No backrent? Seeing this exploited now??

[Valdaglerion]

<p>This example is from the exchange server where I play primarily. </p><p>I will try to keep this pointed. It is becoming more widely known and exploited that you can buy a large mansion in the game to get the 6 sales slots and never return to that house with no penalty what-so-ever. </p><ul><li>Step 1 - buys a big house (some plat and 50k in status for the first weeks rent)</li><li>Step 2 - go fill up your sales slots on the broker (all six of them)</li><li>Step 3 - dont pay rent. In 7 days your house becomes unavailable but no sweat, you still have your 6 sales slots on the broker with no penalty. You just cant sell from your house.</li></ul><p>So, the question in my mind is why arent the sales slots and listings inaccessible just like the house? If you dont pay rent for months why do you get to simply pay one weeks rent to re-activate? Real landlords would never allow such a travesty. Oh, sorry I didnt pay the first quarter of the year but hey, here is Aprils rent so we are all good now..please....</p><p>And why is the comission always put on the buyer?</p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">Suggestions for changes -</span></p><ol><li>If you lapse on your rent: your house is inaccessible, your sales crates are disabled, your listings are delisted from broker</li><li>If you lapse on your rent: backrent starts accumulating. All backrent must be paid before your items are restored.</li><li>If you have a house and dont have a display in it to sell from, the comission from the broker is shifted from the buyer to the seller.</li></ol>

[liveja]

<cite>Valdaglerion wrote:</cite><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff3300">Suggestions for changes -</span></p><ol><li>If you lapse on your rent: your house is inaccessible, your sales crates are disabled, your listings are delisted from broker</li><li>If you lapse on your rent: backrent starts accumulating. All backrent must be paid before your items are restored.</li><li>If you have a house and dont have a display in it to sell from, the comission from the broker is shifted from the buyer to the seller.</li></ol></blockquote>I like the first two suggestions. However, with the cost of sales displays that I've seen, I think the third suggestion is a little harsh.

[Jal]

No back rent, long periods of absence would be stupidly expensive and noone wants to sell their house before they travel or whatever that keeps them away. Disabling the sales is the best option so you can physically sell anything unless youre paid up.

[Mabes]

<p>Currently, if you are late on rent, no one can enter your house, meaning no one can come to your house to buy stuff without having to pay the broker fee.  That's the only real advantage to selling from your house, which is negated if you don't pay your rent.  I see no problems with current system, imagine if a player who left the game came back, only to find he has to pay an enormous amount of money, on each of his characters, to get access back in his house.</p><p>I find people very loosely use the term 'exploit'...</p>

[EvilErudite]

Valdaglerion wrote: <blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff3300">Suggestions for changes -</span></p><ol><li>If you lapse on your rent: your house is inaccessible, your sales crates are disabled, your listings are delisted from broker</li><li>If you lapse on your rent: backrent starts accumulating. All backrent must be paid before your items are restored.</li><li>If you have a house and dont have a display in it to sell from, the comission from the broker is shifted from the buyer to the seller.</li></ol></blockquote><p> 1. If you lapse on your rent: you already lose access to your house.  Broker is a separate function.  You just get more slots from having a bigger home.  Delisting your broker cause you don't pay upkeep.  Upkeep is more like paying the maid to clean than rent.  Why would not paying the maid cause you to lose your ability to sell and be able to afford to pay her?</p><p>2.  Backrent?  Why would we pay backrent when we didn't have access to it?  </p><p> 3.  People would just start charging more for the stuff if they had to pay the commision so you would still pay it to them instead of the broker.</p><p>Overall, I don't like one thing you suggested here.  Housing is a side feature for those of us who like to decorate our homes.  We shouldn't have to make sure we hit town on such and such day to pay the upkeep just so we can continue trying to sell the stuff we craft, loot, etc.</p><p>Maybe take the broker slot system and change it to where it isn't connected to housing somehow.  But don't mess with house's just because a few people just wanted extra broker slots.</p>

[JamesRay]

<p>Saving on broker fees by visiting one's house is one of the few reasons players bother visiting houses.</p><p>Shifting the broker fee to the seller essentially eliminates any incentive at all to do anything but buy via the broker.</p><p>While real landlords wouldn't allow you to stop paying rent for 3 months and just pay 1 week to get started again, real landlords wouldn't be able to fit 350 player rooms into a 50x50 barn in willow wood, either.</p><p>If you are selling from a mansion and not giving players the option to buy at a discount by visiting, you are at a severe disadvantage.  Your only hope is to have a veteran's display case, which will help with a fraction of what you're selling.</p><p>I think it would be a neat idea to allow sellers to OPT to cover broker fees, but other than that, I don't think any changes are really necessary at all.</p>

[Valdaglerion]

Interesting feedback -

[Valdaglerion]

<p>Interesting feedback - more thoughts and comments</p><ul><li>Point about absences form the game are well taken. Perhaps we need a way to denote - going on hiatus. This would disable access to your house and broker listings and put rent on hold til you get back. This way you wouldnt pay back rent but you wouldnt get to make sales while on hiatus either.</li><li>The term exploit is not used loosely in this case. Many plat spammers and farmers have bought the larger houses solely for the sales slots and dont continue to pay for the houses. Currently, the implementation does tie houses and brokreing together and buying a house to get additional broker slots while not continuing to pay for the house exploits the current implementation. <span style="color: #ff3300">AGREED</span>, a change to the broker system which had the seller pay for additional slots and their upkeep separate from housing makes sense as well.</li><li>The reason I suggested cost shifting from buyer to seller is to balance the selling of items and their cost. If you choose to have a house (because you get more slots - again, an advantage to having a house when it comes to brokering in the current implmentation) and not to have sales displays you are forcing the comission on the buyer over the cost you are asking for the goods. This essentially highlights another flaw in the system of the broker. Items are listed based on the sellers asking price, not the overall cost of the goods (this is why you see varying prices listed seemingly out of order). By shiting the comission schedules a person without a sales display, as you stated, might charge a higher price for their goods to offset the loss of profit in having to pay a comission which would also adversely affect their listing on the broker. This becomes advantageous for people who do use sales displays and pay the rent on their property.</li><li>Upkeep is not paying the maid, it is, in this case, rent. Sales slots are currently associated with your house and sales displays placed in them. If you dont pay your rent access to those sales slots is lost. If access is lost where is the broker going to get them to sell to them to you? The current implementation ties these things together. I personally, dont think they should be. I think the housing level should have nothing to do with the number of sales slots you get but as long as it does the logic behind them needs to be considered and how it is being abused by some people.</li></ul>

[Bozidar]

<cite>Valdaglerion wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>The term exploit is not used loosely in this case. Many plat spammers and farmers have bought the larger houses solely for the sales slots and dont continue to pay for the houses. Currently, the implementation does tie houses and brokreing together and buying a house to get additional broker slots while not continuing to pay for the house exploits the current implementation. <span style="color: #ff3300">AGREED</span>, a change to the broker system which had the seller pay for additional slots and their upkeep separate from housing makes sense as well.</p></blockquote><p>1) It's not loosely used in this case, it's stupidly used in this case.  Just thought i'd clarify.</p><p>2) Plat farmers or bots? Plat sellers? legal or illegally?  who do you have a gripe with here that you're trying to fix this?  Most bots/sellers have six toons that can sell, because they have six accounts.  They don't need to spend an enormous amount of plat to buy housing, they can sell from 12 slots with 1 bot group.. for 5 silver.</p><p>Most people have agreed with you, as do i, that if your rent is up you should stop selling altogether, but this isn't an exploit, and the people you think are using this tactic aren't the ones doing it -- not to mention all those that would be hurt by some of your original ideas.</p>

[liveja]

<p>I realize we're not supposed to discuss exploits in public, but I'm not sure how this is working. If you don't pay the rent, then the house is inaccessible to you & also to customers, right? I've heard some rumor that people were buying houses, not paying the upkeep, & then having their alt sell everything in an inn room, but I don't see how that works, either.</p><p>I do agree with your ideas about rent. It seems logical to me that if you're not paying rent to the Queen/Overlord, you can't have your items in that house listed for brokerage, either. However, I don't see this as a "gotta fix it now" issue, it could certainly be put off for "later". I'm not as sure, after reading other people's comments, about the backrent idea. I can imagine issues with developing "hiatus" code to avoid paying backrent when you're gone for more than a month, but IMHO, if you're going to quit the game entirely, go play WoW for 6 months, & then decide to come back to EQ2, it would REALLY REALLY suck hard-core to have to come up with 6 months back rent before you can re-access your house. </p><p>I definitely disagree with you on the commission-shifting, as I think that would ultimately have very adverse affects on lower level people who maybe can't yet afford a sales display. I know that with an untwinked SK on the AB server, I couldn't afford a proper sales display for the first week or so, but if I had been required to pay commission fees due to having no sales display, I never would have gotten started brokering in the first place, which would have severely limited my ability to make money & outfit my character.</p><p>Overall, I'm not really seeing why any changes need to be made, or at least none that couldn't wait for some time to be addressed.</p>

[DngrMou]

<cite>Valdaglerion wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>This example is from the exchange server where I play primarily. </p><p>I will try to keep this pointed. It is becoming more widely known and exploited that you can buy a large mansion in the game to get the 6 sales slots and never return to that house with no penalty what-so-ever. </p><ul><li>Step 1 - buys a big house (some plat and 50k in status for the first weeks rent)</li><li>Step 2 - go fill up your sales slots on the broker (all six of them)</li><li>Step 3 - dont pay rent. In 7 days your house becomes unavailable but no sweat, you still have your 6 sales slots on the broker with no penalty. You just cant sell from your house.</li></ul><p>So, the question in my mind is why arent the sales slots and listings inaccessible just like the house? If you dont pay rent for months why do you get to simply pay one weeks rent to re-activate? Real landlords would never allow such a travesty. Oh, sorry I didnt pay the first quarter of the year but hey, here is Aprils rent so we are all good now..please....</p><p>And why is the comission always put on the buyer?</p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">Suggestions for changes -</span></p><ol><li>If you lapse on your rent: your house is inaccessible, your sales crates are disabled, your listings are delisted from broker</li><li>If you lapse on your rent: backrent starts accumulating. All backrent must be paid before your items are restored.</li><li>If you have a house and dont have a display in it to sell from, the comission from the broker is shifted from the buyer to the seller.</li></ol></blockquote><p>Please no.  House holders are already being penalized by being unable to sell from their houses if they let the rent lapse....and since they have no access to their houses during that time, it's unfair to make someone pay back rent, as it's not possible to retroactively give them back the access they were denied for that period of time they did'nt pay rent.</p><p>This is not an issue, it's hardly an exploit at all.  Just leave things the way they are....it's simple, it's easy to understand, and does not give anyone an unfair edge. </p>

[Foretold]

<p>I don't see this as an exploit.  I'd say not being able to have a buyer come to my home to save the broker fees because I didn't pay rent is a fair enough penalty.  I know people lose sales this way - I've gone to a house to buy an expensive item to save a few plat, and when I find the rent isn't paid, I go elsewhere and they lose a sale.</p><p>Back rent is a horrible idea.  People have to leave the game for long stretches for innumerable reasons, and the don't always have the foreknowledge that the "haitus" is coming.  For example, I left EQ2 for 10 months - unplanned, I just lost interest in the game.   On the day I came back, if I'd been met at my front door with a message saying "Welcome back, Oephelia!  Unfortunately you owe 40 weeks rent before you can access your house again," I'd have turned back off the game and walked away for good.  At 15 gold a week (not even counting status) thats 600 gold - 6 plat.  And that really isnt an exploit anyway, because after a 24 hour absence from the game, your vender goes off the market anyway, so why should I have to pay for the house and the vendor slots that weren't even active in my absence?</p><p>Plat sellers aren't using this as an *exploit*  Sure they have the big houses for the vendor spots.  Maybe they pay the rent, maybe not.  But even if they were *forced* by your methods above to pay the rent, I dont think the 15 gold per house is really going to put a serious dent in their operations.  They make 1000s of plat a day.  15 gold doesn't even register on their radar.  These ideas of yours wont make plat sellers go away.  They won't even notice.</p><p>Overall, not an exploit.  The penalties are fair for not keeping up your house. You cant go in.  You cant entice buyers to buy your goods with the promise of no broker fees.  If you leave for more than 24 hours, your vender is gone anyway.  So no loss.  </p>

[Bozidar]

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I realize  I've heard some rumor that people were buying houses, not paying the upkeep, & then having their alt sell everything in an inn room, but I don't see how that works, either.</p></blockquote><p>heh, now that might be an exploit <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>character A buys six slots.. and doesn't pay upkeep ever.  Now, those six slots are EXPENSIVE, but no following cost.</p><p>Character B buys a room in the splendours suburb zone of Longshadow Alley, for example, and gives character A trustee rights to his rom.</p><p>Character A goes to Character B's room and right-click-places all six of his vendor items into the 5s room.</p><p>When you search for Character A's things on the broker, they'll show up as "Visit Character A (Character B) in Longshadow Alley"</p><p>What i don't know, and i'd like to know, is if the rent on the original inn room, or on character B's in room designates if those items show up on the broker that way.</p>

[Bozidar]

Oephelia@Najena wrote: <blockquote><p>I dont think the 15 gold per house is really going to put a serious dent in their operations</p></blockquote>ain't the gold, it's the status..

[Badaxe Ba]

<p>Just why do we pay rent for a house we 'bought' anyway?  Its not like I get a new paintjob, new roof, additional features, etc., etc., etc.,.......</p><p>I see no reason to change the existing system, unless you start talking about no more rent......<img src="/smilies/908627bbe5e9f6a080977db8c365caff.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[JamesRay]

<p>The other flaw in having the "broker fees" shifted to the seller is that there is a difference between the % of fees when dealing with opposing cities.</p><p>So I'm supposed to not only eat 20% of my sales price for items I sell to fellow citizens, but I'm supposed to eat 40% of my sales price for items I sell to the opposing city (which I don't even control).</p><p>The fees are there as an option - if you want the convenience of not having to physically access the seller's location, pay up.  If not, start walking.</p>

[mjashmore]

Harry@Venekor wrote: <blockquote><p>Just why do we pay rent for a house we 'bought' anyway?  </p></blockquote> Must be leasehold! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Valdaglerion]

<cite>JamesRay wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>The other flaw in having the "broker fees" shifted to the seller is that there is a difference between the % of fees when dealing with opposing cities.</p><p>So I'm supposed to not only eat 20% of my sales price for items I sell to fellow citizens, but I'm supposed to eat 40% of my sales price for items I sell to the opposing city (which I don't even control).</p><p>The fees are there as an option - if you want the convenience of not having to physically access the seller's location, pay up.  If not, start walking.</p></blockquote><p>Point being - if the option to "start walking" isnt available because the seller doesnt want to set up a sales display the convenience is shifted from the buyer not wanting to walk to the seller of not wanting to set up a sales display.</p><p>The only exception to this rule is the opposite aligned cities. To some extent the same rules can apply. As long as you have a sales display the comission is paid by the buyer, no sales display, comission paid by the seller. There should not be an additional penalty for cross city selling. </p>

[Valdaglerion]

Harry@Venekor wrote: <blockquote><p>Just why do we pay rent for a house we 'bought' anyway?  </p></blockquote> For the same reasons you buy a house and pay homeowners dues - its for real estate upkeep in the community, pay taxes to schools even though you dont have children enrolled in school - its to keep the community services etc up to the level of the surrounding property value, property taxes - again, to provide community services such as fire, water, police etc. Dont you see all those guards patrolling the streets, who do you think pays their salaries. Those x4 epics dont come cheap ya know. And if you ever notice, the more expensive the property in that particular city, the higher level and more epic the guards <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Valdaglerion]

Oephelia@Najena wrote: <blockquote><p>Plat sellers aren't using this as an *exploit*  Sure they have the big houses for the vendor spots.  Maybe they pay the rent, maybe not.  But even if they were *forced* by your methods above to pay the rent, I dont think the 15 gold per house is really going to put a serious dent in their operations.  They make 1000s of plat a day.  15 gold doesn't even register on their radar.  These ideas of yours wont make plat sellers go away.  They won't even notice.</p></blockquote><p>1000's of plat a day? More like hundreds but anyway....</p><p>its not the 15g a week. Its the 50,000 status. Takes an additional chunk of status items which they sell for in-game profit and better yet- use to sell "power leveling" services for guilds.</p>

[Valdaglerion]

<p>For the record - there are multiple types of exploits folks - those which are not working as intended due to a technical problem and those which have flaws in logic which allow the rules of the game to be played with adverse affects.</p><ul><li>The technical exploits are the ones not to be discussed in public as they have potentially dire consequences to the game on a grand scale. They are usually designated as "Fix Immediately". The ones where something allows significant financial gain which was not intended.</li><li>The logic flaw exploits are by no means a "Fix right now" item and I amnot saying this one is. Merely expressing a concern over an observation of how certain "rules" and logic flaws are being used as a workaround to the system in the way in which it was developed.</li></ul><p>Someone pointed out that all broker listings go off after 24 hours if your account is not logged on. This I have not noticed before I will have to try this out over the weekend. This adds a different element I was not  aware of if it is accurate. It would make me re-think the backrent piece of this thread.</p>

[liveja]

<cite>Valdaglerion wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Point being - if the option to "start walking" isnt available because the seller doesnt want to set up a sales display the convenience is shifted from the buyer not wanting to walk to the seller of not wanting to set up a sales display.</p></blockquote><p>Point being: why? What purpose would that particular change even have? What "problem" is it intended to solve? If there is no real problem, why implement a "solution"?</p><p>In particular, why should I have to buy a sales display from another player, in order to avoid paying the commission fee? Please keep in mind that I don't yet have a "veteran's display" case given to me free by SOE. </p>

[Foretold]

<cite>Valdaglerion wrote:</cite><blockquote>Oephelia@Najena wrote: <blockquote><p>Plat sellers aren't using this as an *exploit*  Sure they have the big houses for the vendor spots.  Maybe they pay the rent, maybe not.  But even if they were *forced* by your methods above to pay the rent, I dont think the 15 gold per house is really going to put a serious dent in their operations.  They make 1000s of plat a day.  15 gold doesn't even register on their radar.  These ideas of yours wont make plat sellers go away.  They won't even notice.</p></blockquote><p>1000's of plat a day? More like hundreds but anyway....</p><p>its not the 15g a week. Its the 50,000 status. Takes an additional chunk of status items which they sell for in-game profit and better yet- use to sell "power leveling" services for guilds.</p></blockquote><p> 100 plat...1000 plat...  15 gold won't hurt them regardless.  And I'm sure if status were to become an issue, they would take the one time hit of gathering 50K worth of status items to not have to deal with it again.  </p><p>I don't think so many plat sellers are using the 6 slot homes as you think.  If you think about, they cost 3 to 4 plat to buy, plus over a quarter million status.  The one room inn is practically free, and with salesman crates crafted from rares, you can sell 40+ items on one broker slot (I know I have one crate thats 40 items...perhaps they go higher, I don't know, but I will use that as a rough high end figure).  Thats 80 items per *practically* free room.  </p><p>Ever zone in to someone's inn room and see nothing but 2 crates on the floor? I mean NOTHING - not even the newbie table, mirror and chandelier?  Open crate one, and it has 40 masters scrolls, open crate 2 and it has 40 equally unimaginably good items.  You're telling me this obviously UBER player has a one room inn with nothing in it at all except two salesmans crates full of amazing loot?  </p><p>That's more than likely your plat farmers right there.   And you say two broker slots arent enough?  Multiply that by the numerous accounts these businesses own.   Why would they go out of their way to earn status and waste plat that amounts to a real life dollar each when they can sell 80 items at a time for free?  A real life dollar to these people is a LOT of money when you consider they probably dont make $1000 a year on the average.  Are they gonna waste 3 to 4 plat on a 5 room house for more broker slots?  On each of the innumerable accounts they have? Not likely.</p><p>And yes, in answer to your question above, your vendor does stop your listings 24 hours after you log out :S its the compromise for not having to actually be online and in in your room to sell, like we used to have to be.</p><p>When it all comes down to it, I still dont see an exploit....</p>

[Valdaglerion]

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Valdaglerion wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Point being - if the option to "start walking" isnt available because the seller doesnt want to set up a sales display the convenience is shifted from the buyer not wanting to walk to the seller of not wanting to set up a sales display.</p></blockquote><p>Point being: why? What purpose would that particular change even have? What "problem" is it intended to solve? If there is no real problem, why implement a "solution"?</p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">To keep cost shifting in check and create a better balance on the broker. For those that invest in displays and keeping upkeep on their houses it provides a return on their investments. Currently, even though you can buy items cheaper if you go to a house, the items are listed at the top of the broker listing where someone is asking a lower price but the forced comissions are not included in those listings.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">Perhaps another solution to that is to change broker listings to reflect forced comissions. For instance - </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">Seller A (no sales display - seller asking 1g - 20% comission - 20s) = 1g 20s</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">Seller B (sales display and rent paid - seller asking 1g 10s - 20% comission - 22s) = 1g 32s</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">In this example you can potentially buy from seller B for less than the price you can buy from seller A because Seller A has an absolute price of 1g20s where as seller B has a potential minimum price of 1g10s.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">The broker will list seller A first currently. Maybe listing different to take into account potential savings to the consumer is a solution to keep seller a from getting top billing even though there are hidden cost which are not taken into account with the listing. There is no way to buy that product from seller A for 1g.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">To expand on it - if they are both asing the same price, the listings are based on who listed first, perhaps higher priority should be given to the seller who can offer a discount if you go to their house to purcchase, regardless of when they listed.</span></p><p>In particular, why should I have to buy a sales display from another player, in order to avoid paying the commission fee? Please keep in mind that I don't yet have a "veteran's display" case given to me free by SOE. </p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">Because any good business owner will tell you that there is always a cost of doing business. If you choose not to have a store you are going to have to pay someone to sell for you or store your product. Take ebay for example - varying shipping cost often become the variable that determines sales because so many people use the same vendors for their products. The difference comes in as to whether they are actually purchasing the goods and shipping themselves or using dropship services from the vendor at a higher price.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">Not sure what the veteran case has to do with it. </span><span style="color: #ff3300">If your point is that all players should be a given a starter display I can see that. Maybe all players should get a single 12 slot sales crate with their market board when they buy their starter home.</span></p></blockquote>

[liveja]

<p>I'm still failing to see a problem. You're explaining what it would "accomplish", but I'm simply not understanding why you think it's a problem that needs to be solved.</p><p>When I look at an item on the broker, the broker tells me what the commission is going to be. It's right there, listed in the price: so much money, +X% commission, depending on the various variables. I know it's a "forced" commission, in that if I don't wish to pay the commission, I start walking. I'm not sure what more needs to be said, so I'm not sure what this "balance" issue is you're saying needs to be handled better. Besides, as you say, having a display case is the cost of being a better businessman. I fail to see why any additional "return" needs to be given, particularly if we're talking about veteran's display cases that are given to players for FREE.</p><p>As for the veteran's display case: it's precisely the issue. New players don't have them -- heck, I've been playing nearly 18 months & don't have one yet, so it's not just new players -- ergo, they would be distinctly disadvantaged when it comes to using the broker to sell their stuff, under your idea. Yes, if this change were to be implemented, it would only be fair to give a display case to everyone. But since there's no discernable problem to be solved, I don't see why SOE should worry about giving us display cases so they can implement a change that isn't needed.</p>

[Valdaglerion]

Oephelia@Najena wrote <blockquote><p>I don't think so many plat sellers are using the 6 slot homes as you think.  If you think about, they cost 3 to 4 plat to buy, plus over a quarter million status.  The one room inn is practically free, and with salesman crates crafted from rares, you can sell 40+ items on one broker slot (I know I have one crate thats 40 items...perhaps they go higher, I don't know, but I will use that as a rough high end figure).  Thats 80 items per *practically* free room.  </p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">This is a good point and happens but there are many more than you think. The higher end sales crates - Ironwood and Ebony house 50+ items in each crate. The lower end houses are used on the alt accounts to house high end items which have a slower turn over rate. They have high profitability but not consistent revenue. When you look at any business model the consistent revenue stream is king. If all you are selling is Master spells I am outstripping you all day long in sales I dont care how uber you are. true you dont have to do as much to make 30p off that one spell but how long is it going to take you to sell it? Depending on the spell it could take weeks or longer to sell it in some cases but the things that sell every day are the not so uber items.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">The higher end houses are used for the additional slots because they are used to sell in bulk. A business with the bot harvesters cant sell everything they need to from 2 crates, they would be losing a majority of their loot. And yes, most people think a lot of the body drops and coin are junk loot but when you multiple it by six bots running 24x7 it adds up to huge amounts of coin. </span></p><p>Ever zone in to someone's inn room and see nothing but 2 crates on the floor? I mean NOTHING - not even the newbie table, mirror and chandelier?  Open crate one, and it has 40 masters scrolls, open crate 2 and it has 40 equally unimaginably good items.  You're telling me this obviously UBER player has a one room inn with nothing in it at all except two salesmans crates full of amazing loot?  </p><p>That's more than likely your plat farmers right there.   And you say two broker slots arent enough?  Multiply that by the numerous accounts these businesses own.   Why would they go out of their way to earn status and waste plat that amounts to a real life dollar each when they can sell 80 items at a time for free?  A real life dollar to these people is a LOT of money when you consider they probably dont make $1000 a year on the average.  Are they gonna waste 3 to 4 plat on a 5 room house for more broker slots?  On each of the innumerable accounts they have? Not likely.</p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">The numerous accounts the businesses own arent used to sell goods. They dont risk the bot toons being banned with crates full of masters. Every business owns 1-2 accounts they actually sell from. They use the high end houses not only for the sales slots but also for the storage slots, along with the banks, shared slots and guild banks. Surely you have seen the accoutns where one toon leaves the broker, goes around the corner to the banker, transacts, camps another toon logs in tansact with banker, rinse and repeat. The primary toon will reappear finally, transact again with the banker and head back to the broker.</span></p><p>And yes, in answer to your question above, your vendor does stop your listings 24 hours after you log out :S its the compromise for not having to actually be online and in in your room to sell, like we used to have to be.</p><p><span style="color: #ff3300">I hope your right, I would retract my backrent statement if this is accurate.</span></p><p>When it all comes down to it, I still dont see an exploit....</p></blockquote>

[Targ]

<p>So let me walk through this once. </p><p>If I have two accounts </p><p>    Account A seller is "Larry" he rents a house with six slots and pays is rent ever week.</p><p>    Account B seller is "Moe" he rents a house with six slots and only plays the first week.</p><p>Moe is a trustee in Larry's house.    Moe places his crates in Larry's house. </p><p>So now I have two sellers each with 6 slots sharing one house and only playing rent on one house. Both Moe and Larry get to sell from the house because Larry is paying his rent.</p><p> I don't see this as a game breaking exploit just a nice benny for people with multipule accounts or any one with a good friend willing to share a house.</p>

[Bozidar]

<cite>Targ wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>So let me walk through this once. </p><p>If I have two accounts </p><p>    Account A seller is "Larry" he rents a house with six slots and pays is rent ever week.</p><p>    Account B seller is "Moe" he rents a house with six slots and only plays the first week.</p><p>Moe is a trustee in Larry's house.    Moe places his crates in Larry's house. </p><p>So now I have two sellers each with 6 slots sharing one house and only playing rent on one house. Both Moe and Larry get to sell from the house because Larry is paying his rent.</p><p> I don't see this as a game breaking exploit just a nice benny for people with multipule accounts or any one with a good friend willing to share a house.</p></blockquote>What about your alt, Curley, who has a room in stonestair that he pays 5 silver for, and both Moe and Larry are trustee's there?

[Valdaglerion]

<cite>Targ wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>So let me walk through this once. </p><p>If I have two accounts </p><p>    Account A seller is "Larry" he rents a house with six slots and pays is rent ever week.</p><p>    Account B seller is "Moe" he rents a house with six slots and only plays the first week.</p><p>Moe is a trustee in Larry's house.    Moe places his crates in Larry's house. </p><p>So now I have two sellers each with 6 slots sharing one house and only playing rent on one house. Both Moe and Larry get to sell from the house because Larry is paying his rent.</p><p> I don't see this as a game breaking exploit just a nice benny for people with multipule accounts or any one with a good friend willing to share a house.</p></blockquote><p>Yep, Moe paid for a house that has a benefit of 6 sales slots. He no longer pays for the house but gets to keep the 6 sales slots. While your example puts them at Larry's house where at least Larry is paying rent, the discussion here would be more akin to Moe just using those 6 slots on the broker and not at anyones house who is actually paying rent.</p><p>The problem being you have a house that has 6 sales slots associated with it, when you quit paying for that house you should not get to continue to use the benefits of it, in this case the sales slots.</p>

[Rijacki]

<cite>Valdaglerion wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Targ wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>So let me walk through this once. </p><p>If I have two accounts </p><p>    Account A seller is "Larry" he rents a house with six slots and pays is rent ever week.</p><p>    Account B seller is "Moe" he rents a house with six slots and only plays the first week.</p><p>Moe is a trustee in Larry's house.    Moe places his crates in Larry's house. </p><p>So now I have two sellers each with 6 slots sharing one house and only playing rent on one house. Both Moe and Larry get to sell from the house because Larry is paying his rent.</p><p> I don't see this as a game breaking exploit just a nice benny for people with multipule accounts or any one with a good friend willing to share a house.</p></blockquote><p>Yep, Moe paid for a house that has a benefit of 6 sales slots. He no longer pays for the house but gets to keep the 6 sales slots. While your example puts them at Larry's house where at least Larry is paying rent, the discussion here would be more akin to Moe just using those 6 slots on the broker and not at anyones house who is actually paying rent.</p><p>The problem being you have a house that has 6 sales slots associated with it, when you quit paying for that house you should not get to continue to use the benefits of it, in this case the sales slots.</p></blockquote>Exactly.  If the rent on the location isn't paid, the benefits from the location should not be available, both the seller slots and the vault storage. <b>Currently:</b> You don't need more than one account (or a friend) to "exploit" the housing loophole though more than one account does make it easier.  You just need to get a house/innroom with one -character-.  That character  never has to pay another copper to have access to the vault and broker slots.  In another innroom or house where that character is a trustee (either on the same account or another), the vault is accessible via the door or a bulletin board and the vault spaces are accessible via a bulletin board.  The character who bought a room but isn't paying rent can use the broker slots for the larger sales crates or storage boxes, whatever.  Sales crates can be placed into -any- house/innroom where the character is a trustee (it can even be multiple locations).  Items can be bought directly from the placed crates.  It's not the owner of the house with rent paid that's selling the items, it's the owner of the house with lapsed rent that's selling them. The only limitation is the maximum number of placed crates in a room is roughly double its own broker slots (i.e. 4 for a 5s, 2-slot innroom). <b>Should Be:</b> When your rent lapses, access to broker slots (including money retrieval) and vault space is, as well as access to the location itself, unavailable.  <b>Nice to have with the Should Be: </b> To be kind/convenient, there could/should be a way to pay lapsed rent from the broker slot interface with an added "handling" fee (i.e. 5-10% of the rent).  Only the owner should be able to pay that way, of course, since he would be the only one with access to the slots on the broker interface. <b>Back Rent:</b> I disagree with this heartily.  It makes it onerous for those who have to be away for long stretches of time (i.e. military) or those who leave the game for a while and return.. or even just those who play more than one character (on one or more servers) but might not play one for a while. <b>Who pays the broker fee?</b> If the broker fee was taken from the sales instead of being added on to it, the the seller would just raise his price to cover the fee and the buyer would still be "paying" it.  If you want to by-pass the broker fees/commission, only purchase items from sales crates directly from the location they're placed.

[kenm]

I don't understand this topic at all.  Who in the world actually owns a 6 slotted house but then doesn't actually let people buy from their house?  Like most people, I make the vast majority of my money through the broker.  Heck, I've made well over 1000 plat through it.  Yet I've never actually had so many items up at once that I sold from more than two slots with t7 salesman crates at once.  The real incentive to have a house is to let people buy straight from you with no commission, which you already lose by not paying the upkeep.  Besides, upkeep is trivial at best.  I personally pay about 19g and 39k status every week.  19g is two pieces of vendor trash off of solo mobs in t7, and well... who doesn't have over a million status to begin with?  I'm personally sitting at 20 million and despite always paying my upkeep I keep getting more than I can spend. I fail to see what needs to be changed, not because any of the proposed solutions would bother me, but simply because there's no issue and it'd be a waste of a developers time to fix something that isn't broken.

[Ithilmar]

So let me get this straight, because of a very small minority doing something, you want the majority to suffer for it. Yep, that's a great way to fix things. It isn't an issue, it's not game breaking, it doesn't even show up an a bleep on people's radar. If it is that low then it is clearly NOT a problem. Stop worrying about what other people are doing, and enjoy the game. I know the idea is hard, but once you can do that, you can truly do anything. I said it before and I will say it again here. Games are not about flashy spells, or who has the fastest mount, or spiffy box art. None of the matters. Only thing that really matters for a game is that it is FUN. You are looking for issues to point out. You are causing yourself grief over a few select people. You are the one trying to cause ripples. You are the one who is missing out on just having fun. Lay off trying to find issues with something no one obviously cares about, and just have some FUN.

[Rijacki]

Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote>I don't understand this topic at all.  <b>Who in the world actually owns a 6 slotted house but then doesn't actually let people buy from their house?</b>  Like most people, I make the vast majority of my money through the broker.  Heck, I've made well over 1000 plat through it.  Yet I've never actually had so many items up at once that I sold from more than two slots with t7 salesman crates at once.  The real incentive to have a house is to let people buy straight from you with no commission, which you already lose by not paying the upkeep.  Besides, upkeep is trivial at best.  I personally pay about 19g and 39k status every week.  19g is two pieces of vendor trash off of solo mobs in t7, and well... who doesn't have over a million status to begin with?  I'm personally sitting at 20 million and despite always paying my upkeep I keep getting more than I can spend. I fail to see what needs to be changed, not because any of the proposed solutions would bother me, but simply because there's no issue and it'd be a waste of a developers time to fix something that isn't broken. </blockquote>You can get the house (and the slots), place the sales items in a different location which is low rent (like in 2 innrooms of alts, total rent 10s vs 20g+), not pay a dime of rent on the large house, and still have people buy directly from the sales crates, just in a different, cheaper, location. 4 Bayle Court = 5 rooms = 6 broker slots/6 vault slots      - purchase price = lots + heaps of status      - weekly rent = ~20g + status Innroom in Baubbleshire = 1 room = 2 broker slots/2 vault slots = can place (I think) 4 broker containers       - purchase price = free       - weekly rent = 5s Person with one account 1. With character A, buys a 4 Bayle Court house 2. With character B, buys an innroom in Baubleshire, puts character A on the trustee list and puts up a bulletin board 3. With character C, buys an innroom in Baubleshire, puts character A on the trustee list and puts up a bulletin board 4. Character A goes to character B's innroom, uses the bulletin board to put 6 broker containers into the broker interface. 5. Character A places 3 of the containers in character B's room. 6. Character A goes to character C's room and places 3 more containers in that room. 7. Character A pays 10s a week on character B and C's rooms and nothing on the 4 Bayle Court house. 8. Character A uses either a broker or the bulletin board in character B or C's house to add items to his sales containers, pick up money from sales, etc. 9. Character A uses the door in character B or character C's room to access the 6 slots of vault space. 10. Buyers can go to character B or character C's innroom in order to buy directly from character A's sales containers. 11. Buyers do not need to go to the 4 Bayle Court house since the sales containers are not there, they're in character B and character C's rooms. 12. At no time does character A ever need to pay rent on or visit the 4 Bayle Court house he used to set this up. 13. The player has the full sales slot and vault space benefits of the 4 Bayle Court house without paying more then 10s a week. It does work.  There are people who use this loophole.  There are people who brag about using the loophole.

[Rijacki]

<cite>Ithilmar wrote:</cite><blockquote>So let me get this straight, because of a very small minority doing something, you want the majority to suffer for it. Yep, that's a great way to fix things. </blockquote>If you pay your weekly rent, it wouldn't affect you at all if others were required to pay their weekly rent to have the benefits of the location.  The only ones who would "suffer" are the "small minority" who are using the loophole.

[Ithilmar]

And so people should be [Removed for Content] over if they decide to quit for a while then return(because no one ever leaves for other games and comes back), or people should be [Removed for Content] over if they go on vacation for a while and return(because the game is everyones life and there is no such thing as vacations in EQ2), and people should be [Removed for Content] over because they had to have a business trip out of town(because on one works for large companies that requires them to leave state and sometimes countries for month on end). It IS a minority, and it will effect the MAJORITY. Real life happens, and when it does a game is NOT the first place they are going to run to just because they have to let the game know they will be gone for a while, or to make sure anyone who has access to their house won't in 24 hours because they have to leave. If people leave, they leave. I let my wife,  and two of my friends share my house, if my wife and I go out of town, why should I have to pay back rent on top of not having anything sell for that time frame ON TOP OF my friends not having access to my places resources as well? As I said, stop worrying about other people and just play the game.

[kenm]

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote>I don't understand this topic at all.  <b>Who in the world actually owns a 6 slotted house but then doesn't actually let people buy from their house?</b>  Like most people, I make the vast majority of my money through the broker.  Heck, I've made well over 1000 plat through it.  Yet I've never actually had so many items up at once that I sold from more than two slots with t7 salesman crates at once.  The real incentive to have a house is to let people buy straight from you with no commission, which you already lose by not paying the upkeep.  Besides, upkeep is trivial at best.  I personally pay about 19g and 39k status every week.  19g is two pieces of vendor trash off of solo mobs in t7, and well... who doesn't have over a million status to begin with?  I'm personally sitting at 20 million and despite always paying my upkeep I keep getting more than I can spend. I fail to see what needs to be changed, not because any of the proposed solutions would bother me, but simply because there's no issue and it'd be a waste of a developers time to fix something that isn't broken. </blockquote>You can get the house (and the slots), place the sales items in a different location which is low rent (like in 2 innrooms of alts, total rent 10s vs 20g+), not pay a dime of rent on the large house, and still have people buy directly from the sales crates, just in a different, cheaper, location. 4 Bayle Court = 5 rooms = 6 broker slots/6 vault slots      - purchase price = lots + heaps of status      - weekly rent = ~20g + status Innroom in Baubbleshire = 1 room = 2 broker slots/2 vault slots = can place (I think) 4 broker containers       - purchase price = free       - weekly rent = 5s Person with one account 1. With character A, buys a 4 Bayle Court house 2. With character B, buys an innroom in Baubleshire, puts character A on the trustee list and puts up a bulletin board 3. With character C, buys an innroom in Baubleshire, puts character A on the trustee list and puts up a bulletin board 4. Character A goes to character B's innroom, uses the bulletin board to put 6 broker containers into the broker interface. 5. Character A places 3 of the containers in character B's room. 6. Character A goes to character C's room and places 3 more containers in that room. 7. Character A pays 10s a week on character B and C's rooms and nothing on the 4 Bayle Court house. 8. Character A uses either a broker or the bulletin board in character B or C's house to add items to his sales containers, pick up money from sales, etc. 9. Character A uses the door in character B or character C's room to access the 6 slots of vault space. 10. Buyers can go to character B or character C's innroom in order to buy directly from character A's sales containers. 11. Buyers do not need to go to the 4 Bayle Court house since the sales containers are not there, they're in character B and character C's rooms. 12. At no time does character A ever need to pay rent on or visit the 4 Bayle Court house he used to set this up. 13. The player has the full sales slot and vault space benefits of the 4 Bayle Court house without paying more then 10s a week. It does work.  There are people who use this loophole.  There are people who brag about using the loophole. </blockquote>So there's an overly complicated bypass that requires more effort than simply paying the trivial upkeep in the first place.  Who the heck cares?  As I've pointed out, 19g and possibly 50k status is barely even a drop in the bucket for most people.  They're wasting more time to do a "loophole" than it takes me simply click a button to pay my upkeep every week. Yeah... I'd rather a developer fix something more important.  Like the annoying freaking lag when mobs like Galiel Spirithoof strip buffs from people.

[Rijacki]

First, I don't think there should be "back rent" but I do think you should have to pay the current to have access to the benefits. The only ones who would be directly affected by a requirement to have the current week's rent paid to have the benefit of the location are those who use the loophole as it is now (and it isn't very uncomplicated.. a lot less complicated or difficult than getting status as a non-raider and less expensive/complicated than obtaining status reduction items). It has been positted that the reason there is no status housing other than the original 2 cities is that housing isn't as much of a money sink as desired. If the loophole were closed, too, there might be a better arguement to tie the active sales presence to the rent duration rather than 24 hours after logout. Too, if benefits could be made inactive with unpaid rent, arguement could be made to allow more characters per account per server as active sales.

[jros1981]

Kallarn@Splitpaw wrote: <blockquote>No back rent, long periods of absence would be stupidly expensive and noone wants to sell their house before they travel or whatever that keeps them away. Disabling the sales is the best option so you can physically sell anything unless youre paid up. </blockquote>I would have to agree.  Being on deployment for 5 months or so, I dont feel like coming back and paying a hefty fee for not being able to sign in on EQ2 and pay my rent. 

[Bawang]

OP Are you related to Scrooge by any chance? and yeah....using the word exploit for this is stupid.

[Solaran_X]

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ithilmar wrote:</cite><blockquote>So let me get this straight, because of a very small minority doing something, you want the majority to suffer for it. Yep, that's a great way to fix things. </blockquote>If you pay your weekly rent, it wouldn't affect you at all if others were required to pay their weekly rent to have the benefits of the location.  The only ones who would "suffer" are the "small minority" who are using the loophole. </blockquote>And the people who, like I recently did, take a several month hiatus from the game and then come back. How would you like to take a break from the game and come back five or six months later and have to pay 20 or 24 weeks worth of upkeep on your house, that no one was able to access, just so you can use it again?

[Rijacki]

Vaeamdar@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ithilmar wrote:</cite><blockquote>So let me get this straight, because of a very small minority doing something, you want the majority to suffer for it. Yep, that's a great way to fix things. </blockquote>If you pay your weekly rent, it wouldn't affect you at all if others were required to pay their weekly rent to have the benefits of the location.  The only ones who would "suffer" are the "small minority" who are using the loophole. </blockquote>And the people who, like I recently did, take a several month hiatus from the game and then come back. How would you like to take a break from the game and come back five or six months later and have to pay 20 or 24 weeks worth of upkeep on your house, that no one was able to access, just so you can use it again? </blockquote>Pay your current rent.  I have never advocated (and specifically stated that I am against) back rent.  But someone who is actively playing but not paying rent should not get the same benefits of the location as someone who is paying rent.  If the -current- week is not paid, all benefits (sales slots and vault slots as well as access to the location) should be suspended.

[Valdaglerion]

<p>Sheesh - about 20 replies ago I already conceded the need for actual backrent due to constructive replies that were posted in the absence of name calling and intellect bashing. Let me reiterate once more -</p><p>The current implementation has a 24 hour limit on your postings so if you take a hiatus from the game everything stops anyway. The need for back rent is not necessary, I was unaware of the 24 hour limit previously.</p><p>The loophole in the system is not ground breaking but to say it affects a minority is limited thinking. If you believe the majority of people are paying their rent to continue accessing the additional slots they are provided they will be unaffected except in the fact that others will not be getting the same benefits without paying for them.</p><p>Limited thinking is what destroys the most fragile aspect of any MMO, the economy. You have to see the bigger picture of the economy as a whole. Economies do make or break games and I was merely pointing out one logic flawed implementation that is being exploited to gain benefits that are intended to be paid for without having to actually pay for them.</p><p>If you cant see that as an exploit, I can help no further.....moving on....</p>

[Noaani]

Valdaglerion wrote: <blockquote>If you believe the majority of people are paying their rent to continue accessing the additional slots they are provided they will be unaffected except in the fact that others will not be getting the same benefits without paying for them.</blockquote><p>Nah, most people I know pay their rent so they can access their deity shrine and get belssings/miracles. The broker aspect of housing is a minor aspect of it.</p><p>Most sellers are able to put everything they would be selling at any given time up for sale in the 2 slots one would get with a 5 silver a week house in one of the starting villages. Thats 160 items, or 20 pages on the broker for sale. Thats a lot of stuff... There are a very few people with that much up for sale at any given time, thus this affects a very small minority. Like it or not, that is the truth. </p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

<cite>Bozidar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I realize  I've heard some rumor that people were buying houses, not paying the upkeep, & then having their alt sell everything in an inn room, but I don't see how that works, either.</p></blockquote><p>heh, now that might be an exploit <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>character A buys six slots.. and doesn't pay upkeep ever.  Now, those six slots are EXPENSIVE, but no following cost.</p><p>Character B buys a room in the splendours suburb zone of Longshadow Alley, for example, and gives character A trustee rights to his rom.</p><p>Character A goes to Character B's room and right-click-places all six of his vendor items into the 5s room.</p><p>When you search for Character A's things on the broker, they'll show up as "Visit Character A (Character B) in Longshadow Alley"</p><p>What i don't know, and i'd like to know, is if the rent on the original inn room, or on character B's in room designates if those items show up on the broker that way.</p></blockquote><p>Yes, Char A puts his boxes down in B's apartment, and can sell without broker fees from 6 crates, for 5s a week.  This exploit needs to be stopped ASAP.  Or should we all just exploit?</p>

[Surething]

As far as I'm concerned it's not broke - so don't fix it. The plat sellers will keep on no matter what happens - it is just plain wrong to penalize others for their actions. BTW: all those spam emails from plat sellers do get annoying; has everyone else noticed that while the emails are from a bazillion different players, there are only about two or three websites involved? All SOE needs to do to resolve the problem is to sue the owners of those sites for copyright infringement.

[DngrMou]

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote> You can get the house (and the slots), place the sales items in a different location which is low rent (like in 2 innrooms of alts, total rent 10s vs 20g+), not pay a dime of rent on the large house, and still have people buy directly from the sales crates, just in a different, cheaper, location. 4 Bayle Court = 5 rooms = 6 broker slots/6 vault slots      - purchase price = lots + heaps of status      - weekly rent = ~20g + status Innroom in Baubbleshire = 1 room = 2 broker slots/2 vault slots = can place (I think) 4 broker containers       - purchase price = free       - weekly rent = 5s Person with one account 1. With character A, buys a 4 Bayle Court house 2. With character B, buys an innroom in Baubleshire, puts character A on the trustee list and puts up a bulletin board 3. With character C, buys an innroom in Baubleshire, puts character A on the trustee list and puts up a bulletin board 4. Character A goes to character B's innroom, uses the bulletin board to put 6 broker containers into the broker interface. 5. Character A places 3 of the containers in character B's room. 6. Character A goes to character C's room and places 3 more containers in that room. 7. Character A pays 10s a week on character B and C's rooms and nothing on the 4 Bayle Court house. 8. Character A uses either a broker or the bulletin board in character B or C's house to add items to his sales containers, pick up money from sales, etc. 9. Character A uses the door in character B or character C's room to access the 6 slots of vault space. 10. Buyers can go to character B or character C's innroom in order to buy directly from character A's sales containers. 11. Buyers do not need to go to the 4 Bayle Court house since the sales containers are not there, they're in character B and character C's rooms. 12. At no time does character A ever need to pay rent on or visit the 4 Bayle Court house he used to set this up. 13. The player has the full sales slot and vault space benefits of the 4 Bayle Court house without paying more then 10s a week. It does work.  There are people who use this loophole.  There are people who brag about using the loophole. </blockquote><p>This sounds like an exploit for people who fell asleep in math class.  The cost of a large house, (Bayle Court), is 4p83g84s.....which is enough to pay rent on an additional newb room for 186 real years.  Not too mention that they don't have to pony up the 300k status, would still have thier 6 broker slots, and would be left with that nearly five plat still jingling merrily in their pockets.  </p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>This sounds like an exploit for people who fell asleep in math class.  The cost of a large house, (Bayle Court), is 4p83g84s.....which is enough to pay rent on an additional newb room for 186 real years.  Not too mention that they don't have to pony up the 300k status, would still have thier 6 broker slots, and would be left with that nearly five plat still jingling merrily in their pockets.  </blockquote><p> Ah, but they are gaining the ability to get income from 4 more crates while offline over a person who had only 2 crates on in an apartment.  So theoretically, selling the right stuff, the income over time far exceeds the initial outlay.</p><p>If I can make a plat a week per crate, for 5s i can make 2p, for 4p but then the same 5s a week, i can make 6plat, investment pays off first week, then i can make 4p more than the other guy every week.  that would be 16plat in first month.</p><p>Of course these days I have a hard time keeping 2 60 slot crates full, but i am sure many don't.</p>

[DngrMou]

CoLD MeTaL wrote: <blockquote>Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>This sounds like an exploit for people who fell asleep in math class.  The cost of a large house, (Bayle Court), is 4p83g84s.....which is enough to pay rent on an additional newb room for 186 real years.  Not too mention that they don't have to pony up the 300k status, would still have thier 6 broker slots, and would be left with that nearly five plat still jingling merrily in their pockets.  </blockquote><p> Ah, but they are gaining the ability to get income from 4 more crates while offline over a person who had only 2 crates on in an apartment.  So theoretically, selling the right stuff, the income over time far exceeds the initial outlay.</p><p>If I can make a plat a week per crate, for 5s i can make 2p, for 4p but then the same 5s a week, i can make 6plat, investment pays off first week, then i can make 4p more than the other guy every week.  that would be 16plat in first month.</p><p>Of course these days I have a hard time keeping 2 60 slot crates full, but i am sure many don't.</p></blockquote><p>I don't get it....for 5s a week above the 10s a week spent on the first two newb rooms, (per Rijacki's explanation), I can make just as much money, have just as many vendor crates displayed, and I saved myself nearly 5p, and the 300k status initial costs of the manor.  Seems a no brainer to me...but since this appears to be an 'exploit' designed for the cereberally challenged...I say "to each his or her own".</p><p>If this is being used as a way to circumvent the one character per account active trader rule, then sure, change things so once rent is not payed, those vendor containers, wherever they're placed, go inactive, and force people to buy those goods, and pay the broker commission, (like anyone else).  I don't really see this as a problem, either way. </p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote><p>I don't get it....for 5s a week above the 10s a week spent on the first two newb rooms, (per Rijacki's explanation), I can make just as much money, <span style="font-size: x-large">have just as many vendor crates displayed</span>, and I saved myself nearly 5p, and the 300k status initial costs of the manor.  Seems a no brainer to me...but since this appears to be an 'exploit' designed for the cereberally challenged...I say "to each his or her own".</p><p>If this is being used as a way to circumvent the one character per account active trader rule, then sure, change things so once rent is not payed, those vendor containers, wherever they're placed, go inactive, and force people to buy those goods, and pay the broker commission, (like anyone else).  I don't really see this as a problem, either way. </p></blockquote><p> The bold part is where you are wrong.</p><p>Ok with 1 5s a week room, you can have 2 crates worth of stuff for sale while offline, using this exploit, allows you to have 6 crates of stuff for sale while offline.  So you have yet to understand what is being done, read the explanation again please.</p>

[Oakum]

<cite>Surething wrote:</cite><blockquote>As far as I'm concerned it's not broke - so don't fix it. The plat sellers will keep on no matter what happens - it is just plain wrong to penalize others for their actions. BTW: all those spam emails from plat sellers do get annoying; has everyone else noticed that while the emails are from a bazillion different players, there are only about two or three websites involved? All SOE needs to do to resolve the problem is to sue the owners of those sites for copyright infringement. </blockquote><p>I do not think that plat sellers exploit this all that much, just normal players who like to think they are outsmarting the EQ2 dev's and cheating "the landlord" out of their rent. </p><p>I have a 5 room 6 broker slot house. I really don't see what the problem is with paying rent or not having my stuff show up on the broker. Its a much less painful option then real life where you would get kicked out of your house, maybe even losing your stuff to pay for back rent, then have to rerent (with deposits ect) if you stopped paying your rent. </p><p>The best solution to the exploit is to remove the items from the broker and access to all slots from a house who's rent is not paid up.  For packrats (like me occasionally) the extra storage slots are a big benefit of having the big house. I use a couple of my broker boxes for raws/fuels storage. </p><p>As far as some people saying this is not an exploit. I see it as the extra rent/status is supposed to pay for the extra storage/broker. If I am not paying the expected price for a benefit associated with the price but still getting the benefit, then I am exploiting.</p><p>Honestly though if I was exploiting this I don't know if I would fight to keep the exploit open since I would be using it to benefit me like a lot seem to be doing or keep quiet and let the chips fall where they made and just be thankful for all the money I saved with my exploit if they did change it. I think I would be in the stay quiet group but then its hard to say since I am not using it, lol. Its easy to say you would do the more right thing if you are not doing anything wrong, lol. </p>

[Rijacki]

Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>CoLD MeTaL wrote: <blockquote>Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>This sounds like an exploit for people who fell asleep in math class.  The cost of a large house, (Bayle Court), is 4p83g84s.....which is enough to pay rent on an additional newb room for 186 real years.  Not too mention that they don't have to pony up the 300k status, would still have thier 6 broker slots, and would be left with that nearly five plat still jingling merrily in their pockets.  </blockquote><p> Ah, but they are gaining the ability to get income from 4 more crates while offline over a person who had only 2 crates on in an apartment.  So theoretically, selling the right stuff, the income over time far exceeds the initial outlay.</p><p>If I can make a plat a week per crate, for 5s i can make 2p, for 4p but then the same 5s a week, i can make 6plat, investment pays off first week, then i can make 4p more than the other guy every week.  that would be 16plat in first month.</p><p>Of course these days I have a hard time keeping 2 60 slot crates full, but i am sure many don't.</p></blockquote><p>I don't get it....for 5s a week above the 10s a week spent on the first two newb rooms, (per Rijacki's explanation), I can make just as much money, have just as many vendor crates displayed, and I saved myself nearly 5p, and the 300k status initial costs of the manor.  Seems a no brainer to me...but since this appears to be an 'exploit' designed for the cereberally challenged...I say "to each his or her own".</p><p>If this is being used as a way to circumvent the one character per account active trader rule, then sure, change things so once rent is not payed, those vendor containers, wherever they're placed, go inactive, and force people to buy those goods, and pay the broker commission, (like anyone else).  I don't really see this as a problem, either way. </p></blockquote>You can only have one seller per account, so the ONLY way, with one account, to have more than 2 sales slots is to get a larger room.  But, the loophole is that you don't have to pay rent on that larger room in order to have the sales slots active.  Yes, it is a higher initial outlay but the weekly amount after that is negligible.  It doesn't need to be the 5 room - 6 slot houses which cost status as well as coin for initial outlay, it can be the 4-room - 4 slot no status Kelethin house or the 5 room - 5 slot Neriak house or even the 3 room - 3-4 slot houses in Qeynos or Freeport which are also no status cost.  I just used the most expensive as the example to show the extreme.  The 5 room - 5 slot house in Neriak is just under 2p and no status initially.  When I spend time working on stock for my 70 alchemist and price competatively (and out-wait the product dumpers), she makes 1p+ a day in sales.  Two days of sales to get a big house and then pocket all but 10s every week thereafter instead of paying several gold per week, that doesn't sound like a math challenge to me.  (Rijacki owns a house at 5 Karana and pays rent usually up to 4 weeks worth.  My arasai owns a 5-room house in Neriak and has the first 4 weeks rent paid.  They're my sellers now.  Yes, I have 2 accounts. I've had 2 accounts since a few months after release.  Yes, I do know that some think that's an 'exploit' or using a loophole or whatever.)

[DngrMou]

CoLD MeTaL wrote: <blockquote>Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote><p>I don't get it....for 5s a week above the 10s a week spent on the first two newb rooms, (per Rijacki's explanation), I can make just as much money, <span style="font-size: x-large">have just as many vendor crates displayed</span>, and I saved myself nearly 5p, and the 300k status initial costs of the manor.  Seems a no brainer to me...but since this appears to be an 'exploit' designed for the cereberally challenged...I say "to each his or her own".</p><p>If this is being used as a way to circumvent the one character per account active trader rule, then sure, change things so once rent is not payed, those vendor containers, wherever they're placed, go inactive, and force people to buy those goods, and pay the broker commission, (like anyone else).  I don't really see this as a problem, either way. </p></blockquote><p> The bold part is where you are wrong.</p><p>Ok with 1 5s a week room, you can have 2 crates worth of stuff for sale while offline, using this exploit, allows you to have 6 crates of stuff for sale while offline.  So you have yet to understand what is being done, read the explanation again please.</p></blockquote><p>If someone is paying rent on their 6 vendor slot house, and chooses to place those crates elsewhere, I fail to see this as an exploit.  I keep one container in an alts room in Willow Wood, with crafting materials, because it's convenient to a lot of crafters...it helps with sales.  The others I keep in my main house.</p><p>I was not aware you could place more vendor containers in a house than it comes with....interesting.  So If I had two accounts, I could place 12 containers in a newb room?  With three, 18?  Etc? </p>

[DngrMou]

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>You can only have one seller per account, so the ONLY way, with one account, to have more than 2 sales slots is to get a larger room.  But, the loophole is that you don't have to pay rent on that larger room in order to have the sales slots active.  Yes, it is a higher initial outlay but the weekly amount after that is negligible.  </blockquote><p>Yes, I understand that.  It does'nt bother me, but yes, it's an exploit.  It should be changed so that those vendor crates go inactive if rent's due....just like it does to everyone else. </p>

[CoLD MeTaL]

Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote><p><span style="font-size: x-large">If someone is paying rent on their 6 vendor slot house</span>, and chooses to place those crates elsewhere, I fail to see this as an exploit.  I keep one container in an alts room in Willow Wood, with crafting materials, because it's convenient to a lot of crafters...it helps with sales.  The others I keep in my main house.</p><p>I was not aware you could place more vendor containers in a house than it comes with....interesting.  So If I had two accounts, I could place 12 containers in a newb room?  With three, 18?  Etc? </p></blockquote>They aren't paying rent on a 6 slot house, only a 2 slot, yet making use of 6 because of this exploit.  But your last statement is false.

[MrWolfie]

<span style="font-size: medium"><span style="color: #ff3300">OK, so I pay my rent every week ~ how about not kicking me off the broker every 24 hours?!?</span></span>

[Rijacki]

Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>CoLD MeTaL wrote: <blockquote>Youris@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote><p>I don't get it....for 5s a week above the 10s a week spent on the first two newb rooms, (per Rijacki's explanation), I can make just as much money, <span style="font-size: x-large">have just as many vendor crates displayed</span>, and I saved myself nearly 5p, and the 300k status initial costs of the manor.  Seems a no brainer to me...but since this appears to be an 'exploit' designed for the cereberally challenged...I say "to each his or her own".</p><p>If this is being used as a way to circumvent the one character per account active trader rule, then sure, change things so once rent is not payed, those vendor containers, wherever they're placed, go inactive, and force people to buy those goods, and pay the broker commission, (like anyone else).  I don't really see this as a problem, either way. </p></blockquote><p> The bold part is where you are wrong.</p><p>Ok with 1 5s a week room, you can have 2 crates worth of stuff for sale while offline, using this exploit, allows you to have 6 crates of stuff for sale while offline.  So you have yet to understand what is being done, read the explanation again please.</p></blockquote><p>If someone is paying rent on their 6 vendor slot house, and chooses to place those crates elsewhere, I fail to see this as an exploit.  I keep one container in an alts room in Willow Wood, with crafting materials, because it's convenient to a lot of crafters...it helps with sales.  The others I keep in my main house.</p><p>I was not aware you could place more vendor containers in a house than it comes with....interesting.  So If I had two accounts, I could place 12 containers in a newb room?  With three, 18?  Etc? </p></blockquote>If someone is NOT paying rent on their 6 vendor slot house and chooses to place those crates elsewhere, the crates should NOT be active.  At this time they are. You can place roughly twice as many vendor crates in a room as its own vendor slots.  Thus, you can place 4 crates in a 5s 1 room innroom.  So, at this time, you can buy a house with 4 vendor slots and NOT pay rent on that house but place those crates in a 5s innroom of an alt (where you do pay rent) and have the full advantage of the 4 sales crates which can be visited to by-pass the broker fee (because they're in an innroom with the rent paid, even though the rent is UNPAID on the house granting the benefit).

[Rijacki]

<cite>MrWolfie wrote:</cite><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium"><span style="color: #ff3300">OK, so I pay my rent every week ~ how about not kicking me off the broker every 24 hours?!?</span></span></blockquote>Once they link the availability of the vendor crates to the rent paid on the location granting the benefit and not the location where they're placed, I'd be right there with you waving the banner for vendoring being linked to rent duration and not 24 hours.  Since you can only pay 4 weeks in advanced, there are still constraints on it, but it would make it heaps easier to leave for a weekend or something.

[MrWolfie]

<p>..and I am right with you too. There are people exploiting the system, keeping one character selling from 6 boxes, from 5s a week inn rooms, avoiding that 17g 60,000status payment that everyone else has to meet if they want to keep their house open to customers.</p><p>Just adjust the broker so that you get kicked off when your rent money runs out (and stop people placing sales displays in rooms they don't own) and not when your character hasn't been in game for 24 hours.</p>

[MDKUK]

Heres a suggestion , Why not stop the person whos rent has gone unpaid from drawing any money from there broker sales from the broker... there that sorts all the problems out <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[dartie]

<p>Please add my name to the list of those who see no reason to fix what isn't broken.</p><p>I read an explanation somewhere (it may have been the old tradeskill forums) concerning the difference between "upkeep" and "rent."  It made perfect sense to me.</p><p>You don't rent your house.  You pay upkeep on it to make it so that it's in suitable condition for people to visit.  The reason no one can visit your house when you don't pay upkeep is because it's in a state of disrepair.  No one can go in to buy your things because no one would want to stick their head inside the dusty, dilapidated foyer.  With that upkeep cost, you essentially hire a maintenance/cleaning crew.  When you can't get in because you haven't paid your upkeep, it's not because the landlord has served you with an eviction notice.  There is NO LANDLORD.  It's because a bookcase has fallen down behind the front door.  You don't have access again until you pay the maintenance cost necessary to make the house "enterable."   (Sure, I follow the argument that houses don't  *REALLY* fall into a condemned state of disrepair in just one week, but you can think of that week of real time as a very significant amount of game time if you're stuck on "realism" in a game in which a wooden chest falls out of a crab and contains a sword that you can use to kill a magical fairy.  Whatever works for you, gentle reader.)  </p><p>If something is working as intended, it's counterproductive to call it an "exploit."  There's nothing the least bit exploitative about the system as it is.  When you buy the house, you buy the vendor slots that come with it.  They are yours and can be accessed by the broker for a fee whether your house is kept up or not.  That may not be perfect logic, but it's suitable logic for a game in which thousands of people can all simultaneously own the residence at 2 Bayle Court.  </p><p>As for vendor slots, you don't rent those.  You own them.  You have to pay for people to have physical access to those slots if they want to bypass the broker fee by entering your house, but you already (forever and always) *OWN* those slots on the broker.  You bought them when you paid for the house (which you also own forever and always, though you can choose to pay the upkeep cost or not as you like).  </p><p>I've also seen zero evidence to suggest that there are plat farmers who take "advantage" of this system (which appears to be working precisely as intended and therefore cannot reasonably be categorized as an exploit).  </p><p>I own 2 Bayle Court.  If I'm selling high ticket items and think that the broker commission is a make-or-break deal, I pay my rent.  If I'm selling a bunch of severed elm for 1 copper each, I don't pay the rent.  I think there are a number of devs who would be extremely surprised to hear anyone call this behavior of mine an exploit.  I'm following the rules and making decisions based on what's in the best interest of my character at a particular time.  In other words, I'm gaming.  </p><p>Once upon a time, I didn't want to pay for feysteel chain for my ranger, so I made an armorer.  But by the time I levelled him up to make the armor, someone had put a set of feysteel on the broker for less than the clusters were selling for.  So I didn't make the armor.  I bought it.  I played within the game's ruleset, but nevertheless adapted my approach to the circumstances of the game.  Somehow, I guess that qualifies as an exploit too.  </p><p>Buying the house is a decision.  It doesn't commit you to paying your upkeep anymore than deciding to make an armorer commits you to making a particular set of armor.  Buy any house you like.  Decide each week whether you want to pay the upkeep.  Make your decision based on market conditions.  Level an armorer to 70.  Make armor for your alts with the armorer--or buy it for them if it's cheaper or just less hassle than logging on your armorer.  Make your decision based on market conditions.  </p><p>Whatever you do, there will be someone standing by to accuse you of exploiting the game.  </p><p>/shrug.  </p>

[Valdaglerion]

<cite>MDKUK wrote:</cite><blockquote>Heres a suggestion , Why not stop the person whos rent has gone unpaid from drawing any money from there broker sales from the broker... there that sorts all the problems out <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </blockquote><p> Precisely, all sales crates should be inaccessible when you have rent due and stay as such until you pay your rent. </p><p>I dont agree with not allowing people to put displays in other rooms but those crates should go inactive if the owner has not paid their own rent regardless of where they are lcoated.</p>

[Lilj]

<cite>dartie wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Please add my name to the list of those who see no reason to fix what isn't broken.</p><p>I read an explanation somewhere (it may have been the old tradeskill forums) concerning the difference between "upkeep" and "rent."  It made perfect sense to me.</p><p>You don't rent your house.  You pay upkeep on it to make it so that it's in suitable condition for people to visit.  The reason no one can visit your house when you don't pay upkeep is because it's in a state of disrepair.  No one can go in to buy your things because no one would want to stick their head inside the dusty, dilapidated foyer.  With that upkeep cost, you essentially hire a maintenance/cleaning crew.  When you can't get in because you haven't paid your upkeep, it's not because the landlord has served you with an eviction notice.  There is NO LANDLORD.  It's because a bookcase has fallen down behind the front door.  You don't have access again until you pay the maintenance cost necessary to make the house "enterable."   (Sure, I follow the argument that houses don't  *REALLY* fall into a condemned state of disrepair in just one week, but you can think of that week of real time as a very significant amount of game time if you're stuck on "realism" in a game in which a wooden chest falls out of a crab and contains a sword that you can use to kill a magical fairy.  Whatever works for you, gentle reader.)  </p><p>If something is working as intended, it's counterproductive to call it an "exploit."  There's nothing the least bit exploitative about the system as it is.  When you buy the house, you buy the vendor slots that come with it.  They are yours and can be accessed by the broker for a fee whether your house is kept up or not.  That may not be perfect logic, but it's suitable logic for a game in which thousands of people can all simultaneously own the residence at 2 Bayle Court.  </p><p>As for vendor slots, you don't rent those.  You own them.  You have to pay for people to have physical access to those slots if they want to bypass the broker fee by entering your house, but you already (forever and always) *OWN* those slots on the broker.  You bought them when you paid for the house (which you also own forever and always, though you can choose to pay the upkeep cost or not as you like).  </p><p>I've also seen zero evidence to suggest that there are plat farmers who take "advantage" of this system (which appears to be working precisely as intended and therefore cannot reasonably be categorized as an exploit).  </p><p>I own 2 Bayle Court.  If I'm selling high ticket items and think that the broker commission is a make-or-break deal, I pay my rent.  If I'm selling a bunch of severed elm for 1 copper each, I don't pay the rent.  I think there are a number of devs who would be extremely surprised to hear anyone call this behavior of mine an exploit.  I'm following the rules and making decisions based on what's in the best interest of my character at a particular time.  In other words, I'm gaming.  </p><p>Once upon a time, I didn't want to pay for feysteel chain for my ranger, so I made an armorer.  But by the time I levelled him up to make the armor, someone had put a set of feysteel on the broker for less than the clusters were selling for.  So I didn't make the armor.  I bought it.  I played within the game's ruleset, but nevertheless adapted my approach to the circumstances of the game.  Somehow, I guess that qualifies as an exploit too.  </p><p>Buying the house is a decision.  It doesn't commit you to paying your upkeep anymore than deciding to make an armorer commits you to making a particular set of armor.  Buy any house you like.  Decide each week whether you want to pay the upkeep.  Make your decision based on market conditions.  Level an armorer to 70.  Make armor for your alts with the armorer--or buy it for them if it's cheaper or just less hassle than logging on your armorer.  Make your decision based on market conditions.  </p><p>Whatever you do, there will be someone standing by to accuse you of exploiting the game.  </p><p>/shrug.  </p></blockquote>I'm not sure you understand the problem. You can buy the big house and own the many broker slots, but you don't have to pay rent to let people buy from them in a house. You place them in a friends house, and people can buy from your crates, even if you don't pay your own rent. The exploit (which I agree it is) is that you gain practically all the benifits from the big house without paying the rent for it. The thing you don't get is the actual house, but all else you get (house vault and broker slots).

[MrWolfie]

<cite>dartie wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I own 2 Bayle Court.  If I'm selling high ticket items and think that the broker commission is a make-or-break deal, I pay my rent.  </p></blockquote><p> Except that, you own 2 Bayle Court and the six broker slots, but your broker crates are located in cheap housing where the rent *is* paid, thereby allowing all six crates to be accessed and broker commission avoided by the buyer.</p><p>Essentially, you are avoiding paying 17gp and 60,000 status per week, in favor of paying 15s for three inn rooms.</p>

[Jal]

<cite>MrWolfie wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>dartie wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I own 2 Bayle Court.  If I'm selling high ticket items and think that the broker commission is a make-or-break deal, I pay my rent.  </p></blockquote><p> Except that, you own 2 Bayle Court and the six broker slots, but your broker crates are located in cheap housing where the rent *is* paid, thereby allowing all six crates to be accessed and broker commission avoided by the buyer.</p><p>Essentially, you are avoiding paying 17gp and 60,000 status per week, in favor of paying 15s for three inn rooms.</p></blockquote>Excuse me for being dense but since when was it possible to own 2 houses on1 character?  As far as im aware its not so how can this situation come to pass?

[MrWolfie]

Kallarn@Splitpaw wrote: <blockquote>Excuse me for being dense but since when was it possible to own 2 houses on1 character?  As far as im aware its not so how can this situation come to pass? </blockquote><p> You don't. </p><p>One character owns 2 Bayle Court.</p><p>Character Two owns an inn room in Willow Wood, and sets Character One as a trustee (allowing them to place items in the inn room).</p><p>Character Three owns an inn room in Baubbleshire, and does the same for Character One.</p><p>Character Four owns an inn room in Nettleville (it'll always be a Hovel) and, similarly, sets trustee access for Character One.</p><p>Character One places two (of his six) sales crates/displays in each of the inn rooms (and he can also pay the rent, if he so desires). Characters Two-Four never have to log on again. Character One has six crates on the broker, all available for purchasors to visit directly, and pays only 15s (in total) in rent per week. Thereby avoiding paying 17g and 60,000 status for the rent upkeep on 2 Bayle Court.</p>

[Jal]

Ahh i see thanks.

[dartie]

<cite>MrWolfie wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>dartie wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I own 2 Bayle Court.  If I'm selling high ticket items and think that the broker commission is a make-or-break deal, I pay my rent.  </p></blockquote><p> Except that, you own 2 Bayle Court and the six broker slots, but your broker crates are located in cheap housing where the rent *is* paid, thereby allowing all six crates to be accessed and broker commission avoided by the buyer.</p><p>Essentially, you are avoiding paying 17gp and 60,000 status per week, in favor of paying 15s for three inn rooms.</p></blockquote><p>You've quoted a sentence in which I misuse the very terminology I was trying to clarify.  As I think the game makes abundantly clear, there is no "rent," only "upkeep."  </p><p>My apologies for murkying waters that I was trying clarify, but my point remains the same: You own those broker slots.  You don't rent them.  Upkeep is only about allowing other players physical access to your home.  If you don't pay upkeep, you still own your home and your vendor slots.  There shouldn't be any way for anyone (including you) to enter your home if it isn't properly maintained, but you still own the building itself and the vendor slots associated with it.  </p><p>Accordingly, if you think it's a sound investment to buy 2 Bayle Court and then spread your vendor slots over 3 different apartments so that you can save the status/gold cost on the upkeep for your home, then by all means go ahead.  (It sounds like an idiotic business practice to me.  I do my best to make sure that my items are the cheapest on the market, but I sometimes get undercut without being aware of the fact.  Nevertheless, I often sell things when they aren't the cheapest on the market because a buyer has come to my home to purchase something else and finds something else there that he wants.  I sell an infusion of nightmares, for instance, even though there is another seller offering the same item for 5 gp less than my price.  But I sell it because the guy who came into my house to buy an AD3 for his necro decides to pick up some transmuting components while he's there.)  The upshot for me is that it's perfectly fine if you want to buy 2 Bayle Court just to get the 6 vendor slots associated with it--only to locate your sales displays in 3 different suburbs of Qeynos.</p><p>Why is it fine?  As I said in the original post, it's because you OWN those vendor slots.  They are yours to do with as you like.  You do not pay <b>rent</b> on them.  You pay <b>upkeep</b> on a house to provde access to them.  If you can find a cheaper and more effective way of providing access to them, go right ahead.  You earned the right to dispose of those vendor slots as you like the second you scraped together the cash and status to buy 2 Bayle Court the first time.</p><p>To my way of thinking, the advantages of operating your shop out of 2 Bayle Court vastly outweigh the advantage of divvying up your items between 3 locations.  Once you've accumulated the gold and status necessary to buy 2 Bayle Court, I suspect that the weekly upkeep costs will be inconsequential to you.  But that is simply my opinion.  If your opinion is that it's a better investment to save a few gold and some status every week by operating out of apartments in Nettleville, Willow Wood, and Starcrest, then you go right ahead and do so.  So what if you've allowed 2 Bayle Court to become uninhabitable?  It isyour property to do with as you like--just as the vendor slots are your property to do with as you like.</p><p>Anyway, since everyone who has quoted my post has continued to talk about rent instead of upkeep, it's obvious that my main point is falling on deaf ears.  (It obviously doesn't help that I interchanged the terms myself, but I guess that goes to show that the concept is a tad counterintuitive.)  Anyway, I don't see any point in arguing about it.  I'm not even committed to the system as it currently operates.  I just wanted to explain how someone made sense of the rent/upkeep distinction to me.  </p><p>If you folks get the devs to change the way this works, it won't have any real effect on the way I play the game, but my opinion is that the system is working as intended and that there's not a thing in the world wrong with the way it's intended to work.  </p>

[Valdaglerion]

<cite>dartie wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>MrWolfie wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>dartie wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I own 2 Bayle Court.  If I'm selling high ticket items and think that the broker commission is a make-or-break deal, I pay my rent.  </p></blockquote><p> Except that, you own 2 Bayle Court and the six broker slots, but your broker crates are located in cheap housing where the rent *is* paid, thereby allowing all six crates to be accessed and broker commission avoided by the buyer.</p><p>Essentially, you are avoiding paying 17gp and 60,000 status per week, in favor of paying 15s for three inn rooms.</p></blockquote><p>You've quoted a sentence in which I misuse the very terminology I was trying to clarify.  As I think the game makes abundantly clear, there is no "rent," only "upkeep."  </p><p>My apologies for murkying waters that I was trying clarify, but my point remains the same: You own those broker slots.  You don't rent them.  Upkeep is only about allowing other players physical access to your home.  If you don't pay upkeep, you still own your home and your vendor slots.  There shouldn't be any way for anyone (including you) to enter your home if it isn't properly maintained, but you still own the building itself and the vendor slots associated with it.  </p><p>Accordingly, if you think it's a sound investment to buy 2 Bayle Court and then spread your vendor slots over 3 different apartments so that you can save the status/gold cost on the upkeep for your home, then by all means go ahead.  (It sounds like an idiotic business practice to me.  I do my best to make sure that my items are the cheapest on the market, but I sometimes get undercut without being aware of the fact.  Nevertheless, I often sell things when they aren't the cheapest on the market because a buyer has come to my home to purchase something else and finds something else there that he wants.  I sell an infusion of nightmares, for instance, even though there is another seller offering the same item for 5 gp less than my price.  But I sell it because the guy who came into my house to buy an AD3 for his necro decides to pick up some transmuting components while he's there.)  The upshot for me is that it's perfectly fine if you want to buy 2 Bayle Court just to get the 6 vendor slots associated with it--only to locate your sales displays in 3 different suburbs of Qeynos.</p><p>Why is it fine?  As I said in the original post, it's because you OWN those vendor slots.  They are yours to do with as you like.  You do not pay <b>rent</b> on them.  You pay <b>upkeep</b> on a house to provde access to them.  If you can find a cheaper and more effective way of providing access to them, go right ahead.  You earned the right to dispose of those vendor slots as you like the second you scraped together the cash and status to buy 2 Bayle Court the first time.</p><p>To my way of thinking, the advantages of operating your shop out of 2 Bayle Court vastly outweigh the advantage of divvying up your items between 3 locations.  Once you've accumulated the gold and status necessary to buy 2 Bayle Court, I suspect that the weekly upkeep costs will be inconsequential to you.  But that is simply my opinion.  If your opinion is that it's a better investment to save a few gold and some status every week by operating out of apartments in Nettleville, Willow Wood, and Starcrest, then you go right ahead and do so.  So what if you've allowed 2 Bayle Court to become uninhabitable?  It isyour property to do with as you like--just as the vendor slots are your property to do with as you like.</p><p>Anyway, since everyone who has quoted my post has continued to talk about rent instead of upkeep, it's obvious that my main point is falling on deaf ears.  (It obviously doesn't help that I interchanged the terms myself, but I guess that goes to show that the concept is a tad counterintuitive.)  Anyway, I don't see any point in arguing about it.  I'm not even committed to the system as it currently operates.  I just wanted to explain how someone made sense of the rent/upkeep distinction to me.  </p><p>If you folks get the devs to change the way this works, it won't have any real effect on the way I play the game, but my opinion is that the system is working as intended and that there's not a thing in the world wrong with the way it's intended to work.  </p></blockquote><p>Ok, consider the logistics of your ownership argument for a moment - </p><p>1. You bought the house which as 6 storage and broker slots associated with the house.</p><p>2. Lets say the upkeep is only intended to keep your house in good repair so people, including yourself may enter.</p><p>The fact remains the storage and broker slots are still part of the house you purchased. If you move you lose those slots, period so infact you dont own them. If you move, you dont get to sell your house, you only renounce ownserhip, so in fact you never owned the house in a traditional sense. </p><p>3. If you dont pay the upkeep and your house is inaccessible, how is it that you can still access the storage slots that are in the house that is inaccessible from another location because it is accessible??? Just because I keep up the upkeep on my 5s apartment in Castleview has no bearing on the accessibility of my storage slots at 4 Bayle Court but I can still access them from there. My broker slots as well. How is the broker supposed to get the goods that are in the inaccessible house to sell those goods for me?</p><p>It also provides another advantage - noob housing is all within ear shot of the brokers. Its much easier to leave the broker and wander across the street to the noob housing and grab the merchandise then to trek to SQ for it. </p>

[dartie]

<cite>Valdaglerion wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Ok, consider the logistics of your ownership argument for a moment - </p><p>1. You bought the house which as 6 storage and broker slots associated with the house.</p><p>2. Lets say the upkeep is only intended to keep your house in good repair so people, including yourself may enter.</p><p>The fact remains the storage and broker slots are still part of the house you purchased. If you move you lose those slots, period so infact you dont own them. If you move, you dont get to sell your house, you only renounce ownserhip, so in fact you never owned the house in a traditional sense. </p><p>3. If you dont pay the upkeep and your house is inaccessible, how is it that you can still access the storage slots that are in the house that is inaccessible from another location because it is accessible??? Just because I keep up the upkeep on my 5s apartment in Castleview has no bearing on the accessibility of my storage slots at 4 Bayle Court but I can still access them from there. My broker slots as well. How is the broker supposed to get the goods that are in the inaccessible house to sell those goods for me?</p><p>It also provides another advantage - noob housing is all within ear shot of the brokers. Its much easier to leave the broker and wander across the street to the noob housing and grab the merchandise then to trek to SQ for it. </p></blockquote><p>Before I get into my response, I'll say that I think we fundamentally disagree about how rules should work in a fantasy game.  If everyone in my family agrees that passing GO is only worth $50 (instead of $200) in Monopoly, I am perfectly happy to play along with the decision.  I don't really care about rules or their relationship to reality as long as they are the same for everyone.  You may have good hard data to support the position that passing Go "should" be worth $219.36 and that it should cost $62.18 to get out of jail because "$50 doesn't account for inflation."  I acknowledge that you are entitled to whatever opinions you have about the games you play, their connection to reality, and their internal coherence (or lack thereof). </p><p>Now with that said, I'll clarify and amplify my position that if I want to play a game, I'm happy to try to meet its ruleset halfway.  </p><p>Is it realistic that EQ2 only lets me own 1 house at a time?  Not at all.  I own a house right now in reality.  If I wanted to buy another, I would not have to "relinquish" the one I live in now.  Why do I have to go through such a process in EQ2?  There's really no answer except that that is the way the game is set up.</p><p>Once we've established that the "reality" of EQ2 has a tenuous connection (at best) to reality as you and I know it, it becomes dangerous to reason analogically from one reality to another.  I suspect we both know that all anologies eventually break down, but that hasn't kept either one of us from drawing on analogical thinking in our arguments.  I just seem to be willing to give the analogies more "play" than you are.  With any luck, I can use some clumsy analogies to show you why I'm at peace on this issue even if you don't buy the logic yourself.</p><p>I'm afraid my logic won't work with your language.  I don't see the broker slots as <b>part</b> of the house at all.  They are a perq that you get when you buy the house, just as some lakefront houses come with boating slips associated with them.  If my lakefront house burns down, does it follow necessarily that my boating slip has burned up as well?  I can't enter my house because it doesn't exist, but the boating slip still does. </p><p>When you buy a house in EQ2, it's as if you join a sort of country club (the more expensive the house, the more perqs provided by the country club).  I don't think of the storage slots as part of my basement.  I think of them as a storage unit.  They are associated with my house, but not necessarily a part of my house.  I get a key to the storage unit along with the key to my house, and the key to the storage unit works even if I lose the key to my house.  (Here the analogy to reality is very weak, as I can't access the storage unit that I currently rent without leaving my house.  I have to drive across town to get to it.  But then again, I'm willing to let passing Go be worth anything the other players want it to be worth, so this sort of thing doesn't bother me.)  </p><p>When you say that you don't really own the vendor slots because you have to give them up when you change houses, you appear to be thinking about the reality you live in rather than the one we play EQ2 in.  There's a formal process that I have to go through in order to acquire a new house in EQ2, and the first step is to "relinquish" my old home.  As I wrote above, it doesn't bother me at all that I have to give up one house before I can acquire another in EQ2.  That's simply a rule in the game.  You can question it if you like, but that seems like wondering why you can't wear T2 mastercrafted armor until you hit L12.  It's just the way the game is set up.  </p><p>So yes, I stand by the assertion that you OWN those vendor slots.  They are yours precisely until you decide to "relinquish" them.  So are the vault slots.  </p><p>So when I buy 2 Bayle Court, I purchase my way into the most elite country club in Qeynos.  They provide me with 6 storage units and 6 licenses to operate booths at our club's charity fundraiser.  My house has a dangerous mold infestation that I can't afford to repair, so I find a friend who will let me crash in his apartment for a few months while I raise the money to repair the house.  The plaster is falling off the ceiling, and some raccoons have colonized the kitchen.  They've chewed up all the wiring, and the pipes burst because of an unexpected freeze.  No one would want to go inside my house, so if I set up my charity booths inside, they wouldn't raise any money.</p><p>However, I still have access to the community's storage area (thank goodness!), and the housing association president wants to be sure that I will participate in our fundraiser, so he is happy to let me set up 6 booths because he has a thing for Doctors Without Borders.  He doesn't mind that I set up 2 of the booths at my friend's apartment complex because money talks.  </p><p>In reality, is the ritziest housing association in town going to let me stick around if I can't afford to clean up my mold infestation?  Nope.  But this ain't reality.  Give the metaphors a little play.  </p><p>I don't know why anyone would insist that the storage vault and broker slots have to be physically part of the house.  They really don't make physical sense no matter where you locate them.  If China is Qeynos and Canada is Freeport, it ISN'T the case that a Canadian can reach through his computer screen and grab hold of any item in China if he is willing to pay 40% more for it than the locals do.  The broker grants access to things in a way that is simply magical. </p><p>The only point I was trying to make is that if you use the term "rent" (which is not the game term) instead of "upkeep" (which is), then your metaphors are bound to get you into trouble in a game that selected those terms very carefully.  </p><p>But you can do whatever you like with your metaphors as long as they don't get ME into trouble. </p>

[Valdaglerion]

<p>Country clubs dont care which house you live in as long as you can pay the fees associated with entrance. The only exceptions are community clubs set up exclusively for its residents. Those clubs dont do business outside of their community anyway so the analogy doesnt work. Another flaw in that theory is that the first time you dont pay the upkeep on your country club membership you dont get access to their goods either. Take for instance even the exclusive community clubs - you fail to pay your homeowners dues which are for community "upkeep", they revoke your community privileges until such time you pay your homeowners dues and in most cases, the daily accruing penalties for non-payment. </p><p>I understand your points so lets keep the logic within the game realm. Questions -</p><ul><li>If the storage and broker slots are not actually part of and asssociated with the house, why do you need the house?</li><li>If the storage is separate why not be able to set up a different type of bank account with the banker which you could pay for and thus get additional storage slots?</li><li>If the broker slots are transient why not set up an arrangement with the broker to pay for addtional broker slots?</li><li>The size of the larger houses dictates they have more physical space to accomodate additional storage and sales traffic. If the storage was offsite, again, you would not have to have a bigger house to get it? Why couldnt you, again, just buy those things at the city merchant for coin or status and have an oinging payment agreement for them.</li></ul><p>The broker logic of buying from Freeport to Qeynos at a higher comission is that mrchants can buy from both but the cost of doing business in a city you have to travel to has higher cost associated with it. </p><p>As for Rent vs Upkeep - I personally dont care what you call it. I have never failed to pay a maid and be locked out of my house. The logic works either way, the inconsistency between them is what is at question. Sometimes I just wish the devs cared enough to chime in on conversations like this and say -</p><p>"Wow, thats not working as intended and we will have to check into fixing it"</p><p>OR</p><p>"That is working as intended. We considered the following in making it work as such..."</p><p>As for me....I am done with this thread, we all know how its working. I am sure some people have gained more insight to it now and we will all continue to benefit from it until the devs decide to chime in.</p>

[Lornick]

I'm amazed that this thread has gone on 5 pages now.  This isn't an exploit.  It isn't a problem.  Every fix I've seen suggested creates more problems and inconveniences to players then it could possibly fix.  The system isn't broken.  Leave it alone and spend dev time on things that could actually use improving.

[Lilj]

For those of you that don't think this is an exploit, let me ask you this: Is it ok for people that formerly had a Station Access account with 10 character slots to still have access to them, even if they only pay for the normal account (15 dollar and 7 char slots)? It seems almost the same to me, so I guess you think that is also ok?

[Lornick]

<cite>Liljna wrote:</cite><blockquote>For those of you that don't think this is an exploit, let me ask you this: Is it ok for people that formerly had a Station Access account with 10 character slots to still have access to them, even if they only pay for the normal account (15 dollar and 7 char slots)? It seems almost the same to me, so I guess you think that is also ok? </blockquote> I would say that this isn't an exploit either.  If a player was in this position they couldn't create any new characters until they deleted enough to put them below the new minimum.  If you decided that you didn't want Station Access anymore then how would SOE decide which characters of yours should be deleted or inaccessable?  Why should a player feel like they are committed for life to Station Access if they don't want to play any other MMO's besided EQ2?  No, I don't think that is an exploit in the least either.

[Badaxe Ba]

<p>comparing station access to broker slots is an apples and oranges thing.</p><p>On the broker slots, it is my understanding that as far as 'alts' are concerned, only one alt at a time, being the one most currently played, has its broker slots available on the market.  As far as this relates to players with more than one account, they cannot be considered 'alts' in the specific definition, as they are tied to different accounts.</p><p>As far as it goes to placing sales displays, I can certainly agree that the amount allowed to be set up should be restricted according to the number of slots available.  For example, regardless of the owners of the display, if a two slot 5s room already has two cases set up, then no more than 2 should be allowed to be 'placed' in that residence, regardless of who is a trustee.  Many players don't actually own display cases, and veteran's diplays are limited to 40 slots, fewer than a cedar display case (44). </p><p>I think I could get behind the idea as well that in the event that you didn't pay the upkeep at the more expensive residence, you should 'lose' the advantage of having your sales displays being visitable at another location.  Removing the access to money made thru sales though is a step too far, and would punish unintendedly people who just might be dependent on those same sales to pay their 'upkeep' in a legitimate setting.</p>