Guild Houses: Enforce term limits through mechanics

[Dagonlives]

Many of the recent drama troubles I've noticed on Arelith have to do with contesting the Guildhouses and various properties that dot the server landscape. Some of these properties have been held for years and years out of game and this has generally created a hostile atmosphere for some incoming players as a result of what is perceived to be cliquish behavior and hoarding of server location assets.

A mechanical way for new blood to respond to what appears to be a first-come-first-serve setup (Where in many cases when those who first came, did so years ago) would likely alleviate some of these tensions.

Options include but are not limited to:

- five-year property bidding in the style of Andunor's districts

- Permitting players to 'attack' or assault locations

- enforced term limits upon which players are expected to give guildhouses to new blood

- Dm approved applications to use certain guildhouses much like the 5% Applications.


I personally am not a big fan of someone holding the same property for years on end simply because they clicked the buy button first.

[Atlantahammy]

This ah.. really wouldn't stop anything.. honestly, anything I see it making the situation WORSE.

Like for example: A lot of people whine about the tower being held by the same people, which is false, yet these people who whine wouldn't of used it, nor does the owning the tower really... do.. anything.
You don't get taxes from the people living in it.
you don't get taxes from the shops.
you can't control who lives there.
you can't control the shops.

Anything having your name on the wardens hall is just that.. a name on the door, I don't understand why people think it's such a big deal or thing, it's the ROLEPLAY these people put into the tower that made it what it is, and what people are trying to take control of though some forced "mechanical" means.

I owned the tower for a few months before withdrawing, because Astra earned it, and I'm a person that has been on this server since October 29th, 2017.
I am LITERALLY brand new to the server, yet people still claimed it was being passed around by a ooc clique.

Another thing is OOC drama with people just wanting to take something away from people because something they didn't like, happened... A lot of the whining comes from people who've been openly antagonistic, toxic, abusive, and just flat out disrespectful to those "running" the tower, and faced consequences for it.

I feel like this would just open a pathway for people like this to abuse such mechanics, because it gives them power to lord over, abuse, and cause hate and discontent. (Which already happens with settlement elections sadly, so there is already a president for this kinda behaviour.)

Now that said, do I think there is some guildhouse camping? Yeah, and that needs reported, but if their using it, what's the issue? (That leads into another problem of people THINKING it's being sat on when it's not, because they, themselves, don't personally see it being used, which is just a whole new can of worms.)

Edit: On that thought, isn't the point of a guildhouse, SUPPOSED to be some kind of long term housing for a living faction?

[Richørd]

Options include but are not limited to:

- five-year property bidding in the style of Andunor's districts

- Permitting players to 'attack' or assault locations

- enforced term limits upon which players are expected to give guildhouses to new blood

- Dm approved applications to use certain guildhouses much like the 5% Applications.

Ooof. Let's go through the options one by one and list a few obvious issues.

1st : Five Year Renting (comparable to Castle Darrowdeep and Castle Gloom)
Oh hells no. Know what would happen if ever came to be a thing? Solo-farm characterbuilds and rich trading folks would always hogg the big guildhouses for no other reason than having the most amount of yellow pixel-money in their pockets. Next.

2nd : PvP for Guildhouses
Repeat. Oh. Hells. No. We already have enough PvP. No need for even more sources of that. And I don't want to imagine what it'd be like if you had a few busy days where you couldn't play, come back after let's say four days to find your Guildhouse that you owned be taken over by someone else. Basically agressive squating and a neat source for more OOC drama. Next.

3rd : Maximum lengths of time on how long each player / faction can own a Guildhouse
At first glance the least problematic of those ideas. But then again it makes not much sense. For example : Why would family Waynolt, who are active players of Cordor, suddenly be forced out of their home after X in-game years passing? I see no other reason for this than to disrupt older factions and players and uproot them from their place for no good reason other than new hotshots getting a chance at owning big properties to do whatever with them.

4th : DM approved applications for Guildhouses
So to put even more work on the DM team, create OOC drama ("Why did those guys get the damn mansion and we didn't?!"), absolutely immersion breaking.


EDIT : Oh, let me just point something out real quick. I have never owned a Guildhouse, I have only ever owned 2 different housings on the server (back to back, trading the one away for the other) and since then I've only had one-room apartments on my character.

[TimeAdept]

1: awful idea hell no and i'm the sort of player that could farm status these things and own them forever, do not do this

2: awful idea arelith players can't handle no consequence pvp, god forbid they lose something, do not do this

3: awful idea forcibly destroying longstanding factions for "new blood" destroys incentive to create long term institutions for the server, soemthing which is already greatly hampered by general server attitude and the propensity for "create -> 30 -> gear -> personal story -> roll" culture, do not do this

4: awful idea, gating houses behind mindless 5% grinding, there is literally nothing more that needs to be said here

[Zed]

I would rather have Additional housing and settlements than force people out of the stuff they own.

There should be more than one magical academy on the surface, and more than one in the underdark

There should be more housing in general.

[Vrass]

I would rather have Additional housing and settlements than force people out of the stuff they own.

Definitely... more should be built asap. I am currently building my own settlements and guild-houses with the tool-set. Hope to get at least a few of them added at some point.

[Kuma]

Like for example: A lot of people whine about the tower being held by the same people, which is false, yet these people who whine wouldn't of used it, nor does the owning the tower really... do.. anything.
You don't get taxes from the people living in it.

i will say that you do get money from the tenants for sure, in the majority of guildhouses, including the tower (even though the housing is essentially public).

[Let Love In]

There's a super simple solution - when you release a property or a shop, make it not actually go up for sale for a random period between 12 and 36 hours.

[Atlantahammy]

i will say that you do get money from the tenants for sure, in the majority of guildhouses, including the tower (even though the housing is essentially public).

I'm not sure, there seems to be some confusion if we do or don't, but I will condeed that one maybe wrong.

[Sartain]

What might work was if the groups who owned all the cool stuff bothered to give the rest of the server some kind of window into the cool stuff that they're doing.

I personally don't mind a group hogging a prime location for a long time, if said group is bringing something to the server. With the way communication is right now though, I have no idea though unless I'm a member of said group.
As I see it there should be some responsibility to bring something, to the server at large not just your own group, when you sit on guild halls and settlements.

The factions holding guild halsl should be hosting events that let the community in, or at the very least events that they document so players can read about how so and so cool thing happened at the Radiant Heart or whatnot.

[Arienette]

I dont really have much to say about people hogging stuff.

But I do want to voice support for more housing in general. Not cool fancy mansions. Just... if there is a tavern with 5 apartments in it, maybe we could add another story with another 5 apartments? That kind of thing.

[Nitro]

Like for example: A lot of people whine about the tower being held by the same people, which is false, yet these people who whine wouldn't of used it, nor does the owning the tower really... do.. anything.
You don't get taxes from the people living in it.

i will say that you do get money from the tenants for sure, in the majority of guildhouses, including the tower (even though the housing is essentially public).

The tower housing isn't actually in the guild hall, so I doubt they get any rent from that. If there's any quarters inside the warden hall then they should be getting rent from those.

[Kuma]

I briefly owned a room in the Tower and checked my bank transactions; it said I was sending money monthly to the Tower's owner at the time. So I think they do!

[Twohand]

This question Irongron responded to in the server meeting covers the subject of this thread:

-

(We'reAtSoup))[Shout]: Absoltely, thank you very much. My second question is if the DMs have any plans to adress a problem where certain guild quarters or other highly coveted locations on the server are monopolized by groups of players using OOC methods to keep these locations 'on lock' and within their circle of influence OOC.

(Irongron))[Shout]: That's a fascinating second question!
(Irongron))[Shout]: Over the years, since NWN was first released there has been a massive shift to offline, or rather out-of-game channels used between players.
(Irongron))[Shout]: This has had many effects, one of which is, as you say, guilds changing hands between groups of friends, more often than in the past.
(Irongron))[Shout]: Sometimes people can roll up a new character for the guild, and get it handed over to them, then that repeats, and repeats, sometime over many years
(Irongron))[Shout]: The upshot is that 'choice' locations stay within the same OOC group of friends for years.
(Irongron))[Shout]: And I absolutel get why that is frustrating, it is to me aslo
(Irongron))[Shout]: Iti s one reason I shifted to the Land Brokerage when making the Castles.
(Irongron))[Shout]: And I shall make an announcement now.
(Irongron))[Shout]: Before being pulle away by a game studio for some months I was working on updating the Fox's Den
(Irongron))[Shout]: My intention is to explad the surface land brokerage to include many more of these choice locations, and ideally have bidding done by factions as well as settlements
(Irongron))[Shout]: The Desert Fort, the Fox's Den, that Tower in the Spires...
(Irongron))[Shout]: All on 5 year 'leases'
(Irongron))[Shout]: Okay, need to move on, because many have questions.

[Cerk Evermoore]

Id like dms / admins to present more oppertunities for leaders to try and construct / add housing to a settlement. Gotta collect x, y, z amount of resources for example. I feel the world is slightly too rigid. I think one of Areliths best traits is how ic actions can alter the game world and i feel the ability for a large organized community to add something to the server beneficial.

Of course you avoid disruptive concepts, but if a guild of 10 active paladins wanted to make the ruined wharftown lighthouse their paladin stronghold. I do not see any reason why such storylines should be, discouraged.

[AskRyze]

I know of a couple servers where if you get a handful of players and enough gold you get a guildhouse built just for your group of guys. I don't think it'd be too hard to implement over here given sufficient effort...