Then I think we should split up things and find solutions to each problem unless we use the current system which is simple with a 6 month limit.
There is a lot of discussion which is focused on “new people builds” versus older existing builds. New people that just don’t play are certainly the bigger issue I think because of the clutter that is caused. People that put effort into a house but don’t play much I think cause different issues.
Either way I just think we need to make sure to break things out and not let them get mixed up.
I don’t want to be stepping on any toes, I too have a job and a 4 mo old baby boy. But once a week is to much for some??? How??? it takes mearly 10 min to gather foliage or wood to fuel for six months right now, so even if the system changed drastically, you can’t take 10 min to collect fuel to get you by another week or two? I just find that argument to fall a little short
Seems awesome, I’ve spent my early skillpoints onto agility and hammer mastery and now I can’t craft anything I need, now I am to complete daily and general feats for days to get some skillpoints to spend (objectives are “locked” till I learn crafting skills)
My suggestion is to significally lower the maximum beacon duration, but allow other players to fuel your beacon, so your friends can fuel your beacon when you’re away for a long time
The purpose is to remove beacons from players who no longer play the game.
The purpose is not to punish regular or irregular players, or be in any way arduous. It should be simple, quick and painless.
Interestingly it’s purpose isn’t to encourage players to sign in - as @UmbraVictus shows - but this is a beneficial side effect. The daily and weekly objectives are designed to encourage players to be active.
Considering the game from a long term perspective we expect players to come and go. Players might play for 1 week or 1 month or 1 year, and then stop playing satisfied. What should the game experience be for new players who come after them? Do we want them to explore a ghost town? Or is it better to clear away these abandoned beacons for a new cohort of players?
Given that Boundless is persistent we need a way to refresh the game when players eventually leave - and this was our proposed solution.
Additional: We’re planning on a feature to allow returning lapsed players to recover the contents of their storage, but not the beacon itself.
(It’s just a shame that we didn’t initially implement the full fuelling behaviour, and instead released it with the current foliage and wood fuel. This is what happens when we attempt to release features regularly and early to gather feedback, rather then slowly and complete. Personally I’m still in favour of regular updates, because whilst a little more painful, I think we’ll ultimately create a better game.)
Beacon permissions and Clans are the solutions for this.
Now you can incorporate feedback into future iterations. Definitely the way to go! Seeing the many varied strong opinions and ideas shows that this is not an easy problem to solve and appease the masses simultaneously.