+1 to this.magistrasa wrote: ↑Wed May 12, 2021 12:55 pmIn my time playing in the Erudite Arcanum, the faction HQ changed hands at least 4 times, often as deed holders were drawn away from the game to focus on IRL complications. One of those transfers was urgent and sudden and unforseen. Imagine what would have happened if the Erudite Arcanum couldn't reliably turn over ownership of the Boreal Keep. The guild house is the faction. For god's sake, the guild house was literally MADE for the faction.
For some factions, I'm sure property doesn't matter nearly as much as roleplay. Losing a house might be a bummer, but the players only really need a gathering spot to hang out in and any dusty old corner would serve that purpose. Still, that's not the case for all of them.
The transfer of ownership of the Devil's Table Temple to my week-old low-level nobody drow was one of the most significant game-changers I ever experienced on Arelith. Over the course of a day, my first character on the server went from someone nobody knew to someone everyone wanted to know more about. It directly facilitated my becoming a councilor of the Table when I was only level 12. That sudden transition, all because the deed owner was going on hiatus and I was the only person around to pick up the guild house. A lot of roleplay was inspired from the fact that I had no idea what I was doing and subsequently lost ownership of the guild house twice in the span of a few weeks. The problem was always resolved quickly and entirely through roleplay. After having those kinds of memorable experiences with the game, I'm saddened by the idea that no one else will be able to experience anything like it with this change.
Something worth reiterating from that story is the fact that the quarter system is confusing to new players. Like I said, I lost that guild house twice when I got it - it was the first quarter I ever owned - for the simple fact that I happened to be walking around with all my gold in my pockets instead of my bank account while I went shopping, and I didn't really understand the way rent worked. Anyone can make that kind of mistake. The idea that such a simple mistake is going to lock you out of your house for days on end and you won't even know when to check in to get ownership back... just feels sort of cruel.
I don't like quarter hogging any more than anyone else. But I think I prefer it to a system that strips away player agency. People should be able to choose their inheritors. Instead, now we have yet another OOC contrivance we have to struggle to justify in-character, right alongside level limits on writs.
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On to another thing...
Now the topic of camping signs is coming up.
If this is the system, then members of that faction remaining around the sign in order to maintain their property -must- be viewed as an okay in character action. Otherwise you are asking for unrealistic expectations of IC RP. It can no longer be viewed as an OOC improper action, because the system forces the behavior in order to maintain RP.
If the inheritance of a property is going to be so OOCly dictated, then the response of the playerbase can equally be so. To then slap them in the hand for that too, is cruel. You cannot put something in place that encourages a behavior and then punish the behavior.