I know the problem, many cities have this. But if we judge empty beacons as grieving to help those people. You hurt a part of the community that use it to keep the erea around them. With many subjects in boundless, its a sensative because if you take a messure against something that is debateable, a part of the community gets punished because they are grieving, like in your senario. \
But it also hurt the community that wants to keep their surroundings as it is.
Nope. I should have been clearer.
But…
We could say that there are no rules and if someone claims the land you want - then tough. But I don’t think this leads to happy players and a happy community. The time investment players put into their locations is a significant anchor, and they can’t easily move. But a plot that has zero investment is easily moved. So in general I will fall down of the side of the settlement. But even here I look to see if there is simply a player looking to join in. Maybe this player can be talked to and would happily move somehow to be part of the settlement?
a. If players are being friendly - then everyone talks and solution are found.
b. If players are griefing - I remove the plots and regen the environment.
Now - the hard case is when players are not active - they’ve done nothing wrong. They’re likely in group [a] but they’re not around to talk to. What now? Simply take their plots assuming they’re in group [b]. This is the harder case.
c. If players are not around - but they’re done nothing wrong.
What does everyone think about this case?
Maybe we need to have a special topic on the forum where we can appeal such issues. We will be able to leave an appeal to the owner of the beacon and wait for some response from him? There are a lot of empty areas in which there is nothing but a beacon(
Sometimes this behavior is not justified if your settlement is located in a remote place on a dangerous planet where almost no one walks. It is unclear the purpose with which such beacons are put
forgive my English, I use a translator
If there is a line of plots that block building down a whole side of a settlement, thats griefing. You aint gonna build on a 1x50 plot of land. But if its a box of plots, hard to say.
And in this example I would likely just remove it.
I think if a player plots a large amount of land and has nothing built on it you could look at their account to see last login. If it’s clear that player is no longer active (2-3 months and no activity) and there is nothing on their plot, just free it up for other players to use. I would also say this should be done at a time when no one is around to give anyone a fair chance at the land.
Even if you’re planning a huge project I would expect someone to at least login in a 2-3 month span. If this player is active then I say let them keep it.
No need to keep apologising, you’re doing very well given it’s not first language. 
I think that door firmly shut when you allowed money to buy plots. If you can’t contact someone, you can’t ascertain their motives. If you can’t ascertain their motives, you need to assume innocence (or in this case positive intent).
It would be grossly unfair to sell plots for money then later remove those plots from a person’s beacon unless they are obviously griefing.
Not being in contact is a red herring imo. Unless they’re out of contact and the plot is in a state of active griefing then it’s unknowable and therefore shouldn’t be acted upon.
Can devs place mailboxes in players beacons? If so, a possible solution would be for a dev to do exactly that, and then use it to send a message to the player with something along the lines of “If we receive no response in X time about this beacon we will consider it abandoned and deplot so others can use it”.
Giving maybe a few weeks or a month for the player to get in touch to make sure they’re still around, and in case of no response after the appropriate time, then it could be fair to take action even if it was a legitimate use of plots.
I’m not overly fond of the idea, but entirely undeveloped land held by inactive players shouldn’t cause the owners too much heartache if they eventually return.
It should, of course, exclude any beacons where there is any sort of infrastructure built (machines other than crafting tables, significant non-empty storage blocks, etc).
What about this kind of situation?
This is not at all nice for the person concerned.
Furthermore, It’s pretty clear from the outset of the game that if the area is not plotted by you, it’s not yours. There is no mention of having to build within a week, month or even a year. Given you can protect beacons with gleam club for a year with a few clicks, in fact you’re encouraged to allow long-term thinking.
To be clear - you’d obviously get the plots returned to your balance. Just want to make sure there isn’t any confusion over this point.
Ah yes thank you. I understood that but good to clarify. Even then, you might’ve really liked the particular area so it doesn’t feel very fair. I would be annoyed to return to a positive plot balance but missing the area I had in mind.
Even if a city grew up around empty plots over time and it wasn’t anything particularly special initially, it still doesn’t seem fair to me. If there’d been some warning when players get the early tutorial, or we were discussing this pre-1.0, or Gleam Club maxed out at 3 months or something… I could see changes being worked out somehow but it feels too late at this point.
Do the Dev’s not have acces to the email associated with the account as well? Can they not try and contact them this way?
There’s some confusion about the specific meaning of ‘plot’ here.
No one can buy plots (as in actual bits of land) for money.
They can buy plot points.
The beacon and plotted land area, itself, was never meant to be a thing that is permanently and infinitely maintainable after the owner stops playing, and it certainly cannot be bought.
So, de-plotting empty areas (particularly in cities) owned by inactive players is not taking away anything from the player. Not even footfall as unbuilt beacons fall below the 10000 prestige cut-off.
Sorry I’ll be clear:
You can buy cubits with money
You can buy plots with cubits
You can use those plots to reserve land
You can buy gleam club with money
You can use gleam club to protect what you plotted
Neither of these paid features warn you that although you can buy the plots and protect their beacon, that if a city grows around your area, the beaconed plots may be removed before the protection ends. You wouldn’t lose the plots, no, but you’d lose your choice, speculative advantage if that’s your thing, and possibly your plans.
I get it but you still get your plots back. What’s the difference between that and coming back to a city that’s been completely abandoned?
If you’ve made no progress on a build and havent logged in in 3 months do you really deserve to reap the benefits of those that worked hard to develop that city?
Easy enough to create an amendment to the code of conduct that warns of the potential loss of unbuilt land in cities if the owner fails to log in at least once a month, tho.
Why not? Not everyone has a schedule that allows them to game frequently. Some players might be unwell or abroad, or anything. My point is they signed up to a deal with the game and if plots are unbeaconed and returned to the player they are losing out. The deal changes from the one they were sold to a more ambiguous one that depends on random variables such as if a city emerges around them.
I appreciate the idea but it’s not a code of conduct issue unless it’s griefing, in which case the outcome is already clear. It’s not a conduct issue, because it’s not about the players conduct. It’s about a clash of expectations around timescale and gaming frequency/effort.
It’s an in-game system that would need clear signposting in-game and at point of sale were this kind of retrospective beacon editing to be allowed.
It isn’t at the moment, but it could be.
Part of the expected conduct of players might be “you need to log in at least once a month to reply to a PM if you expect to keep your unbuilt city plots”. 