Some recent events have shown a need for some other functionality around managing beacons that are within a large city scenario. This is different from the functionality needed around Guild Management since they are inherently different use cases.
This thread is for people wanting this functionality to provide use cases and suggestions so that the developers see the need and can look to adding this feature to the development list.
Initial thoughts are that a beacon has an option to mark it as part of “city infrastructure” which will be different than just the “settlement” option we currently have. This marking will allow it to be managed in a different way. How that management looks, I’m not certain and would want suggestions from those people that are trying to handle large cities now.
For 1.0 I have plans for a floating city, a bit like Reach, but way way bigger, different theme and open to other players.
I would like to designate plots for potential citizens and make them available. As you can imagine it’s going to be a very themed city.
But in the current system I see only 2 ways to handle this:
No control at all, just leave everything unplotted, players can plot and build what they want. I can try to put up signs with some guidelines, but players can choose to ignore them and ruin the theme (deliberately or not doesn’t matter.) If someone becomes inactive and leaves behind an unfinsihed ruin, there is nothing i can do. If the beacon of a beautiful build runs out, there is nothing i can do.
Total controlplot everything, and never give the plots themself away. Just add new citizens to the beacon permissions of the individual plot they settle on. That gives me all the features I’m longing for: I can control build height and size, I can perserve great builds, I can enforce the rules, I can boot players that keep disrupting the community. But it comes at a very high cost, citizens don’t have their name on their builds, citizens get no footfall, citizens can’t control their permissions, e.g. add friends, citizens are completely at my mercy. But thats also something that I don’t want, It feels totally oppressive.
Those are both extremes, with each one always leaving one party totally powerless, either the city founders or the citizens.
I would love to see a system that keeps a balance between the interests of the citizens and the city founders.
Something like a landlord/tenant relationship. And it should be optional, something that a city founder can choose to use, but doesn’t have to.
I really like how the portal system works in this way. You can setup portals on your plots and set the token on sale, this token enables another player to use the portal for his own needs. But you still keep ownershop of the portal and can put the token up for sale again if the other player becomes inactive.
Recent minor issues have caused knee Jerk reactions…
There is nothing to see here just move along…
But on a Serious note I think the main issue here is that people have been trained into a certain mindset bye Society or other Games or whatever… There is a “Normal” that people think should be…
The Question is… Should it?!?
Why should Wardens in Boundless have any authority what so ever?!?
Why should a Warden in Aquatopia or any other in game town have any say over what someone does on and with his plot?!?
Is not part of the game design around the opposite… Anyone can move into a town, anyone can become the new Warden… Or ANYONE can come in and Salvage an expired beacon…
I don’t think there is really any issue here this whole thing is being blown out of proportion… And it can all be fixed bye simply giving the beacon plotter tool durability and everyone then going back to playing the game as they did before…
Wardens don’t have some special right over there town! As much as they might want… They don’t…
And that is part of boundless it maybe contrary to the real world or other games and that’s why people have a hard time coming to grips with they don’t have control over the town they named.
This discussion is way older and goes back to themed cities. (Chisel Town, Anoobis and Eden for example)
I won’t do the work for you to look up the links because I’m on my phone right now.
City Founders can put a lot of thought an work into a city only to be destroyed in a few minutes.
So they should have some way to protect their work.
There is currently only one way: Plot everything and never give plots out. And will be the way to go for themed cities I’m afraid if nothing changes. (Thank you for reading my first post.)
Don’t get me wrong totally anarchist cities like Therka Market are fine to and fun to watch.
But when you put a lot of work into a planning and executing a project on a city level you will want to protect it.
The problem with the renting (landlord/tenant) mechanic is how is it any different from complete control? If you rent the property away then the tenant will have complete control. If we add a way for the landlord to take it back from the tenant then the landlord effectively has complete control (and could steal all their stuff!).
I nice middle ground would be the ability to pass ownership of a beacon. But you can basically do that right now anyways by destroying the beacon and letting them beacon it.
yeah! but then you have to first remove all the 100-1000 plots for the building then remove the beacon. then the other players need to beacon and add all the plots. Remember during this process, anyone can come in and steal anything or even beacon some of it. and you run the risk of missing to plott some of the old plots.
Being able to transfer beacon control like @virresss said would be pretty helpful.
@Kirinvar , how do you envision this “landlord” situation working? Let’s say you did give someone a handful of plots within your themed city, and they went all crazy and built something you never would’ve wanted. What powers do you envision for the primary owner of the settlement to have?
Well i guess it would be an start, and it allso depends on if its just transfer of the ownership. another thing if I loose the plots when tranfer the beacon to another player?
Well that’s another complication. If you want to keep the plots then they need to have that many available. I guess we could let the receiver run over their limit (but not able to place anymore until they catch up again). In order for that to work you would both need to be online and on the same world. A workaround could be you transfer it and lose the plots until they claim it and then next time you visit you get the plots back.
The owner clicks “Transfer ownership” on the beacon (in the friends list).
Nothing happens yet (and you can unclick it to undo the transfer).
Then the receiver goes to the beacon and has a new button “Take ownership” they must have enough plots to click this.
Once they have taken ownership the original owner (giver) can get their plots back by visiting the beacon.
Like i already said in my first post:
If you rent your plot away, tenants names are displayed on the plot, they can collect footfall, they can set their permissions on their own, add friends, etc.
To expand on that: they get the prestige accounted to them, not the landlord and of course they should be protected from the landlords access. Like I said, what I want is a balance of interests. If the landlord sees the need to take the plots back there should be hurdles and grace periods, no instant take back and stealing stuff, that defeats the whole purpose.
It’s not a middle ground. Like you said it’s basically the system we have now with a quality of life change.
Edit:
Maybe doing it on a per plot basis is misleading, because it can be easily abused.
What @Xaldafax and others are asking for is basically a Moderated Settlement option in addtion to the current Anarchistic Settlement.
@Dave I think a start to developing a “City Management Functionality” would be like you mention above. It helps us create a city area and then bring in people that we want and give them plots easily. I would agree that the person must have enough plots to take this on otherwise the transfer fails.
I personally feel this would be a nice feature for all users to have in general for plot transfer since so many builders have come across the issue when trying to transfer stuff to friends. If though you all want this only linked to cities then maybe a qualification that the settlement must be at least Outpost size?
On a side note, in relation to city management it might be a nice option to have the beacon fail back to the original owner if it expires. This way it would be like leasing land where if the tenant leaves the original owner gets it back. I think it helps give City Founders the ability to keep their cities in tact without losing any buildings in the case of a beacon expiration.
Now of course the original plot owner would need to have enough plots to cover the beacon. This might be too hard especially for large cities that someone founded since they wouldn’t have that many free plots. So maybe the beacon goes into a post-expiration state where it can be fueled by that owner for only 24 hrs and it not count against their “plot limit”. This gives them a very short window to find someone else to take ownership of that plot… Just a thought because I do think in regards to city management we need to think before and after for plot management.
I like @Dave’s suggestions. It sounds like it provides some control without giving the Warden too much control. I think that the warden should never be able to take back plots just because they are unhappy with someone they provided plots to in the first place. This is a risk and I do understand that people want to try and keep a themed city, but the ability to decide that they want someone out for any reason and they exercise absolute control over that is just wrong. So random guy has spent weeks building a structure and then says something I do not like and I can kick him out? What happens to the build that has become part of your city due to expansion and does not fit the theme?
What happens when someone else becomes the warden? Can they kick out the old warden and force them to abandon everything they might have built?
I also do not think that the original owner should get the plots back when a beacon they transferred expires. This is subject to manipulation by the owner. If a beacon expires no matter where it is, it should be subject to the same rules as any other beacon. If not claimed, the area should regen under the same rules. Should the warden maybe have the ability to see the time left on all the beacons in the city even if they do not have permissions? I think this can be exploited but maybe not enough to create issues and would give the warden a chance to make decisions on a soon to expire beacon.
I do understand the frustrations that people have expressed, but this is part of the game and has been since the start. The only sure way to keep a themed city is to rent your own planet where you do have control over who can build. I know this is not going to be available to everyone due to cost, but if we share the planets we share the planets. We are all going to get the good with the bad.
We are talking about a city management functionality and not general play. Just like with the Guild features that will come there might need to be changes to how certain areas of the game are managed.
I don’t know if I even agree with the suggestion I made about a temporary ability to get the plot for a city. It was just an option for the developers to consider. I think probably allowing wardens to see beacon timing isn’t smart because of the chance a new warden comes in that might take advantage of the situation. But, based on that I also can see how the “transfer back” situation might be an issue if it is linked to the active warden and not the founder.
Also, renting a server is a valid option instead of creating an additional gaming mechanic.
Overall, though, I think the initial transfer ownership feature is of value for everyone in the game and at least should be considered. Maybe the full city functionality parts need more discussion as we move to guilds, etc.