Reclaim land from inactive accounts post 3.0?

[Titor]

I have posted a full post on this here, completely against reclaiming land.
Tl;dr version:
People go away for personal problems, illnesses, military, health issues, etc, with every intent to return.
People who bought mediums/larges may have been saving up for months, and the amount for them is no trivial matter on a legacy server, so it would be a detrimental loss
It would NOT solve the issue in the long-run. It is not even a good band-aid. It is unfair (thought the current system is unfair, this would just shift it in the other direction
What we SHOULD be doing is asking for more wards, try to get SE to prioritize it, that way it could be fair for both current homeowners and people who want to buy homes now.

[DoctorPepper]

I have posted a full post on this here, completely against reclaiming land.
Tl;dr version:
People go away for personal problems, illnesses, military, health issues, etc, with every intent to return.
People who bought mediums/larges may have been saving up for months, and the amount for them is no trivial matter on a legacy server, so it would be a detrimental loss
It would NOT solve the issue in the long-run. It is not even a good band-aid. It is unfair (thought the current system is unfair, this would just shift it in the other direction
What we SHOULD be doing is asking for more wards, try to get SE to prioritize it, that way it could be fair for both current homeowners and people who want to buy homes now.

Completely agree with this.

[Gralna]

I have posted a full post on this here, completely against reclaiming land.
Tl;dr version:
People go away for personal problems, illnesses, military, health issues, etc, with every intent to return.
People who bought mediums/larges may have been saving up for months, and the amount for them is no trivial matter on a legacy server, so it would be a detrimental loss
It would NOT solve the issue in the long-run. It is not even a good band-aid. It is unfair (thought the current system is unfair, this would just shift it in the other direction
What we SHOULD be doing is asking for more wards, try to get SE to prioritize it, that way it could be fair for both current homeowners and people who want to buy homes now.

Except that those people who leave with plans to return are in the minority, sure there is a population surge with every update and most likely even more come 3.0, but we have yet to see population hit the peak it did right after 2.0 launched. This shows that steadily, people who are leaving the game, are doing so with the intent of not coming back. They tried it, they didn't like it for some reason or another and cancelled their sub. How is it fair to paying customers for that persons plots to sit vacant for the rest of the many years (hopefully) this game will be around?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm not against more wards being added, in fact I'd love that more than reclaim system being added. However, devs have already mentioned the reason for not adding enough wards was limited server storage. Reclaim would be easier to implement while we wait for SE to get more servers, since until they do get them, we are very unlikely to get any decent amount of wards added.

[DoctorPepper]

Except that those people who leave with plans to return are in the minority

How do you know?

[Titor]

Determining inactivity is hard, though. A lot of people will bounce around MMO's for the latest patch content, I know a lot of FCs and people who quit after they 'beat' the current raids to move onto another game, then come back when there is a content update.
Alternatively, life reasons do very much happen.

If you set it to say, 31 days reclaim (even up to 6 months), that is far too short of a time to determine inactivity. If you set it to 6 months or even a year, then you will see far fewer houses open up than would be worth it, and you would be waiting a long, long time to see the first batch of force-relinquishes.

[Viridiana]

Except that those people who leave with plans to return are in the minority,

Even if they're the minority, doesn't mean they should be screwed. Not saying I'm actually against a land reclaim, but I think it should be done in a manner that has the least ill effects. For example, I'd personally think the time limit should be bigger than 31 days, maybe 45 or 90; and I support the idea of reimbursing them with a voucher for another house; and we should definitely be getting additional wards.

[DarthBuzzer]

I have posted a full post on this here, completely against reclaiming land.
Tl;dr version:
People go away for personal problems, illnesses, military, health issues, etc, with every intent to return.
People who bought mediums/larges may have been saving up for months, and the amount for them is no trivial matter on a legacy server, so it would be a detrimental loss
It would NOT solve the issue in the long-run. It is not even a good band-aid. It is unfair (thought the current system is unfair, this would just shift it in the other direction
What we SHOULD be doing is asking for more wards, try to get SE to prioritize it, that way it could be fair for both current homeowners and people who want to buy homes now.

Adding more plots won't be a complete fix since they will just run out quickly. We'd have to wait months for more to be added. Relinquishing control of a plot isn't a complete fix either but at least it means plots will become available a bit more consistently.

At the end of the day, if someone goes inactive that's on them. It doesn't matter what the reason is. They should never be given priorty over active players. There are more people wanting a house than there are inactive people with one. It makes sense for SE to appeal to active players rather than allowing someone to selfishly keep a house for months after inactivity.

Ideally, I'd like to see 1 plot per account. Multiple plots should never have been allowed and need to be relinquished. Inactivity of 31 days or more should have the same result. Then finally, new plots with every major patch. That would be the best thing without redoing the entire housing system.

[Titor]

They should never be given priorty over active players.

Except that the people with the houses have already spent the non-refundable gil... On legacy servers, mediums and larges are 30m-87.5m. Even the smalls are 4-5 mil which is a lot for most people not terribly active in the marketboard.
The people who have the really expensive houses had already spent a LOT of gil. Like a lot. 87.5 mil pre-deflation is a lot. Even at 70m after deflation, that is a lot. (The grade 1 larges sold out before they could get fully deflated on my server)
Removing them for a month of two for inactivity is REALLY unfair. That is a LOT of gil you are just poofing from that person in the sake of "well I am paying this month and they are not"

[DarthBuzzer]

Except that the people with the houses have already spent the non-refundable gil... On legacy servers, mediums and larges are 30m-87.5m. Even the smalls are 4-5 mil which is a lot for most people not terribly active in the marketboard.
The people who have the really expensive houses had already spent a LOT of gil. Like a lot. 87.5 mil pre-deflation is a lot. Even at 70m after deflation, that is a lot. (The grade 1 larges sold out before they could get fully deflated on my server)
Removing them for a month of two for inactivity is REALLY unfair. That is a LOT of gil you are just poofing from that person in the sake of "well I am paying this month and they are not"

Yes its unfair, but whats more unfair is most servers have no plots available. if someone has to be screwed let it to be the lesser of the two evils - Inactive players.

[Titor]

Yes its unfair, but whats more unfair is most servers have no plots available. if someone has to be screwed let it to be the lesser of the two evils - Inactive players.

So you admit that it is replacing an unfair situation with another unfair situation. It will solve no problem, other than tick off a lot of returning players who are now down a lot of gil with nothing to show for it.
It is not a good solution at all, it will fix nothing. The flow of unsatisfied people will be the same (if not worse, since the returning players may now be very angry). There will still be a massive shortage on housing.
The only solution is more wards. Ideally dynamic wards that will automatically add new space when they are running out. This will need a server upgrade, yes. That is why we need to make it known as something we really want.