Cities And Housing Archive

Old StructureRevamp Community Vision Doc

Overview

Currently there are many player structures that due to various reasons (inactivity, deleted accounts, player doesn't care) run out of maintenance and go to a condemned status. Such structures remain and prevent active players from placing structures in the same place or from harvisting a particularly rich resource.

Player cities especially have high real-estate value, as the benefits of being a resident of a particular city only extend to the real-estate encompassed by that cities radius.

Salient Details

• The needs of the active player base needs to be balanced with the needs of inactive, but potentially returning players.


• Land usage needs to be dynamic and active. Burning, condemned, inactive structures give an impression of depressed economy, inactive player base and does not maintain a "Star Wars"-y feel


• Players should expect thatstructure neglectcarries consequences.

The Good and the Bad

Currently, a player that has reconsidered cancellation and returned can with very little effort pick up where they left off. A substantial amount of effort would discourage the player from returning.

However, Land locking by condemned structures of players that have been out-of-game for extended periods of time creates problems and annoyances for the active, paying customer base.

Skill Tree Changes

none

Details

• 
  
  Structures that run out of maintenance continue to pull maintenance out of the owners bank account.


• 
  
  If the player does not have enough money in bank to support structure, the structure converts to a 'condemned' status. Condemned structures are visibly disabled, burning, or broken.


• 
  
  Inside a player city, the mayor of the city can tag any condemned structure as 'evicted'. (A mayor that knows you're still active can keep a structure from being evicted indefinately; a player city structure advantage)


• 
  
  Outside a player city, condemned structures are immediately tagged as 'evicted'.


• 
  
  When any player is placing a new structure,evicted structures do not show in the overhead structure placement view as red and unavailable. If a structure is placed that intersects a evicted structure's placement, the evicted structure is immediately destroyed with all of it's contents.


• 
  
  Anevicted structure destroyed in this manner causes an email to be sent to the deleted structure's owner.


• 
  
  Any structure marked as evicted or condemned loses such status as soon as maintenance is added to the structre.

Pool of Wishlist Items

• When redeeding a structure, all items placed inside the structure or in it's input/output hoppers should be stored in the deed. The deed should still be an inventory volume of 1 and should be marked asno-trade/no-dropitems.


• Structures redeeded without being empty do not free up the lots they were using on that character. Lots are only restored by redeeding an empty structure, or destroying the deed that has items in it.


• When placing a structure that had items placed in it when redeeded, those items should reappear in the same relative locations inside the structure.


• Automatically and immediately redeed all properties into characters inventory upon account deactivation.

Message Edited by GTomlinson on 05-20-2005 09:28 AM

Message Edited by GTomlinson on 05-20-2005 09:34 AM

Message Edited by GTomlinson on 05-20-2005 09:36 AM

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DesktopSaki wrote:

Much good in there. However, I'm still a proponent of the "voucher chit" system, wherein when a structure is destroyed, the contents are put onto a "voucher chit" that's put into the owner's inventory, and can be taken to a "pawnbroker" NPC where they can get the items back for a fee. Losing a deed can be expensive, but losing all your armor, weapons, etc. because you had an accident, called to service, etc. is just painful.

I figure if they can code in the money chips for JTL, they're on the path to coding voucher chips.

But something absolutely needs to be done about these condemned structures. They cannot stay forever like they are now.

---

/sign

/sign and the voucher idea is great I launched a similar idea called the Bag og Holding

Edited with a variation of DesktopSaki's suggestion. Instead of a voucher system for de-/re-activated accounts, I thought an enhancement for all players was in order. While storing structures in the deed would allow free storage space for artisans, I have to believe that the space freed up by purging long-deleted accounts would make up for it. And they'll still be limited by lots for how much they can store.

/sign

/bump

I almost never post on these forums but for this I must speak up. Devs, condemened harvesters and structures need to GO, it's ruining new players comming into the game. Is this what SWG is turning into? Rewards for the vets but nothing for the beginners? I strongly support old structure deletion and I will do whatever it takes to get some action to happen.

i just hope they wil do something on condemed structure only. nothing else. and let the structure that runs out of maint go poff as it used to

last September, 2004,SOE implemented a policy that structures no longer are deleted when they run out of maintenance. Since that time any structures that run out of maintenance just get a condemned flag and are unusable, but still in existence. Any structure can have it's condemned flag removed if the owner reenters the structure with money in their bank account.

The player base at that time and to today has been confused as to why this move was made since just prior to this change, there were postings from developer teams that alluded to a desire to reduce the overall number of objects in the storage database. A move like this would only make that problem worse.

The move was seen as a move by the marketing division at SOE to try to encourage players that cancelled the game to come back, by preserving all the stuff they had when they cancelled their account.

/bump

cause this keeps coming up as a new post.