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There are alot of empty buildings scattered across Sosaria, these being simple homes in towns, guardposts along the road and random shacks in the woods. Now, wouldn't it be an interresting idea of those would be up for sale? It's just an idea I am playing with and I might even put up a petition for it. The concept exists in other games so why not here?

Why would we want to buy these plots? Well, for guild use perhaps, to have a headquarters in a town, perhaps even put up a shop there if we're given the ability to place items or NPCs. It would work as follows.

Guilds would have a new addition : guild funds, people would be able to donate money in check form from their bank box to the guild. In the guild menu itself a counter would be displayed showing the current funds of the guild and perhaps even the top 3 donators or even a list of who donated. The funds could be retrieved or used by either the guildmaster or the finance minister (new rank).

Selected empty NPC buildings would be given a special stone, similar to the old guildstone. When doubleclicked on this guildstone the purchase price of the building would be listed. This would be a hefty sum, from a million for a shack in a forrest to a few hundred million perhaps for a building in Britain. The finance minister or guildmaster would be able to use a menu from this stone and purchase the building, others would just be able to view the menu. When opting to purchase a building a timer would be activated and other guilds would have 48 hours to place a higher bid. This timer would reset every time a bid is placed. Bids increase by 10% of the original price.

To be able to buy a certain building a guild must have reached certain requirements.
At least 10 veteran members. More prominent buildings would require more. 10 would be a minimum for the aforementioned shack in the forrest but if you want to buy an empty building next to Britain bank then you may well need a guild of 50 members or more. A guild can own a maximum of 3 buildings at any time depending on it's size (they would have to meet the combined guildsize requirement for all 3 buildings combined).

When the building is purchased the stone in the building would be displaying the guild name or the owning guild. From then on the building has to be maintained. Not by using cash but by activity. A guildmember of at least emissary rank has to activate the stone every 72 hours or the guild would lose the building. More or less the same like the old house decay system.

When owning a building the guild can place items to make the building more functional (although this would be a system that could be implemented later on) or perhaps even be given the option to lockdown / secure items in the premises.

What EA would have to do to make this a working system :
- select certain buildings that would be eligable
- modify the buildings so that they would be part of the purchase system
- make those buildings work slightly like player housing (not sure in which degree that can be done but it would be very cool if eventually those buildings would be fully customizable).

In my opinion this would greatly add to the feel of having communities in UO and be a very cool addition to the game in general. Any feedback would be appreciated, let me know what you think and who knows, perhaps we can even petition to get this done for a new patch/publish/expansion. It would also make towns alot more populated by guilds as well and thus increase player activity there. Hell, if we let Fel buildings go at half price of what a Tram place costs then it would maybe even populate that facet a bit more.

The really small buildings in towns could perhaps be made available to be purchased by players so we can create shopping districts, but first off this would be a guild-only thing.

In addition to a welcome new system, this would also be a good gold-sink ;)

Let's hear it, what do you think?

Although the idea is nice, I think that:

 - EA devs are too busy making KR atm
 - It'd be perfect if all players would RP. Many (if not most) are just gold-farmers or 1337-stuff collectors. Hence, owning buidlings in Britain for example could taint RP of guilds and could lead to disturbing events by such players.
 - the buildings couldn't be customized - each town has its specific architecture. Allowing players to customize them will destroy it. Imagine a huge shop, decorated with neon thingies, tons of snowflakes and snowman in center of Britain. Yuuuck. Except it would be 'moderated' by GameMasters - which I don't think is possible seeing the amount of houses compared to number of GMs.

UO has been neonized plenty over the last few years, so I think the devs would be stupid enough to allow player cuztomization ;)

As for OOC guilds owning plots, no problem there, the idea I had was not at all intended for RP, although it would be great fitting for it if you get my drift.

I think that is an excellent idea Kazuo! But I doubt EA would care about it :/

I like the idea, well done man. You've my support!

Without meaning to detract from your idea, it's been thought of many times in the past; and each time has been met with EA completely ignoring the idea as usual. Although I do think it is a good idea, and even thought of it myself once upon a time.