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5.7 Houses
Common wisdom has it that one's home is one's castle. If this is true in the real world, how much truer is it in the rough world of Tibia! After all, adventuring is a tiresome trade, so characters that are lucky enough to possess a home of their own soon come to appreciate the cosiness of a bed. What are you waiting for? Rob your piggy bank and bid for a house today!5.7.1 Benefits of Houses
Houses are private buildings that can be rented by players. They are mostly found in the cities, but rentable buildings can be found anywhere in Tibia. Houses come in three forms: there are normal houses that are designed as resting places for single characters or perhaps for small groups of friends, shops in which players can build up a prospering business and even guildhalls in which whole guilds can find shelter! Buildings offer a variety of advantages to characters:
- Protection
Houses work as protection zones, so any character that is standing in the safety of a house is safe from any attacker. However, as with all other protection zones characters that are standing in houses do no regenerate hit points or mana. Moreover, only invited characters can enter a house, so your belongings are also safe from stealing. - Improved Recuperation
In most houses you can put one or more beds in which characters of Premium players can sleep while being offline. Characters placed in a bed will restore one soul point for every 15 minutes they are sleeping. Furthermore, hit points and mana will also be restored as long as the food lasts which have been eaten before going to bed. However, this process takes longer than online mana and hit points generation. And this is not all - if your characters sleep in a bed, you also train their skills while they are asleep! - Improved Item Storage
Characters can furnish their homes to their taste. Far from being simple decoration, containers such as chests or drawers can be used to store items. Also, unlike depot chests they do not have any item limit, so you can store infinite numbers of items in your house! - Prestige
Let's not beat around the bush: a nice house will also increase your character's prestige with the community. After all, houses are in great demand, so if you have that nice 4-bed mansion with the cool garden, you can be sure many other players will envy you. What's more, you can safely display your hard-earned treasures in your house without having to fear that anybody can steal your stuff. You will find that if you want to impress others, few things will work better than a nice house!
Also, keep in mind that there are restrictions: only Premium players can rent or bid for houses, and they cannot rent more than three houses per account. In addition to this limit, guild leaders can rent one guildhall. Needless to say, guildhalls can only be rented by guild leaders. Finally, please note that you can only bid on or buy one house at a time and that the character you are using to get a house must have left Dawnport or Rookgaard.
a) House Auctions
Houses that are currently uninhabited are auctioned on the Houses section of the official website or in the houses section of the Cyclopedia ingame. You will find a detailed list of all houses that are available on all worlds there.
- Bidding ingame:
If you would like to bid for a house ingame, open the Cyclopedia and select the tab "Houses". On top, choose your favourite city and set the "State" to "Auctioned". Unless no houses are available at the moment, you will now see a list of the houses that are currently on offer. Select the house of your dreams and click on "Bid." Enter the money you are willing to bid and click on "Bid" in the lower right corner. Once you have submitted your bid, a confirmation dialog will open up. Click on "Yes" to confirm your bid. Please keep in mind that bids cannot be withdrawn once they have been confirmed! However, you always have the option to lower your bid limit to the current highest bid, so it is more likely that someone will outbid you.
- Bidding using the website:
If you would like to bid for a house via the website, log out of the game and go to the section Houses, choose your world and your favourite city and set the "Status" to "auctioned", then confirm by clicking on "Submit". Unless no houses are available at the moment, you will now see a list of the houses that are currently on offer. A click on the "View" button will reveal further information on the house, such as its location and the name of the character that has currently made the highest bid. Also, this is the place to make a bid yourself. Click on the button "Bid". If you are not logged into the Tibia website already, you will be asked to enter your account data now. Then a new page will open up where you can enter your bid limit and select one of your characters on the corresponding game world. When you have submitted your bid, a confirmation page will open where you have to confirm your bid by entering your password. Please keep in mind that bids cannot be withdrawn once they have been confirmed! However, you always have the option to lower your bid limit to the current highest bid, so it is more likely that someone will outbid you.
Example: You have set your bid limit to 1000 gold. As long as there is no other bidder the bid remains set to 0 gold. Now another player appears on the scene who is prepared to bid up to 500 gold. However, as you have set a higher or the same limit you will automatically outbid him. You are now bidding 500 gold pieces.
Please note: You can only bid on a house if you have the money for your highest bid and the first rent in your bank account. This money will be reserved for the auction in your bank account and cannot be used until the auction is over or somebody outbids you. Once you have won an auction the amount you have bid for your house will be deducted from your bank account along with the first month's rent.
b) Buying and Selling Houses
If you do not want to auction for a house, or if no interesting house is currently available, there is another option: perhaps you can buy a house from another player. There is a special trade option which allows players to carry out safe transfers of houses to make sure there are no misunderstandings.
A character that owns a house can initiate a transfer on the Houses section in the Cyclopedia or on the Tibia website.
- Selling a house ingame:
The owner must select the house in the Cyclopedia and click on the button "Transfer" to open the house transfer dialog. There the owner can specify the date of the transfer, the name of the character to which the house will be transferred, and the amount of money this character has to pay. Note that the date of the transfer must be in the future, but no more than 30 days. You can also transfer your house to another character of your own account as long as it lives on the same game world. To transfer the house for free set the amount to 0 gold.
Once the owner has filled in the form and confirmed the transfer, the target character can accept or reject the deal when viewing the house in the Cyclopedia or the Houses section. This player must accept the deal before the date of the transfer and make sure to have the required amount of gold pieces in the bank account. House transfers will be cancelled in any of the following cases: if the future owner rejects the transfer, if he does not accept the deal, or if he does not have the required amount of money in his bank account. Please note that the house owner can cancel the deal at any time until the transfer is accepted by the receiver of the house. To do so, the owner has to select the house in the Cyclopedia, click on "Cancel Transfer" and confirm the dialog by clicking on the corresponding button. - Selling a house using the website:
The owner must view the house, then click on the button "Transfer" to get to the house transfer page. Provided the owner is logged into the account, a form will be displayed in which the owner can specify the date of the transfer, the name of the character to which the house will be transferred, and the amount of money this character has to pay. Note that the date of transfer must be 1-30 days in the future. You can also transfer your house to another character of your own account as long as it lives on the same game world. To transfer the house for free set the amount to 0 gold.
Once the owner has filled in the form and confirmed the transfer by entering the account password the target character can accept or reject the deal when viewing the house in the Cyclopedia or the Houses section, provided the player is logged into the account. This player must accept the deal before the date of the transfer and make sure to have the required amount of gold pieces in the bank account. House transfers will be cancelled in any of the following cases: if the future owner does not accept the deal, or if he does not have the required amount of money in the bank account. Please note that the house owner can cancel the deal at any time until the transfer is accepted by the receiver of the house. To do so the owner has to view the house page, click on "Keep House" and confirm that you don't want to leave the house by entering your password on the next page.
c) Moving Out
- Moving out ingame:
If you have rented a house and you want to get rid of it quickly, you can move out anytime. Simply view the house in the Cyclopedia and click on the button "Move Out". A dialog will open up where the owner can select the move date. Note that the move date must be 1-30 days in the future. Confirm the dialog by clicking on the button "Move Out". The process will be completed upon the server save of the selected day.
Once you have moved out, you are free to bid for new houses. Moreover, any items left in your old house will be moved automatically to your depot's inbox. - Moving out using the website:
If you have rented a house and you want to get rid of it quickly, you can move out anytime. Simply view the house in the Houses section and click on the button "Move Out", then specify the desired date on which you would like to leave and confirm with your password. The process will be completed upon the server save of the selected day.
Once you have moved out, you are free to bid for new houses. Moreover, any items left in your old house will be moved automatically to your depot's inbox.
a) Rent
In addition to any one-time payment that is necessary to get a house, characters must pay a monthly rent for their houses. Rents can vary greatly depending on the size, location and furnishing of a house. Since landlords are suspicious people the rent must always be paid in advance. The money is automatically debited from the character's bank account. If it does not contain enough money when the rent is due, the owner of the house will receive a warning letter in the inbox for one week (starting at the day on which the rent is due). If the rent is not paid during this week, the character will be evicted from the house and all belongings in the house will be moved into the inbox of the character. Note, however, that large pieces of furniture that do not fit in a backpack will stay in the house. Furthermore, all characters on the player's account are blocked from renting another house for 30 days. The house concerned will be ready to be auctioned again.
b) House Rights
Ownership of a house confers a number of special rights to characters. They can invite other characters, appoint them sub-owners who can also invite others, or kick out unwanted visitors from their home. Editing of house rights is handled in way that is similar to casting spells, i.e. owners can use special "house spells" while standing in their houses which will allow them to edit house rights. In the following you will find a list of all house spells:
- Edit Guest List: "Aleta Sio"
Using this spell owners and sub-owners on Premium accounts can edit a list of all characters that are invited to their house. Simply enter the name of any character you would like to invite, making sure only one name is entered per line. To un-invite characters simply erase their names. - Edit Sub-Owners: "Aleta Som"
Similar to the list of invited characters, owners can appoint sub-owners by editing this list. Not only are sub-owners invited to houses, they are also entitled to invite or uninvite other characters to it themselves. Also, sub-owners can kick characters if they wish to do so. - Kick Character: "Alana Sio"
If this spell is pronounced along with the name of a character, this character will be kicked out of the house. Owners and sub-owners can use this spell, but characters can also kick themselves if they wish to. - Edit Door Rights: "Aleta Grav"
This spell allows owners to edit door rights of houses, i.e. they can determine which characters may open or close front or interior doors. This way they can create private spaces within buildings, which is particularly handy in big houses such as guildhalls. To edit door rights the owner must be placed in front of a door and pronounce the "Aleta grav" spell. Of course, the owner of a house always has access to any room beside the characters listed for a door.
If an exclamation mark (!) is placed at the beginning of a line, all matching characters are excluded. Lines starting with a hash (#), on the other hand, are considered to be comments, so they have no effect.
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