Game Development: Rooting thy Native Oak

[Jalpha]

Crime debuffs. If someone breaks onto your claim they get hit by a debuff from the town and one from your claim. Or so I have heard.

It also depends how much you trust your other villagers

[ramuller]

This new system sounds good, but it has it's flaws also. If someone has to leave for more than 2 months he should still be able to keep his homestead. Wouldn't a more fair system be that homestead is exempt from tax and make the following claim cost a bit more ? Why should someone who for example buys silver (not I) not have the luxury to at least have something to come back to if he decided to leave the game for a year ? AGAIN this company is going out of its way to lose customer and not make money. If I quit the game for a year after investing months of play I am probably not gonna come back knowing there is nothing if my investment left over. Yes this game has perma-death, but your homestead claim is the thing that you can inherit, and should be exempt from taxes.

I agree it is a bit sad that after two months your claims disappear; however, if you want to take a break for a year, you just need to log on every month or so and add silver to the claim. Of course, during the time you are gone, raiders may have trashed the whole place so one could argue that the work and silver that went into developing your compound on the claim (other than the actual silver for the land) is always at risk anyway.

None of this would be necessary or much of a problem in most MMOs. Many MMOs that have instanced housing don't have the problem of abandoned housing cluttering up the world map and in many MMOs, your housing represents a small part of the self-worth of your character -- annoying to lose, but not catastrophic as it is in Salem.

I am also not convinced that losing your claims is always worse than perma-death. If you are part of a town with people who are interested in having you come back, they can certainly pay the upkeep to keep your claim active (and take advantage of your structures and fields) or at least protect it under the town claim until your return. If you are playing as a Hermit, I feel the loss of the character is much worse than the claim (if you keep a few things on your character, e.g., your best quality seeds and dowsing rod, the rest of the claim can probably be rebuilt much more easily than you can relevel all your skills to the point that you can even use the stuff in your inherited claim).

[jorb]

Since we don't want to have recurring resets we have to have claim decay. End of story.

[Potjeh]

Is it just me, or are both the king and his horse a bit on the portly side?

[Kanzid_Stonebreath]

If you got your homestead for free all that would happen is people would alt spam and make each claim the homestead of a different alt.

[Potjeh]

I guess there's something to be said about paying double upkeep if your claim is on town claim. Maybe town claims could negate silver drain on town members' personal claims within the town territory?

[Procne]

Since we don't want to have recurring resets we have to have claim decay. End of story.

There was me hoping we would be getting fresh new servers regularly

[ramuller]

I guess there's something to be said about paying double upkeep if your claim is on town claim. Maybe town claims could negate silver drain on town members' personal claims within the town territory?

Sounds good, but I wonder if this should only be true if the town claim fully covers the personal claim.

[Potjeh]

It could work partially, ie just negate the upkeep for tiles that are covered by town claim.

[darnokpl]

It could work partially, ie just negate the upkeep for tiles that are covered by town claim.

I posted that in I&I some time ago.