Thanks for your feedback.
I would imagine multiple emails being sent to the player leading up to the process starting. I’m not sure if we need anything in game or not.
6 Likes
I’m also for disappearing beacons and a fuel which is needed. It makes the most sense lorewise too I’d say.
When the beacon is flagged it should not immediately disappear but rather lower the “shield”. That means regeneration starts inside of the beacon and other players can place or destroy blocks.
With this you can still refuel your beacon after the deadline to restore the “shield” and safe your build and chests.
It also helps because you don’t have to place all the plots again for a large build.
How long the deadline should be… a few months.
4 Likes
I think we should definitely go with number 1. As for number 2, if someone is still loving on occasionally, regardless of the reason, doesn’t that imply they still care about the game and realistically could be back? Also, having to keep it fueled up just seems stressful and a bit confining.
6 - 9 months is still very reasonable. I did volunteer work last fall and didn’t have access to a computer for a while, but I was grateful my stuff was still around in some of my other MMOs when I returned. There are plenty of circumstances like that that warrant a relatively lenient time frame.
Emails should definitely be sent out. In fact, they could even have an option for the player themselves to give permission for their claim to be absorbed before the time frame.
Lastly, once the time is up, I think there stuff should be free game. It would add a fantastic element of discovery to the game if you were to happen upon an abandoned game and find all sorts of goodies and half builds, albeit overgrown.
1 Like
I would encourage you and your team to peruse the Final Fantasy XIV “Reclamation of Inactive Housing” policy. It’s fairly good, obviously subject to forum complaints for every reason imaginable but that’s really neither here nor there.
It somewhat aligns with your first suggestion Ollie.
Link:
4 Likes
I am definitely all for having beacons disappear eventually. Ghost towns are no fun, especially when they claim beautiful areas.
I’m with @Thorbjorn42gbf in that I really like the fuel idea. I think it keeps gameplay engaging. I mean there are a few minecraft servers I’m a part of where the only reason I log in is to keep my stuff but I don’t actually play on them. Making someone go out to forage for fuel and whatnot encourages gameplay and maybe even lets them find some cool items, some beautiful scenery, a rare monster, etc. along the way.
I like the idea of number 2 here. Gives intrepid explorers a chance to try to recover artifacts (loot) from the lost civilization (players). I think along with this a way of publicly interacting with beacons to see who owns them and how long they will be around for would be handy so explorers could take notes on coordinates/identities of neighbors and whatnot and it really encourages that style of gameplay.
If the above suggestions are taken into account, 6 months would be way too long. 3 months would also be a bit extreme, but maybe if beacon fuel reserves can be increased through, say, the builder profession, 3 months would make sense as a sort of end-game limit to me. I’d propose 2 weeks-1 month as the starting fuel reserve max but would also suggest as Thor did that it be quite simple to find (or make) the fuel.
4 Likes
My counter to all of the people who are arguing for 6+ months due to not having computer access etc. would be that they could then add friends to their beacons and it would be up to those individuals to help you keep your beacon active. That way you aren’t penalized for being offline and we also don’t have ghost towns around for over half a year.
8 Likes
Hmm if we go with 1 or 2 maybe allow people to do some action that tag them as away doing something so if people want to do volunteer work or go traveling they can log that they are doing something and not just have gone innactive.
That way people actively deciding to do something else for a while is not punished while people who just glide away from the game loose their items at a more reasonable pace.
1 Like
That seems pretty easy to abuse if you aren’t actually doing something. Just click a button and you don’t need to find fuel anymore.
1 Like
That was if fuel is in fact not going to be used but basing it purely on wether people log in or not.
1 Like
Fan of 2 and 3, and for the second part 2.
fan of 2 as it means people cant just buy multiple accounts then use that for extra beacon space, so it means that if they did buy extras they would need to keep playing a bit more with those extras, which im my mind says its a waste of time playing multiple accounts lets just play one.
and 3 near the beginning somewhere i mentioned fueled beacons as i fully support the idea.
4 Likes
I am persoanlly all for allowing people to play solo if they want that ^.^
Also I know in Denmark at least it can be rather normal going traveling for some months after high school and the ones you do that with is your good friends aka the people who would most oftenly be the ones you choose to keep your beacon stable.
Assuming that good friends all buy and play together haha.
I guess in my mind the devs have already said that the game is meant to be a social game. If you do want to play solo and never interact with other players, you’re only going to get so far. And if that’s what you want, that’s fine. But if you also want your progress to be saved, it shouldn’t be possible to just click a button and it works. The world is a persistent MMO world and will move on without you. Just as if the people traveling have a house or apartment and don’t pay rent during their travels, they’ll come back to find that things have changed.
If people REALLY want to play solo but find that they’ll be away from a computer, it should be relatively easy for them to post on the forums and find someone to watch over their things.
3 Likes
Not that i agree with it but I can see the perspective.
I just don’t want the landscape to be littered with beacons and ghost towns. Because the game is social, finding shops to acquire resources and materials you may need is going to be crucial. And if ghost towns are allowed to persist for months on end, it’s going to be really difficult for explorers, travelling merchants, etc. to find places to shop.
I think seeing a group of beacons should indicate that there is a town here and this town is fairly active, which one could infer means there’s probably a shop in that town. Obviously this won’t be a problem for people who are part of a town, but for people who want to play solo but still go into town for goods from time to time will have a much easier time doing so if every town around them is NOT a ghost town with out of stock shops. Fewer beacons due to stricter inactivity limits will make it easier for people who want to be travelling merchants or hermits to find hubs to go to.
Edit: I want to be clear, I’m not against people traveling or taking breaks from games. I just think there are ways around it that also prevent multitudes of ghost towns and builds to block off areas of our worlds.
2 Likes
100% agree that beacons should disappear.
A log in system or a fueling system (that also allows other players to keep it fueled with an indicator) would be my preference.
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I am already noticing the “annoying” effects of perma beacons in the C++ world.
Example - started a settlement. Some players put down beacons early on with prime land location on said settlement. Player never returned and the unused space is an eyesore and now unmanageable.
Much work is going into the area and I couldn’t imagine 3 months from now never being able to fix the surrounding holes or make improvements.
3 months max with a warning system for people who forgot about them.
2 Likes
Fuel allows for players to maintain their stuff with a minimum of worry and time commitment. But still requires them to have some level of activity in the game.
Eve Online has a Fuel system in place for player owned structures. And having been one of those players that helped maintain an inactive structure in hoping to come back to it, I liked how this worked out. If players don’t have a set amount of time to play or life prevents them from logging for an extended period of time, they still have a window to maintain their stuff on whatever schedule they can manage.
Fuel should be easily acquired, sellable by players (there are players who sustain their accounts on selling fuel in Eve), and the “Fuel tank” should last somewhere between a week and a month (possibly determined by the size of the beacon). Permission for others to add fuel should be possible. This allows for guilds to maintain their shared structures without worrying about one person falling out of the game.
7 Likes
I go for the fuel, as long as I don’t have to play for houres to just pay the montly upkeep for a single midsize beacon. Make the “buffer” in the beacon large enough to put fuel for half a year into it and let the fuel be “storage-able” so that somebody can hoard some more to put some into “if” he want to.
For the regeneration: Start regging first and then after it’s finished remove the beacon. That sounds fair … just slow the reg a bit down 
Sorry if somebody wrote that also - I didn’t had the time to read all
2 Likes
Actually thinking about the fuel system: Maybe make it cost progressively more for every month you want ot store inside it? So everybody don’t just keep a constant supply of 6 months fuel inside it, but people who need to go somewhere can still do it.
But yeah fuel should be relatively easy to gather. And should probably use less and less per beacon for every one you use.
So maybe the first cost 1 fuel a day while 2 beacons cost 1.75
1 Like
I don’t agree with this. Maybe it can be a builder skill perk or something, but shouldn’t happen for everyone right off the bat. Using a plotter for larger builds should be possible but there shouldn’t be bonuses for having two different beacons. I could see it as a builder perk, but I don’t think it should be a feature for everyone upon release.[quote=“TheBirne, post:23, topic:4285”]
Make the “buffer” in the beacon large enough to put fuel for half a year into it and let the fuel be “storage-able” so that somebody can hoard some more to put some into “if” he want to.
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What do you think about having the “tank” be pretty small to start and then it can be increased via the builder profession skills? So it starts at 2 weeks or so but then end-game builders who have progressed through the tree can make it larger. That was a suggestion proposed earlier in the thread.[quote=“TheBirne, post:23, topic:4285”]
For the regeneration: Start regging first and then after it’s finished remove the beacon. That sounds fair … just slow the reg a bit down 
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I made the suggestion that the beacon disappears first and then the world regen takes care of the supplies. This allows skilled explorers to have a chance to discover artifacts (loot) from a lost civilization (missing players) or some such. It provides quite a bit of incentive for the explorer style of gameplay.
I’m really concerned about people thinking 6+ months sounds good for Beacons until they disappear. Do you guys who are suggesting this realize how long this is? Do you really want half-finished builds and ghost-towns clogging up the Boundless landscape for 183+ days? 3 months of needing no maintenance seems fair for end-game builders but 6+ months should definitely not be an out of the box feature for everyone.
4 Likes