Short story: I agree with @Stretchious and @Miige. It must be something like this. With a good amount of time in it.
I don’t have time to read the whole thread so it might have been mentioned, but I do like the idea of a fuel and larger areas should be more expensive then smaller areas, but not by a constant for extra plots. Something very logarithmic should occur, but not sure what the upper bound should be. Then this formula should apply to all new beacons.
There should also be a limit on the maximum number of beacons one can control and this will stop big players from growing overly big. It should’t be just build and build and build just because you can afford the fuel costs. Extra plots should be earned. Another thing with the fuel idea it might be possible to implement where a large plot with no fuel will decay the outside plots first, starting with the tallest or “fringes” of the property and then slowly over time you will lose all of your plots until your last beacon. This will reduce fuel costs for you and might help save the central plot with the beacon that much longer. So for instance an 5x5 plot will slowly lose one plot in a given amount of time until it is 4x4 and then 3x3 and so on and so forth until just the beacon plot is left and then that last plot could be activated just by logging in otherwise is on an extended timer so players can sort of horde crucial items in that area. Just some quick thoughts and needs some revision.
I like the idea of exploring skill being needed to possibly search or purchase abandoned plots if they can’t be afforded which would be an alternative to my “disappearing plots” idea. I also read a post on plots going up for auction. I think this helps with the problem of permanent or not. After set time the plot goes up for auction and much like buying a storage unit after it has been abandoned, you get to keep what is inside without really knowing what is in the crates. This also means someone has to actually want the land and purchase it before it would disappear meaning the player very well could leave for an extended time and come back and it might be there unless competition in the area is fierce. Otherwise when the player logs back in he/she will have a very nice paycheck to get a boost in starting new.
I personally favor the goes up for sale, but the real question will be for how much. The computer could poll all buying and selling plinths within a distance and average the prices out and price out everything within the beacon plots then use that to determine value. This would make popular areas with competitive markets more interesting.
The market and fuel is tough as this game has both geographical distinct markets as well as major markets in the capitals. I could see certain locations that don’t have access to certain resources being stuck. So either there has to be multiple fuel types that can be implemented or it has to be a resource that every area will for sure have and so far that is only coin. I could see it being a lot like spark or coal or wood with each lasting a different amount of time. This can give crafters a way to extend their duration or efficiency, then builders can build things that store more fuel. If you have a guild or community you would be able to take advantage of both aspects making social interaction lucrative and more efficient. I would expect the absolute max for a fully maxed out building to decay in 6 months. As for the improvements I think they can range anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months being the average time frame. This would mean a new players starts and builds something that stores fuel for an additional two weeks. Then that player meets another that can make more efficient fuel (such as compact coal) and that now makes the fuel 1.5x more efficient meaning that 1 month time is now 1.5 months due to buying better fuel as well as installing that upgrade. This would of course mean the player bought it or spent a reasonable amount of time in game gaining the skills or building and deserves that extra time to decay out of respect. Not a new player that started and stopped after a few hours.
Please respond back and I may be able to elaborate on my ideas. This was just a throw it out there kind of thing.
Oooh, I really like that idea!
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Definitely disappear eventually.
I actually think a combination of options one and three should be in effect. I think option one should persist for one month, so if you don’t log in for a month, your stuff is still there and nothing changes. However, after the month passes, then your beacon starts to require fuel. Maybe the beacon has two months of fuel, and if that runs out then it disappears. I also really love the idea that you can hand the keys over to another player or a guildmate to take over your beacon if you know you’re going to be away from a computer for a long while. I think this is a must have option, that way the area is still being used and getting occupied.
I think the beacon’s power should be able to stem off the natural growth of the natural world state if its in prime condition (the player has logged in <= 1 month ago). However, I think as it runs out of fuel in months 2-3, I think it should lose its ability to fight off natural growth, so that it starts to look like an abandoned place. Honestly, I think abandoned places are cool as heck, especially overgrown ones. Would love to see this. So the less fuel it has, the more the natural realm will take hold of it until, poof, beacon vanishes and the buildings are overgrown and finally melted back into the natural world state. This would also allow for a person or even a guild to come in and smash away the extra dirt and shrubbery that might take hold of the person’s abandoned place, so they can preserve it until they finally take over it when the beacon vanishes. Other players shouldn’t be able to fuel the beacon, unless the owning player gave them the right to.
My question is, if this were to happen, should everyone be able to see how much fuel the beacon has left (how much time it has left until it disappears)?
I’m annoyed because there is a guy with a Becon and 6 blocks of wood that clearly logged in once and never came back.
I’ve been playing every night for weeks now and I want to build a master project only that his beacon is right in the way of a perfectly large amount of flat land, right near the only other active player on my sever. This might be petty of me but the beacon persistence thing is and always has been a huge pain in the rear.
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I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR THE NECRO. I was just flagged in the 2017 Features discussion that the current feature I indicated that needs a total rework is in fact the one being discussed here. Here are the thoughts I put down in response to that discussion, so if anyone would like to tag onto or help flesh out this idea, feel free:
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As far as claiming goes, I agree with finding a work around so players that quit the game don’t get to hold onto land forever. But as far as being afraid people are going to claim all the resources, I highly doubt that will be a problem when there is a lot more worlds. If you read my suggestion in the new forum you will see I had an idea proposed that could possibly alleviate this problem.
In the long run, probably not so much. However, first impressions often make or break a game. Boundless can’t afford a bottleneck problem in which players cram onto starting worlds and can’t easily migrate on because they lack access to monopolized crafting resources being dominated by individual players and/or guilds.
And besides resources, prime real estate like extreme mountains or eye-popping landmarks on which to build are the most valuable and limited due to the need for them to be near other active players to reach their full worth. I would sooner race to grab those than crafting materials because while materials can regenerate, prime real estate is not so easy to obtain.
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The plan in the future is to have beacon fuel. If it runs out world regen will reclaim your site in a set amount of time. Three to six months was the favored consensus I think.
I don’t think that has been officially decided or confirmed… 
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If beacons disapear, i would rather it be based on gameplay time, but the game play time should be of a decent amount as it can happen a player have less time to spend on the game.
The better way would be to make a mean gameplay time of a definite period of time, say four weeks.
Players should have a small permanent space to store stuff in the event they don’t have time to make the gameplay time. It could also be that you would take “holiday” demand from players that suspend the need for gameplay time.
I think the idea is cool and would prevent worlds from being corrupted, but care should be taken about how it comes out so:
2 Base on an amount of recent time played
2 I would only make the beacon disapear and world regen/grieving process takes place
For the gameplay time, it depends if players have some sort of permanent item storage even if they don’t have a beacon. If players can keep items even when they are off, i think 3 hours of gameplay per week over a month is fair enough so 12 hours per four weeks period. If it’s a permanent wipeout and i lose all items that i dont have on me i would say 1 hour a week for 4 hours per four weeks period.
Gameplay time or login time definitely! I don’t think we should be considering fuel any further. There’s enough resource sinks in this game without fueling an inanimate object to reclaim your territory!
3 months is a decent period of time I think. Yes we may get a fair few ghost towns around launch but after a few months it will balance out. If someone’s playing this game for 2 years they shouldn’t be worried about about logging in every month or two when they have more important life problems to deal with.
I think it should consider login time of villagers as well, not just the beacon owner.
And the points about storage blocks being the last to disappear is spot on.
Regeneration time should be based on plot size. 8x8 is regenerated in a few days (after the 3 month window). Bigger plots take longer.
Plot size could also shorten the login window, if people are that worries about ghost towns.
For example a 8x8 plot has to be logged into once every two weeks. Bigger plots up to 3 months. We could have a visual indication of the “inactivity window” too
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We’ve come up with three ideas:
- It’s based on last log-in time which is simple, and clear, and allows people to keep their stuff just by logging in every so often.
- It’s based on amount of recent time played – similar to the above, but prevents people keeping their stuff just by logging on, they have to actually play.
- It’s based on gathering / crafting some kind of “beacon fuel” and putting that into the beacon every so often, which would force players to engage with the game and visit their beacons to keep them maintained.
If I must choose I would say Option 1, because crafting fuel for beacon isn’t good. What if you play the game often but don’t have fuel because you’re traveling to other worlds?
When a beacon is flagged as due to disappear what should happen to the contents?
We have two ideas:
- Initially the beacon remains, but the contents start to slowly regenerate back to the initial world state, once that process has finished the beacon disappears and the land can be claimed by someone else.
- The beacon disappears, and the normal world regeneration process starts reverting the contents back to the initial world state.
Option 1 gives the owning player more chance to come back and rescue their possessions, and means that other players cannot claim them, whereas option 2 allows other players to claim all the contents of someone else’s beacon (if they’re quick enough).
If I must choose I would say Option 1, because it shouldn’t be allowed to get stuff from others by free just because you are offline.
But I’d like to suggest an idea:
If there’s a beacon that’s empty or isn’t used anymore because the player doesn’t play the game, then people can report this beacon. To prevent people from having just a place that someone else has because it looks good, there must be several reports. After receiving several reports the person will get a message via email and the forum. You could make an option in the forum just for that. So if he doesn’t respond to the email and login to the game or clicking a button in the forum like “I’m still active” (because he may can’t play the game at the moment), then the content starts to regenerate and the beacon starts to disappear after a while (maybe after a week it will start).
Just for your information, because most of your ideas are already mentioned by someone (a long time ag) there is another Topic which collects “most” of the current ideas about beacons. You can add your ideas (if they are not mentioned already) there.
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Haven’t been confirmed in any way or form no, it have been brouht up though and heavily contested by @zouls a seen somewhere up in the thread.
Oh I forgot about this. Should probably have started by listing that
The beacon fuel concept is probably the best way to go, and the reasons I think that are two-fold:
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It does not have to be difficult to obtain or time consuming to make. A simple fuel is fine - anything crafted or acquired would do, from wood to the abundant tech fragments to whatever. It could even be leftovers or byproducts of other crafted components. The point is not to make the process of fueling your beacon difficult, and that’s because…
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The importance of this concept lies in the premeditated approach to beacon preservation. The player does not simply get X days of beacon time for X days of played time; the passive nature of that approach will allow players to ignore their beacons same as before. The act of fueling is an investment approach which has players actively thinking about and interacting with their properties (kinda like in life, y’know?). If you have five different properties strewn across three different planets, it is reasonable to have to visit each periodically in order to do “property maintenance” of some kind - and this kind of interaction would also fit that bill nicely.
Oooh Idea!
So, Drichter and I were just talking about this and he suggested something pretty cool. This ties in directly with the beacon fuel idea, and it addresses the concerns of using potentially valuable in-game resources to fuel beacons.
We would like to see the fuel come as a passive resource from performing any of the game’s skills: mining, building, hunting, etc. Fairly similar to the passive resources gained from leveling skills, like coins or plots, in this case you would be able to gain fuel passively when you perform any game skill.
It is important to note that this should cap out each month (or some other designated time period), and that I could reach that cap rather quickly, and the cap of my fuel is commensurate with the plots I have available to me so that I don’t have to short-change a particular beacon. For sake of example, lets say I could cap out my fuel after mining 200 blocks. Or killing 200 creatures. Or building 200 blocks. Or a combination thereof. Then I could go around and fuel my beacons which would then gain resilience against world regeneration equal to X days.
With this system, a player could not simply pop into game every 90 days to preserve their beacons passively, and - more importantly - they could not simply beg/buy a fuel from someone else’s plinth or wherever in order to quickly fuel and then go AFK for another 90 days. The fuel could only be acquired with effort, so they really have to make a decision whether they want to put the time into the game to hang onto their properties.
Fair? I think so.
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Agree - and, well, the beacons themselves are already a constrained resource. So if you’re an active player that has swaths of land that you’re trying to reserve - you’d need to juggle which chunks are most valuable to you
Could possibly simplify it further and just have those actions fuel all of your beacons. E.g. you just have to be in the game and have some activity in order to preserve your beacons
(it might penalize the socalizers/RPers/etc, though)
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This is the same as passively fueling your beacons or simply extending your game time by playing. It’s an ok concept, except it does not force interaction with beacons you have placed across the planets and biomes. The core issues will arise from lonely beacons who have not had visits or regular uses from their owners for extended periods of time. These beacons block land that could otherwise be used by players who wish to actually develop and utilize the vacated space. By being forced to at least interact with the beacon periodically, you have to make a conscious decision to preserve and maintain your land.
I have a possible issue with this … learned from planet jumping in the latest releases.
I have a single beacon on every planet I have visited … nothing fancy - just 1 beacon, with a small ‘safe’ room for me to warp to, if and when the need arises. They allow me to know, without a shadow of doubt, that when I pay a lot of coin to open a warp, the place I am going is safe to warp to - no matter what.
Now, firstly, if I didn’t have those beacons placed as a safe place to warp to, what happens when someone decides that my saved location is a great place to build their fantastic mega-build? Am I still able to warp there? If so, what happens if I warp into a room with locked doors (without knowing it’s locked before I warp in)? Yes I could probably get back to the sanctum, at a cost, but then what about my saved location? Considering it could probably be the only location I have for that particular planet?
Secondly, it would be a massive coin sink to have to physically visit each and every one of those beacons to keep them alive. I’m sure that is something that would put a lot of players off.
Something like beacon fuel, with a physical visit to to the beacon to keep it alive is something that would certainly be in favour of people who are set up in multiple planetary markets, as they would need to visit their plinths every once in a while anyway, but I don’t see that solution benefiting may other play styles at all.
Personally, I’m still in favour of just logging in to renew your claims - something that doesn’t have to be a chore to do, for a game that is supposed to be fun to play. Simple is better in this case IMHO. I also think that people should not be punished for having real lives and needing to take a break from playing for a while, for whatever reason that may be. Being able to just log in, even for a few seconds, would allow them to continue playing at a later date.
One thing that keeps bringing me back to games like WoW, is that no matter how long a break I take, all my stuff will still be there in 12 months time, ready for me to pick back up and get back into the game and enjoy whatever new content has been released. Admittedly WoW is not a persistent world where other people can physically see what stuff I have accumulated, but that’s not the comparison here… being able to get back into a game where you have spent countless hours is. Going back to practically nothing and effectively needing to start the game again, would be enough to put off even the most stalwart returning player. It needs to have a mechanism where players can get back into the game where they left off, otherwise you will lose people … probably for good, and that IMO is not a good thing. What that mechanism would be, I do not know.
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