Maintenace payment returned on abandoning house?

[podgie_bear]

When I abandoned my standard house on Withywindle to buy a luxury house, I received a refund of maintenance I had prepaid via the ingame mail within an hour of abandoning the house. Now I am playing on Cricklehollow instead of Withywindle, I abandoned my standard house there and bought a luxury house instead. I have been waiting for mail refunding the maintenance I have prepaid, but it has not appeared despite waiting several hours. Unlike when doing this on Withywindle (which was only 4 weeks maintenance) I had prepaid up until nearly Christmas which is a large sum, maybe 10 gold or so. How long does it normaly take to get reimbursed?

[Yula_the_Mighty]

I would write a bug report.

Turbine recently changed the house maintenance system. I sounds like they missed an impact with the refund mechanism. IIRC - Under the old system you could only pay a maximum of six weeks. I am thinking the refund does not work if you paid more than six weeks.

The full maintenance on my deluxe is a little over 4 gold. I believe it is 26 weeks at 165 silvers a week.

[podgie_bear]

I have since gone back and looked at the maintenance screen again and it looks like Turbine have changed the rules. There is now a message on that screen to say that all maintenance paid is NON-REFUNDABLE! What a bloody swizz! 4 Gold may not be a lot for end-gamers, but for us lowbies it is a lot of money. I suppose it is another consequence of these stupid Mithril Coins, because they want you to use them to pay maintenance now, if you use gold instead they no longer have an ability to refund since they are gearing it all to Mithril to make more profit?

[Cadd_EU]

I think the non-refundable might be because of the Mithril Coin option yes, but not some kind of conspiracy to push us to use that instead of gold.

I think it's simply a matter of what to refund - Gold or Mithril Coins. I very much doubt they log how you paid your maintenance, just what date it's payed until. So you'd have to set one. If you always refund gold, two groups will be annoyed: Some will feel cheated out of Mithril Coins (and in effect TP), while others will complain that an almost immediate exchange of TP into Gold has become available, no matter how ineffective (purchase house, pay 6 months rent with MC, abandon for gold back).
[Personally, I find the first complaint valid while the second not so much, I doubt you could actually net a profit)

If you always refund Mithril Coins, you instead enabled purchase of Mithril Coins for in-game gold. (Buy house, pay 6 months with gold, abandon to refund MC)

So, the simple solution: Non-refundable maintenance cost.

tldl version: Too complicated to add refund in mixed-currency system, just don't pay maintenance further than you know you'll keep this house.

[podgie_bear]

Yes I can see the problems Turbine would face, but it is a definite warning to players not to pay too much maintenance at a time and have to remember to pay regularly before getting locked out. Which is what happened to me and why I paid so far in advance. Also most players can't afford a luxury house at level 15 and buy a standard until they can afford a luxury one, so they are the ones who need to know not to pay too much in advance so if they do get the chance to upgrade to a luxury house they will not lose too much money in the change.

What caught me out is that having done such a transfer before and having the maintenance refunded, I expected such a refund and didn't realise I would be losing so much because they had stopped giving refunds.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Have you calculated how much it costs in dollars to pay maintenance with Mithril Coins. A Mithril Coin is worth about 10 cents. One maintenance for my deluxe = one week = 10 Mithril Coins = one Dollar. I can't imagine many people paying their maintenance with Mithril Coins. It cost 165 silvers for one week which works out to be 16.5 silvers a Mithril Coin or 165 silvers for a dollar.

What the maintenance charge on a standard home in Mithril Coins?