Beacon Persistence

[Clexarews]

I agree with you that 1 month might be too low of a number. But I’d say 2-3 is about the max and should only be given to people who have put in points/earned the exp for it. Anything over 3 is ridiculous (to me), definitely agreeing with @Vastar on that point.

[ChickenBranches]

Maybe instead of making the chest open to being raided or just vanish there could be some way to store it in a database for that character and allow that character in the future to somehow restore those chest and what they stored. Other then the chest, i agree with fuel system and for the beacon to go away before regen so you can harvest from the ruins of abandoned beacon areas.

[Clexarews]

I could see this easily being abused. The only reason I will ever use a beacon is to protect chests, since I’m not really a builder.

[ChickenBranches]

I don’t understand how it could be abused. They don’t gain anything they didn’t have before and this game isn’t about raiding/stealing from other people’s chest as far as i know. Could you explain what you meant?

[Vastar]

I´d assume that most player will eventually join one or several guilds or have (ingame-) friends that are willing to help you out in such cases.
At least I have never had problems with keeping my “beacon” in EvE Online fueled , although I´ve never had more than 2 weeks worth of fuel stored (damn was I broke in that game ) and I regularly took brakes that time.

[Heureka]

@olliepurkiss

Having put a beacon down in the game, should it be there permanently, or should it disappear under some circumstances?

I would like it to be permanent, but i see the problem. If it disappear it should take long time.
Maybe some mechanism (voting now and then) to set extraordinaire buildings to be permanent, like the Unesco World Heritage list. Would be nice to have a list of such sites to visit and get inspiration from

@olliepurkiss

If beacons are to disappear, under which circumstances should that be?

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

1. I prefer. It often happens things in life you cant control.
2. No, I don’t like to be forced to play a game.
3. See 2.

@olliepurkiss

When a beacon is flagged as due to disappear what should happen to the contents?

We have two ideas:1. 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.2. The beacon disappears, and the normal world regeneration process starts reverting the contents back to the initial world state.

1. Yes, a dignified end of all your work.
2. I don’t like to see a flock of wolfs waiting for their dinner.

@olliepurkiss

If there is a time element to beacons disappearing, how long after a player stops playing should this happen?

At least 6 month.

[Thorbjorn42gbf]

@Vastar

I´d assume that most player will eventually join one or several guilds or have (ingame-) friends that are willing to help you out in such cases.

The problem is that some people people prefer to make guilds of close friend circles and they would easily be strongly affected by being hit by a real world natural disaster or stuff like the one month gamer study trip to USA.

I really don’t care about people messing up and and then loosing their beacon but 1 month is short enough time for a series of unfortunate events ending up with a full guild loosing all of their stuff :´( Which is something I really don’t want to happen. Because that will make a lot of people unhappy and is really not fun for anyone.

@Heureka

At least 6 month.

And here we really see how different it is perceived by people. We have people ranging all from No more than 1 month to my 6 month ish with some work to at least 6 month.

It is cool to see how diverse a playerbase we are actually getting here.

[Blaquknite]

I fully understand the point of wanting Beacons to have a time limit so the universe doesn’t become full of ghost towns. With that said I feel Beacons should be kept alive by logging in (maybe for a minimum time per week/month) I do not think there should be “fuel” that has to be gathered and stored though. As a person who loves the idea of this game but has limited play time available, I do not want to have all of my limited time gathering fuel so I don’t lose my house.

With that said there could be a happy medium where you have to “touch” the beacon like once a month or once every other month in order to keep it… This would prevent having to farm a resource “fuel” during precious play time, but it also makes you “maintain” your properties. This way you cannot just log in for a split second or long in and AFK for the required hour a week or what ever… you have to go out and visit your various properties, at least the ones that are important to you. This can be done with simply pressing a button on a beacon or going within a set proximity to it.

What you guys think?

[alexanderyou]

I am personally for some kind of consumption (monetary or fuel) for beacons because:

• people could work on making more efficient beacons, maybe part of a skill tree. Could also work with adding more fuel storage to beacons.
• it would make it so claiming larger areas requires more work, so that people actually have to work together to make something as large as a town.

Overall, I like the idea of having an average beacon be able to hold 1-2 months of fuel, and after it runs out of fuel the beacon slowly starts fading, making the protected area regenerate at 1/2 - 1/4 speed. This could also be interesting for lore, have beacons be a magical item that keeps the power of the world at bay, but as it runs out of power itself the world will slowly start seeping back in.

edit: possibly have the upkeep price for each connected beacon slightly increase? And guild beacons have a decent increase in consumption in exchange for more powers.
This way a small group of people could have their base covered by a handful of beacons, and have a reasonable cost, and a large guild will have a much higher upkeep, but will have the ability to have permanent portals, sub-beacons, etc.

[Thorbjorn42gbf]

@ChickenBranches

I don’t understand how it could be abused. They don’t gain anything they didn’t have before and this game isn’t about raiding/stealing from other people’s chest as far as i know. Could you explain what you meant?

1. Place chest outside beacon
2. Keep gathering stuff
3. when you get back home the chest is degenerated and therefore available
4. Make the chest respawn
5. You now have basically infinite inventory while exploring.

@Blaquknite

I do not think there should be “fuel” that has to be gathered and stored though. As a person who loves the idea of this game but has limited play time available, I do not want to have all of my limited time gathering fuel so I don’t lose my house.

This is also why most of the people voting for fuel (like me ) feel that fuel should be very cheap and why I am voting for it to become progressively expensive in fuel to store large amounts of it at the same time, this would mean that people who play maybe a few hours a week can keep the beacon alive relatively cheaply but people who don’t want to bother with keeping refuling the beacon pay more, and setting up a large buffer would be massively expensive. (If you lo

g in shortly to touch your beacon you can also log in shortly to put a bit of fuel in it.)

@alexanderyou

edit: possibly have the upkeep price for each connected beacon slightly increase? And guild beacons have a decent increase in consumption in exchange for more powers.This way a small group of people could have their base covered by a handful of beacons, and have a reasonable cost, and a large guild will have a much higher upkeep, but will have the ability to have permanent portals, sub-beacons, etc.

Thats funny basically the opposite of my suggestion of making having a single large beacon cheaper.

[alexanderyou]

@Thorbjorn42gbf

Thats funny basically the opposite of my suggestion of making having a single large beacon cheaper.

I don’t think it should be easier to claim larger and larger amounts of land, that kinda makes it so the big get bigger.

Also I was thinking about maybe beacons should take more/less upkeep based on what world it is on, like a more powerful world would require more fuel, but has better ore and stronger monsters. This would make it so people can settle on one of the easier world, and maybe a lot of guilds would settle there for cheaper upkeep, but people could also set up outposts on newly found worlds, maybe even an enterprising town of high-leveled players.

[Clexarews]

@Blaquknite

As a person who loves the idea of this game but has limited play time available, I do not want to have all of my limited time gathering fuel so I don’t lose my house.

The proposal from some players is for fuel that is easy to be acquired/made. Since we get Coins from nearly all activities, you could spend Coins from building your house on the fuel to protect the house if you don’t have much time.[quote=“ChickenBranches, post:44, topic:4285, full:true”]
I don’t understand how it could be abused. They don’t gain anything they didn’t have before and this game isn’t about raiding/stealing from other people’s chest as far as i know. Could you explain what you meant?
[/quote]

Sure. If people can store their chests (and thus the items inside the chest) into a void sort of database in the game and then restore them at any point in time, it completely negates the need for beacons for people like me, which is not fair for people who are builders and whatnot, especially if fuel is a thing and they need to spend Coin on it.

It would also essentially mean I have a portable chest network that travels with me anywhere. I’m no longer constrained by an inventory limit, so I can just mine up every resource in a cave and then travel and sell it all instead of having to prioritize minerals and whatnot.

Danigt, Thor beat me to the punch on both of these.

[Blaquknite]

@Thorbjorn42gbf

This is also why most of the people voting for fuel (like me ) feel that fuel should be very cheap and why I am voting for it to become progressively expensive in fuel to store large amounts of it at the same time, this would mean that people who play maybe a few hours a week can keep the beacon alive relatively cheaply but people who don’t want to bother with keeping refuling the beacon pay more, and setting up a large buffer would be massively expensive.

I guess I dont really have a problem with this if it helps the lore, BUT the fuel should be very easy to farm AND available to buy at a store for pretty cheap. My main concern is people will try to monopolize the beacon fuel and charge outrageous amounts just so people can keep their land. As a economic minded person and a person who USED to have lots of hours to play, I could see that happening… control the resource that EVERYONE needs and you become VERY RICH.

This can all be solved by making the fuel purchasable from the UI for a set low price, making farming and selling it useless because selling it for more than the UI sells it for would be worthless.

But that solution does not fit well with their current system of “everything” is controlled by the “player economy”… which leads back to my original statement.

[Combatman12]

Whatever you do, don’t screw new or old players over. Think about how much time people are able to spend playing. Scale beacon size/duration with the amount of time/effort/money required so people don’t get screwed over for small houses, or for large builds. Maintaining beacons should be able to be scaled up with effort/time, the max time for beacons not being disabled should be 2 months, guild members and friends should be able to fuel the beacons (to a finite point, 6 months extra?). If a beacon is a guild beacon then all guild members should be able to fuel it, etc.

[Vastar]

@Heureka

At least 6 month.

You should also consider the opposed point of view:
While you are not playing for 6 months actively playing players just see a plot of land that is unused for half a year.

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@alexanderyou

Also I was thinking about maybe beacons should take more/less upkeep based on what world it is on, like a more powerful world would require more fuel, but has better ore and stronger monsters. This would make it so people can settle on one of the easier world, and maybe a lot of guilds would settle there for cheaper upkeep, but people could also set up outposts on newly found worlds, maybe even an enterprising town of high-leveled players.

That´s an absolutely awesome idea!

[Saint-X]

First at all i am against that beacons disapper, i prefear that they are permanent

@olliepurkiss

If beacons are to disappear, under which circumstances should that be?

We’ve come up with three ideas:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

I love number 1 & 2, because i need somtimes a break time from a game fore some month. and if i come back i want see that all my building destroyed. Most time if i build something it needs more as 100 hours. And it makes no fun if you making a big building who needs over 100-200 hours and all is destroyed.

@olliepurkiss

Up until now I have considered beacons to be permanent, which would allow players to return to the game after a long time away and all their possessions would be exactly as they left them. There is something nice about that,

the exactly matches 100% to me

@olliepurkiss

3. 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.

i see here some problems as example:
####needs a bigger beacon more fuel ?
if yes chieftain get some problems, because me as example has bought the chieftain mainly because he had a bigger beacon size. But if a bigger beacon size needs more fuel a chieftain or other higher backers get a punishment for that they buy a higher backer package

####need every beacon a seperate fuel ?
if yes i must be careful that i dont forget a single beacon, or i lost it. and if i build on some diffrent worlds i must travel every week(week is only as example) between all worlds to fuel the beacons…that is only time i cant play… i will using my time to play and not to save my buildings. i have only a limited time who i can play.

@olliepurkiss

When a beacon is flagged as due to disappear what should happen to the contents?

We have two ideas:

1. 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.
2. 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 hey’re quick enough).

like you said option 1 is better.

But here now some question on you @olliepurkiss, the question makes only sense if beacons disapper after a time

• Has Higher Baker Level any influence on the time till a beacon disapper ?
• Is it possible to send a player a email with the information that the beacon will start disapper as example in 1-2 weeks ? This will give the player more chance to save the beacon.

@Kerpie

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.

In the Chieftain backer level you get more as 1 Account, what should the player than do with the second account ? i think that the most player will use the second account to expand the their own beacons. Is this than multiple Accounts ?

[Clexarews]

@Blaquknite

My main concern is people will try to monopolize the beacon fuel

With resource regen there should be no monopolies.

[Thorbjorn42gbf]

What I think that making larger beacons cost more would actually discourage less powerfull players from building larger construction. While I think that large guilds will make multiple beacons in more worlds and those actively taking part in more expensive expansion.

On on the other hand we could actually make it a more diverse cost system where the price falls for larger beacon structures for a while and at some point starts getting higher again based on how much value the world is rated at.

@Clexarews

Danigt, Thor beat me to the punch on both of these.

@Blaquknite

My main concern is people will try to monopolize the beacon fuel and charge outrageous amounts just so people can keep their land.

I am sure that would be rather hard the worlds are already immense and price wars would break out at the moment another person gets hands on fuel. (Monopolies happens rarely in games because there are a lot more people thinking in short term gain.

@Saint_X

need every beacon a seperate fuel ?

I would go for all beacons in a connected cluster shares fuel if prefared while it should be reasonably easy to trasport fuel to your other beacons without walking all the way.

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Also:

:3

[Clexarews]

I got that little box too haha. Yes, Discourse, this topic is important to me. Sheesh.

[Vastar]

Another point that might be worth discussing regarding this:
Should beacon fuel/lifespan be a cash-shop item? (Not tradeable ofc)

So if you are not able to gather fuel or play for some time you just let your credit card do the work?