After watching the video tours of the urn contest houses, this came up in the tour of mine. Now, admittedly, I went way overboard (doubled the allowable item count) but I thought it was all in fun, a testament to how ridiculously high the drop rate was on those silly things. But I have to admit, I'm bothered. I don't like to think that I'm doing something that is now considered unacceptable by the decorating community. I haven't built anything for a few years, and admittedly fell away from the decorating community through the server merges and event servers. Is this not an okay thing now? I'm in the home stretch on the first big building I've done in a long time, and I'm over the building block item count by a couple hundred blocks. It's an easy thing to do, and can even be done in Notepad, no editor necessary, but if it's seriously frowned upon these days I'm going to have to revamp a few things. Thoughts?
Honestly I'm not bothered with it, your house not mine sort of thing. And to have that many urns I was at max 1000 and wanted to fit more but wasn't going to buy another expander, never knew you could do something to do that. Not sure how others feel but if you can do it. But I would say if doing it someone else's house I would ask first, my personal opinion. I did like seeing your urn house its a nice lil building.
I can understand the view of entering a contest/drawing and having that much and not allowing, was more on personal house for yourself . I've had were I moved items from a rent house I was dropping and moved into another home and had past item limit but have to pick up/remove before I could place anymore, but that's the only time I've had that and normally its a home for dropping off event stuff too busy to deal with while events are running. I do always worry when getting close to item limit like you had said being stuck in the house and/or not being able to get stuff out, then that's when I remember I have dungeons for the extras now.
So um..... I generally don't enter contests so I wont comment on that aspect....but that house crashed my comp. twice. Thank goodness it was a throwaway character just to tour houses on my alt account....I ended up deleting the character instead of fighting to get it out of there. Flat out couldn't load, froze, it was awful. If that was my main.....Oh I'd have been.... I cant use that word here. If you do that with other houses, it might be best not to publish them, or at least warn ppl in the title. Not everyone has a great comp. I made the mistake of touring houses on my laptop....and it was fatal. I'm not even sure my desktop could've rescued that toon.
I know I had personally reported this to a Dev years ago but not using official methods. I believe the off record answer was that if it wasn't published it wouldn't be a problem. If another player reported the house, actions could be taken. Again, that was a long time ago. It would be a simple (but potentially resource intensive) database query to get a list of everyone exploiting this. If they want to catch it, they can. I know I have a few zones that would show up
This was a very out off the ordinary event where the number of urns used doesn't really matter. This is shown perfectly by the winner, witch happened to be one of my favorites too. When building a normal house, a lot of books are used to 'cheat' the normal item count. When I decorate, I use a lot of building blocks. Together with the books, this would make for a grand total of 3600 items that I can place and what is generally not considered as cheating but as smart and creative decorating. If I had known how to do the double urns thingy during the build for the YtD17 event, I most likely would have done it myself also. I tend to agree with Sidharrah that it is in line with the lovely ridiculousness of the event itself. If it were a normal decorating event, this trick would give sort of an advantage over others who do not use the layout editor, thus making it unfair. It is not possible to do this without the use of the editor, I already tried that. As I see it, it doesn't matter how people call it. What is done is done and no harm is intended or done (besides an unfortunate crash). And now we all know it is possible to do things like this, we can pay attention to this. It is now very clear that it is best not to use this trick in any future events. Organizers of events would have to add a rule that states something like: Item count may not be exceeded in any other way than using books and/or notes.
Just to clarify, there are no hard feelings over here! I chose not to contact daybreak to rescue the toon precisely to avoid any possible repercussions to the decorator. It really was impressive, from the video at least too bad I couldn't see it in person!
There's all sorts of "legal" methods to get up to the max: expanders, books, Building Blocks, etc.; unless a specific contest says "no more than 1000 items using any method," for example, I'd be explicit in letting folks know what they can do: "Sure, expanders, books, and Building Blocks are fine." On the other hand, by this point, we should either know as experienced decorators (and new folks can, I think, look such figures up on Zam or Wiki [or ask the old hands! ]) how much each house can hold, legally, even with books, expanders, etc. I think books that don't count can go up to 200 (in a separate, unofficial count from regular house items and Building Blocks), and total expanders, placed properly (we don't talk about that... ), can go up to another 300 total, so another 500 right there... Refresh my memory: do the expanders increase the count for Building Blocks as well as regular house items? I think so. At any rate, I'm not sure how one can cheat on that, unless it was going against any spelled-out rules? Uwk
Ocarinah, I didn't do anything special to get that many urns in there other than place them down until the house was full, crate them all, and then fill the house again. I explained exactly what I did in the other thread but it looks like my reply there was removed. I wasn't trying to "get away with anything" and I'm sorry that it's being taken that way. Back when I was building all the time it was quite well known, though it looks like it's not common knowledge anymore. I wasn't even trying to win the contest and didn't expect to, as there were so many other more creative uses of urns than me simply making circles with them over and over. .I was not aware it is considered an exploit and that's why I posted this thread, too seek clarification, because I admit I was a bit shocked and hurt by the accusation. Many decorators edit the layout file in so many other ways; getting perfectly angled walls, perfectly leveled floors, perfectly layered tiles, circles, etc. that I did not realize that this edit would be so negatively frowned upon. Hence the question. Rest assured I won't make the same mistake again. Kokorobosoi, I'm sorry that stupid gazebo crashed you I didn't anticipate that and I do apologize. Ratbill, it can be done without the editor specifically, but not without editing the file, if that makes any sense. Like I mentioned above, because it's generally acceptable to edit the file to change angles and placement, I didn't consider that editing that would be an issue. And I agree with you, in that that was where my thinking went. In a normal house, I can completely fill it with books, building blocks, and house items, to the tune of over 3000 items. I could have stopped after filling the house with 1100 urns, even though I still had 100s more, and in hindsight I should have, but I got caught up in the ridiculousness of the whole pumpkin-throwing urn insanity and truly didn't think the housing contest was going to be taken this seriously. To be told I'd be disqualified from all future events over what was a an unintentional breech of an unwritten rule is honestly pretty harsh. I asked the question and posted the thread because the house I'm working on now *is* over the building block count (though not the hard limit item count- if I switched 200 building blocks to tables or something then all counts would be under the limit), and if people are going to be disgusted with me for doing that then I'll change it. I don't build things to cheat or exploit or even win contests, I build because I enjoy creating things.
Hun honestly I wouldn't try doing that anymore if you have been, seems it upsets some people..i would be a little bit upset getting stuck in a house and not sure if owner plays anymore. And I didn't even notice how many you had placed. I can barely get the editor to place tiles, and circle tool is more like stacking item tool for me. And not knowing that it was some unwritten rule, because I had no idea either, and be banned from future events would be harsh, would at least say if its done again to not be let in, you didn't do it to out do anyone with more. Don't let it get to you, sort of a now you know thing.
I certainly didn't do it to out-do anyone with more. Urns were in limitless supply as it was, and there were incredible designs done with far fewer that outstripped my house by miles. As for getting stuck, I tend to think that if I built anything at all with that many items in that same amount of space it could cause problems for some computers, even if every item was within the limits when placing by hand. It's something I'll keep in mind going forward.
Yeah on the getting stuck part..ive haven't and hope not to be stuck from a crash because of tiems count. But I have been stuck in someones house I was touring ,I don't jump around others houses(anymore) unless I have access and unpublished, jumped behind the couch to try to get the secret door in the Uncanny Estate and they had done it in such a way to block it...was in a forever fall I couldn't break only thing that saved me was having a heroic stone of return. So I never tour without one now or don't jump into suspicious areas. Still love all you guys, days have seemed stressed so I pass some *your fav flavor of* pie and enjoy the houses !
Ocarinah, I can see your point, though I don't necessarily agree. I would argue that those of us who have been decorating for years remember a time when items could not be angled or flipped in any way without editing the file because the ctrl+e controls did not exist in the game, and decorators did those things to their items using notepad and the layout editor without reproach even though it was something specifically not permitted in the game due to the nature of the housing controls. Breakouts are another example, where Daybreak specifically puts limits around what outdoor areas we can access via invisible walls, and we get around it with teleport pads and coordinates in the file. My point with that is I didn't realize it could even be considered an exploit, and I explained what I did and how only because you made the accusation in a public video linked to the public forum that I'd exploited the game, when I had no such intention to do so, as as I stated before only submitted that house as a joke about the incredible amount of urns that dropped. You didn't have to do that; you could have tossed me a message with your concerns and I would have withdrawn or crated half the things, and then there would have been zero drama. I wasn't even looking for drama with this post. I was looking for guidance from a community that I obviously should have stayed more closely involved with. I'm pretty sure no one who reads this exchange will think this is okay for any of your future events, so I doubt it's going to be a stress or a problem for you going forward. Even if someone did it, you can easily see how many items are in there before you even step inside and disqualify, so it would be a self-limiting problem if it even became one. Trust me, no one seeing how you've responded to me is going to bother trying to enter any event you're hosting with an overstuffed house, so I wouldn't worry about it. As it is, the urn house will come down to prevent any future issues with characters crashing and that will be the end of it on my end. My original question to the wider community was genuine. In a general sense, contests notwithstanding, is overstuffing very frowned upon? I'm more than happy to change what I'm doing if that's how it is. I'm more than open to friendly discussion.
In my opinion, yes its cheating. You can clearly see how many items are meant to be used, and building blocks, if they wanted the limit to be higher they would make it higher. I dont doubt the creativity of others nor do I want to come across as rude. But in the end the limits are clearly stated for each house and I think its wrong to exceed them, unless a dev says otherwise.
I find this a bit much tbh. Someone made a house out of some of the millions of urns that we got. I saw NO rules saying using the layout editor or Notepad was not allowed. All decorators "cheat" one way or another to get their vision made. Ocarinah you seem to feel that they made this house just to upset you. They asked a simple question and you jumped up one side and down the other of them chewing them out on how they cheated. If this was such a big deal why did you wait to say something here and not send them a game mail? Why werent they allowed to take it off before you jumped down their throat here about it. I truly see no big deal. Some mention how it crashed their comps. Some members of my guild have major issues getting into the hall but I cant change the whole thing for just a few, that is not fair to the rest. Seems to me instead of ranting about how this was cheating and trying to ban them from future events you Ocarinah, could have just said that you do not personally agree with overstuffing and leave it at that. So you go on to mention how long you have been playing? I have been playing since 1999 dose that mean I get to flex my muscles as well? What does that have to do with the question if Overstuffing is still allowed? I think you need to calm down and let ALL of us as a decorating community decide the rules not just you. Thats just my 2 cents. P.S. Its #4 on the leaderboards
Ocarinah, I forgot that item counts can't be seen from the leaderboard, my apologies. Daybreak has stated editing the layout files is allowed, yes. People were doing it long before any statements in writing were ever made by Daybreak or SOE or anyone else, but they did eventually make a statement about it. Hopefully they will make a statement about this and clarify it once and for all. From my perspective, I was only doing something that Daybreak has stated in writing is allowed, editing the layout file. Yes, the housing window states an item limit, but the housing itself also makes a location limit that we regularly circumvent. I didn't make a distinction between the two, and therefore my question about limits, to get others opinions on it because I was surprised by your reaction. You've taken a firm line that you won't tolerate it in any of your events and that is 100% fine and understandable. Your events, your rules. I really would have appreciated an in-game mail or a private message on here before you posted your video, though. Xillean you make a good point, and despite how it may seem I am taking in what people are saying.
After the current event I am running ends I will not be doing any more events period. No HDE18. Not helping run SSHHS2018 either. I will stop video touring houses and remove my link to my youtube channel as well. Problem solved for everyone.
