House Taxation Discussion (2024)

A poll was recently created in Discord discussing a theoretical House Taxation mechanic.

Should every OutlandsID be able to assign a primary house for free, while secondary and tertiary houses are taxed based on a % of their deed price with a monthly fee withdrawn automatically? If taxes can't be paid, the house will go to the IDOC Vendor. Yes or No?​

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• Reduction of Inactive and Unused Houses
  • Free Up Valuable Real Estate: Limiting the number of houses per account ensures that properties held by inactive players are released back into the game. This prevents the virtual landscape from being cluttered with empty, unused houses.
  • Improved Game Environment: An environment free from numerous inactive houses is more immersive and visually appealing, enhancing the overall experience for active players.
• Increased Availability for Active Players
  • More Opportunities for New Players: By reducing the number of houses held by inactive accounts, more land becomes available for new and active players. This makes it easier for them to secure a home, which is often a critical aspect of player satisfaction and engagement.
  • Encourages Community Growth: More active players with homes contribute to a lively and vibrant community. This can lead to more interactions, events, and an overall richer gameplay experience.
• Enhanced Player Retention
  • Personal Investment: Owning a home increases a player's personal investment in the game. By ensuring active players can easily acquire and maintain homes, their commitment to the game and likelihood of continued play increases.
  • Sense of Achievement: Securing a home can be a significant milestone for many players. Making this milestone achievable and meaningful encourages continued play and exploration of game content.
• Economic Impact and Fairness
  • Discourages Hoarding: Limiting the number of homes per player helps prevent a few individuals from monopolizing property. This keeps the housing market balanced and fair, benefiting the entire player base.
  • Reduces Land Speculation: By taxing secondary and tertiary residences, players are less likely to acquire multiple houses purely for profit through reselling or renting, thereby keeping prices reasonable for those genuinely interested in home ownership.
  • Mitigate Malicious House Blocking: By charging players a tax to hold a house, holding malicious blocking houses will now cost a fee.
• Sustainable In-Game Economy
  • Sink the Gold: Taxes on multiple residences generate consistent gold that will be removed from the economy, benefiting all players.
  • Prevents Inflation: Keeping a check on the number of houses each player can own helps prevent property inflation, ensuring that housing remains affordable for new and existing players alike.
• Encouragement of Responsible Ownership
  • Focus on Quality Over Quantity: Limiting house ownership encourages players to focus on maintaining and improving their primary residence rather than spreading their resources thin across multiple properties.
  • Active Management: Players are incentivized to actively manage and utilize their homes, contributing to a more dynamic and engaging game environment.
• Prevention of Unfair Advantages
  • Equal Opportunities: Ensuring that each player can only own a limited number of houses creates a level playing field where no one can dominate the housing market.
  • Discourages Exploitation: It minimizes the potential for exploitation by players who might otherwise use multiple homes to gain unfair economic advantages over others.
• Encourages Creative Use of Space
  • Innovative Housing Solutions: With fewer properties, players are more likely to be creative and efficient in their use of space, leading to unique and interesting home designs that enhance the game's cultural landscape.
  • Community Events and Gatherings: A focused and actively managed housing sector can lead to more community-driven events and gatherings, fostering a stronger sense of camaraderie among players.

Limiting house ownership in the game Outlands can provide a multitude of benefits that enhance the overall player experience, maintain a healthy in-game economy, and ensure fair and equitable opportunities for all players.

Negatives of Limiting House Ownership

• Potential for Player Dissatisfaction
  • Perceived Punishment: Players who enjoy collecting or owning multiple properties may feel unfairly penalized by the additional taxes. This could lead to dissatisfaction and resentment among a segment of the player base.
  • Negative Impact on Player Experience: The additional financial burden might detract from the overall enjoyment of the game for some players, potentially leading to a decrease in player retention.
• Economic Disadvantages for Casual Players
  • Resource Allocation: Casual players who own multiple properties may struggle to keep up with the tax requirements, leading to financial strain and possibly forcing them to abandon properties they enjoy.
  • Barrier to Wealth Accumulation: Taxes on additional residences could disproportionately affect players who don't have the time or resources to generate significant in-game income, making it harder for them to achieve their housing goals.
• Discourages Creative and Community Projects
  • Hinders Large-Scale Projects: Players who use multiple houses for creative or community-driven projects (such as guild halls, event spaces, or role-playing venues) may find it financially challenging to maintain these endeavors under a taxation system.
  • Reduces Incentive for Community Building: High taxes on additional residences might discourage players from investing in properties that serve the broader community, potentially leading to a decline in community engagement and activity.
• Potential for Economic Disparity
  • Favors Wealthier Players: Wealthier players who can easily afford the taxes may accumulate more properties, while those with fewer resources are restricted. This can lead to an imbalance where affluent players dominate the housing market.
  • Economic Divide: A taxation system might exacerbate the gap between rich and poor players, making it harder for less wealthy players to compete in the housing market.

While taxing additional residences can help manage the in-game housing market and encourage active engagement, it's important to carefully consider and address these potential negatives to ensure the system benefits the broader player community without unintended negative consequences.

I think taxes are a punitive way to incentivize owning one house. The genie was let out of the bottle on three accounts and some of the servers oldest fans would be hit by this who grew accustomed to the way things were.

That will be a tough hill.

I would prefer instead of taxes that there were real incentives to owning one house. Give perks to the primary house only.

-2x-3x secures if no other houses.
-Recall house rune for primary house.
-Auto ban hostiles for primary house.

Things like that instead of taxes would go a long ways to incentivizing without costing people gold and time theyve invested.

some of the servers oldest fans would be hit by this who grew accustomed to the way things were

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In real life and in game, this is the absolute worst possible argument against changing something. In my line of work anytime we hear "we've always done it this way" we know this needs to be looked into.

I like the idea. If your primary house isn't big enough or whatever, you upgrade and get rid of the old one. With the server having such a high regular playerbase- people owning several large houses is more negative in my opinion. It forces all prices on real estate to go up, usually quite a bit, when people just sit on empty houses for no real reason.

Another idea could be that if you own more than one house, the idoc time is halved. Halved again if you own 3.
That way people who play a lot and want 3 houses can easily do it. I feel like if you arent actually playing there is 0 reason you need to be holding onto 3 houses.

I'd even be in favor of both really. (mind you the tax on an 8x8 or 9x9- will presumably be pretty low) But the tax on a 5-10m deed house would add up quick.

I understand hoarding and wealth massing is a big part of uo for a lot of people...But me personally would rather give the majority of the active population a more realistic chance to have a decent sized house without it being a massive undertaking. I don't think any of us have ever played on a server with this high of a normal daily population, so things that have worked in the past(or not worked) need to be re-evaluated here.

Laughing Skull said:

In real life and in game, this is the absolute worst possible argument against changing something. In my line of work anytime we hear "we've always done it this way" we know this needs to be looked into.

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For the record, I agree with you. It would not affect me, I have friends that it would though so I feel for them. It's about the only defense I can think of. I've been pro taxation on 2nd and 3rd homes for years.

I like this idea. But would be cool if Guilds could hit a prestige mark a single house its guild house that is also not taxed (in addition to the guild master private home). Would like to see this at a lower level.

I also think its a good idea to limit houses from 3 to 1. But I would like to be able to place vendors in my private residence. The current 'must be public' system is unfair for vendor marketing for the home owner if they had to make their only house public to sell their goods.

This is a good idea! But guilds and vendors should be assessed in this process.

Yes yes yes, please. UO servers almost always die due to lack of content/things to grind. Outlands attacks both of those subjects very well. Inflation is the third killer.

When I started playing very actively in 2020, outlands up to that point had done a fantastic job of managing the economy. Since then, it is easily perceived that staff has struggled to maintain gold sinks at the former rate. I am not saying this subject is easy to handle by any means, however, ideas such as the one presented are a net positive for the servers economy. No server will stay alive without a semi-controlled economy. When the economies get out of control, there is instantly a barrier for new players to join. They either don't have enough money to afford anything they need due to inflated prices, or they're given tons of gold from other players because those players have no need for gold as they have more than they'll ever need.

You HAVE to have gold sinks that act as speedbumps to inflation. Otherwise, simple items as earth cores will eventually cost ridiculous amounts(100k+) or absolutely nothing as they will either hold no value or inflation will skyrocket the market price of them. If you go look at any of the major successful servers, when they "died", people had insane amounts of gold.

We need even more gold sinks, such as the one presented. Things like blackjack tables and roulette tables. While I know the staff don't like gambling, players do, and those types of gambling games are always a gold sink due to "house advantage".

No one NEEDS more than one TRUE house. The QOL items the staff have introduced and coded have made living in smaller houses infinitely easier on players. Storage shelves/resource stockpiles/magic item containers, tomes....all of these drastically reduce the need for "size". If players want vendor houses...a tax is not crazy considering the property is literally a business.

If a player goes inactive, their primary house isn't taxed. Again, they don't need multiple houses.

For the health of the server...this is in my opinion, is a no brainer. I easily will accept taxes on my 2nd and 3rd house, knowing it benefits the servers economic health and longevity. If the server dies due to the economy, I won't being playing so I need the server to be healthy.

I like it. I'm not even against taxing your main house at a reduced rate (as unpopular as that will seem). The state I live in we have "homestead" exemptions for your primary residence that effectively reduces your taxable value by a considerable amount.

I think the tax has to be high enough to really make it hurt to just hold houses though. I think houseboats should be taxed in doubloons and possibly the near water houses that have dock masters in them as well.

Some additional thoughts to help offset this is cheaper housing upgrades (lockdowns, secures, etc.) and possibly the option to pay for additional time on the refresh on your primary residence for folks going on break. Maybe you're allowed to do this once or twice a year.....

I think change is always good, pains always come from growth. Seeing how many people was logged in and how many people who was happy. Even with how the lotto worked and the many stories' people came up with, it was still hopping. Until a few seconds of going live, lots of unhappy people, vets and new players alike. The pendulum swings, it was too far to one side and now it's on the other, now time for balance.

I personally would like to see maybe some sort of "Guild owned" housing so the GuildMaster doesn't have to give up his slot, from having lower tiered options to earn or maybe even an "Inn System" but for Guild's like "Guild Hall's" and guildies could even rent rooms inside of it) etc...

Myself, I love seeing the big houses and the love working up for things. The allure of owning a house is a big deal when it's limited. I like that I have to save up for a Boathouse or a big courtyard place. What I don't like seeing is all the empty houses big or small, there has to be a balance and I think landgrab day showed it.

One of the greatest and biggest draws of UO and Outlands is the freedom to play the way you like, gambling, taming, pvp, pvm, and yes even realtor. . .

MicMatty said:

Why is this becoming the bigger discussion??? I want to be able to have CY tile in my little tower not taxes....The CY tile would be the better change imo.

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I think we all want that, it would allow for more diverse housing as a CY is a huge benefit. But this is about getting more people a house instead of people hoarding 3

nintendo said:

I think we all want that, it would allow for more diverse housing as a CY is a huge benefit. But this is about getting more people a house instead of people hoarding 3

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But that in essence is what the CY change could do people would choose houses they like instead of going for bigger CY etc.. Tho in reality kind of a missed opportunity they could of had that change before the expansion/new land claim more people probably could of had housing in the end.

balr0n said:

I think the tax has to be high enough to really make it hurt to just hold houses though

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Completely agree. It would have to be an exponential increase based on the size of the house. Anything less than 100k a month for some of the larger houses would be pretty much negligible.

Also, no passes for guild houses and communities. These are only associated with guilds and guilds have plenty of money to cover these expenses. Keep it simple. Don't add a bunch of rules and exceptions.

Why not just make the tax for the 3rd account? 1st you outright live in, 2nd maybe you needed to hold one as you just acquired it or whatever reason, it's a dockmaster..etc. 3rd - yeah tax that baby. Youd have to set it up though as someone isn't just paying 10% of a caravan or 8x8, that's nothing.

I voted no to the poll as it was proposed, but I think there's a middle ground that can be found.

I returned to UO and chose this server because it had the least modifications from the old school, more original UO compared to other servers. It also had a lot of attractive improvements that didn't really take away from some of the core fundamental things that made UO great, housing being one of those core, great things. UO housing and the housing mechanics of Outlands are one of the top two allures that got me back. Having one house per account, with a limit of three accounts seemed reasonable. It seemed reasonable because it sounds like it prevents housing exploits in the form of owning way too many houses and doesn't seem to get too much in the way of the game of "work with your neighbors to upgrade your house to a larger footprint". Adding a tax on top of the three house limit inadvertently puts more stress on those who are playing the house upgrade game and are not owning more than one house for the above listed reasons.

Also in game theory and when it is applied to real world economics and gaming economics, when the cost of an asset increases, competing firms will pass that cost onto their customers. It happens in other games, it happens in UO, it happens in real life when goods and services are taxed. Adding a tax to owning houses could very likely increase housing prices and not decrease them as many believe they would.

If the goal is to put a tax on those who hold houses for the original posts above listed reasons, but to not penalize those who are playing the house upgrade game because upgrading your house footprint brings a large sense of accomplishment and plays into retention too, then maybe something like having a tax after a three month period or some other time period. That should give those who are trying to upgrade a chance to do so without being penalized while also discouraging those who hold onto excess houses for the reasons stated above? However even in thinking about that option, it could have the side effect of people dropping and redeeding their houses before the timer runs out ...

But if a tax did result in stopping or reducing players placing to intentionally stop expansions, I'm all for it and would be happy to pay a tax until I can release housing to expand the main house. Intentional blockers are some of the worse scum. But then again there will be side effects such as two people with multiple placements who end up blocking each other and neither giving in....

We should still be able to have a pathway to upgrade housing sizes to what the game offers.

Great ideas in these comments. I support a lot of the above comments said by other players.

Take guilds (maybe with a minimum of 1000 prestige?), guild cities, and community houses into factor. Instead of taxation, incentivize only 1 house ownership benefits.

OR a combination of the above + proposed tax system.

Regardless - I am a fan of whatever system is designed to deincentivize multi-house ownership.