Arelith's current ecomony vs. Shop/Quarter prices

[Aradin]

Really enjoying this conversation!

Ultimately I don't think the problem is the current system, or the players who are active within it. I think, often, that there are IC responses to problems like these. I think many players who have complained about being unable to get a shop in high-traffic areas, for example, haven't tried contacting the shop owners in an effort to arrange a purchase or trade, or to sell goods in that shop with the owner taking a percentage, or sent assassins and thugs after that shop owner, etc. Checking every day to see if a high-traffic shop has come up for sale is not a viable strategy and will just leave you frustrated. In low-traffic areas that sure can work, but never in high-traffic spots.
While characters who have deeply entrenched themselves in their various holdings aren't just going to let them go, I suspect that if you RP with them and try to figure out a way to get involved, most of those players will be happy to work with you and make some kind of deal. Or you can force their hand by sending thugs or assassins after them, blackmailing them, etc. There are a number of options to take.
If you don't like a faction owning a bunch of mansions of empty rooms instead of using just one guildhouse - great! Then go to the settlement leader and explain your position. Post on boards decrying their opulence and denounce them as fat lazy thieves that don't help the community. *Join* the faction and make change from within. I can think of a dozen different ways to put pressure on a faction or character that does something like that, and most of them are particularly effective on 'good' characters that practice differently than they preach Just make sure to keep it IC. If you have a problem with the player (and not the character), then just don't RP with them, if possible, and/or inform a DM of poor player behaviour.

As others have pointed out, I think the problem is inactive players doing pseudo-acceptable things like quarterlogging and trading properties/valuables/shops OOC. Whether it's intended maliciously or not (see AstralUniverse's post a couple up), that's the sort of behaviour that makes Arelith suffer. Tragically we are human beings, and as such there will *always* be people who skirt the rules for the benefit of themselves and their friends (see: all of history).
We can't reasonably expect a small team of volunteer DMs to constantly be watching every player. And it's impossible for them to know what sort of communication is going on OOC. I can only echo what Mattamue and some others have said: if you see quarterlogging, shoplogging, obvious OOC communication, or other poor behaviour, report it to the DMs. Help them have eyes on rulebreakers, because they're the ones who can deal with it.

[CNS]

Lets break this down a little bit cause we have in this thread a number of issues being conflated.

Housing

First up are we talking about characters getting A house or The house?

When it comes to just getting a house, a base, somewhere to lay your hat I think its tough but doable, usually within a couple of weeks and that's probably fine.

When it comes to getting the house one of the guild-houses or more sought after locations its incredibly difficult. Here we have a short list of properties and a long list of people that would like to own it. Here I think a little more attention from the staff to ensure periodically that whoever owns them is doing so fairly and actively on a character and when its a group, that group isn't taking the micky with it/the rest of their property ownership.

But, assuming we iron out any unfairness in the playing field, when it comes to the house its perfectly reasonable to have to take it from whoever currently has it. Be that by buying it from them, working to ensure the current owners and the city see you as the next legitimate owner or by more underhand methods.

Its right to expect everyone plays fair and the staff enforce that, particularly at the crunch points. Its fair to expect to be able to find some property in a reasonable timeframe.

Shops

Shops however are in real need of a review. People will hold onto good shops with an iron grip. They in higher demand than houses because they have a real impact. There is also huge disparity between individual shops.

It isn't 2005 anymore, many of us, including myself don't have the time or inclination to spend a real life hour on a shopping trip checking out every nook and cranny to see if there's a shop and what might be in it (Its a 20,000 gold mutilator axe - it always is).

Shops could probably really do with a bit of an effort to centralize them, a quality of life improvement for players and a way to balance out the differences between them, and bring them all/most of them under player government control.

Each settlement or UD district should have a market area with most if not all shops in that area. Shared areas, such as the hub should lose permanent shops and instead get more temporary shops. Create shopping hubs with lots of shops and put them under pc political control to balance out the differences between shops, improve player QoL, provide other areas for people to congregate, and provide a source of tension and stakes to politics.

[Emotionaloverload]

Hi!

In this thread it has been alluded to a few times that there needs to be a 'good' reason for evictions. That is not at all true.

Property owners that fall within the bounds of a settlement's eviction powers should make an effort to contribute to the community or make nice with whatever new administration is in power (or fight against it if your character thinks that that would be more effective long term) in order to ensure that they don't lose their property.

If you want properties that you cannot lose to settlements then there are properties in the wildness just for that. Otherwise, the onus to rp and maintain is on you.

Settlement leaders should exercise their eviction powers whenever necessary. If you are getting OoC vitriol over this, report it. If you think someone is quarter hogging, report it.

That said, I would like to see price differences for shops based on how active the shop owner is. For example, if you make lots of sales or make a certain amount of coin in a month then the rental price reflects that. While if you do nothing and move nothing, then the price rises (perhaps max it at 5k a month).

Thank you!
-S

[Xerah]

Settlement leaders should exercise their eviction powers whenever necessary. If you are getting OoC vitriol over this, report it. If you think someone is quarter hogging, report it.

Yes, of course, and I did. But that doesn't stop some people (as you can see in this thread) from continuing to OOC complain about untruths having a negative impact on fun. It's still a social game so we're forced to endure this.

[Emotionaloverload]

Settlement leaders should exercise their eviction powers whenever necessary. If you are getting OoC vitriol over this, report it. If you think someone is quarter hogging, report it.

Yes, of course, and I did. But that doesn't stop some people (as you can see in this thread) from continuing to OOC complain about untruths having a negative impact on fun. It's still a social game so we're forced to endure this.

*Hug for you!* <3

: ( I hope it gets better for the next set of leaders trying this. I would love to see a bit more harshness policy wise against property logging. It might help change the thinking surrounding properties.

-S

[Gouge Away]

A few random gasoline-soaked tires to throw in the fire..

One, are number of quarters limited by server limitations? If not or if the processor can bear the load why not just add dozens more units in the form of tenement apartments and run-down boarding houses? Give every player a shot at a quarter, but make it so they'll want to move on as soon as they can figure out how.

Two, if we're near the limit, it seems to me bank vaults are a waste of quarter potential. They're basically quarters with no privacy so maybe at least those could be turned into apartments with solid walls?

Three, we have temporary shops, maybe we could have more temporary rooms? Rooms to rent in inns for an hour for private meetings and also, more importantly, a meeting hall in most settlement that could be rented for bigger private gatherings. A rentable WeWork space would be great for floating factions who don't have a guild hall yet. Or even as a temporary clubhouse for sub-factions, like a group of hobbyists doing something on the side but that's not their characters' main MO.

Four, but not least, consider some players do their own thing and have odd hours. We also have "-dissaportal" and disguise for those who want discretion so may they log in but aren't on the portal. Just because you think a quarter is being hogged by an absent player doesn't mean it is. I mean, it does happen a lot (Astral had a great point, we can delude ourselves that we'll return to characters whose time is over) but false or unfair accusations happen quite a bit too. I play PST nights in a pretty dead time and while I'm on 10-20 hours a week I've gotten accusations from European players of quarter hogging... It's annoying to miss most key story beats happening in better time zones as is and accusations of not being part of the game when I actually am can be infuriating. I've heard similar stories from my friends in the same low-pop time zone so I think these false accusations are common.

[Drowboy]

The thing that strikes me about the "add rundowns so people at least have a chest and a chance" is that, last I peeked at the Treadstone, at least half of them were open.

Whenever I check the cordor, sharps, and dis vaults, it's the same way. There's always at least a couple free.

It's not hard to get a quarter, but as someone said above, people don't want just any quarter, they want a big one, or one with an extra chest, or a shop-quarter combo in Cordor and take it really personally when they think the current occupants aren't using them "correctly."

[NPC Logger Number 2]

I think the problem is that settlement mechanics punish players for logging in and being active in the community right now. If settlement leaders could evict you anytime, whether you are online or not, it would probably lead to property owners going out of their way to be active and make a name for themselves in the community, rather than hiding or not logging in at all to avoid being seen. Of course settlement leaders would have to be policed more, to make sure they aren't just handing every property to their OOC buddies, but I think that should be done anyways, and it would be easier to just do that than to try and monitor the activity of every single player on the server and try to gauge by some unseen metric whether or not they are active enough to own that quarter. There's only less than a dozen settlement leaders, would it really be that hard to just assign a DM to each of them to make sure they are playing a character and not just gaming the system to get the best quarters for them and their buddies?

1. 'Settlment leaders giving quarters to their buddies' is by no means the issue here. They can do that already.

2. The issue is that we belive that heavy mechanical effects should be lead by, ideally, roleplay. That effort should be put in, that attempts should be made of to-ing and fro-ing for property.

3. If we removed the rp requirement for property release then in theory say- Guldorand could get a new mayor, who's first action is to release the quarters and shops of everyone not in his faction. Maybe he doesn't give them to anyone in his faction (though it's perfectly IC to do so) but he releases all the others. So when the kin of Guld log in next day, they find all their belongings lost, without any recorse.

4. Are you ok with that? Are you ok knowing that if you own a house in a settlment, you could loose it at any time at all. Literally one day log off, next day log on to find everything is gone.

5. That's not fun or fair for anyone.

But lets put RP aside here - shop in a tactical location is a huge semi-passive income tool when it comes to somewhere like Cordor, Andunour, etc. Do you up there in the staff even realize just how gigantic the economical gap (and therefore, the influence of the character on their surroundings, because that just how it works) between characters in factions who either own those shops or are in group with someone who does, and characters out of factions who do things the old fashion way?

In the case of Cordor and settlments you have the voting system for that. Vote in someone who will move said factions out, so you and yours can move in.

1. Yes, I'm aware they can do that already. What I'm proposing is perhaps something that discourages that kind of behavior.

2. I agree with this. The problem is the mechanical consequences discourage people from being available for role play in the first place, which results in a largely OOC cat and mouse game where there is no mouse to be found, and you eventually just have to bother the DM's anyways. I think instead of requiring interaction, we should just require a very solid IC reason, so that such instances are rare, but you won't see shops sitting there empty or with 1-3 junk items in them for several RL months on end anymore.

3. This would be a situation of a player abusing the settlement mechanics for OOC reasons so that they can grief others, take their stuff, and give it to their OOC buddies. As you stated in point 1, this already happens. I think if a DM was assigned to monitor this player to start with and they did this, the DM could possibly swoop in, with some government official DM NPC, saying that the new leader has overstepped his legal authority and blah blah blah. There could be a lot of role play and an event around it and quarters in that settlement, and things could be reverted to back the way they were before possibly, and a new election called.

4. All it takes for a settlement leader to evict someone is to walk up IC and say "You're evicted." So this can pretty much already happen for no good IC reason which is why owners of good properties never log in to begin with.

5. I don't see the fun in holding a shop you are never going to stock or a property you are never going to role play in but it is human nature to acquire things and seek wealth and social status. There needs to be a better way to police this, I think DM's spending their time working closely with settlement leaders to ensure shops and properties are being used and not just held, is a better use of time than checking the activity of every single player on the server, since there are only less than a dozen settlement leaders, and hundreds/thousands of players.

The thing that strikes me about the "add rundowns so people at least have a chest and a chance" is that, last I peeked at the Treadstone, at least half of them were open.

Whenever I check the cordor, sharps, and dis vaults, it's the same way. There's always at least a couple free.

It's not hard to get a quarter, but as someone said above, people don't want just any quarter, they want a big one, or one with an extra chest, or a shop-quarter combo in Cordor and take it really personally when they think the current occupants aren't using them "correctly."

I am not telling anyone the "correct" way to use their shop or quarter. But they should be used.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Its simply a classic case of a player getting burned out by drama and wants to lvl a lowbie alt and chill, but also not give up their main character just yet. Usually these main character get shelved and just hog the quarter from what I noticed, but that's probably not the main conscious intent. Just a failure on the player's side to recognize that either "this is the time to face consequences" or roll.

I read this thread, lots of the same, but this is a good thing to highlight. When you first start hearing complaints that your character might be hogging something, the best thing to do is take a step back and figure out if you actually are, and when you are sure you aren't that's when its time to get defensive. Neither person is the bad guy here, sometimes the grumbles are valid and sometimes they are nonsense. Nothing wrong with getting the wrong lined up proper.

[Nodders]

I know it's been said before but separating storage from quarters might be a simple way to open the many, many quarters that are only hoarded because there's a chest in there and never used for RP. Maybe just add 20 slots to everyone's settlement storage and give some option for storage without citizenship for those who don't belong in town. I think you'd suddenly see a glut of open quarters.

IDK about other stuff. If you're a Cordor Guard or big drow house you'll see six big stories go by in three months, sure. If you're trying to do something off the beaten path like create a new faction from scratch, play a less popular race, start a theatre troupe or something three months may mean you're just ramping up. I feel a shorter time limit is going to be punishing to those on the margins trying to do something creative and different. I don't think I would bother with anything like that again if I knew I'd have to look for somewhere else to base HQ every twelve weeks considering most of the time it's a struggle to get anything going. *Shrugs*

I do love the central market idea.

So... this. One hundred percent this. Storage is often the driving point behind quarters. People more-or-less want (and really, need) a place to store their important junk.

[Zavandar]

i echo xerah's sentiment as someone that has run settlements. the amount of ooc crap you get for evicting is ridiculous, and people refusing to log on to avoid eviction are a problem. also, the belief that people evict to give property to their friends is presumptuous. any settlement leader can have a perfectly legitimate reason to evict/exile someone without it being about ooc friendships.

every settlement has quarters that are sat on, though it's more obvious in cordor due to the quantity. i also agree that there is an issue with guild houses being bought but their rooms being vacant. it was true when i was running cordor and it's still true today.

i'm going to call not logging on to avoid eviction what it is: a desire to win over a desire to rp (since you're literally not even on). it's not because you're "incentivized not to get on". that's a cop-out. you can do so many more interesting things as a response, and I say this as someone that has also BEEN exiled/evicted before.

[The Rambling Midget]

every settlement has quarters that are sat on, though it's more obvious in cordor due to the quantity. i also agree that there is an issue with guild houses being bought but their rooms being vacant. it was true when i was running cordor and it's still true today.

Time for Cordor to institute a vacancy tax. Or just have the guildhouse owner automatically cover the rent for every unoccupied room, after so many months of disuse. Times ten.

[DM Rex]

For the record, evictions, pariahs, and exiles all must be done in person. With someone able to remove/place a name in for pariah or exile. And done also in a timely fashion after the confrontation. Failure to do so should be reported to the DM Team.

Quarters/shops that are being held without active, meaningful roleplay should be reported to the DM Team if the owner for whatever reason cannot be reached. If they are found to be merely holding it by our review, it will be then released at random. Not to be specifically given to any player or faction.

Players not logging on to avoid eviction/exile/pariah can and should also be reported, and the DM Team will thusly step in to mediate.

Players experiencing OOC harassment for IC decisions, should (as you probably have guessed it) report to the DM Team.

[MissEvelyn]

Consider also that someone might spend 99% of their playtime -disguised, making it impossible for you to see the floating name of the owner of the quarter, while in reality they might be around a lot.

[xanrael]

I've always been a bit confused on why evictions are done as they are.

For example it could be coded so that when you evicted someone it gave them a 1 week notice (shown whenever they open their door) and the eviction could be cancelled within that time period.

So the tenant/shop owner has 1 week to try to RP with the gov't to reverse it, hire an assassin to force an election to put in someone that will reverse it, etc. At the very least they have time to move their stuff out.

It does put the advantage to the gov't and if they're a bad actor "they" could choose to not login for that week, but honestly I don't see that as much different than informing the tenant who plays regularly with a decision already set in stone.

[The GrumpyCat]

Consider also that someone might spend 99% of their playtime -disguised, making it impossible for you to see the floating name of the owner of the quarter, while in reality they might be around a lot.

Absolutly true and always worth considering!

None the less, drop a report to us anyway. Worst that happens is we contact you saying 'Nah, the person is on a lot, you're just not spotting them.' No harm no foul.