3/26/01 -  Crazy Joe the House Broker comes out of Retirement

Dyastro Farkas of GUL quit Ultima Online last week. In his departure, he gave away all his belongings, and I was one of the fortunate recipitants of his large house near Yew. It was an improper large house I was going to convert into a Thief Training Center on Napa. Next door was a Two Story House, also improper that was Greatly worn at the time. He told me that house always goes Greatly Worn, and that the owners show up to refresh once a week. However this week on Napa, we have some server problems - seems we are having a few timewarps and the house actually goes "In Danger of Collapsing". Either someone forgot to refresh their house - or the Timewarp bug has come at a very opportunistic time. 

I see the house go IDOC within a short period, so I am able to predict the time of fall down to a 5 hour stretch on Monday. I am at work, and unable to really camp the house, so I inform Jade of GUL and she decides to camp the house. I finish some work and log in to see how the house camping is going, and sadly a small workshop is placed next door to me. I missed out. Jade had to go do something and missed out to. 

However, the new "neighbor" is quite odd. I talk to her and she said the house was NOT for sale, she lost all her stuff two weeks ago and was happy to finally have a new house. Something smelled fishy since I offered to trade a small tower for that shop and she refused. Then I cast recall, cancelled, and hid right at the corner of her house. Twenty minutes later a friend of hers came by and she said she was selling a Log Cabin in Trammel. Hello? Homeless people don't have real estate I thought. Twenty more minutes pass, and I notice she is cleaning out three secure boxes inside the house and gating things to the bank. I sit and wait. 

Ten minutes later, sure enough she walks in front of the house, stays very quite....and the shop disappear. I am ready and throw down a small workshop!!!

Now, I thought I won and took the snapshot of my incredible placement. However I lag and the house disappears and my Journal tells me that the house placement timed out. I LOST. A small tower is placed.  However Another GUL mate, Tyranny, and a thief named, "Liberation" come out of hiding, and they get attacked. I think I lost out, but then I think that  the house owners think that Liberation and Tyranny were the ones trying to place a house. I remain hidden and wait. Twenty minutes later, I see the 'boyfriend' of the girl come out of the tower and get really quite. What do you know, guess what happened?

Yup. He redeeded the small tower.

He is hidden and I bet really shocked right now. This time I do NOT lag and I win! I got the house!

I am so damn happy, I haven't camped a house in
months because they are so boring at times. However this
brings back the thrill! They are still hidden and I bet really pissed off!

They come out, but are offscreen. I pull up my journal so you can see what they say.

He actually thinks Liberation or Tyranny placed the house I guess.
I honestly have no clue what they are talking about.

I am revealed. Now maybe they know who "Crazy Joe" is!

I ICQ Jade and tell her we won after all. She comes on over to see
the aftermath, and the two 'previous' house owners attack her on sight.

My plans? Well I know I can place a tower, but I bet I made several enemies today.
I will place a large house here next week and just keep both large houses!

Update : I logged out right after that last picture. I go hit stratics to read up on house
sizes and log back in to see if a villa does indeed fit. My horse went wild upon login!
If they didn't redeed that small tower when they did, I would have been discovered less than
ten minutes later! CLOSE CALL!

One week later, I placed a Large Tower, and months later traded with Jade there and it became the new home for GUL.