Quarterlogging and shophogging!

[Kuma]

if i have to abandon my old quarter to get my new one that's just going to result in me losing both of them if i'm not fast enough. at least suggest a built-in grace period.

[Liareth]

if i have to abandon my old quarter to get my new one that's just going to result in me losing both of them if i'm not fast enough. at least suggest a built-in grace period.

Or, when you buy a second quarter, a big message pops up saying "your current quarter will be put up for sale automatically (now / in x period long enough for you to go grab your chest)" and it happens automatically. Could handle it gracefully any number of ways!

[Xerah]

How would a PC leader be able to get rid of people from the city who are camping quarters? The rules from the DMs state that you need to inform then wait 7 days to make sure they are active. This should be a problem for everyone on an OOC basis.

Okay, cool, not a problem. But the problem is that people take those actions as ICly and call out claims of tyranny, lies, making up rules, and etc.

This is the reason why people don't do it. What's the benefit to you as the leader? Pretty much nothing, so any leader who wants to keep their reputation would never do it.

Really does bear re-iterating.

Also attempting to solve an OOC problem IC is a path fraught with awkwardness and meta. Whether your actions are motivated by OOC goodwill/problem solving/malice/whatever they will be taken IC and used as ammunition. I prefer my IC reactions to be because of IC things not because I was awkwardly attempting to fix an OOC issue. (Not aimed at anyone here, I've seen this kind of thinking really explode at people in LRP before)

This exact thing just happened in Myon with the Sentinels (guard). Myon has no faction quarters so with the coronal's blessing one of the two Manor houses was designated as the Sentinels faction headquarters. The leader (Yansolla) had to been unavailable for a couple RL months, and the interim commander was going on vacation RL for a few weeks so he couldn't hold the faction quarter. So a sgt in the Sentinels, Artariel, too and held it until they came back as well as stepping up and effectively leading the Sentinels in the leadership absence. They had their personal quarter in the tower at this time. The king of myon supported this arrangement. The commander of the sentinels supported this arrangement. The interim commander knew and speed the arrangement. All IG.

Then there started to be anonymous messages on message boards about Artariel holding two quarters. Then there started to be complaints by presumably the same player on discord. They were told all of the above. But they kept leaving anonymous messages in game or posting in discord about it. Finally a DM message came to Artariel that they had two quarters and would lose one.

Artariel tried to reach out to the DM to get clarification. They had no personal use of the sentinel hq, and the sentinels are the only active faction in myon. Ultimately he couldn't reach anyone and the quarter went to another player.
Artariel's player finally decided that Arelith is a game, it should be fun, and weeks of getting harassed anonymously by a player for doing it right, to ultimately having a DM take sides without investigating was too much.

To be clear this isn't a slam on the DMs, but it is a very strong example of how big the "me, me, me" "I want" nature of some players ruins and punishes the fun, role play, and good intentions of those that make the effort to do things right in game.

This is an example of something that shouldn’t happen. A leader away for months really shouldn’t be a leader during that time. It has nothing to do with I want it’s just unfair to other people trying to play (it’s why these rules exist).

Also, none of my threatened evictions were IC or OOC generated to get a place for me or friends. I just want active people in the city. It’s just that.

[Subutai]

Also, none of my threatened evictions were IC or OOC generated to get a place for me or friends. I just want active people in the city. It’s just that.

I didn't mean to imply motives at all, apologies if I seemed to. I just meant that, regardless of IC reasoning (I very much support both IC efforts for an active city and hypothetical IC efforts of leaders to be corrupt, for the record. I think it's fun), a lot of people sit on quarters because they're so hard to get. Even people who aren't around will hold onto them because they know that if they let the lease slide, they're unlikely to get a new one without very serious effort and a lot of time.

I probably shouldn't have used a real example (again, I didn't mean to imply any motives by Xerah. Sorry for that.). I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that a lot of hostility and bitterness over quarters and shops, and by extension, many leaders' reluctance to evict anyone for really any reason, is in large part due to how difficult it is to get quarters in the first place. If quarters were more prevalent, evictions wouldn't have the harsh OOC consequences on play time and RP that they do now.

[Xerah]

Naw I didn’t think you meant that. I just had players in discord say that was the reason.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

if i have to abandon my old quarter to get my new one that's just going to result in me losing both of them if i'm not fast enough. at least suggest a built-in grace period.

Or, when you buy a second quarter, a big message pops up saying "your current quarter will be put up for sale automatically (now / in x period long enough for you to go grab your chest)" and it happens automatically. Could handle it gracefully any number of ways!

An hour grace period would be nice to move out of the old house, get furniture and everything.

[The GrumpyCat]

At present if we notice someone owning multiple quarters, what we generally do is wait until we see them logged in, remind them of the rules, and ask them to release a quarter within 24 hours.

This is because some people are genuinly ignorant of the rules, and we don't want to be cruel about this. We also tend to check to see how long someone has owned a quarter.

This has the advantage that Kuma's fears generally don't come to pass. So long as you're logged on, we'd generally talk to you before releasing one of your quarters, at the least.

The exception is if we believe someone is genuinely dodging the quarter rule. If the player has been around enough that they really Should Know Better, or if they've had a history of multiple quarter owning before, or if we've evidence that they are awear of the rule, but ignoring it for their own purposes.

In the case of the Myon quarter above, we had evidence that the owner was fully awear of the rules, but was hoping to dodge them so he could pass the quarter onto someone favourable, or some such. Because of that, we released one of his properties without prior warning.

In the future, it is my hope that the quarter rules in brief (One quarter/shop/guildhouse per PLAYER) will be put on the information when one purchases property, so that players will be more clear on the rules, and (forgive me if I sound cynical here) have less excuse to be 'ignorant' of them.

If this happens, then we will not need to wait for players to log in first, and will be able to simply release the properties of those who are (presumably knowingly) flaunting the rules at that point. This will lead to a slightly greater turnover in properties, and also less properties being 'held' for other players as in the above.

But even if the above happens, we would likely still warn people about it if they were logged on, and if they weren't probably still do a quick check to see how long the double ownership had been going on for. I'm sure I speak for the entire DM team when I say that we have no issue what so ever with giving players a little grace time to move stuff over etc. So if you're 'moving house' don't worry about taking a little while to shift things about. Just try and get everything sorted within an hour or two and you'll be fine.

[BobTheSkull]

if i have to abandon my old quarter to get my new one that's just going to result in me losing both of them if i'm not fast enough. at least suggest a built-in grace period.

Or, when you buy a second quarter, a big message pops up saying "your current quarter will be put up for sale automatically (now / in x period long enough for you to go grab your chest)" and it happens automatically. Could handle it gracefully any number of ways!

I do not think it is that instantaneous of an issue. Go buy the first, immediately go back and set the other one "for sale". Now I will say the "for sale" option on quarters is not persistent through restarts. So if you do this, you need to make sure you keep it fresh. I wish that would change, personally. I had a similar issue and 3 restarts later, I just abandoned the quarter because i was more invested in new/active players taking the old quarter in Myon than in the 10k i paid for the silly thing.

I think as a hole the "be nice" rule is the guidance on quarters. If you are going to buy one, the 30 minutes it takes you to get from buying one to get back and put the other up for sale is not harming anyone or the server RP. Losing both would be a harm, but 2 quarters being dual owned for a de minimis amount of time really isn't.

[RedGiant]

I like really like the scripted enforcement idea here, with messages, and appropriate grace period for moves. This would eliminate any rule-breaking "hogging" and all else could be left to settlement leaders.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Really does bear re-iterating.

Also attempting to solve an OOC problem IC is a path fraught with awkwardness and meta. Whether your actions are motivated by OOC goodwill/problem solving/malice/whatever they will be taken IC and used as ammunition. I prefer my IC reactions to be because of IC things not because I was awkwardly attempting to fix an OOC issue. (Not aimed at anyone here, I've seen this kind of thinking really explode at people in LRP before)

This exact thing just happened in Myon with the Sentinels (guard). Myon has no faction quarters so with the coronal's blessing one of the two Manor houses was designated as the Sentinels faction headquarters. The leader (Yansolla) had to been unavailable for a couple RL months, and the interim commander was going on vacation RL for a few weeks so he couldn't hold the faction quarter. So a sgt in the Sentinels, Artariel, too and held it until they came back as well as stepping up and effectively leading the Sentinels in the leadership absence. They had their personal quarter in the tower at this time. The king of myon supported this arrangement. The commander of the sentinels supported this arrangement. The interim commander knew and speed the arrangement. All IG.

Then there started to be anonymous messages on message boards about Artariel holding two quarters. Then there started to be complaints by presumably the same player on discord. They were told all of the above. But they kept leaving anonymous messages in game or posting in discord about it. Finally a DM message came to Artariel that they had two quarters and would lose one.

Artariel tried to reach out to the DM to get clarification. They had no personal use of the sentinel hq, and the sentinels are the only active faction in myon. Ultimately he couldn't reach anyone and the quarter went to another player.
Artariel's player finally decided that Arelith is a game, it should be fun, and weeks of getting harassed anonymously by a player for doing it right, to ultimately having a DM take sides without investigating was too much.

To be clear this isn't a slam on the DMs, but it is a very strong example of how big the "me, me, me" "I want" nature of some players ruins and punishes the fun, role play, and good intentions of those that make the effort to do things right in game.

This is an example of something that shouldn’t happen. A leader away for months really shouldn’t be a leader during that time. It has nothing to do with I want it’s just unfair to other people trying to play (it’s why these rules exist).

Also, none of my threatened evictions were IC or OOC generated to get a place for me or friends. I just want active people in the city. It’s just that.

Oof. While the guy who played yansolla is a real jerk for sure, having intimate knowledge of what goes on in his head I know he never meant for anyone to hold anything for him. That being said the issues with myon won’t get fixed by the sentinels loosing their makeshift hq and likely will just make it worse. Since you actually do excellent stuff for the server I can forgive a few of the wrong assumptions you made here, but since you actually do work on the server you might have the power to fix things.

Problem 1, the uncertainty of what the new city in guldorand will mean for myon. If it’s the end that could be really cool to be part of but there has been nothing that points that way and honestly I wish I had no idea of what the plans for the city are since ignorance is bliss. But it’s hard to expect the large scale changes myon needs if it’s not long for arelith.

Nunber 2, and all of these going forward are based on a sketchy assumption that myon will live on and therefore are changes worth doing: myon needs a guild hall so the sentinels/government are not relying on a private home with one storage unit to function since whoever owns it has no personal storage.

#3. And this is a big one when it comes to myon activity, the city while beautiful is awful for a nwn server. There are no inns to hang out in, there are no writs to bring people into the city, and even if there were it’s only accessible by 10% of the player base.

I have brought this up before, but the best solution to myon (again assuming it survives) is to make a half elf section below the mythal that is actually the main hub. This way the elves can still feel superior in their ivory tower if they want, but the heart of the city is accessible to all. If you want the city to be alive this or something similar is the only way forward and no amount of open housing will change that.

And on the off chance you are concerned about me calling yansolla’s player a jerk and you haven’t figured it out, I am he and he is me and we are all together. He was never meant to be a leader of anything, I just needed a casual character for the summer since it’s always hectic in these months for me, and I fell in love with Daeran and val as characters when
I was playing perfidia. Unfortunately they got busy and stopped playing and my casual elf ended up beating the drum for elven reunification. Thank Corellon for the peacock, because without them my casual likely ends up being coronal.

And that far more then more housing is what will make a “as is” myon feel like more then a ghost town, someone who actually gives elves a reason to be there beyond passing through to access storage. It’s not easy, but with patience and persistence anyone can do it.