Land / Plot Upkeep
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I realize that plot upkeep has been addressed before, however I think in its current iteration it will be detrimental long term. I am sure that I am not alone in having periods of real life that get very busy and hectic. I play games for fun, not to be a second job. My attention is on real life concerns, not, "Heck, when is the upkeep due in that game?". I just logged in to find my plot and all my hard work in this testing phase had disappeared. Will I redo it? Absolutely not. That has put an end to my playing during this test. If my house was to disappear after the game goes live will I redo all that work lost? Absolutely not. I will quit playing Fractured Online and play something else. An MMO game can only loose so many people before the world starts feeling empty and not meaningful, making yet more players quit. And how many bad reviews can a game take from people that give it a bad review over loosing all their hard work, or feeling it is and empty and boring world. And you guessed it, bad reviews make gamers that otherwise might have jumped into the world to fill it will avoid playing. Negative cycle of how to kill a game. I would suggest instead using the model that one of the older MMOs used, that being the property was simply locked until the payment due was made. That way there is still the money sink, but all is not lost angering and frustrating players. Again, playing should be for fun, it should not be a second job nor requiring another note on my "to do" list. During a busy period in real life I shouldn't have to log in to play or loose my house that took a long time to build with crafting stations and all my acquired items. If Fractured is not easy for players to come back to after needing, or choosing, to be away for a period of time, this game will loose players, enthusiasm to play it, and ultimately not be as sucessful.
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What mechanism do you propose for freeing up the land used by people that have abandoned the game?
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I'd make instantiated housing in the world: say at underground openings (Syndesia) or large trees (Arboreus), where it's logical it's an entrance to a much greater space.
The non-instantiated housing is immersion-breaking, if only because the map (even Arboreus) looks like a suburban housing development project, with everything staked out and dirt roads in regular squares around unclaimed plots.
Upkeep mechanics pushed me away from cities, and will probably push me away from my own house. I'll just be a wandering hermit.
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Instanced housing or plots like Roccandil suggested would certainly be an option. And I agree too that the current look of the plot housing areas leaves much to be desired.
Another option could be that when your payment comes due you are sent a notice, in game and your registered email, and you get a grace period to bring your taxes up to date. After that, another notice is sent and your property becomes barricaded off and the player can't enter for another period of time till the taxes are payed. If after those extended grace periods and several notices being sent the property could be bulldozed and go back to a blank plot. Real world property dynamics are similar and can actually take several years to go through the whole process. Seizing someone's property is not taken lightly. The only difference is that the property and belongings therein might be auctioned to offset the outstanding tax debt.
I would however make two additions since this is a game and not reality. At the point the property was to be destroyed, a copy of the plot in all features would be saved. If that player came back at a later date and wanted to resume playing, they could simply buy another plot and throw down the "copy" of their old buildings and stations and they would appear on the new land as they were on the old land without having to go through the tedium of gathering and building again unless they choose to. The second thing I would add is that any property in chests would also be saved. These items could be accessible separately such as at a storage chest at a main city specifically for "seized" items, or just reappear if the copy of the plot was thrown down on new land in the new chests. The goal is to make it easy for a player to return to playing the game and not penalize them because real life got in the way.
The question I would have though, is it necessary to free up land used by people that have left the game? Having a ghost town of empty plots is not appealing and lends itself to an empty and boring feeling. I suppose if there are truly tons of players maybe clearing old structures might be necessary. With the numbers of players I have seen in this current test I wouldn't bet that upon full launch there will be masses of players, but time will tell.
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Fractured is purposely designed around finite housing plots, so instanced won't happen.
No upkeep for intown housing, but risk town seiges
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This issue gets discussed at regular intervals.
There is a need to vacate houses from no longer active players, but I have seen a few suggestions which can ease this on the players:
- The game sends you an ingame mail every week with your house balance.
- The game sends you an e-mail to your account in case that the next rent would make you lose the house
- When the rent isn't payed, the house stays there. The plot has no owners. If the original owner buys the plot, nothing happens, he is simply the owner again. If someone else buys the plot, it is reset as usual.
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I think in ether case i would store all the items the player had within his chests. Houses can be rebuilt but the stuff one owned is more difficult.. I like @Nordwulf 's idea to make this then accessible somewhere else.. maybe as chest's within the starter-town which are reserved for such use and only present the stuff the player actually had.. similar to the current bank.
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Remember to keep it as simple as possible. With the game running quickly toward the release (whenever that is going to be) there isn't much time to rework a system.
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I like the "let's just make sure the player got notified" approach. The stuff staying seems good too. Maybe we could just leave everything even if it does change hands and have an auction, with the city getting the proceeds.
The ability to save/restore at a different plot enables a player to move plots which shouldn't be allowed IMO. I'd rather that not get implemented, even though it would make my life easier. It will make people less tied to the local city and make losing that city less of a big deal.
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@GamerSeuss said in Land / Plot Upkeep:
Fractured is purposely designed around finite housing plots
How? What would be impacted if there were unlimited housing?
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I can see that being possible if it becomes progressively harder to own houses.
Like the second house should cost 10x in initial and recurring cost.
Third house 30x.
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@spoletta If first house were no upkeep, but subsequent houses had increasing upkeep, I could see that.
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@spoletta 10x recurring costs would be bit hard.. twice for second house, and 4x for third house would be ok imho..
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That happened to me too and that's the main reason I stopped following the game for a long time, and even now I just poke it out of curiosity once in a while to see what changed (I loved this test btw, keep up the good work!).
A couple of simple solutions:
- When the game erases plots where upkeep wasn't paid, it keeps in memory its items and buildings. If and when the inactive player comes back, when he buys a new plot "of the same kind" (to avoid free relocation) he's asked if he wants to recover its previous stuff. If he says yes, the game copy-pastes the data of the previous plot into the new one. If you really want to punish inactive players, add a fee for this.
- Allow for instanced housing. So if you know you don't want to play very regularly, you can use a plot there.
Some damage reduction possibilities if you really want to keep it:
- put no limit to the gold you can sink in advance so that if I know I want to take a break of three months I can just pay it and that's it.
- if the buildings are destroyed, give the resources back as "credits" the player can spend on blueprints so that the grind of rebuilding is reduced. Or if you really like the heavy material mechanic, spawn the materials in a storage building (there used to be some for wood and ore, but I didn't see them during this test) when the new player gets a new plot.
I don't think the number of players they are losing out of this is worth the decision; punishing the players that want to come back to the game after a long break with hours of pure grinding doesn't seem very smart to me, but I might be missing the point of the mechanic altogether.
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The point of the mechanic is to be a goldsink and free plots which are no longer used.
You can save up to a month worth of rent, which should be enough.
Would a player really dont play for months, he would, by unlimited rent savings, block that plot for months for other players.
This could become a issue in the longterm.There are different mechanics which got discussed as example a warning notification (which would not prevent it from happening when you push the game away for months) or that in the startertown a temporary chest appears with all your stuff from the plot where you can take it out when you come back.
However, people should not forget that saving stuff no matter in which form need to be coded and also take place in the databank.
