I really liked the idea the other day (cant remember who to credit sorry) around setting a beacon as a “road” that can act like a buffer to seperate settlements. That would give us a lot more custom control, and let us build in these reserved spaces too to create roads between settlements etc. without merging them or causing plot not joined issues
Regen on reserved plots all through cities/malls will kill them quickly.
Transfering the whole beacon would still be a problem, we would have to be able to transfer individual plots. I might want to split off a part of a plot of mine to a friend or, as I do often, to the alt with the shop keeper epic for a small shop inside a build.
I know it’s been brought up before & I think it would be helpful, I don’t know if that’s possible to do though.
I hope the devs will keep in mind that some existing cities & communities are made up of people in different time zones that will never be online at that same time, people in different guilds, with different types & sizes of builds, etc.
I hope they also keep in mind that there will always be nefarious players that will use things like this system to control/break/ruin the happy/peaceful things others have made. Who will this system favor? If most peaceful players would prefer not to use it or to leave it off…I think that gives you the answer. 
I know nothing will make everyone happy. I’m glad they are continually trying to do something to make things better.
I think part of the problem is the current mechanic is already creating forced merge issues which seem to be an ongoing issue for the developers. So the bad actors are already creating issues. So this does at least offer a way for those problems to be reduced.
I would not disagree that this change does introduce challenges in switching plots between players in crowded locations where multiple players have beacons in direct contact with each other. We already deal with time zone issues and absent players in a number of situations. Maybe a more robust communication system needs to be prioritized to at least make it easier to try and work with other players when settlement changes need to be made.
All this being said, I still think based on some issues I am aware of that happened in the game that the protection zones are a good idea. They may need some tweaking, but could have prevented at least two players I know from leaving the game.
the ornamental crops give 50,80 and 100 prestige, they only give prestige when mature though, when growing they do not contribute block prestige (they may change the prestige in other ways, such as through the colour/buildable space extra-prestige stuff unrelated to the blocks own prestige which is what you will be seeing here).
I’m fairly sure it’s possible, they even asked what we thought about it a year or so ago. Found it!
This barrier system may even help some of the extortion problems people were bringing up about expired beacons in the middle of town since most 4x4 areas will be safe from “outside” influences. I’m sure they see some of the worst aspects of our community on a regular basis and your concerns are extremely valid. Who knows, the next thing we may see is selling beacons.
Exactly… and in the instance with Quebec Mall, our plots are not the oldest… since stores were already there when we inherited it.
So far this does not sound like I’m going to like this update… I’m super worried about how it will work out.
If they added beacon trading/transfers, the question would become:
Will newly received/acquired beacons/plots be retroactive to the date of the previous owner…retaining their “age” or will it be considered a newly plotted area…losing their buffer zone to older nearby beacons/plots? I assume they would be considered new because they have to tie into the new person’s account, gleam club, etc.
We do have a tendancy to fill these update threads with worry about negative impacts, and generally they do turn out fine once we see them in action. But this one does feel like a bit of a sledgehammer approach that might be a little overkill in terms of a solution.
If the aim is to reduce the occasional plot dispute, it seems to me like forcing plot issues on every beacon in the game may have the opposite effect. But we’ll see, these wonderstruck guys have done pretty damn well building a game so far so it could just be a case of us worrying without really understanding it yet.
Yeah, this gif kind of reminds me of how the forums reacts when patch notes comes out.
I didn’t mean anything negative by it, just that we are all happy, then shocked, then go back to being happy. Though in all fairness I don’t know if everyone always goes back to being happy.
You’re not wrong. I’ll admit…I definitely thought a buffer zone could be helpful before we got guilds. I’ve changed my mind about it now that I see how it will affect pretty much everyone.
I do love the way the plot grid looks on the debug and I’m sure everyone will like getting 2x the plots for free. It could all end up fine or a huge mess. Dunno. I see some big issues and I don’t want to be quiet about it.
I do love the way the ornamental plants look & the huge prestige they will give. I wasn’t going to mess with them, but I’ve changed my mind. I will definitely be growing them. 
And you shouldn’t be quiet about it. I can see this going either really well or not so great. I don’t have a lot of skin in the game when it comes to the barriers because they won’t affect me at all, so I’m just looking for ways to help mitigate issues people are seeing. The more ideas that get out there the better, imo.
Patch notes, exos, the Umbris exos, daily logins 
I like your idea about prestige crops losing their prestige value rather than looking decayed.
I’m thinking those crops could have durability similar to machine coils and to raise the prestige back to full value maybe using some sort of fertilizer.
That would allow builders to use them as pure decorations if they are not worried about the prestige gain.
I kinda find it a shame that the buffer zone thing has been added to the Farming 2.0 and the marble and other lighting changes.
Because this buffer thing is gonna make sure this will linger in testing for a few weeks now until we are all satisfied with it which I feel is going to be difficult.
I like the idea of some extra protection but I don’t like the potential consequences it might have.
It’s a buffer of 2 plots around your build? Can’t we just do it the old fashioned way? ie. if you want a buffer plot them! It’s what I’ve always done…
(granted, I think that right now I have a 5k plot buffer around Nova Golda 
)
You only need 12k plots, 1 plot can reserve a total of 25 plots incluidng itself, so 300k / 25 is 12k so thats like 4k plots if you have the bonus thing
No, that’s still 12k plots…
People seem to be forgetting that when you spend your cubits on plots you just get more of them…
But… I;m currently over 11k plots on my main character, am sure that combined with my alts I would have 12k 
Run! Hide! The James is replying!!!