House Decay Changes Oct 3 2001 5:28PM CST   We feel that a dedicated and active member of the UO community should not be able to lose a house, along with years of accomplishments and items, due to a sudden emergency or other factors beyond their control. In keeping with this, we are proposing a new system in which houses will not decay as long as the prime owner of the house has an active UO account. In order to see that housing spots are still available to all players in Britannia, however, houses will decay if the prime owner’s account is closed or permanently suspended. Please keep in mind that this is still in a “Concept” phase, meaning that the details are not set in stone, and may be changed based on various design-related factors and player feedback. This change would mean that active players who own houses will no longer need to refresh their homes to prevent them from decaying. Accounts that are temporarily suspended, such as those accounts which are banned for 24, 48, or 72 hours, are still considered active, and their houses will not decay unless the account is permanently suspended. If this change is enacted, any houses owned by a player whose UO account is closed will be considered “ownerless”, and will be marked as condemned. Condemned houses are automatically refreshed once at the time that they become condemned, and will then decay over the normal period of approximately 10 days, allowing co-owners and friends time to move their items out of the house before it decays. Condemned houses cannot be refreshed. However, we understand that there are houses and establishments in UO that have been run by co-owners for a long period of time since the original owners left the game, and we do not wish to see these co-owners lose these houses due to this change. In order to see that all co-owners are given the opportunity to protect their house before this change is put in place, we would enact a system to transfer ownership of all current ownerless houses to a co-owner, provided the co-owner has an active UO account. If, when this change is put in place, the owner of a house does not have an active UO account, each of the co-owners will be given the option to become the prime owner. The character who was first granted co-ownership of a given house will be the first co-owner offered the option of becoming the prime owner of that house. Should the first co-owner reject the option to claim the house, the next earliest co-owner will then receive that same offer, and so on through the most recent co-owner. If none of the co-owners accept ownership, that house will become condemned and begin the decay process. Since players can only own one house per account per shard, any co-owners offered ownership of a house will need to keep in mind that if they accept ownership of the house, any other houses they already own on that shard will become condemned and begin to decay. Co-owners who do not wish to lose any other houses owned on their account should not accept ownership of an ownerless house. Back