Permanent Ownership of Quarters/Shops/Ships

[Dreams]

There are places on the server that have been owned by the same individuals, IC groups or OOC groups for more than 5 real years. There can be a real positive in this when they are active and the places or shops or ships are being used and become really known for something. It can be a real negative when they fall inactive (but get refreshed so don't lapse to another to take over), or when they're owned for the sake of ownership rather than for the sake of RP.

How long is too long?

Is the holding of a single property for RL years worth more than the possibility of another player having the opportunity to make their own stories there?

Would the server be better off with some kind of a cap, or a better sense of what constitutes activity toward RP?

[AnselHoenheim]

If only, it's an issue that goes beyond owning property and it can be attached to the mentallity of the server from certain groups thinking they "own" part of the server themselves and they can decide the RP behind it

And it has been normalized to a point it's even common.

Now question is, would a cap change how the community sees properties as a trophy they need to maintain? Doubtfully, they will just try to find another "trophy" to claim

[In Sorrow We Trust]

5 years is pretty excessive but mechanical limitations always have a biteback effect: those who are actually utilizing the properties will be forced out regardless, and then the cycle starts all over again.

It's also not just people who own the properties for a long time. It can be newcomers too, who win the bid, and then do nothing with it.

[D4wN]

I don't really mind how long people hold onto a property, I mind when they hold onto property when they're rarely around or don't do anything with it and just use it for storage.

There are certain places that don't really matter I think. Like vaults or small inn/tavern rooms etc. But if you're going to own a large guild house or noble estate or something like that, I think it's decent to expect you to actually do something with it and have a certain amount of activity, if not from the holder directly then from their faction members.

[Cnaym]

Yeah nobody care for mini quarters. Those are like rentable rooms.
Factions? If they are active and inclusive they can keep it forever imho. If it's a single guy holding onto a long dead faction... please just don't. Or report it to the DMs, they'll probably see how little it gets used.

Important buildings like museums and temples? Let the government handle those honestly. You work a public space, you risk getting yeeted by the next election cycle.

Taverns? Could do with DMs keeping tabs on them, but I think most are active currently.

Ships? Yes. Please. It's called a long term lease, not a "THIS ONE'S MINE NOW" Make it a year or two, but seriously limit how long people can hold onto them. There's exactly one way currently for it to change owner and it's so rare manyplayers may have never witnessed it happening.

[TheDoctor]

There are places on the server that have been owned by the same individuals, IC groups or OOC groups for more than 5 real years. There can be a real positive in this when they are active and the places or shops or ships are being used and become really known for something. It can be a real negative when they fall inactive (but get refreshed so don't lapse to another to take over), or when they're owned for the sake of ownership rather than for the sake of RP.

How long is too long?

Is the holding of a single property for RL years worth more than the possibility of another player having the opportunity to make their own stories there?

Would the server be better off with some kind of a cap, or a better sense of what constitutes activity toward RP?

Ships will be changing in the near (Sorta) Future. This has been known and was decided to be addressed a WHILE ago now. Have patience padawan

If only, it's an issue that goes beyond owning property and it can be attached to the mentality of the server from certain groups thinking they "own" part of the server themselves and they can decide the RP behind it

I am not sure what groups you are talking about. I am pretty certain I can assume a few though and yeah it can be frustrating. With that said.... As someone who has an active faction claiming xyz about place abc... I can see both sides. Sorta. You wont ever catch us trying to be all... We always win, this place will always be ours bwahahahaha... No. This is not our way at all. We take pride in trying to be fair and with our "enemies" even more fair, and that also means sometimes you win, sometimes you LOSE. This is from my own personal observations of my own factions interactions though. Mileage may vary.

What you are saying sounds more to me like the age old... I must win always win never lose mentality. Its sooo old, its sooo lame.

TLDR... Always winners are lame and toxic.

TLLDR... Just report them to DM team.

[stop bullying bards]

hello,

this thread is actually something i spent a lot of time thinking about, specifically: estates, temples, ships.
something i'd personally like to see implemented is one of two different approaches toward rental site ownership.

option one, the Hard Limit:
give ownership timers to every major property on arelith that people would be interested to own. this goes for temples, estates, ships, guild halls, quarters of import at dm discretion. whereby it would be a change that after some decided amount of either six months, or a year, there is a hard deadline, and a property goes to re-bidding for a chance at seeing a new owner and new roleplay//stories//narratives cycle in.

option two, the Soft Limit:
same idea as per above, except instead of a major quarter/ship/temple going up for sale, instead, it would start costing more and more gold to maintain the lease increasing every so often, to ensure the player is active enough to make the gold needed to continue their ownership over a 'major' part of the server. i don't think it'd be a huge ask if the process was something like:
every irl 2 months, 6-ish in game months, the property rate is multiplied at 1.1 or 1.2 over time to prevent decay. probably could be higher if we're honest, the prices to owning a max-lock estate is something near thirty thousand every irl week, which isn't asking for much if a character leaves their rp hub for more than an hour once a week.

my reason to even bring it up, is that i personally think some of the areas of the server have been kept in single-hands and faction-hands for too long in my few years of playing, and it prevents people from feeling like they have a chance to use the 'community rentable clubhouse' when a single group maintains it years long.

i write all of that to respond to the OP's questions:

How long is too long?

i think a year is too long, when i personally find arelith more fun when more parts of it are living instead of the very sad ghost effect of owned properties being vacant except for bi-annual rp gatherings coordinated on discord.

Is the holding of a single property for RL years worth more than the possibility of another player having the opportunity to make their own stories there?

i like when more people have more chances and avenues to create, influence, and tell stories on arelith. i think property ownership being without limit, hurts, more than creates

Would the server be better off with some kind of a cap, or a better sense of what constitutes activity toward RP?
ya i think so

[Kythana]

Would the server be better off with some kind of a cap, or a better sense of what constitutes activity toward RP?

Yes.

I think there needs to be two caps in place.

One, a time component, that ensures activity is actually there. I've seen many quarters on this server that just rot, by someone who logs in once every two weeks, touches the door, and then logs out. They're often not even roleplaying actively, and are 'shelfed', but think the property needs to be retained for when they return.

I don't think this is healthy. And there are ways to track hours being played per month, per character. There really should be a minimum threshold that a character has to be online, and active if they want to maintain their property. It needs to be automated because relying on manual DM intervention does not scale to a server this size.

Secondly.

Factions need a limit on how many pieces of property they can own. There have been in times in Cordor, for example, when a single noble family has owned multiple estates. Given the sheer size of some of these guildhalls, I find the notion that your faction needs multiple properties to be a bit lubricous. It just feels greedy.

---

With all this being said, it often feels like there is an air of entitlement around quarters. While I can admit, it's fun to own property, and it can be a real boon when roleplaying actively in an area, it shouldn't be seen as a status symbol.

Having property that is owned by the same people for years on end only contributes to the very samey feeling the world often has, and builds on top of a dull status quo. Having a quarter, especially in a more populated area like a settlement, often helps establish newer characters/players to that environment. The opportunity needs to exist for those sorts of people.

It should be seen as a goal to work towards, and then, once acquired, help to facilitate roleplay. Once you are no longer at the point where this is happening? Pass it on to the next person. Unfortunately, this isn't what occurs.

[Darkstorn42]

Just want to say, if a quarter is not being used, report it. You thinking they are not being used could just be a time zone issue. It kind of falls into the 'never around' thread. Have it to the DMs and leave it at that, I say.

[The GrumpyCat]

Just want to say, if a quarter is not being used, report it. You thinking they are not being used could just be a time zone issue. It kind of falls into the 'never around' thread. Have it to the DMs and leave it at that, I say.

THIS!

Please report it!

As to the topic, I think I agree with most others in that I'm find with people owning things for a long time if they're being used. I will say I do have a little concern occasionaly with people owning propertly for rl years upon rl years, if only because I hope that they can, eventually, have the grace to hand it on to other people to play with. Mostly I think people do that, but I think it is something to encourage. Factions owning property for RL years upon RL years upon RL years can lead to... yes, a sense of entitlement, and as I say, it's good to sometimes step back and let someone else take the proverbial spotlight for a bit, play with the toys.

Not sure if it should be enforced or not though, honestly

[Yensent]

Could be really awkward to have to trash your 30-100 fixtures(I know I have about 15 fixtures that are labors of love that I would be sad to part with) I would be extremely hard pressed to let go, that because your guild house randomly went up to auction. Or if you’re a faction and suddenly let all your boards and secret things are open to perusal. I say that as someone who has had a pretty large and awesome guild house for 6 months. I like to think I’m very active with it, use it to facilitate RP within my faction, friends, and allies though, but of course take it with a grain of salt. I’d rather it stay open to DM review.

[Kythana]

Please report it!

This issue with this is you're relying entirely on reactive solutions, instead of preventative measures.

Think of something like the property system as a whole, where once upon a time, everything was insta-buy. Now I'm not personally aware of anything that happened then, but a system like that was ripe for abuse. Now, if the response for claims of shenanigans during a system like that was always, 'just report it', you'd still see exploiting, because players are very clever, and this server is very large. There's a lot that can slip through the cracks.

It was only when mechanical implementation of bidding was introduced that suddenly a majority of these potential and actual problems went away.

Furthermore, reporting for property holding is going to be a lot more ambiguous. What happens when someone is tipped off that others are reporting them for sitting on a quarter? They start logging in suddenly to clear the heat? Obviously, players in this thread have likely seen this behavior going on for months, if not years, and I'm sure some have reported it.

But it doesn't appear to be acted on, hence the frustration.

Expanding on this a bit further, another problem that lies with relying entirely on reports is that it doesn't absolve the damage being done. By the time the problem has been solved, chances are, the players/character most affected have moved on. I've seen this personally myself, where a report was replied to months after all the characters involved were rolled.

It needs a mechanical solution that enforces this. Auto-removal after a x amount of time might be too harsh, but I don't think something like, requiring a minimum of 15 hours every month, for example, is that difficult to meet if you're active.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

As someone who only knows who owns what property if I interact with that character, I don't know how qualified I am to speak on this topic since clearly it doesn't bother me all that much, but that never stopped me before so why start letting it now, amirite?

I don't think some arbitrary timeline or activity check meter is the way to go.

That being said, I also don't think relying on the players to report this stuff is a good check and balance. I personally have no idea what goes on behind closed doors (though Charlie Rich made it sound great in a quality song with that as the title) so I know I would never feel comfortable reporting someone over property.

I think it's one of those things that the dms should keep half an eye on, with a large grace period to start and a good-sized grace period to rebuild if the owner wants to do that after things fall apart. I've found that while it sometimes takes a reminder from the dms ("Hey, your house seems a little desolate for one person, are you trying to get more folks in here?") most people know on their own if they are falling short, and they just sometimes need to know that someone cares behind the scenes to care too.

[Marsi]

Housing should either be so abundant that no-one has to care who is or is not making use of their little plot of land, a generic commodity.

Or simply a short-time service, quasi-public, like the Beshaba meeting room.

Instead we have this awkward middle ground, where so much action is funnelled into private quarters instead of public spaces where it can be interacted with, but who gets to have a private quarter is extremely limited.

I don't think Arelith can ever pivot away from its weird Sims-like promise of decorated homes where you can hermetically seal yourself away from consequences or antagonists, so it should just add housing districts. What's the actual argument against this? Ridiculous that some settlements have more staged homes for NPCs than ownable residences for actual players.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I'd argue there's too many settlement homes and not enough non-settlement homes. Non-settlement homes are the real premium homes that everyone wants and are in short supply. And with Sibayad converting into a settlement, it means there's even fewer of them.

[Dovesong]

I'd argue there's too many settlement homes and not enough non-settlement homes. Non-settlement homes are the real premium homes that everyone wants and are in short supply. And with Sibayad converting into a settlement, it means there's even fewer of them.

QFE.

[Quidix]

Sort of related, but I do wish there were "Public Quarters" where: (1) the door was open to the public, (2) fixtures could not be stolen, (3) the chest could still have security on it.

The would open the door to a lot of interesting RP like public museums, art galleries, libraries, clinics etc (at the moment these concepts are tough as when setting public one gives access to chest for everyone, and fixture theft is rampant).

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Sort of related, but I do wish there were "Public Quarters" where: (1) the door was open to the public, (2) fixtures could not be stolen, (3) the chest could still have security on it.

The would open the door to a lot of interesting RP like public museums, art galleries, libraries, clinics etc (at the moment these concepts are tough as when setting public one gives access to chest for everyone, and fixture theft is rampant).

This would be AMAZING. This would open the door for so much stuff. Go pop this in the suggestion forum.

[Dreams]

Some quarters are like this. They have an optional locked public room and a locked storage room.

[Quidix]

Only some quarters with a shop have (1) + (3). I'm not aware of any quarters-only that fit the description, nor any where (2) is true.