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).