and are too spread out. The "tie ratio" for a mature MMO typically runs from 10-15%, meaning that during peak hours the average neighborhood might have 3 players logged into the game at the same time. Less at off hours. And of those 3, most will be in cities or adventuring, not in the neighborhood. But even if they are in the neighborhood, they probably won't see each other simply because their houses are too far apart, out of sight of each other, etc.
People like to suggest ways to make neighborhoods more "social", more "important", but I don't think that's a good idea. It will spread people out from a relative handful of socializing and service centers in the game, moving many to hundreds upon hundreds of instanced neighborhoods. In short, it would make the cities feel significantly emptier. I think adding some tools for player-run events in neighborhoods would be a good idea, though. Then people would occasionally be off doing one of those in some neighborhood, but not be a drain on the game's social centers all the time.
You're shouting into the wind. We all are. Turbine has apparently no interest in improving this part of the game, no matter how important it is to many of us, and no matter how positively it might affect the game.
They're only interested in more skirmishes, more combat and more store junk. They don't care about immersion, worldbuilding or roleplaying. It's a crying shame, they could greatly expand their playerbase (customer base) by recognizing that there are more kinds of players than the combat junkies.
Mandli: Now I know how the elves feel. All the magic is leaving Middle Earth.
You're shouting into the wind. We all are. Turbine has apparently no interest in improving this part of the game, no matter how important it is to many of us, and no matter how positively it might affect the game.
They're only interested in more skirmishes, more combat and more store junk. They don't care about immersion, worldbuilding or roleplaying. It's a crying shame, they could greatly expand their playerbase (customer base) by recognizing that there are more kinds of players than the combat junkies.
I completely disagree they do care and have added content other then combat Mounts Cosmetics etc are examples.
Turbine has apparently no interest in improving this part of the game, no matter how important it is to many of us, and no matter how positively it might affect the game.
Depends on what you mean by "improving". If you mean "spending Big $$ to make housing awesome, like it was in SWG"... don't hold your breath. There's relatively little evidence that would turn into piles of cash for Turbine, not when the game that owns this market (and the new hit from BioWare) don't even have any player houses.
I notice that you've "abandoned" your own house. How exactly does that communicate to them that you're serious about wanting improved housing? Again, if you'll only participate if it has a featureset that's well beyond what the game offers, you may be communicating the exact opposite of what you intend. If I were a player who wanted full-blown PvP in LOTRO and refused to participate in PvMP because it isn't good enough, I'd be contributing to the message "PvMP isn't all that popular, so don't bother throwing more money down that rathole". Turbine actually will listen to what people say on the forums, but they also go mine data to see if what players are saying and what they're doing are in agreement.
They're only interested in more skirmishes, more combat and more store junk.
What they "care about" in business terms is making a profit. Can you demonstrate that focusing on "immersion" or "role-playing" instead of "combat" and "store junk" will generate more profit? Do you have evidence?
Perhaps an experiment would be useful here: Turbine could try adding some items to the Store which improve housing or role-playing. Examples: an extra chest for your house, a stable for your house that allows you to show off your mounts, a few new musical instruments, some "emote packs", etc. Then see how well they sell. If people aren't willing to put their money where their mouths are for the little stuff, why should they believe investing lots more would actually earn a profit?
One of the benefits they've talked about at GDC for a "cash shop" in their games is that it allows them to do such experiments, find out what players are willing to pay for - and what they're not. If "role-playing" and "immersion" fall into the "not" category, I wouldn't expect to see them put their focus there. On the other hand, if those turn out to sell well beyond expectations, it could help them re-prioritize such features in future development.
I know Turbine hasn't yet made it possible for houses to go back onto the market, but have they at least added in some more neighborhoods in Bree-land for the Brandywine folks? They ran out in 2010. Have any other servers or housing areas hit the same problem yet?
I can understand not being able to get the business case approved for a major redesign of housing to add lots of improvements, but at the very least they should fix what's broken.
Depends on what you mean by "improving". If you mean "spending Big $$ to make housing awesome, like it was in SWG"... don't hold your breath. There's relatively little evidence that would turn into piles of cash for Turbine, not when the game that owns this market (and the new hit from BioWare) don't even have any player houses.
I notice that you've "abandoned" your own house. How exactly does that communicate to them that you're serious about wanting improved housing? Again, if you'll only participate if it has a featureset that's well beyond what the game offers, you may be communicating the exact opposite of what you intend. If I were a player who wanted full-blown PvP in LOTRO and refused to participate in PvMP because it isn't good enough, I'd be contributing to the message "PvMP isn't all that popular, so don't bother throwing more money down that rathole". Turbine actually will listen to what people say on the forums, but they also go mine data to see if what players are saying and what they're doing are in agreement.
What they "care about" in business terms is making a profit. Can you demonstrate that focusing on "immersion" or "role-playing" instead of "combat" and "store junk" will generate more profit? Do you have evidence?
Perhaps an experiment would be useful here: Turbine could try adding some items to the Store which improve housing or role-playing. Examples: an extra chest for your house, a stable for your house that allows you to show off your mounts, a few new musical instruments, some "emote packs", etc. Then see how well they sell. If people aren't willing to put their money where their mouths are for the little stuff, why should they believe investing lots more would actually earn a profit?
One of the benefits they've talked about at GDC for a "cash shop" in their games is that it allows them to do such experiments, find out what players are willing to pay for - and what they're not. If "role-playing" and "immersion" fall into the "not" category, I wouldn't expect to see them put their focus there. On the other hand, if those turn out to sell well beyond expectations, it could help them re-prioritize such features in future development.
Khafar
I don't think any of us expect SWG style housing. We just expect our housing to be more involving, more immersive. There are MANY ways this could be done, some described in this thread.
I abandoned my house and put that in my sig so they would see that someone who cares about housing has been driven away from it. That, and it was a drain on my character's resources for no real benefit.
There IS profit to be made from making housing more involved. There are MANY kinds of player out there. There are people who like to explore, people who like to quest, people who like to socialize, people who like to craft, people who like to RP and immerse themselves in the world, people who like to pvp, people who like combat, and so on. The best way to make a profit is to seek to satisfy all these customers, or at least as many as possible.
Mandli: Now I know how the elves feel. All the magic is leaving Middle Earth.
Well over a year ago the same topic rages about housing and NOTHING FROM TURBINE
WAKE UP TURBINE TIME TO FIX THE FIASCO YOU CREATED
BOOT THE BUMS OUT.......LET CURRENT MEMBERS BENEFIT
This! It really is incredible (or incredulous :P?) that this thread/topic is well over a year old and still nothings been done to the current housing system. If Turbine consider the Housing system to not be a major draw or aspect to the players who rarely use or have little interest in, then improve on it like so many threads such as this one have suggested and the players will come storming over the housing landscape like the scourging of the Shire!
Originally Posted by Carlborn
I rated this thread with 5 stars. Maybe if the thread glows in the dark Turbine will eventually see it too
The best way to make a profit is to seek to satisfy all these customers, or at least as many as possible.
The problem with that statement is the word "satisfy". It turns out that satisfying any particular group of customers often requires an enormous investment in time, money, and resources. Ongoing - not just once. Trying to satisfy them all is pretty much the best way to fail at satisfying any of them, delivering a broad set of very "meh" features.
Personally, I think LOTRO got to this point because they tried to do too much with the resources they had. If they don't have the bandwidth to regularly fix, maintain, and hopefully improve important features on a regular basis -- they should not add them in the first place. In hindsight, I think housing is in that category... it generates far more frustration and complaints than kudos, simply because they've done so little with it since it launched. (And if they had done more with it, there would have been less story, less new content, slower expansion releases, or whatever else -- there is no free lunch here).
I once added everyone from my neighbourhood to my friend list, to see who they were, and to remove them from my friend list after that. It seems like most people were lvl 20-30 people who hadn't been online since the beginning of 2011. Probably these are f2p players who bought a house and then quitted LOTRO. To confirm this you can look at the houses: all the standard houses are taken and abandoned, while the deluxe houses (above the gold cap for a f2p player) are still free. I agree that these people should be kicked out of their houses if other people want to live there.
The problem with that statement is the word "satisfy". It turns out that satisfying any particular group of customers often requires an enormous investment in time, money, and resources. Ongoing - not just once. Trying to satisfy them all is pretty much the best way to fail at satisfying any of them, delivering a broad set of very "meh" features.
Khafar
I couldn't imagine fixing this problem is rocket science. I'm not a game programmer by any means, but it would seem all they would have to do is write a few lines of code that boots people from their homes after X amount of time without payment.
It definitely needs to happen. It's the only way these neighborhoods can get some life back into them. Most neighborhoods seem to have only a handful of active people.
The entire housing system would greatly benefit from a complete revamp, but if they can't manage that, they can atleast include the foreclosure coding.
I couldn't imagine fixing this problem is rocket science. I'm not a game programmer by any means, but it would seem all they would have to do is write a few lines of code that boots people from their homes after X amount of time without payment.
It definitely needs to happen. It's the only way these neighborhoods can get some life back into them. Most neighborhoods seem to have only a handful of active people.
The entire housing system would greatly benefit from a complete revamp, but if they can't manage that, they can atleast include the foreclosure coding.
The code to boot houses to foreclosur already exists they used to boot within a few days a week of non payment of upkeep....
They changed that due to complainnts of people who stopped playing left the game for what ever reason and the Cried when they finally came back months years later.
I would like to see them reinstate the boot function to escrow Keep everything in escrow permanetly and offer a token to get a same type house free. Should be simple to add a qualifier to the code to start with anything 2 years not logged in or Paid for.
This! It really is incredible (or incredulous :P?) that this thread/topic is well over a year old and still nothings been done to the current housing system. If Turbine consider the Housing system to not be a major draw or aspect to the players who rarely use or have little interest in, then improve on it like so many threads such as this one have suggested and the players will come storming over the housing landscape like the scourging of the Shire!
One can only hope
Housing, and Kinships, have had no change in over 4 years, and both topics come up repeatedly. Clearly Turbine's data mining doesn't suggest that what we might say on the forums about wanting changes in either of these is borne out by the data mining that suggests there isn't a lot of interest.
Based on my numbers, flawed though they maybe, if turbine foreclosed on houses for failure to pay rent we would have 4550 houses hit the market.
You really need to know when those houses went delinquent to have a good idea of how many would open up. My guess was that if they evicted people who had been in arrears on their payments for 2 years or more, it would open up nearly 50% of the homes. I still think that's probably in the ballpark. Thousands of homes would open up on each server, and probably at least 100 more would open up every month. That's a whole lot of houses, and there really isn't any need to be more aggressive than that.
I just don't see what anyone has to complain about if they get foreclosed on.
Mostly, because Turbine told them that they would not be foreclosed on, and it's been this way for 4 years now. That's why they need to try to evict those least likely to ever return, those who have been gone a long time. I once suggested that they should base eviction dates on how long you actually paid maintenance on your house (with a minimum of 6 months). That way, if someone paid for their house for 3 solid years... they'd get to keep it for 3 years before being evicted. And those who only paid for a house for 6 months could lose it after 6 months. Makes sense to me - the more you've put in, the longer you get to keep it. Loyalty is rewarded.
Or, alternately, I'd be even happier if they'd just give us a way to do "auto-deductions" from the bank of one or more characters on our accounts. Then if I'm going to be gone for a year, I'll just arrange to pay my own rent while I'm gone - and will have my house just as I left it when I get back.
No matter what they do, they really need to do their best to let everyone know this is happening. Send e-mails weekly for a month. Mention it in interviews with gaming press. Put in on the website prominently somewhere. Give people who have been away a chance to come back and reclaim their house before it's gone -- some of those might just decide to stick around and help support the game financially, and the rest can be told that Turbine made every effort to inform them before changing the policy.
You really need to know when those houses went delinquent to have a good idea of how many would open up. My guess was that if they evicted people who had been in arrears on their payments for 2 years or more, it would open up nearly 50% of the homes. I still think that's probably in the ballpark. Thousands of homes would open up on each server, and probably at least 100 more would open up every month. That's a whole lot of houses, and there really isn't any need to be more aggressive than that.
2 years away from the game is way too much in my opinion. 1 year should be more than enough. If someone isn't interested in the game in 2 years, the only thing they've lost where housing is concerned is the location of the house they previously owned and time spent decorating that house.
Originally Posted by Khafar
Mostly, because Turbine told them that they would not be foreclosed on, and it's been this way for 4 years now. That's why they need to try to evict those least likely to ever return, those who have been gone a long time.
I'm sorry, but that simply isn't a good enough reason to not throw them out. Turbine promises new players the possibility to get a house as well. Players who have been gone for a long time aren't creating any revenues for Turbine and aren't doing anything for the community whereas new players might do both. The priority should be spectacularly clear in my opinion.
Originally Posted by Khafar
Or, alternately, I'd be even happier if they'd just give us a way to do "auto-deductions" from the bank of one or more characters on our accounts. Then if I'm going to be gone for a year, I'll just arrange to pay my own rent while I'm gone - and will have my house just as I left it when I get back.
No matter what they do, they really need to do their best to let everyone know this is happening. Send e-mails weekly for a month. Mention it in interviews with gaming press. Put in on the website prominently somewhere. Give people who have been away a chance to come back and reclaim their house before it's gone -- some of those might just decide to stick around and help support the game financially, and the rest can be told that Turbine made every effort to inform them before changing the policy.
Khafar
The only additional thing I think they could add is the possibility to pre-pay rent for a longer time. 5 weeks (or whatever it is right now) is too short to be able to take an extended break. They should increase that to 6 months and then put the house in locked escrow for another 6 months and after a year they could move on to foreclosure.
While I agree that they should send e-mail notifications about the changes, sending those notifications won't change much in all likelihood. People don't read newsletters from gaming companies to the extent that it really matters in my opinion. Just look at the move over from Codemasters to Turbine. There were a multitude of e-mails sent yet there was still people asking about transferring from EU-servers as late as in december (maybe even more recently). Just an observation.
Last edited by Spordo; Feb 29 2012 at 03:56 AM.
Reason: Rated this thread 5-stars
2 years away from the game is way too much in my opinion. 1 year should be more than enough. If someone isn't interested in the game in 2 years, the only thing they've lost where housing is concerned is the location of the house they previously owned and time spent decorating that house.
The debate isn't so much over whether or not Turbine should reinstitute foreclosure as it is about how long they should wait. One way to guage it would be to look at how long it takes to process a foreclosure in the real world. Last time I saw data on that it was in the 18 to 24 month range...that is 1.5 to 2 years.
The only additional thing I think they could add is the possibility to pre-pay rent for a longer time. 5 weeks (or whatever it is right now) is too short to be able to take an extended break. They should increase that to 6 months and then put the house in locked escrow for another 6 months and after a year they could move on to foreclosure.
You can prepay for 6 weeks. I find it ironic that someone is arguing that Khafar's "two years" is too long coming from someone who doesn't even know what the actual pre-payment time is.
The short version of my long-standing proposal on pre-pay is:
Keep the six pre-payment intervals and give players a choice of how long each payment interval covers. The choices being: one week (the current value), one month, one calendar quarter, one year.
The debate isn't so much over whether or not Turbine should reinstitute foreclosure as it is about how long they should wait. One way to guage it would be to look at how long it takes to process a foreclosure in the real world. Last time I saw data on that it was in the 18 to 24 month range...that is 1.5 to 2 years.
You can prepay for 6 weeks. I find it ironic that someone is arguing that Khafar's "two years" is too long coming from someone who doesn't even know what the actual pre-payment time is.
The short version of my long-standing proposal on pre-pay is:
Keep the six pre-payment intervals and give players a choice of how long each payment interval covers. The choices being: one week (the current value), one month, one calendar quarter, one year.
--W. H. Heydt
Old Used Programmer
I agree with this, excellent idea. And after a prescribed amount of time with no activity and no rent being paid (say six months after the last payment expires) then all items go into escrow (permanently), and for good measure (so as not to upset too much those that return to the game after a long hiatus) a token that could be used to purchase a new house.
You really need to know when those houses went delinquent to have a good idea of how many would open up. My guess was that if they evicted people who had been in arrears on their payments for 2 years or more, it would open up nearly 50% of the homes. I still think that's probably in the ballpark. Thousands of homes would open up on each server, and probably at least 100 more would open up every month. That's a whole lot of houses, and there really isn't any need to be more aggressive than that.
2 years away from the game is way too much in my opinion. 1 year should be more than enough. If someone isn't interested in the game in 2 years, the only thing they've lost where housing is concerned is the location of the house they previously owned and time spent decorating that house.
Whether 1 year is enough is only relevant if you're comparing 1 year vs 6 months or something. When comparing 2 years to 1 year, the question is whether 2 years is enough or not.
Khafar's two year suggestion is simply an estimate, but at least he's looking at the right question. When determining what interval to allow before foreclosing, Turbine needs to look at how long houses have been locked with no maintenance paid. (We as players can only make guesses on that, but Turbine has the real information. They should be able to measure this precisely.) The interval they choose for foreclosures should be whatever it takes to free up enough of those houses so that people who want to buy one can do so.
I doubt a four year interval would open up enough houses, but if it did, then the interval should be four years.
If a three year interval would open up enough houses, then the interval should be at least three years.
If a three year interval would not open up enough houses, but a two year interval would, then the interval should be two years.
If a two year interval would not open up enough houses, but an eighteen month interval would, then the interval should be eighteen months.
If an eighteen month interval would not open up enough houses, but a one year interval would, then the interval should be one year.
I really doubt that even releasing all houses that have been delinquent a year would still leave people unable to buy homes. Only if it did would there be any reason to consider shorter intervals, such as the six months that some people have talked about.
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Originally Posted by Tiamo
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Re: Foreclose on housing
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