Inactive player Beacon removal

But…what if they did that because they are saving a resource that is above or below the plot? Where does it say one is required to build upon a plot?

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Some “empty” plots are there because a player is planning on building there. I currently have around 25 empty plots in Malu, because I plan on building there. I think if a beacon is expired then it is fair, but I still don’t think a player should be able to remove another player’s plots/beacon if it is unexpired.

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If the plots have no value then why does someone want them?

But that’s all irrelevant. The issue is the ability for any player to deny a service that another player has paid money for.

Is this a weapon you’re comfortable to have pointed at you?

Then in that case, I would agree that the ability to remove the plots wouldn’t become an option. The system could be set up in a way that if resources were detected on the site, the option to remove the plots would become unavailable.

I also have empty plots in other places so I can warp to that location faster, to go hunting or collect specific resources

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You’re speaking in technical terms, I am just here to point out that… you’re technically wrong.

What Gleam Club promises is to refuel your beacon for you. That’s all. If there are other mechanisms by which the beacon can be removed, that isn’t theft of service because the beacon wasn’t removed because it was not fueled, it was removed because of that other mechanism.

I’m not saying that there should be a mechanism for your average user to trigger it.

But I do think if you plot a single plot on someone’s settlement and block them for months and months and don’t do anything with it, that could be considered griefing.

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The other thing to remember here. All those stories about people being forcefully merged into other settlements via prestige bombing now they’re also stories about people having their plots removed. Are 100% of the plots in your city developed? You have no Green space? No buffer zone? No area that is not yet built?

Plus the whole mechanic is nonsensically easy to bypass by simply throwing a block on the plot.

Land ownership is complicated. Social interaction is complicated. If you don’t want to deal with both don’t play a game that has both.

Anyone been to the capital of Imoco lately? Have a look around the next time you’re passing through. There are about 10 or more plots scattered about the place , all owned by one player. They’ve been lying there empty since Sept 11th. The day the game officially launched. The beacons are obviously fueled with Gleam Club because no one in the settlement can remember the last time they saw the player.

These plots are holding up the progress of a settlement that has great potential. It’s unfortunate that these plots are the very reason I left Imoco a number of months ago. I was one of the unlucky ones who was surrounded by these empty plots.

My point here is… There has to be a line somewhere. Some people out there have more money than sense and some will use it to grief in games. I’m not saying that this is the case here or on Imoco but I have seen it happen in other games. There has to be a little consideration for those who are actually trying to build and accomplish something together, as a community and without having to put up with this kind of potential Griefing.

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Generally if a hub/city is dying or has been inactive for some time, another bigger one will pop up. I have been to some hub/cities that have inactivity, but I just go to the next one over.

That’s the thing, the Capital of Imoco is growing irrespective of these plots. The folk over there continue to build and they’re making great progress for the most part.They’re doing really well at making the best out of a bad situation and I admire their perseverance. It’s just that some areas are an eyesore simply because there is absolutely nothing they can do with these shoveled, bare soil plots.

It goes in cycles. Every city has blank spots. Black Light has been grabbing them up as they go wild, though most of the players there are playing the long game.

As far as inactive beacon removal, it won’t get any better than it currently is.

I have to agree with warfairy, gleamclub saved me from losing many properties I had semi built on when I had heart surgery.

You don’t know what is going on in their personal lives. I get the empty plots can be annoying however if they have no intention of returning it will run up in time. Patients and respect is what you need, not the ability to remove my plot rights.

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First I’m skeptical that 10 scattered plots can hamstring a large settlement. This sounds at best an aestetics issue. Do they have some giant wall build hindering movement or otherwise being disruptive?

Second the CoC already allows for dealing with griefing. The devs have posted multiple times about what to do about griefing.

Griefing should be handled by devs not players. Remember this tool is agnostic. Do you want a grief player to have the ability to unplot your empty plots?

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Then it’s clearly not an issue.

All the unnecessary escalation and outrage in this thread makes it feel like I’m reading social media. We should focus on answering OP’s questions, not assuming the worst in people and then yelling at them for it.

I don’t think there is any solution to this problem right now within the existing settlement, beacon, and gleam club behaviors. Maybe guilds will provide a fresh way to administrate multi-player beacon situations. We can only hope.

Until then, the only way to prevent this from happening is to deal with the problem upstream so that the settlement doesn’t get into this state in the first place. The typical solution is to plot out the footprint of your city (and its expansion goals) ahead of time and then hand out the land to players directly. At that point you can require contact information of some sort. Discord, email, etc. There’s no guarantee they will answer it but it at least gives you a way to contact the player if they are breaking settlement rules.

I’ve also seen some settlements (I think Ultima on Finata?) plot out their road system far in advance but leave the plots open along the roads. That lets them control the city’s infrastructure without spending the plots or needing to administrate the livable spaces so directly.

And finally, settlements are emergent properties of the game world. It’s weird that the game tries to tell a player they are the “owner” of the settlement when that owner has no power at all but it is what it is. Since settlements are living structures they can twist and turn to accommodate physical constraints including lapsed player plots. All it does is add more character to the settlement and makes it feel more like a real city. All cities grew organically and have their share of infrastructure head-scratchers as relics of their past.

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The game already has a built-in fix for abandoned plots & beacons. They expire. If the person is MIA for a long time, their GC will end & their plots/beacon will become available. Sit & wait and then play finder’s keepers lol - strategize who/what/when/where will grab them. If someone is in it for the long-haul, they will have patience & plan.

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The game never even implies ownership of settlements. They deliberately use other words.

If this was a thing in the game, even more people would stop playing. The difference with this and the lack of content is people wouldn’t come back over something like this.

It’s kind of important to come up with ideas that grow the game’s player base instead of, well, make it dwindle more into oblivion.

At least we’re getting farming in the “soon” future. Wonder what else they’re working on. Hopefully something to get me back into the game that’s actual real content to enjoy.

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Thanks for the replies everyone.

I understand why some people dont want this power in the hands of the players. But I disagree with their some of their reasoning.

That said I wonder why some persons feel the need to make a beacon in the middle of a city for just a warp point. If you remove the beacon the location is still saved in your locations menu.

Those saying they claimed to plan a building: Thats ok, you can communicate with the ones in the settlement.

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Best solution for now would be a “Can I has this?” button that the warden of a settlement could push on unused plot beacons, then wait for a reply.

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