Homeless Founder Knight (or, welcome to my Knight-mare?)

EDIT TO ADD: Solved thanks to helpful community members. I'm not homeless any more! But if you'd take some pleasure from my tale of woe, read on:

I just logged in for the first time in a while to discover that the village lot I fought so hard for in the land rush now belongs to someone else. They've knocked down my Founder Knight Home and placed a bunch of empty garden planter things there instead.

I am completely and utterly devastated by this.

I sent an email to support but I have no idea if they will do anything to help. An automated response says it will take anywhere from 7 days to 2 weeks to even get a reply.

That land rush was so stressful. I lost sleep and time from work in order to be there when my "window" opened, and then I spent what seemed like an eternity running all around the game world trying to find an available village lot. I finally found one in Brittany Fields that I was happy with, took screen shots, marked it on a map so that I could proudly show (and remember) where my nice home was, the whole nine yards. It was one of the most stressful things I ever had to go through in my life as a gamer, and I never want to go through anything like it ever again.

And now it's been taken away from me.

I bought a Knight pledge for myself and a lower pledge for my wife as well (Royal Artisan, maybe? don't remember) so that we could "live" in our little SotA family home. That's over $800 sunk in this little dream. I was happy with the home we finally got. It was a good location for being near the center of the game world, had really nice topography, etc. I can't believe it's gone!!

And if I can't ever get my home back, are there even any village lots left anywhere in the game?? If so, how would I find out where they are?

There was a pop-up in the game that said I could press the "P" key to find a lot, but it didn't do anything, and when I tried asking a guard "where is the town crier," he said, "I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean by that" or similar.

Help?!?



P.S. I learned from reading another thread that this is done to keep "inactive" players from hogging property in the game. But how can a player be considered "inactive" if the game isn't finished? I claimed that lot so that my family could have a home in the finished game, not so that we could do alpha / beta testing. Don't backers have the option to wait for the game to be done?

 

the town crier is in the central wooden palisade. there are 1 keep, 1 water town, 2 village, 1 water village, and 1 row available in brit fields right now.

 

@bdo7 : I just checked with the Crier in Brittany Fields. There are still two unclaimed village lots there somewhere if you have your heart set on living there.

LOL. Looks like Alley beat me to it and already told you.

 

@Alley Oop and @Brent S - thank you both so much!

I ran around town like the proverbial headless chicken until I found an empty lot, then of course I didn't have a lot deed in my inventory, so I had to figure out where the bank was...

Me: "where is the bank?"
Guard: "If you say so."

Grrrr....

Anyway, found the bank by following the compass icon (but not the one that looks like a bag of money, whoops) and FINALLY claimed a village lot.

Terrible location (behind a hill in the back corner of town with cruddy rattan-looking fences inexplicably lining the street, and literally in the shadow of someone's fancy castle, lol) BUT I'M NOT HOMELESS!

Thank you both again for your help. It's been probably a year since I even logged on to this game, and the number of things I don't know about it is fairly large. People like you make it worthwhile!!

 

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=19
All tax free deeds have 120 days by default. Accounts with a Citizen pledge or above get an extension of 30 days per tier.
Presumably they mean these tiers: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=35139 (Meaning you'd have around 180 -210 days before you'd lose your spot).

 

I hear you brother. If I had any idea what they were planning on doing with housing I would not have donated what I did. Just would have given $5 as a thank you and good luck to Mr Garriott for decades of games and walked away...

The way housing is designed will ensure the game does not receive a steady influx of new players as it is about as new player unfriendly as can be by locking a main selling point out for so many people both new and currently playing. This is why it is the second most complained about thing by people on gaming sites and is called a massive drawback to playing. But we all know why they made it like this, to get people to be willing to spend more and more money in the cash shop...the #3 complained about thing by potential players.

So, another game in a long line of games hoping to get a lot of cash cows to keep their games in the green and ends up chasing away potentially millions of customers buying their game, giving them far more money.

 

I too hear ya...brother!
Sunk $120 Mar2014, as it seemed to have great potential.
Now I am homeless and it seems I can not get a home without paying out "more". ...

 

Any chance a quest will come along that will grant a deed...at least a "Row" deed? Non-sellable, non-transferable, non-giftable, non-tradeable quest reward deed.
If I were a potential player and saw the price of deed/home costs, I'd turn tale and run...only reason I haven't "yet" is because I've been around since Mar2014 and have hope for change!
I can understand "selling" expensive deeds during development to raise funds...but at release to expect a new player to shell out $105 (minimum) for a deed/home (not to mention the game cost)
and grind regularly (or buy COTOS with rwm) to pay the tax on the property? Just doesn't seem, too me, to be appealing to a "large" audience...but that's just my opinion. But hey, with the recent tax reduction
maybe there will be more discretionary spending. Yes I am aware of the possibility of "renting"...but that idea is not at all appealing (to me). Although renting might be a way to RP this game, for some.

 

This kinda reminds me of the IDOC days back in UO. I don't know much about how it works in this game yet, but from what I am reading it seems you went and snatched up some land and then basically disappeared.

That would be a little unfair to any new players coming in to find an empty and unused lot when they are actively playing. I know that back in the old UO days all you had to do was log in and open/close your door one time to refresh it for at least another week (or was it a month?). That takes maybe 15 minutes if your PC loads slow (I'm really pushing it with the 15 minutes).