Lottery for house deeds.

So I read that you won't be able to buy lot deeds from vendors after the final wipe and that after Release 33 you can get in a lottery system to be able to buy a deed with in game gold. I was trying not to to spend a ton of cash for the game and was planning on just buying a lot deed in game after I saved up some gold. Is there any information out there on how this lottery system will work and how many people will be able to get lot deeds. I am starting to get concerned that I will end up not being able to get a house unless drop a bunch of cash which seems kind of strange.

 

Listening to the Telethon tonight they mentioned that they would have lot coming up regularly for lottery and people would be able to buy lottery tickets for there chance at a lot. They also mentioned that they did not want to put the deeds up on a vendor as then the richer individuals and guilds would control all of the deeds.

I would really like to see a limit on the number of tickets that an account can purchase for any given lottery as without this I think you would still have the richer members owning (and then possibly scalping) the majority of the lot deeds

 

Yeah I was watching it too. I wasn't really thinking about people buying out vendors so I guess it does make sense. I do hope they limit how many tickets someone can buy.

 

@TooHigh, you may have free options while you don't have your own lot and you are saving up in-game gold. One, there are many great folks in the game, and some nice guilds. Many of those have Guild Houses that are for Guild Members to use. Another option is not yet implemented, which is rentals, meaning, some players will have a room or house for rent; we hope that is coming soon. Another option is to become friends with someone and work out something to allow you to share their home.

 

I briefly tested housing a few releases back when a kind soul gave me some deeds to mess with until the wipe that soon followed. Housing is a blast! However I feel like I'll never be able to actually work hard and save to buy a simple row house with in game gold. This is very disheartening.

Blocking off users to a MAJOR section of the game is an unwise business decision, IMHO.

 

Well there's a lottery but presumably you can save up enough gold to buy a deed from another player using gold. Since these deeds carry an in-game tax there's only so many one person would want to have.

85 store credits for a house may sound ridiculous for some but it's far less money than a subscription. And since we do not have a shortage of land (yet) I doubt there will be a shortage in deeds all that soon, there's only so many deeds one person can horde.

 

I was thinking about this and I really believe that you should only be able to buy one lottery ticket per account for each lottery. That's the only way it'll be fair for each player. Otherwise, large guilds will still have a massive advantage.

 

The cheapest deed currently available is over $200 with a Viking bundle, this is nuts. There are literally thousands of empty plots currently, and charging folks that amount is beyond insane. TBH I'm very confused with exactly what Port want to accomplish with housing, I know it's limited etc, but $200 for an in game piece of land on an early access game that may not even be successful? Come on now, seriously?

I paid $45 so far, no problem there, I'd happily drop another $50 for a house plot, even if it's just some terraced row plot in an out of the way area, but seeing all these empty spots and ghost towns when the slots have huge pricetags just makes me sad.

 

Cheapest deed currently is the POT only village sized lot for $165. Not sure why there isn't a POT only row lot available. I haven't followed them that closely.

There are "thousands of empty lots" because this is a phased land rush. Only the three or four most expensive/earliest pledges have had the ability to place a lot. 90% of the deed holders are locked out still awaiting there time slot sometime in the next 30ish days.

 

Okay, reread the announcement and I get it now, my bad.

It has to be the most confusing housing system I've come across in any game so far, I hope they will fill up more of the empty land with towns for more housing later.

 

What they "want to accomplish with housing..." is simple -- they want to make MONEY...something that is highly sought after becomes more valuable, and is a source of income for the company (Portalarium)...it is a business, and a business exists to make a profit. Not saying it is bad, good, indifferent...it is what it is.

 

Port initially only created POT versions as the regular ones 'sold out'... Village sold out first and they created the POT version... I just think they've been overwhelmed and haven't caught up. I'm sure they'll have the POT Row out soon enough.

 

There are thousands of empty plots because the only people that have been allowed to place their houses are those with Lord of the Manor pledges.

 

There are POT only row deeds available in SOTA store, they are 85$ currently. So grab your deeds and send me a tell, you can live in my POT, but I'll most likely charge some weekly land tax for some specific locations in my POT. There will be a general row district, where people can just come and live with their deeds and houses for free. Those will be limited though, since I have limited number of lots to put in POT. There will also be fancy places, like water front lots (don't mix with water front houses unless you have one), valley overview lots, one island lot etc. those fancier lots will have weekly tax. I have to make a living, since a lot of time I'll be spending improving my POT and running regular events, so my POT will be pretty much one of the few ways for me to make income. Won't have time to grind etc,.

 

I'm really curious about something.

First all those who want to get a deed like me by only playing the game, we gonna need to win the loterie and farm several hours ( day ) for getting the gold to buy à deed and pay the weekly tax ( wich can't be change by pot owner and those same owners ain't got the money from the tax ). Its gonna be a big money investement for a player to buy a in game house. So i expect all remaining npc town , village etc.. lot to be the place someone want to put is hardly earn house . First cause the npc gonna bring people doing quest or going to à nearby dungeon. So they gonna be more strategic place to put your house , vendor etc...

This being say , pot gonna be for lot of player last Choice cause everything else is gone.And i have a hard time to believe that all of them gonna be full ( not all player gonna have the time to farm for getting one and I don't expect the players base to increase by 20000 people soon.. )feel more like they gonna have to fight each other to make sure player came live in their town. And im pretty sure some of them Will be ghost town for a long time ( there is so many pot right now ) so how do you expect to make money with your PoT ? ( since you have no influence on the already in game deed tax and you ain't gonna get the money from this deed tax )

Trying to make your money from à extra tax on some deed. Player Will just go to another town who choose to not charge more tax , since they want their town to not be empty and attract more active player.

 

The lottery is a way to increase the income for Portalarium. The arguments pro are not strong enough to convince me.

No vendor because ..
... rich people can buy all lots .. easy to hinder them: no lots at vendors for people who have already one ..
... guilds can buy all deeds .. easy as well: deeds at vendors can't be traded ..
... guilds could give the gold for tickets to other players .. well: they could give it for tickets to other players too - you simply can't hinder them ..

As I mentioned earlier, the starting rush is over. New ppl spend 45$ and have a look at the game. If they understand that they have no chance for a home if they are not going to spend several hundreds of dollars they may move out and complain loudly. This will keep others away as well. There are many boards where SOTA is discussed and the tide seems to turn slowly. It's time for some good ideas, Richard.

Btw: Portalarium knew of that problem much earlier. That's why they wrote in the FAQ that you can "buy a deed at a vendor" and not "you have a chance to win a deed by buying a ticket". They inspired the imagination of adventurers and it gets clearer now, that the hope is sinking. And for all who cry out now "not every one can have a home" - that's true, but everyone who is willing to work hard to get the gold should be able to. Housing in a computergame has nothing to do with reality but with imagination, fantasy and fun.

 

If memory serves me, I believe it was stated that if you win the lottery drawing for a lot, you are just given the lot deed. Players will still need to earn the gold to purchase a house to put on their plot and to pay the property tax.

I am interested to see how POTs play out long term between free and additional tax.

 

How does that work when you can only use in-game gold to buy into the lottery?

The deed trading restriction is for R32 only. Until they expire the last pledge tiers, it is still possible to upgrade a pledge, and it would be much harder to upgrade your deed if you could give it away. They specifically do not want people ending up with extra deeds like how the system worked before final wipe.

And I think most POTs that allow free placement will be happy enough to have people that they won't even try to charge POT rent. People love to wave this around as a scary thing, but the fact is that if a POT charged rent, most people would simply pick up and move to another one. There are too many of them to sustain any having rent. Also, POTs themselves are pre-paid, and there are no on-going expenses, in-game or otherwise, so there isn't even a justification of costs to offset.

 

COTOs ...

It will not take long and the real big quarrels will break out - POTs with exploits, POTs removing long-time house-owners over night, POT-owners not reachable, ... In every RPG I was - and that were quite a few in 20yrs - user-organized groups worked good only at the beginning. And no - don't even think of of saying - "but ours will be better" .. guilds come and go - POTs are like guilds but have a designated boss with every right. One last thing: all spaces will be gone in nearly no time (that was in UO the same - only DAoC did satisfy all with instanced housing - but was not wanted here .. to please all). After that everyone tries to stick with the spots at every cost - even if the POT-owner starts charging because he knows: after one leaving there are many who want in ..

I know - right now all are happy and celebrate and no one wants to see what is behind the next corner. This will change. Just read the statements of ppl who got attracted to the game lately and don't know anything about UO. They are for from happy. If Portalarium is not rethinking some design-flaws SOTA will have a short life. But that's ok - because games like guilds come and go

 

I'm not confused, but a little too slow to figure it out unfortunately. No judgment here, it's their right to establish whatever funding model they want.

Look... Here's what happened in UO. They created player housing as a feature that players could buy for in-game gold and this content was covered under the base subscription fee that every player paid. That was pretty straight forward. But what amazed them was that castles were selling for $6000 on eBay. Now here's a different game, but the idea really is to tap into what would have otherwise been relegated to the secondary market. Rather than letting value emerge in-game, they've outlined it up front, and have pretty much stated that they own it. They beat you to eBay on every single house and lot. Fair enough. And maybe this funding model will work, but I'm starting to getting a bad feeling about it. Of course it's my fault for not noticing the rules change with release 32, but I bought a home deed today thinking I'd be able to buy a village lot deed in-game. Nope! They've been removed. The land rush is artificial and people buying with gold just don't have priority. I know that's cynical but its truth.