what about people who cant play/log in every week or so? it should be much longer time so people don’t have to keep coming back so intensely but then we get back to my first question.
people who genuinely need time off for RL reasons can have an option to refuel for longer however at greater cost; kind of “holiday time” request via beacon menu (available if you have enough log-ins over last months, so players logging in rarely wouldnt be able to use it) - so lets say 1 week is typical maximum period of time one can stock fuel for and it costs 100 of whatever resources; going beyond that would cost you 50% more for first week, 100% more for the second week etc. giving you this kind of costs for you “holiday time from game”:
1 normal cost week stock up - 100 units
+1 holiday week - 150 units
+1 holiday week - 200 units
+1 holiday week - 250 units
+1 holiday week - 300 units
Maximum possible holiday time would be set at 4 weeks what would give you a chance to be out of game for 5 weeks. Depending on you log-in history you would be able to apply for less or more holiday weeks (giving maximum 4 weeks period to players with daily log-ins or close enough to it).
BTW - whats the general idea on relation between number of plots attached to a beacon and cost of fueling the beacon? If any?
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I think that almost irrespective of how beacon persistence is handled (and more specifically, removal of abandoned beacons), there’s something that only seems to have been mentioned in passing and not really considered that weighs on my mind based on how I know I’ll end up playing.
I can imagine that I’ll play a lot for when the game is launched, and really enjoy it. At some point however, it will start to feel like a chore, or some other exciting new game will come out that I want to try, or [insert other reason here] will make me put Boundless down for an unspecified and not entirely foreseeable amount of time. Given that Boundless is going check most of my boxes for fun gameplay, I don’t think I’ll ever just stop playing with no intention of coming back. However, if I knew for certain that without constant* upkeep I will lose everything I’ve collected, it will be a real turn off and disincentive to come back to the game in the future.
I’m very much in agreement that unattended beacons deteriorate over time (or without some from of upkeep) as a method to keep the land clear of abandoned beacons. However, without some functionality to save your belongings over a longer (potentially indefinite) period of time, I’d suggest that it will be VERY difficult to bring past players who take an extended break back into the game, which would be a great loss.
It’s not a fully formed idea, but I feel we could really do with some method to essentially ‘pack up’ a beacon (collecting all the blocks that you’ve added or modified) and putting it into an escrow somewhere that won’t disappear over time. Then, when you know you’re finished playing for the foreseeable future, you can pack up your beacon and release the land back into the game for someone else to claim. The important point, is that you’ll know that when you do come back, you won’t be starting from scratch (Yes, except coins and experience).
This should be of benefit both because it will provide an improved avenue for taking longer breaks (and people WILL want these at some point), but also that in doing so, you can apply stricter/harsher time limits on how quickly it takes for unattended beacons to degrade, for the very reason that there IS a way to circumvent losing all your belongings if you’re willing to look for a new home later. And lets face it, if I’ve been off for 6 months, I’ll barely remember or care about my previous beacons, and will want to build something new anyway.
*Constant upkeep, in this case, could actually mean anything. I feel that when I play a game, it’s because it’s my free time and I want it to be fun. If it starts to become a chore just to maintain my property, then the game has lost it’s ability to simply be fun. If it isn’t any real chore to maintain property, then whatever IS set up as the requirements (be it log in recency, or inexpensive fuel) will be something that people can do without much thought, and it fails to be a deterrent or preventative for grabbing land and not using it for all but the completely inactive.
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a fuel based Beacon with item input and upkeep as for example as @boundmore stated with units becomes a job something that is forced a pond a player to do to maintain in there beacon, even if the fuel in question is cheap or super easy to get its something you have to stop everything to do.
Active Beacon time does not count down when your actively online and only starts when you log out but resets when you log back in the idea around this is just to have you log in by logging in there is a 50/50 chance you will stay logged in and play but are not forced to upkeep or keep an eagle eye on your beacon fuel supply
Both systems have there pro’s and con’s and each one can be abused or forgotten about .
as for how long each ones should last or XX days i only use numbers my other post as references and believe that should be left up to the dev’s and only trying to point out the system i personally think would be the best fit for all and easiest to implement without having creating extra items or making it a chore for players.
This is an old and VEEERY long topic, so I can totally understand skimming this topic. That said, I’ll repost a suggestion that I think answers a lot of the debate about fuel based beacon systems. In short, it’s a work based charge that fills beacons to a max capacity, then can be stored in “batteries” for additional charge or can be traded to other players to power a beacon without having to sink a few hours of work into it. I’d be interested to see what our newest forum members think of the idea since it was so well received before.
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theres people who get upset because beacon blocks a nice building area where they would like to build and see that the beacon owner is not even active but active enough to maintain the building. people get upset because someone build hes beacon too close to your’s and block your’s so you cant increase the size of the beacon, he is active player. in both cases the fueling or login to keep your beacon wont work at all, how ever the fueling or login work strongly against “empty” and abandoned beacons so it keeps maps “mostly” clean. so how to prevent trolls and inactive players? Be more forgiving, dont be too greedy (you wont always get what you want, not even every time). report the trolls. reporting is the strongest and maybe the only way against people who intentionally block your areas. Beacon should not be permanent to keep abandoned or empty beacons away but not too hard or time taking to maintaining yours. login would be enough, maybe every 2-3 month’s, fueling to take 15-30min of your time for next 2months or playing 2-4hours to charge your battery for 1-2 week’s. with report and fueling/powering system it should keep everything in order, not too forcing and not too incompetent.
I cant say i agree any anything that has to be reported if the game picks up whats stopping trolls from spam reporting honest people or honest people getting upset about someone building next to them then reports them on top of that makes more work for Dev to have to shift throw the emails, check the logs for each and every report that could be a false positive.
Reporting a hacker is different.
Im all for less work for the Dev’s if the system can be self sustaining but also not forced on the player. 
i want to avoid boundless finding its way to this part of google like many others
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=paid+upkeep+my+base+vanished&start=0&*
but the game still needs report system for bad behavior and harass etc. simply muting someone isn’t always enough. reporting someone could work like it already did past when there was no self crafted beacons, you post it here in forums with provided information.
This would be great. At Dragons Watch my there’s an abandoned beacon right next to my house using up space.
Just going to say that 2 weeks at least is waaaay too little time, Finding yourself in a situation where you are away for more than 3 weeks is relatively common.
When people talk about the maximum time it should be in months not weeks.
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That was just an example I pulled out my head, hence why I said “or however long it will be”.
However most of the tax systems I’ve seen in MMOs have been 2 weeks taxes, but if you forget then you get 2 more weeks to pay - so a total of 4 weeks. Bear in mind you can get friends to fuel your beacon for you as well if needed. Do we really want to see abandoned beacons in prime market slots for 3 or 4 months, it’ll be like newbie hunts littering like in survival games.
Maybe it can be based on the number of plots attached to the beacon? that way it sorts the “active but away for 4 weeks players” from the “place beacon and never come back” players.
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We are looking at at least 4 weeks though, as you have quite a lot of things that can take you away for that kind of time.
I agree on 4 weeks, but anything over that and you really should be asking yourself why you chose to play a competitive building MMO, and not something single player where you can log in when you like and always keep your buildings.
I know well about things that take you away for 6 months at a time having just retired from the Military after 22 years, I still don’t think I would deserve to take up prime space over and above someone who played activity every day if I was away for months at a time.
I don’t think 100’s of people in a guild should be reaping the rewards of people who log in once every 2 months. MMOs tend to work on much higher benefits for being active every day. So I don’t think capital cities should benefit from having people away for long periods if capitals bring in so many benefits, Once you go inactive your stats shouldn’t count towards any capital city stats. This would mean new guilds have a better chance of gaining capital city status as long as they remain active - one of the worst things in MMOs is never being able to compete once you join late.
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i have never seen or played MMo’s which removes all your progression if you wont log in for long time. that will be the issue with boundless with no permanent beacons since they are the only things that protect everything you have in this game, but if the beacons are permanent it creates much more harm than good so it sure needs to be there in some form. basically it all comes to balancing the time so everyone can keep playing and have fun no matter if you cant log in every week or monthly. if the time is too harsh the game wont be for casual players but it sure is now and i hope it will when released.
I’m the opposite, I’ve never played an MMO with housing that doesn’t require activity & taxes. You don’t lose progress as in personal levels - but in:
ARK your building degrades and vanishes in PvE if you don’t log in (or is destroyed on PvP),
Archeage you lose your plot of land if you cannot pay your taxes regularly,
Everquest 2 you will lose your instanced house if you cannot pay your tax regularly.
Wurm Online your builidings decay if you do not pay your upkeep regularly
Mortal Online heavy PvP, your buildings can be destroyed
Black Desert - if you don’t pay your taxes you are evicted from your instanced housing
I do have 100% faith that the devs will come out with a good system using a combination of activity, plots and fuel. if an active player has 100 plots down and a huge build then for sure it should take much longer to degrade than 1 beacon plot.
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One of the aims of Boundless is to encourage players to work together and being a member of a community. Even in Early Access, players dip in and out from time to time and others play constantly. We love both and want both to play the game whether it is in short bursts every few weeks or months, or consistently logging in and playing. But it needs to be a fair system for both.
We are hoping players who are more casual will be a member of a guild or will have a number of friends playing the game when they aren’t, and those players can fuel the missing player’s beacon until they return.
We might need a longer term solution that caters to both. But for now we feel the fueling system and allowing friends and guild members to assist with powering your beacon is enough.
Remember, you can power you beacon up, so if you think you’re going to take an extended period off you can power it up before you go away. Also, we’re considering e-mailing players about their beacon status so they are aware that their beacon is about to go away.
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Since when is this a competitive building game? I am really curious where that came into the game, cause I always thought this was suppose to be a community game. Where people work together to achieve goals, not compete.
I think that is a good compromise for people that travel a lot and can be in positions where they have no access to internet for extended periods of time, or steam decides to tell them they aren’t their account holder (both have happened to me a lot more than I care to admit). However I think that in itself can cause other problems, mostly in the cost area. I understand that a lot of this comes from the aspect that we all want any beacon that is placed to actually be used, but I feel the system is just being made overly complicated. Using this for now however is a great short-term solution. And obviously cost needs to be seen to take a more educated approach at the matter, but I just feel that in a way this is going to put a damper on a a group of people, mostly the ones that like to play more solo.
I thought one of the main aims is for people to build the biggest city so it is called as the Capital of that planet and brings in bonuses (and more visitors), with cities each having some sort of ranking based on the amount/value of materials used. Each city will get a ranking then - if that’s not competitive building with guilds vying against each other in a rankings board then I don’t know what is?
That’s why I don’t think inactive people should be counting towards the rankings, otherwise new guilds will never get the chance to compete for the capital.
Important thing to remember is a player can achieve this themselves without a guild but it will be tougher to keep the capital rating without other people to help you out.
edit: love auto-correct
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Great idea! Both for the players, and as a business move (to keep people coming back, just in case they forget!)
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