Official Housing Tax Rates

Exactly what they intended...to make money/funding.

 

I dunno, I agree that town/city should certainly be expensive, its a big chunk of real estate and your town/city house is projecting the image of wealth and I can see making folks pay to sustain that.
A row lot though, I mean, that's the basicest of basic, a place to put a box and a few decorations. My thought was that the 'fee' would be nominal, something just to make sure someone's still active by only letting you pay so many months in advance. I didn't think it was going to be like paying rent in real life ;P

The "gold per hour" thing is a bit misleading. If I'm grinding normal stuff for xp, I make a net LOSS per hour, due to reagent use, even if I am being bad and selling the things that could be used for scrap. I have to actually go farm 'money' off of crappy xp stuff for the purpose of just bulk carrying loot and I still don't think I make 3k/hour.

Then you have to add in expenses.
If you're crafting stuff yourself, that's a whole other bunch of costs, (fuels....gaahhh!!)

if you're buying stuff, you need:
Tele/Recall scrolls
Reagents/Arrows
Gear/gear upgrades/gear components (resources, gems, etc.)
Yet somewhere you have to come up with rent too!
Nevermind if you want to buy fun stuff and fluff, decorations, clothes, etc.


I mean and who is collecting this rent anyway?
If you're in a PoT, and the rent money goes to the guild, then I'd be more okay with it, because at least that way its benefitting somebody.
If its just going poof, I don't see the point.
You've already got to buy the house, and the deed. I would have thought the rent would have been more like 1000g/month for a row, max, payable like up to 6 months in advance to ensure activity/allow others to claim the spot if you wander off.
Was pretty surprised to see these prices.

 

I really don't mind them trying to make money. If they can't continue to pay salaries and turn a profit, then there is no game for anybody!

Seems like the SotA housing market is suffering from the same kind of problems we are seeing IRL. The numbers just don't add up, and to make things worse it appears that the "people upstairs" are not considering that there is more to life than simply working and sleeping. Even if I am spending 10 hours a week in-game, that doesn't necessarily mean I will be (or want to be) grinding it out for those 10 hours just to pay my rent, and have no time left over for activities that aren't rewarded with gold.

Similar to IRL- what's the point of having a nice house, if one can never be there to enjoy it?

As I've previously suggested, I think it would be helpful to have more clarity on exactly how much time/money they are targeting for the "average" player to spend on the game per year.

In the meantime, it's not a big deal for me to buy COTOs. I'm just questioning some of the maths behind the amount of gold needed to cover tax liability.

 

Damn glad I invested in the tax free Baron level....good grief, no way I could afford that much in game per day.

 

Its taken me a week to make 5000 gold. Where is a low level player expected to make that much gold?

 

You can either pay to play or play a lot to pay.

 

Add me in game or PM me, i am on now , i will help you discover if u like.

 

This is not a high rent to be honest.... I started playing this game a few days ago, I am solo and can grind 15k in a few hours. Granted they just nerfed my skeleton archers(!!) but I believe in a month or two of playtime this ammount should be pocket money for the mostcasual players... Maybe just MAYBE it's not ment to be a top mage crafter with a house after 2-3 weeks of playtime?

 

Where can you grind to earn 15k in a few hours? Does this include selling farmed items to real players?

 

Yeah, I'm an average, maybe even slightly below average player... I've never been able to grind out thousands in an hour. Maybe hundreds... most of my grind includes fighting mobs... loot... harvest resources... fight more mobs... die... fight mobs again... loot... harvest... encumbered... go sell rusty weapons... restock on arrows, fix gear - maybe grab a new weapon, restock reagents, run to crafting area, buy wax or creosote or salt... craft... encumbered again... go to house... dump mats... and ready to repeat. That's my average three hours grind and I'll probably have 23 gold remaining to put towards rent.

This is me being an average player with an average grind... maybe I'm doing it wrong.

 

That's what I've been doing Duke Avery. The struggle for gold is real in this game.
NPC Merchants will inflate their prices, but the price they pay stays the same.

 

At first it seemed an expensive tax to me. But not after I tested it like Bow Vale has been saying. He's right, you can pay a row and even a village easily.
Still, the tax free deeds seem very valuable now, maybe too much.

I mean, we paid a good money for any of them. I'm considering trading my tax free row lot, maybe I can get a village lot subject to taxes in return, one of those some are considering melting. I can easily pay that rent. If not in gold, at least in crowns in a weekly amount I couldn't afford for the tax free village.

 

Indeed @Phiedrus . Within the first 2 days, i had made 20k+ and that's with a totally new character. I do spend it all though in the shops, so like last night i didn't have 1 gold coin to my name, as spent it on house and other crafting stuff. I went out before bed for a quick hunt and made 3k in about 30 mins from elves in Deep Ravenswood. I kill them, get overloaded as much as i can, then waddle back to Owls Head to sell at the blacksmith in the upper tier who seems to pay much better prices for items.
North Valeway straight outside Owls Head is a great starting area, the skeletons there are perfect for a new player, and to grab some wood/ore/cotton while they respawn is ideal as you will need it later as you progress.
I have offered an above player some help, as yet he hasn't responded to me, but the above was all i would have shown him anyway but done it with him and explained it all.

 

I would trade my taxable village for your tax free row. Pm if intrested

 

"Average gold made per hour is between 3.5k and 7k per hour. Lets average this at say 5k an hour..."

I'd really like to see the data on this. Making 5k an hour doing what?
Mobs drop like 10 gold apiece, allowing for looting time, regen, running between mob, respawn time, etc. lets say killing 1 thing a minute? = 600 gold/hour fighting nonstop, assuming you're fighting things that drop gold - so uh, undead or elves.
Where's the other 4900 coming from? Selling crappy weapons for 20 gold apiece? How many of those can you carry before you're at full capacity when you're starting out? The most I've ever gotten for vendoring a full load of loot is about 2000 gold and that was after a lot longer than an hour out running around.

This is of course assuming that:
a) you don't scrap these items, that you sell them, to the appropriate vendor who pays "more."
b) that you're not gathering or doing anything, just grinding for money mindlessly.
Most people I know don't play this way.

It also assumes you're not buying regs, arrows, potions, armor, jewelry, weapons, consumables, recipes, crafting fuels, teleport scrolls, or anything else and that you can actually make a profit fighting if you use regs/arrows. I know I certainly don't - selling my loot usually makes me break even on spell comps.

500 gold a day for 30 days is 15k for a month's rent on a row, which is absolutely absurd. Compare this to the price of buying the house and tell me its reasonable?
The higher tiers are even more silly.

I mean I know the idea is to sell tax-frees in the item shop, but charging this much in rent is just putting up a big PAY WALL.
Its basically want a house ? Pay cash. Discouraging and doesn't do a thing to attract new players. Wouldn't it be better to entice people by letting them have a simple, basic home, for a low, reasonable/nominal charge, then they'll enjoy the convenience of decorating it and having a bind point and being part of a community and all that...wouldn't they then be more likely to take out their wallets and invest in the game to add a bit of convenience? The alternative is just not having a house at all if you're going to have to grind every day to pay for it.

I think there has to be rent / "tax" - to weed out inactives and free up limited land space for active players.
I don't think it needs to be punitive. A modest village lot owner shouldn't be looking at paying more than a couple thousand a month, tops, I mean cripes we have enough gold sinks as it is.

 

Hi I have added you

 

That's a lot harder to do now that the elves have over 500 health after one of the recent patches. I end up using up most of my reagents on a trip like that and end up spending a lot of my gold to buy more. That's the biggest issue for me right now. Reagents take up a majority of my gold income. Luckily I have a tax-free Village lot. Otherwise I doubt I'd be able to reasonably afford the taxes with my work schedule. And the more health the enemy has, the more likely I am to use up my reagents. I'm Air main, so Lightning has a 8% chance to use them and Chain Lightning has a 16% chance. Plus my Lich I have to constantly resummon since it doesn't last forever like the other mage summons.

 

When I first saw this, I wasn't happy. At all. I'm the "below average" person both in time able to spend in game and how much I can earn when I am. After two weekends, I finally hit 3k in the bank and was elated. That included buying some resources needed for making recall scrolls and raising TWO skills. So with taxes like this, there is no way I could afford to have a house. At all.

So my first thought was I was very grateful I could afford to get my pledge up enough to get a tax-free lot. My second thought was I would have to rethink my strategy of having my lovely island cabana for "home" AND a row lot somewhere for my vendor.

Then I flashed back to my last (and current) home in Old Britannia and paying 40,000,000 for it (not a typo).

I guess it's all relevant and I will remain calm and continue to enjoy this amazing world and see how it all goes. UO has taken 19 years to get where it is (for better or for worse). I would imagine it will take a while for SotA to find it's way.

 

My 2 cents: atm tax rates are MAD. It seems all people who doesn't pladged n*100$ are doomed to be homeless with current tax system. Hope taxes would be reduced in future... Or may be just remove them? UO didn't had any taxes and housing was great.. Why to introduce it there and in such hard way?

 

So you paid 270$ for your pledge. I did like you.
But then I can't believe you couldn't afford a taxed row lot, which equals to 1$ per week Less if you buy cotos in bulk.

Not wanting to sound any rude or sarcastic!