Of course I’m gonna tell you what an IDOC is. It’s storytime with Bree!
So at the end of the last century, just about 30 years ago now, there was this MMORPG called Ultima Online. The game was a gankbox, filled with griefing and thieves and murderers. But it had player housing too! You could build a house – again, we’re talking about 1997 here – but if you stopped playing or forgot to take care of it, it would eventually go through a cycle of decay and you’d lose it. The very last stage of decay marked a house sign with “This House Is In Danger of Collapsing” – aka IDOC.
Now, a house flagged IDOC was a juicy plum for the scavengers and looters of UO, of course, because once a house went poof, everything inside the house – cash, reagents, rares, gear, everything – would unceremoniously plop to the ground. When the tag went up on a house, people would just start standing around the house for hours – camping out, really, like people camping out at Walmart for TVs on Black Friday, but better. In the old days (and in Felucca), IDOC camping could be exciting (you might grab some great loot!) and dangerous (someone could very well murder you while you camped!). And of course, the best score wasn’t the loot; it was the house plot itself. Whoever plopped down a new house at collapse got the spot, which depending on its location could be worth far more than any of the junk inside.
I did it a few times over the years, I admit, and I scored too – loot and plots. I wrote about one insane camp on my abandoned blog. But there were players who did nothing but IDOC scout and camp; that was their whole gameplay loop, day in and day out. It was how they made their coin.
Now, they’ll have to reconsider it. That’s because with this week’s update, Ultima Online has officially ended its 28.5-year-run of letting people immediately claim the lots of recently collapsed houses with publish 122. As sad as it is, a lot of people are going to be happy with this change, owing to the widespread belief that people used scripts and hacks to cheat their way into house placement. The new system will instead consist of a raffle system that allows players to pay for chances at lots, assuming they don’t already have a house (which will, you might surmise, privilege wealthy players and players paying for multiple accounts – but that’s UO for ya).
So far as we know, the scavenging of the loot will continue, but the lot was the thrill. RIP.
The rest of the patch includes a new orc champ spawn on both facets, new vet rewards (including a new ethy), the Kindleheart event, and a new Celtic house customization set.