Hey, folks. Yeah, let's drag this up again.

Right now we've got some map spaces that have multiple, unbuilt Dwellings on them. I don't think that's cool, and I reckon we should do summat about it. But, we don't want to end up erasing the awesome Dwellings that belong to players who have left the game. Right now, my most awesome mods can handle these on a case-by-case basis, but I already ask a lot of them. Also, seeing entire map squares taken up with undeveloped Dwellings sets a bad precedent - we need a mechanic to discourage that.

What I'm thinking right now is something along these lines:

A land tax of some piffling amount, say ten or twenty Req per Dwelling per game day. We'd have this set up like the teleporter beacons, so that anyone who cared about the Dwelling could pop some Req in there to keep it active. As long as there's a non-zero sum of Req in the Dwelling's account, the Dwelling stays open.

If the bank's at zero, then the Dwelling owner gets a Distraction prodding them about it.

If the bank stays at or below zero for a week, then the Dwelling gets archived. What I mean by this is that the Dwelling's still in the database, and the owner can still access it and reactivate it if they put some Req in, but it doesn't show up on the map and the spot it occupied is up for grabs.

If the owner comes back and puts some Req in, fine - the building gets reactivated. If someone puts down a land claim stake before the owner can reactivate, then the owner has two options:

1) She can turn in her stake and get 80 cigarettes back for it, erasing the Dwelling. A screen confirming the deletion will show all of her descriptions so that she can copy them down and maybe make them again.
2) She can pay xx cigarettes to move the Dwelling somewhere else. And hell, if we're putting in the option for expired Dwellings to be moved around elsewhere on the map, then we'll put this option in for everyone else too.

I'm thinking a very low Req amount for the land tax, because it's designed as nowt more than a gauge of whether or not anyone cares enough about the Dwelling to use it. And Dwellings that nobody cares about - well, they can go away.

Thoughts?

At the moment I am powered by coffee fumes and twenty minutes of sleep in the last 32 hours, so I'm not sure that anything I say is worth much, but I really like this idea. This is also a wonderful way to give you something else to do with leftover req at the end of a DK, which I think is something people have been looking for.

/has no suggestions to make

This all seems.....Perfect really. I have no complaints.

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You can toast them, but it's dark magic. - MotPax on hotdog buns.

Well... there're hats, but, yeah.

I guess it is a good way to weed out the dwellings that no one cares about anymore, assuming that people other than the dwelling owners can chip in to the tax fund thing.

edit: And, yes, being able to move dwellings would be just super.

Huh, And NOW you got me thinking about building a huge medieval castle that moves using steam power.

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There are two secrets to success. The second one is to never reveal all your secrets.

True, but... hats kinda don't do anything. They're just a number, after all. You can use them as roleplay props, but other than that.

Is having unlimited power to move a dwelling necessarily a good thing?

Unlimited at eighty or a hundred cigarettes a pop isn't all that unlimited.

While on this train of thought, what are the chances of mobile dwelling showing up in the near future? It seems this would be a good time to introduce them...

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You can toast them, but it's dark magic. - MotPax on hotdog buns.

Oh, I missed that part. Omega's plans for the moving castle kind of made me think it could be something people could do all the time.

I hate to pick at far-off possibilities like this, but what if someone puts in all the extra req from one DK (anywhere from 10 to 100k) into a dwelling, then abandons it? The dwelling bank would be good for months and months, but it'd still be dead space. Though I guess that'd be one of the mod-handled issues.

It's a really solid idea and it takes care of all the actual problems, so I support this.

/crawls into bed now

I really like this idea. I see it as not only taking care of the problem, but adding a way to thank those kind people who leave beds out for others to use.

100 cigs to move a dwelling sounds pretty reasonable, because you'd technically be buying the new plot... I'd say. And the tax sounds like something that might be annoying to keep an eye on if you have more than one dwelling, but if others can chip in and since req can't really go much elsewhere besides hats at the end of a DK, anyway, I think it's more than reasonable.

About how high on the priority list is this/would this be, just out of curiosity?

Hmm. I have other stuff to do, but the longer I leave this, the worse it'll get.

Right now I'm trying my damnedest to work on plot elements and graphical stuff.

("graphical stuff" in a text game means more vivid descriptions and more ways of changing flavour text based on game state - not actual graphics graphics)

Could your 'most awesome mods' possibly be gifted with the ability to mark a dwelling "Do not delete even if the bank goes to zero and stays there forever?"

...because of Labs, for one thing. If a dwelling has been used by a module, we don't want bits of the game to be disappearing because after a while people forgot to run around putting reqs into all the important dwelling-banks.

CMJ, what about as you suggested, but include a maximum for each player to deposit (like the money transfer caps), to stop single folks from dropping a metric ton of req into their dwelling then vanishing?

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"Ain't nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile." -The Grateful Dead

Both of those are good ideas, and I don't see why not.

I fully support this. Long being annoyed by certain land claimers who won't develop anything. Or encountering buildings of ex-players who stopped. The Trapdoor or the Single room dwelling of Errant Knight, both at Acehigh as example.




My thoughts exactly. I doubt anyone will be interested in Swede's cottage should I ever quit the game. But having about 25-50k left over before each DK I could make sure it stays there forever. (25k is about 4 months. Now say I started donating after level 40, it would be on the map for the next 6 years.)

This can be done with a transfer cap, but I was thinking about a maximum to the bank? Maybe a 6k cap?
Means a building only stays there for a month and needs to be visited at least monthly.


Other than that, nothing to add. The moving or refunding sound good also.

Hmm, just to clarify;

The land tax applies to all dwellings or just those that are not developed i.e plots that have just been staked but not built?

Moving a dwelling for high cig costs sounds good, although I'd make it higher than 100 - (foresees a land grab war with mansion sized tanks roaming the island and estate agents licking their lips).

And the 4 plots per square still stands so a dwelling can't be moved to a fully occupied square?

And giving the mods the ability to mark dwellings as tax exempt is a must I think. I've read elsewhere that some awesome dwelling owners aren't around any more - i.e Thistelwaite Manor (stands to be corrected)

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It's not an optical illusion. It just looks like one.

For an empty plot, I see between 80-100 cigs to move it, would make sense but moving those mansion sized tanks should cost a lot more something like 1 or 2 more cigs per room. Something reasonable so someone who has a couple of rooms in a dwelling can easily move it and someone who has a giant maze in their building is stuck with their building where it is unless they have enough cigs to move it. Almost like a room protection service to move it somewhere else.

That's just what the GERMans need, a way to get their bingo hall to start moving around the island...

Um, 25k divided by 20req/day = 1250 days, well over three years. So yes, that would be the most likely happening. As soon as someone grabs a land stake in a wild fit of enthusiasm they put a few grand in the bank, and we're in exactly the same position as before.

Having a time limit of how long you can pay in advance seems like a better idea.

What about people who know that they're going to be away for some while but intend to return. Xith's weather station springs to mind. Maybe have some sort of gadget similar to the 'don't delete this account ring' for such dwellings? Maybe only usable on dwellings that have got at least the exterior and first room decorated?

Also, the 'send a distraction if the tax fund runs out' part. I've got a character, Skronky, who has a dwelling (Skronky top secret HQ). I only use her for role playing, and so I often don't log in as Skronky for some while. Also, her account doesn't have an email for it since she was the third character I created and I've only got two email addresses, and I didn't see the point of making a new email account just for her, she gets distractions very rarely, and I'd just never look at it. Would it be possible to have multiple characters with the same email? By the way, distractions don't seem to be going to emails again at the moment for some reason.

Last. There may be some people still on the Island with undeveloped plots, where they've already realised that they're never going to get round to developing them and would be quite happy to cash them back in for the eighty cigs. So perhaps put in a mechanism where any owner can trade a building in for the cigs if they so wish, they don't have to wait for the time up and then for someone else to take the plot.

I don't mind dropping some req into buildings I think are especially awesome, Thistlewaite being one of them.

Also, I had some more thoughts. This could tie a lot or RPing into game mechanics... For instance, Arthur Dent's Dwelling has a menu with prices listed. I can actually pay for the drinks now! I know that's just spending more req, but I'm really excited about the possibilities.