I feel the approach could be tweaked to help encourage players more to help with the desired outcome.
Property Bid System: Buyer
When a shop or quarter is released or put up for sale it can be bid on for 3 days. For ships, estates and guild halls this is extended to 7 days. During that time, interacting with the property sign gives a character two options:
- Option 1 - Place Bid: You pay the value of the property. If you lose the bid you regain 50% of the bid. If you win the bid you regain 0% of it.
- Option 2 - Place Bribe: You pay three times the value of the property for a better chance to win the bid on the property. You regain 0% of it regardless if you win or lose the bid.
Once the sale period expires one of those who bid on the shop or quarter is determined randomly. "Place Bid" gives you 3 tickets. "Place Bribe" gives you 4 tickets. Characters of players who have not owned a shop or quarter in the last year gain an additional ticket for free. This includes characters of new players.
If you win a property, the buyer receives a server message informing them of it. If a property is not sold within the time, it simply renews for another 3 to 7 days.
Property Bid System: Seller
So where do 50% of the bids and 100% of the bribes end up? If the refresh timer or rent lapsed, all of it goes to the server. After all, this is a system that encourages players to put their property up for sale.
If the character put it up for sale, 50% of it goes to the character and 50% of it goes to the server. So a character selling a property will receive a total of 25% of each "Place Bid" and 50% of each "Place Bribe". So 25% of the property value for each placed bid, and 150% property value for each "Place Bribe".
If a player rolls a character with a shop worth over 25k or a quarter worth over 100k, they gain a +5% chance for a major reward. Similar to how characters gain an improved chance at a major reward for the gold they hold.
Boring Design Breakdown
Currently, there is no real incentive to put a great shop or quarter up for sale. You can not pass it on to a character your own has grown fond of or know will use it in a neat way your character would love to support. Unless you are rolling a character, just got yourself a better shop or quarter, or you have to reduce your playtime significantly, there is no real reason to give one up.
Worse, the current demand for quarters and shops create a sense of loss aversion. You likely put a lot of time and effort into decorating it. The chances to get something as nice again are simply not great. So you are giving up something great you are unlikely to get back anytime soon.
This system would significantly change it. Your character gets 25% of the property value for each "Placed Bid", and 150% of the property value for each "Placed Bribe". Multiple bids and bribes quickly begin to add up. Dangling carrots for players to part with loved characters is already being done with a chance of gaining minor, normal, greater and major rewards for rolling a character. We would just be introducing something akin to this for quarters and shops.
Popular shops and smaller quarters that have lower property values will have both tons of placed bids and tons of placed bribes. A shop in Andunor Hub is worth 25k. Cheap enough for a lot of bids, and cheap enough for a lot of attempted bribes. For each bid, the character selling gets 6.250 gold, while for each bribe they get 37.500 gold.
Estates, Guild Houses, and Ships will have tons of bids and a few attempted bribes. An Elven Quarter estate is worth 350k. An attempted bribe would cost over a million gold for a slightly better chance, and you are not getting any of that back. That is going to be pretty steep for most characters. For each bid, the character selling gets 87.500 gold and for each attempted bribe they get 525.000 gold.
In both the example with the Andunor Shop and the Elven Quarter Estate, the person putting it up for sale is going to make a fair bit of coin. This significantly incentive parting with a shop or an estate you own.
The reason 50% of the bids always go to the server is not to create a gold sink (which is a nice side effect) but to avoid schemes to kickback bids via factions and friends. If 100% of them went to the character selling the property (higher turnover incentive) that character could simply give them back the gold to his pals after the sale (causing similar issues to the old system).
The "Place Bribe" option is not to give wealthy characters a slight advantage, but to increase overall property turnover via wealthy characters sweetening the pot to encourage property sales. Characters using "Place Bribe" make it much more lucrative for players to part with valuable shops and quarters, giving everyone a significantly bigger chance at getting one by turnover increasing.
The additional chance to win a major reward is simply a niche incentive. It is unlikely to be abused because gaining such properties is difficult. If a character does win a bid on a shop or quarter for their player to use to increase their chance at a reward, the property would just go up for sale again quickly anyway.
The exact number of tickets and percentages of the cuts would of course need to be carefully balanced. This is all more of a ballpark suggestion.
Finally, placing bids has the nice side effect of valuing player time. Currently, it is a system where folks feel encouraged to camp out near property signs. That does not make for a great experience. After all, they could be off hunting or roleplaying, or both! With this system, active players with less time or who rather spent their time roleplaying will have the same chance as everyone.
Overall, in locations with higher demand for quarters it creates higher incentives for turnover.
