Corrado
Sorceror
Corrado's Guide to House Placement and Ownership
This is a guide mainly aimed at newer players to help them learn the ins and outs of owning a house in UO. I get asked a lot of questions because I place a sell a lot of houses, so I decided to write a guide. If you have anything to add, feel free to post below. I'd appreciate if the forum mods could move this to the "Guides" forum please, I don't have access there to post it.
RULES TO PLACING A HOUSE
We'll start off with placing a house. You'll need a 'House Placement Tool" which can be purchased from an architect in the carpenter's shop. You'll also need a suitable spot to place the house or plot.
When placing a house, the cursor represents the middle of the front porch on all classic houses, the center of the house next to the porch on small towers, small stone workshops, villas, and sandstone houses, and 4 tiles from the left on custom homes. Don't worry about where the image of the house is when placing, only where the cursor is. Sometimes it helps to stand ON the tile you want to place on, and target yourself (health/status bar). It can make it much easier to canvas an area if you move one tile at a time and click yourself with the placement cursor.
A house can't just go anyplace, there are certain rules to placing.
A house must have at least one clear tile on each side from other houses or impassable objects, including dirt patches.
A house must have at least 5 tiles of space between it and another house in the front and the back.
A house must be placed on even ground.
A house cannot be placed over impassable objects (trees, large rocks, etc).
A house cannot be placed over dirt patches.
A house cannot have any part of it's foundation on flowers or rocks.
A house cannot be placed on top of the loot from a fallen house, or other movable items, it all must be moved aside.
A house CAN be placed over flowers, rocks, logs, bushes, as long as they are INSIDE the foundation, or on certain classic small (7x7) houses, right under the front door in the gap in the foundation.
HOUSE COMMANDS
Now that we know the rules of placing, we'll move on to the house commands and using the menu on the house sign.
You can lock items down in your home so that they cannot be picked up and stolen by saying: I wish to lock this down.
You can release locked down items or secured containers by saying: I wish to release this.
You can make a container secure in your home and accessible to only You, Co-Owners, or Friends of the house by saying: I wish to secure this and targeting the container then picking the appropriate option on the gump that pops up to set the security preference.
You can forcefully remove a player or an NPC from your home by saying: Remove thyself and targeting them.
You can remove and ban player or NPC from your house by saying: I ban thee and targeting them.
You can place a trash barrel in your house by saying: I wish to place a trash barrel. Anything you place in the barrel will be permanently destroyed within 2 minutes, if you put a lot of items in there quickly, it will become 'full' and empty immediately.
THE HOUSE SIGN
The sign on your house has many functions, we will go over these here. You can check the decay condition of a house by clicking on the sign and reading the message there, houses can also be named with the sign.
Here are the various stages of decay, and the times for this server:
Stage of decay. Hours until next stage. (Days until next stage).
Like New - .58 hours (0.2 days)
Slightly Worn - 84 Hours (3.5 days)
Somewhat Worn - 84 Hours (3.5 days)
Fairly Worn - 84 Hours (3.5 days)
Greatly Worn - 67.2 Hours (2.8 days)
In Danger Of Collapsing - 16.8 Hours ( .7 days)
When the Owner, a friend, or a co-owner open the door of the house, or access the sign menu, the decay stage resets to 'Like New".
The house sign has a menu accessible to Friends/Co-Owners/Owners of a house by double clicking the sign.
Custom and Classic houses have slightly different menus, but overall the same functions within each.
Here is a sign breakdown for Custom houses and Plots:
INFORMATION: This page shows general information about the house, such as who owns it and when it was built. It also has a "Visitor Count" that only counts when the house is set to "Public." Usually for vendor shops.
SECURITY: This page has several buttons used to add or remove Friends and Co-Owners, clear the ban list, or view a list of any of the above. You can also change the house locks (reKey the house) or make it public/private.
STORAGE: This page shows you your storage and lockdown capacities of the house. It will show you total storage, used storage and remaining storage.
CUSTOMIZE: This page will allow you to change the look of the house sign for public houses only, change the sign hanger, change the sign post, rename the house, change the foundation type, or enter the customizing mode.
OWNERSHIP: This page has the options to trade the house, or demolish the house.
Here is a sign breakdown for Classic Houses.
INFO: Shows you the name of the house owner and your storage capacities/lockdowns.
FRIENDS: This page allows you to view/add/remove people from the Friends/Co-Owner or Ban lists.
OPTIONS: This page allows you to transfer the house, demolish the house, change the locks, change the house name, and make the house public.
PERMISSIONS: FRIEND
A "friend" of the house can do many things a normal non-friended character cannot.
They can ban and unban people
They can refresh the house.
They can look at the friends list and co-owner list.
They can place and run a vendor, if the house is public.
They can access secure containers, provided the container security level permits it.
PERMISSIONS: CO-OWNER
A "Co-Owner" of the house can do all of the things a friended character can, but they can also:
Add and remove people from the "Friends" list.
Place and own a strongbox, by saying "I wish to place a strongbox", in which they can store items.
They can access secure containers, provided the container security level permits it.
HOUSE DECORATION
Once you own a home, most decide to decorate it to some extent. There are quite a few house addons and furnature items in the game for this purpose. Many also display "rares" or special items in their homes. Here I will describe House Addons and the Interior Decorating Tool.
House addons such as forges, anvils, or even beds are made by players primarily with carpentry. They can be placed in your home and "redeeded" by using an axe on them. Some are just for looks like the beds or pentagrams, and some are functional such as the forges, anvils, spinning wheels etc. The can be made facing two directions, East or South.
The Interior Decorating Tool can be used to rotate or change the elevation of objects locked down within your house such as chairs, tables, or even runebooks or decoration items. House Addons cannot be modified by the Interior Decorating Tool.
CONCLUSION
Hopefully this guide has given you some help towards getting a house and using all of the functions available to you. If you have any questons not answered here, feel free to AIM me at: Corrado1993 anytime and I'll do my best to answer them.
This is a guide mainly aimed at newer players to help them learn the ins and outs of owning a house in UO. I get asked a lot of questions because I place a sell a lot of houses, so I decided to write a guide. If you have anything to add, feel free to post below. I'd appreciate if the forum mods could move this to the "Guides" forum please, I don't have access there to post it.
RULES TO PLACING A HOUSE
We'll start off with placing a house. You'll need a 'House Placement Tool" which can be purchased from an architect in the carpenter's shop. You'll also need a suitable spot to place the house or plot.
When placing a house, the cursor represents the middle of the front porch on all classic houses, the center of the house next to the porch on small towers, small stone workshops, villas, and sandstone houses, and 4 tiles from the left on custom homes. Don't worry about where the image of the house is when placing, only where the cursor is. Sometimes it helps to stand ON the tile you want to place on, and target yourself (health/status bar). It can make it much easier to canvas an area if you move one tile at a time and click yourself with the placement cursor.
A house can't just go anyplace, there are certain rules to placing.
A house must have at least one clear tile on each side from other houses or impassable objects, including dirt patches.
A house must have at least 5 tiles of space between it and another house in the front and the back.
A house must be placed on even ground.
A house cannot be placed over impassable objects (trees, large rocks, etc).
A house cannot be placed over dirt patches.
A house cannot have any part of it's foundation on flowers or rocks.
A house cannot be placed on top of the loot from a fallen house, or other movable items, it all must be moved aside.
A house CAN be placed over flowers, rocks, logs, bushes, as long as they are INSIDE the foundation, or on certain classic small (7x7) houses, right under the front door in the gap in the foundation.
HOUSE COMMANDS
Now that we know the rules of placing, we'll move on to the house commands and using the menu on the house sign.
You can lock items down in your home so that they cannot be picked up and stolen by saying: I wish to lock this down.
You can release locked down items or secured containers by saying: I wish to release this.
You can make a container secure in your home and accessible to only You, Co-Owners, or Friends of the house by saying: I wish to secure this and targeting the container then picking the appropriate option on the gump that pops up to set the security preference.
You can forcefully remove a player or an NPC from your home by saying: Remove thyself and targeting them.
You can remove and ban player or NPC from your house by saying: I ban thee and targeting them.
You can place a trash barrel in your house by saying: I wish to place a trash barrel. Anything you place in the barrel will be permanently destroyed within 2 minutes, if you put a lot of items in there quickly, it will become 'full' and empty immediately.
THE HOUSE SIGN
The sign on your house has many functions, we will go over these here. You can check the decay condition of a house by clicking on the sign and reading the message there, houses can also be named with the sign.
Here are the various stages of decay, and the times for this server:
Stage of decay. Hours until next stage. (Days until next stage).
Like New - .58 hours (0.2 days)
Slightly Worn - 84 Hours (3.5 days)
Somewhat Worn - 84 Hours (3.5 days)
Fairly Worn - 84 Hours (3.5 days)
Greatly Worn - 67.2 Hours (2.8 days)
In Danger Of Collapsing - 16.8 Hours ( .7 days)
When the Owner, a friend, or a co-owner open the door of the house, or access the sign menu, the decay stage resets to 'Like New".
The house sign has a menu accessible to Friends/Co-Owners/Owners of a house by double clicking the sign.
Custom and Classic houses have slightly different menus, but overall the same functions within each.
Here is a sign breakdown for Custom houses and Plots:
INFORMATION: This page shows general information about the house, such as who owns it and when it was built. It also has a "Visitor Count" that only counts when the house is set to "Public." Usually for vendor shops.
SECURITY: This page has several buttons used to add or remove Friends and Co-Owners, clear the ban list, or view a list of any of the above. You can also change the house locks (reKey the house) or make it public/private.
STORAGE: This page shows you your storage and lockdown capacities of the house. It will show you total storage, used storage and remaining storage.
CUSTOMIZE: This page will allow you to change the look of the house sign for public houses only, change the sign hanger, change the sign post, rename the house, change the foundation type, or enter the customizing mode.
OWNERSHIP: This page has the options to trade the house, or demolish the house.
Here is a sign breakdown for Classic Houses.
INFO: Shows you the name of the house owner and your storage capacities/lockdowns.
FRIENDS: This page allows you to view/add/remove people from the Friends/Co-Owner or Ban lists.
OPTIONS: This page allows you to transfer the house, demolish the house, change the locks, change the house name, and make the house public.
PERMISSIONS: FRIEND
A "friend" of the house can do many things a normal non-friended character cannot.
They can ban and unban people
They can refresh the house.
They can look at the friends list and co-owner list.
They can place and run a vendor, if the house is public.
They can access secure containers, provided the container security level permits it.
PERMISSIONS: CO-OWNER
A "Co-Owner" of the house can do all of the things a friended character can, but they can also:
Add and remove people from the "Friends" list.
Place and own a strongbox, by saying "I wish to place a strongbox", in which they can store items.
They can access secure containers, provided the container security level permits it.
HOUSE DECORATION
Once you own a home, most decide to decorate it to some extent. There are quite a few house addons and furnature items in the game for this purpose. Many also display "rares" or special items in their homes. Here I will describe House Addons and the Interior Decorating Tool.
House addons such as forges, anvils, or even beds are made by players primarily with carpentry. They can be placed in your home and "redeeded" by using an axe on them. Some are just for looks like the beds or pentagrams, and some are functional such as the forges, anvils, spinning wheels etc. The can be made facing two directions, East or South.
The Interior Decorating Tool can be used to rotate or change the elevation of objects locked down within your house such as chairs, tables, or even runebooks or decoration items. House Addons cannot be modified by the Interior Decorating Tool.
CONCLUSION
Hopefully this guide has given you some help towards getting a house and using all of the functions available to you. If you have any questons not answered here, feel free to AIM me at: Corrado1993 anytime and I'll do my best to answer them.
