I’ve been discussing the current iteration of settlements with players, and there are some genuine concerns among the people I play with about how plotting is to be handled going forward. When I first stumbled across the Boundless trailer - the game had me the moment I saw that impressive themed city being built from the ground up. I envisioned myself and others building something likewise - or grander still.
The reality of settlement building (at least at the moment) is counter to what I envisioned watching the trailer, and somewhat anarchistic. It’s essentially a free-for-all on plotting and building. Build whatever you like, where you like - as it seems is intended;
I have to admit, I’m a little disheartened by this. It seems as though the proposed vision - and please correct me if I’m wrong - is either rent a server, or live in a candyland of disorder.
This gives me a glimmer of hope though, and seeing as this is a suggestion post, I’m not just here to vent my concerns, but to offer a proposed system for your consideration;
Allow Clan Beacons an option to soft claim (reserve) surrounding land based on the prestige value of said beacon. I’ll just throw out some random values here, but something like;
Outpost (1 plot reservation border around the beaconed area)
Hamlet (2 plot reservation border around the beaconed area)
Village (3 plot reservation border around the beaconed area)
Town (4 plot reservation border around the beaconed area)
City (5 plot reservation border around the beaconed area)
Great City (6 plot reservation border around the beaconed area)
This way people could still play on the live servers, without renting a server, and create Great Cities to their liking, without having their screenshots ruined by a giant Pikachu beside their Taj Mahal.
This closely mirrors my own thoughts toward reserved plots. Another solution I thought might work was for reserved wild plots to require fuel much like a regular beacon, but what could not be refilled, and would be released once expired. However, you could “annex” reserved plots and turn them into standard plots without the need of releasing and reclaiming them. This would only work if you wanted to reserve an area you plan to build into soon however, and would not be meant to create a sort of permanent no-build zone buffer around your settlement.
Thanks for the alternative, @Havok40k. The word ‘annex’ always reminds me of burning cities down in Civilization.
I just want to clarify that this system would be optional for clan owners. If they wanted people to settle organically beside their builds they could simply turn this feature off (much like how you can stop people from warping directly into your beaconed area)
I really feel as though this system would reduce conflict between players, and encourage collaboration. Here’s a mock-up of how it might work;
The green plots are beaconed roads attached to a future clan settlement, and the red plots are unbeaconed ‘wild’ land. The settlement hasn’t grown much at this stage, and therefore doesn’t have the proposed buffer.
After X amount of prestige, or once the settlement hits a certain classification, the buffer will work like so;
With the orange plots representing the ‘reserved’ land. Other players would still be able to mine and gather in these areas, they simply wouldn’t be able to plot there without joining the guild these reserved plots belong to.
Once a settlement reaches a higher tier, their buffer will expand out further, like so;
The only thing I could see being an issue is if a newbie gets caught up in said buffer expansion and can no longer expand from their claim. That being said, this could easily be resolved by adding them to the claim. I would prefer to have the ability to lay out buffer plots that must be renewed/built in within x amount of time, but I can see that getting messy very fast if not implemented right.
I like the idea, but you may end up with cities laying out roads in one direction and claiming huge plots of land. Also, for instance, how would this end up working for anyone near Epsilo’s ring, which spans the entire planet.
I think it would only work with clan beacons. If a player builds epsilos ring from their own plots, there will be no soft claims, but if he build it as a clan beacon and using clan plots (given that he have the permission to do so), there can be soft claiming if it is turned on.
What is the classification of Epsilo’s ring? I assume it’s not even a town, but I could be wrong. It’s certainly no bigger than a town if so.
People would still have to create a large enough settlement attached to said roads in the first place, and either way, would you want to settle on a plot directly next to the ring anyway?
Oh i’m sure you wouldn’t want to. I’m just future proofing. I’m sure many will WANT to build on the ring, I mean, it’s a giant ring. I know I’d like a small shop up there. That being said, when eventually things are reset and someone decides to do something similar, it may end up interfering with someones build below. It’s nothing absolute, and honestly, NOT a huge problem, it’s just one of the very few things I could foresee being an issue with that system.
