I setup near a lake with other homes and now there’s an issue where the town admin is apparently wanting me to move for some reason. What “powers” does the town admin have? Can they delete/steal all my stuff?
They have zero powers over your Beacon and anything within it.
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So could we have some power to expel some players from settlement?
Conspiracies and intrigues, wwuuuuuuuuuuuu 
Whole style =)
I feel that issues like this will arise frequently once the game is released and more people are around; at the moment it’s also difficult to clearly see plots that are vertically reserved if the claimed plots are underground, which may eventually contribute to territorial disputes.
For one, being able to buy or trade plots from other players, or even entire claimed areas, would make for at least one official way of possibly resolving territorial disputes. I feel I would be more inclined to leave an area if I was being rewarded for it, but this opens up the potential of someone “ransoming” terrain around a player that wants to expand. At the same time, if I wanted to expand my base/settlement but someone’s small outpost or whatever would be in the way, I’d like to possibly be able to buy them out of their land.
However, people are people, and not everyone will necessarily agree on this kind of thing, so what happens when a dispute cannot be resolved by players? Most certainly someone that was already at a spot should have some sort of right to expand and for example not be surrounded/encased by another player as a form of griefing or simply persuasion or bullying.
I still think beacons work very well, especially when compared to other games of this kind, but there may still be a lot to think about here…
One final thing, not everyone might agree on how random towns should be “ruled”. As it stands, I understand that someone is mayor because they have the highest prestige in their town? This will encourage plutocratic behaviour, with people simply placing blocks for opulence’s sake to get to the highest prestige. This can have positive effects on the economy (with the most dedicated players buying a lot from others) but social issues may arise. Edit: And if mayors are the ones to receive tax from sales in their town, this may be more complex because of that.
This may be difficult to tackle. Public towns should probably have mayors based on public votes, but towns belonging to clans/guilds or groups of friends will more likely have a pre-defined leader.
I can only presume that more complex permission settings will be added in eventually as well.
Would like to hear what everyone thinks on this, since it will affect us all sooner or later. This is all just my opinion. I could just be over-thinking all of this!
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As for settlements having issues with individual players blocking their expansion or simply not cooperating with group’s plans (including wanted style of builds and such) - there is really only one wait out and that’s diplomacy. It’s impossible to create a grief-free system, so it’s all down to ability to talk to each other and resolve things. If not possible, remember it’s just a game so just find a way to be happy no matter how hard someone is trying to spoil your fun.
As for mayor thing - I completely agree. If someone who is chasing prestige happen to be a “community” person, you are lucky. If not, you might be in for a tough time with someone thrashing a settlement with more and more builds to keep the position and not offering anything to the community. So, yes, I agree that a better way of chosing a mayor would be voting. It could simply be achieved through beacon interface of individual members of settlement - they would have an option to set their “mayor status” to happy/unhappy. With more than 50% of citizens have the unhappy status, an election is triggered with beacon interface offering an option to vote for your candidate.
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Hey there folks, I’m actually the guy greydwarf is talking about.
It was just a bad day when I came home, and he had started up right next to something I had planned to keep hidden under a hill, but didn’t have enough plots for yet.
I agree with a lot of what is said here, but also, what if the founder of the town gets outvoted as mayor, how is that fair to the founder?
And I’d also like to say here, I was mostly disappointed, not angry, that my build would have to change styles. And after a bad day that’s just not what I wanted so… yeah. Sorry about that.
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I don’t think any part of the discussion here was aimed at anyone personally. Simply, whenever a situation like a dispute between players happens, we have a chance to discuss it and come up with ideas/suggestions/opinions that can help in future. Everything to help improve the game and everyone’s experience as a player.
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I was bringing up context and saying sorry.
The only major thing I’m actually putting forward is the whole founder vs. Mayor
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Thank you both for your replies; 
I completely understand how you feel @Xanotos.
@Boundmore is right in that I wasn’t trying to aim the discussion at anyone specifically.
Social issues are complex and can be difficult to resolve sometimes, especially in the heat of the moment! It’s easy to be on either end of this, too.
You’re right about that, someone will always find a way to subvert systems - just remember everyone has a breaking point and it’s easy enough to encounter someone unreasonable. That can feel very demotivating too. If I keep running into to the same person harassing me, I might feel so demotivated I might not even try to report it (if even possible); or I might just stop playing for quite some time.
Difficulty in creating a more robust and solid system doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be pursued, it will help those who are weaker, more easily. I hope, anyway.
Maybe a founder could have a special status? Might that work?
Though, how is a prestige system any better in that sense? If the mayor isn’t playing as much, the same thing can potentially happen then…
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Being a founder is something that cant be changed and will be remembered; a mayor position can be seen as something of a job or just a prestigious title that can give one some satisfaction or good feeling factor. Either way it’s more of a temporary feat. Is it something worth getting attached to? I can imagine myself starting a city and bringing people in and not being a mayor of it.
It’s all down to what kind of features goes with it, which we don’t know at the moment. I mean for now we only know it’s about prestige and as such it’s about personal ambition and desire to even try to be one. Not really important who is a mayor in that model, as that person won’t have means to affect citizens life other than via personal traits and intentions towards others.
However, if there are plans to give a mayor tools to manage settlement (plots, beacons, disputes between players, contracts for players, organizing challenges with prizes etc.) than it will be important to have the right person doing the job and the current beacon prestige system won’t be good enough.
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Honestly my idea would be a mayor gets the perks, but the founder has control options. The elected mayor has some control, but nothing major.
Although guild beacons or something like that would probably solve some issues that might come up
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I would hope Mayors or founders could have some sort of control over what other people are doing on their area.
I would think of founders and mayors of something like a company founder and a CEO respectively.
A founder still hold his rights to the town/company, but has decided to be more of a hear and watch the sidelines, while the mayor will be the leader/CEO of the town for a certain change.
Now this will arise a complicated issue, if a mayor is chosen on community’s votes, and somehow, a bunch of people decide to go against the founders original ideas and actual standards, they could simply cast a vote, and change his creations. That’s why a founder should hold certain power in demoting a mayor, that’s not to his standards. I think maybe have a probation point to his leadership, and after that period, he can be retired.
Now hear me out, maybe we can do with not only just a mayor, but an actual leaders group, that way, any of the features attached to those roles or powers you have, are all based on group decision, meaning no one can decide for themselves what’s best for the city, and must reach a consensus in order to issue a change, like tax for example, etc.
That system will prevent people from “ruining or altering” the founders idea, while still allowing for changes to be made, and for a community to also input their own thoughts and ideas.
I myself always go for diplomacy before any “tool” or “power” you hold and most players will actually choose to be respectful and go along with your ideals. But there always come around the guy who doesn’t’ care, will set his/her beacon and do with it, whatever he pleases.
As a founder, that really frustrates you. I mean, look at Pixel Gate, there’s a bunch of unfinished builds and out of place things around, all the rules and conditions were established upon sharing it, but still many people denied them and went their ways. Many were informed, as they didn’t know of their existence, were respectful, and went along with them, while others just did their own thing.
There will always be people arising trouble, but should a founder be limited on what he’s supposed to do on someone else building right next to him,or should people be allowed more freedom to build. There could come a “settlement” arising trouble next to houses, by taking over.
So I will think a nice balanced out system (very tough to do, almost impossible, I wouldn’t want to be in the devs position) and always be complimented by a report system, for griefers, etc.
Just my two cents… 
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Ultimately, when it boils down to it, I don’t want anyone to be able to affect my owned plots. If I build something I want to know that my build will remain untouched no matter what. To me, boundless is a grief free game. The only grief caused is from players not getting along. Unfortunately all plots are available until you can actually take ownership which as we’ve seen here will at times result in frustration, however I think in this case it was handled very well, where as once we get more players there might be many more cases of mine…no mine…I saw it first!!!
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Oh, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mean to say founders or majors could affect another players beacons.
What I want, is some tools and ways to make people abstain from building somewhere if they’re not willing to go along with people. Say the settlement already established there goes for a red theme, you decide to build blue very nearby and make a huge building. Both of you guys have rights to your land and to build, but it will be preferable, if the already established settlement could get some leniency to further expand, and not convert your build in something out of place.
There’s always diplomacy in these sort of things, and it will be optimal, to have a very clear idea in mind, tons of plots to reserve the land needed, etc. But diplomacy won’t solve all those problems, a report system won’t, but having diplomacy and some tools to communicate before anything happens will be cool. Kind of like you’re setting very near a settlement, so close, that you’re considered inside it. You will get a pop up message along these lines: “Welcome to Elop Portas, here we want to build a mythical city, with lost gardens, mythical builds, all based principally of sedimentary and medium to large builds, please communicate with any of us, for help or guidance - Jeffrotheswell” You can decide to go with it or not, but you won’t be starting with ignorance, before building, and then have to move or change your design after the fact, instead we’ll have precautionary measures to avoid any trouble. Kind of like how Twitch will remind you of the rules, the first time you join a streamer chat.
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I like it and support it😁
If an individual founder, group of founders or guild / clan wants to create something consistent or town planned on a grand scale then I think the solution is to rent your own world. This will give you clear control over who can place beacons. It’s your world - so your rules. You can black list a previously white listed player. And likewise players need to understand what is possible when they start getting access to another group’s world.
On the public worlds I dont think we want anything that allows players to dictate (in a friendly or unfriendly way) how other players need to play the game. Consistent styling or design needs to be opt-in. Public worlds means playing together with everyone equal.
In the past there was a discussion about Beacon fuel and a range of player voting systems and suggestions - but all of them seemed to be open to abuse or were extremely complicated.
Just thinking out loud, there maybe a system where players or clans can reserve larger areas as a multiplier of their current beacons capacity. This would allow them to “soft” claim what they want for future developments. These “reserved” plots would still be wild, but could be reserved from other players claiming them. This would stop players moving in, unknowingly blocking a project you had planned.
Alternatively make sure you claim all the plots you need up front.
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Yeah I didn’t have enough plots cuz I was just starting with a new character. Only had 9 plots. Otherwise I would have claimed it real wuick
I’d suggest another view on this matter, why not allow players to establish settlements with special beacons? Those beacons would allow player to set certain features that anyone who joins city would have applied to his beacon, like using only certain materials, setting max height, max width/length etc Players that would join city would know what they’re coming into.
This way a player who is ready to put hours upon hours in one huge project would be rewarded, and if he is good mayor and manages to attract people to his community good on him, other players would join and city would prosper.
Having constraints often yields better results
To resolve the issue of players coming nearby (where city might expand sometimes) the requirement for founding settlement with such special beacon would be to invest huge amount of plots, like 30x30 or something (close to a 1000). Maybe to allow players to combine their plots into one such “settlement beacon”. Also that would be restrictive enough to make it only available to most dedicated players.
Just saying, cause you know, it’s more fun to play on public worlds 
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