I have done a lot of exploring lately and noticed a lot of cities that are truly not cities. They are a combination of settlements that have been forced into becoming a city via intentional road and plot linking. You can tell it is intentional because it is a 3 wide plot link.
In some cases these linked go over lakes or through mountains and are just empty plots. In some cases these links are done with good intentions and other times they are an intentional effort to take the prestige. There is no form or function in these links except the owner of the beacon and their intentional efforts to steal the work of another personâs build and prestige for their own use. On a variety of levels this just really isnât acceptable and doesnât speak well for the game.
I completely understand that some people like a big city feel but too many times those cities are not a group of people that want to create the big city, but instead a group of smaller settlements that are just merged whether by accident (plot sprawl of builds) or intentional - prestige stealing of empty âroadâ plots. I saw more than a few cities and towns like this. I live on Biitula primarily and it has a good example of this. We have some spots that are forced into a city because of reserved land and then we have very clear intentional plots to link settlements.
The guild update helped a little by allowing people at least keep their settlement name. But, it did not go far enough in allowing people to keep their CITY name over just their Settlement Name. It isnât really right to be 1000+ blocks away from a city center but still fall into that city because of a 3x3 plot link. Or people that are just trying to build a small town and are forced to have a âbig cityâ name.
We need to move away from âforced settlementsâ into a âopt-in settlementâ model. Owners of a beacon should be able to select from one of the following:
Opt-out of all settlements.
Opt-in to one of the settlements that are touching my plots. (A simple solution that looks at all settlements that your plots touch and provides it in a list. You select from the list and become part of that settlement).
Guild aligned/controlled beacons touching each other can create an auto-settlement if people like the idea.
However the ânew codeâ for settlements needs to look, we really need to support the builders of this game and allow them to keep the prestige they put into their builds for their OWN use unless they manually choose to link it to another build. We should not have a game that automatically decides to give your prestige to another person without your consent. Weâve seen too many situations now in the past year of people taking advantage of other peopleâs work.
If we want to attract players we need to show that we really care about those playerâs efforts.
If people have other ideas on how to have a better âopt-inâ settlement idea please provide them. The list I provided was just a quick ideaâŚ
EDIT: Feature addition : Setting should be set to OFF by default.
Inactive people could cause problems with existing settlements by breaking it up.
New user tutorial teaches people to join the settlement so we donât want to hurt that. It might be nice to quickly explain âturning off settlement joinâ or something to help people see the feature to cut down on complaints later on. But I am not sure about that.
Thatâs also something that bothers me a lot.
Do you think the upcoming plot buffer is enough to deincentivise these 3 wide plot links in the future?
I mean itâs a de facto opt-in system for settlements. If you keep that buffer up at all time with a new settlement you will never able to be force joined.
Of course it doesnât help against existing links. (Unless the devs clean those up after the patch.)
The rational I remember being given by devs (I may be wrong) was they wanted to mimic organ urban sprawl, but either way, since the very beginning people like âThe Shireâ wanted complete autonomy, and I feel like the Guild update never really gave that.
Thereâs something special about entering a city with a very specific aesthetic that has a single name, like, I dunno, âTree Canopy Citadel.â
But to walk into it and read, âNow entering GRUFFOS MEGA PIXEL ART LUL, oh, and, also, now entering Tree Canopy Citadelâ is really, REALLY, grating and ruins immersion.
I donât like being forced to join anything - be it a group, town, city, settlement, etc.
Even though our own little towns are just intangible, digital game bits that actually belong to the game studioâŚfor some itâs an escape, their âhappy placeâ. If someone ever creates the Oasis from RP1, Iâll never leave home again (j/k ).
Right now, it kinda looks like eminent domain is being used against smaller entities. Even though they donât get your land technically, they still retain control by re-naming the whole conglomerate, like some overlord. If you donât want to be associated with that person/group, you are out of luck unless you pack up and move or quit. Itâs all very hostile & stressful.
In real life, incorporated cities have to have council meetings & people vote on whether or not to annex outer lying smaller towns/land. Unless eminent domain is used. Eminent domain = feelsbadman
I think it should be simple so the conflicts are kept to a minimum.
Beacon owner names the land their beacon contains.
Roads donât merge anyone.
If beacon owner A & beacon owner B are friends & want to merge into a larger entity, then they go to their beacons at set it as such. The requester can then assume the town name of the requestee or keep their own. Maybe like a friend request:
Beacon owner B has requested to join your town. Accept? yes/no
I dunno. All I know is that Iâve never experienced as much stress & as many issues with plots/bases as I do in this game.
Edit to add:
No I donât think it would be a simple or easy change.
No I donât think the devs should do what I say. These are just my thoughts on the matter.
Itâs their awesome game & we just play it.
I made a road from N to S, E to W on Refgar, the plot area is x2 for it to form a settlement but I avoided other settlements because I didnt wanna force merge them.
I myself would like a way to keep it a settlement but without force join others to me, or âsimplyâ have a beacon option to make it a road but keep the footfall^^ or another option that says: Dont join other Settlements
My thought on this is very simple. Allow the smaller beacons to retain their identity even though theyâre part of the bigger entity. For example if you are a neighbor of the City of Chicago and you are merged. Letâs say that your town was called Joliette. So under the current system of the city of Joliet sort of cease to exist and becomes part of Chicago. However a solution would be for a new name to be given to Joliet and that would be Jolly at a district of Chicago
Is this not what they allowed through guilds? If I create a guild then my guild aligned beacon keeps its name even if it is absorbed into another settlement. Maybe I am not understanding some difference in what you are proposing versus the guilds.
As Iâve had difficulties (#euphemism) with people from another settlement before I moved to Raxxa, I whole-heartedly agree with everything @Xaldafax wrote.
I canât wait for the next update with the buffer zone system. That should fix the problem for future builders.
But maybe the beacon could also have a tab where the warden of a settlement decides on a case-by-case basis which settlements he wants to join in with. If he decides to merge with a settlement, an invite would be sent to the beacon control of the other settlementâs warden.
Iâd imagine there could be a warning if by sending/accepting a merger, youâd immediately lose your settlement name.
There could be an option to remove a beacon from the settlement itâs in.
The forced merge was the reason i shelved 1k Hours of my first build and moved planets. I didnt want to force others to Auto join because my build got bigger then expected.
So yea, a feature to let People choose if they want to stay autonomous would be great.
I think buffer zones will wrap up the issue for new beacons. Though (shameless plug inc) private worlds would be even better for some of us. (Hint hint, nudge nudge )
This is no different than what we have now and does not work. People do not want to be part of Chicago or whatever big city that is out there. They want full autonomy and their own identity.
I just did a lot of travel and when I drove into Portland there was a sign that said âwelcome to Portlandâ but when I drove into one of the neighbor towns the sign did not say âwelcome to Lake Oswego a District of Portlandâ it said âwelcome to Lake Oswegoâ. It was itâs own complete town.
Yes we have some places that are called âgreater Los Angelesâ to include all the towns in the area but each of those towns are their own. We need the same thing here especially when not all cities in this game are not truly cities of like people wanting to create one. Many are ones that are forced to be connected.
I presume you mean the buffer zones when implemented are not retrospective? I hope so because this could be a real problem for existing settlements/cities!
I agree with this. I hope they separate all settlements with the update and allow people to join attached settlement if they want with a button in the beacon. If people are no longer playing than you canât take there prestige. And they would stay separated unless they come back and decide to join. Also if youâve merged with a settlement and you have a falling out you should be able to disconnect as well. I like the buffer zone idea too as it gives some room for expansion if you are going to build near a large city.
Maybe on the East Coast⌠but on the West Coast it does not work like that everywhere. Townâs have rights and ARE in some areas separate with their own city services and everything. Either way the option IS there legally for people to separate themselves and are not FORCED into being in a city if they do not want to.
Well if a city like Chicago grows until it is essentially all around you over time, it is a mute point.
As for the buffer zoneâŚ2 plot buffer zone is not really going to be all that useful if the large city has grown completely past you⌠you will be like poor Culver City on Los Angeles county, CaliforniaâŚsurrounded by LA :frowning âŚ
I am not going to get in a fight with you on this⌠You have your view because you have a vested interest to get the game exactly like it is now.
It is not a mute point. The people surrounded can still chose if they are part of the city or not. An like Nightstar says many have their own mayor, etc.
So I leave it to the Devs if they are going to allow people the freedom to chose things like this or if they are going to continue to allow the forced merging and prestige stealing and the other things that happen because of this design.
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