Architect Archive

I think that's the main question. If it makes a house disapear, that's just wrong and devestating to the customer who just lost not only a house, but everything inside it. It's so devestating that they probably won't be a returning customer. They might even leave the game all together. Then where will we be? This isn't conjecture, it's happened already to many people due to bugs or negligence.

I'd like to see buildings decay in appearance but slowly loose it's functionality. Make them dilapidated. Harvesters start burning, why can't houses have a simular visual indicator? On top of dilapidation, turn off certain functions such as allowing vendors, access fees, ect. Lower item limits. If the house is already past it's lowered limit, once something is picked up, it can't be put down again. Things like this can be used to slowly turn a house into something that needs to be repaired or replaced.

This won't solve the "once everyone has a house they will never buy another" issue, but maybe after all of this decay happens and is allowed to continue, maybe then the house can go beyond repair and be deleted, get this, BY THE CUSTOMER. That's key, because then they can move all the items that were inside themselves instead of being deleted in one brutal stroke by an uncaring gaming system.

The point is, the time between initial decay and deletion should be long and give a visial indicator to the customer. The customer should be able to repair or allow it to decay, but in the end the final deletion should be customer initiated.

Right now houses just go poof and customers won't always be diligent in checking their status on the building control panel. Email reminders won't cut it unless it goes out to everyone on the admin list and even then RL happens or they forget, ect. I'm not saying nix the email notifyer. I just think there should be more. It's more imersive and I think it'll be cool to see slums.

Can anyone think of any other ideas along the lines of limiting the functions that people normaly use structures for?

P.S. This isn't saying that completly abandoned structures shouldn't be deleted. After weeks of dilapidation and zero maitenance, the system should remove an abandoned structure from the world.

I agree that houses shouldn't go poof. I think you have some really good ideas about the effect of decay. I think it should be up to the player when they want to repair or replace the house. Items don't have to disapear, they can loose their functions, and leave it up to the player to destroy them or whatever and replace them.

Thanks.

nice thought, but what about the 30-40 piece furniture displays that are created? things like giant fish tanks, fireplaces and the like. If i have to move all the stuff without those displays its a pain, but when I paid 30, 40, 50k or more for a fantastic dispay to be built in my shop, will i spend that money to begin with? do i suffer with a poor looking house because i don't want to spend it again? Do I just have to dismantle it and suck it up because i don't want to live in that nasty looking house?

Houses should not go poof, they should just get so expensive to maintain that replacing them is a good idea.

I'm just trying to suggest the type of decay we can live with if there is no way we can avoid having it put in the game.