House Placement Tool
Overview
A House Placement Tool is an item used to place a player house on unclaimed land. It is obtained from NPC Architects and is available in most cities. The house placement tool is blessed and costs around 1,000 gold to purchase.
Usage
When double-clicked, a menu will be displayed from which the player can select what category of home they would like to place.
- Classic Houses - Several static-design homes, considered old style and cannot be altered structurally.
- 2-Story Customizable Houses - Several rectangular-shaped plots of varying dimensions from 7x7 tiles up to 13x13 tiles in size with a maximum of two levels.
- 3-Story Customizable Houses - Several rectangular-shaped plots of varying dimensions from 9x14 tiles up to 18x18 tiles in size with a maximum of three levels.
Once a choice is made, an outline of the structure will appear for the player to position on unclaimed land. Once the outline is in position, the player can place the home at the desired location. If all the myriad and arcane rules of House Placement are followed, the structure will temporarily appear and the player will be instantly teleported under the House sign and a dialog box asking for final confirmation of house placement will appear.
History
Prior to the introduction of the house placement tool, players had to purchase a house deed for a specific house design, one of the aforementioned "Classic Homes" and wander the the realm seemingly endlessly in search of enough open land to place the house. The advent of the tool, as well as customizable housing, was a great boon for Housing in general and became a hallmark of Ultima Online among other MMO games as a very unique and distinguishing game feature.
During the release of Ultima Online, house placement was allowed just about anywhere, even within guard zones and protected suburban farm land areas. Below is a picture showing a house place within Britain city limits not far from the stables on Great Lakes Shard. 