Reclaim land from inactive accounts post 3.0?

[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.

[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.

[MageBlack]

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)

I agree there are may reasons for people leaving but in a supply and demand system like this it makes no sense for someone to have a house, doing nothing with it for 3+months and still expect to have it. Some games I've seen maintenance fees that need to be payed to keep the land. I do also understand that there are good reasons someone would need to take a break for a while. Like i said in my first comment here, I think if we return all items put in the house to a Calamity Salvager along with whatever funds back you were entitled to (I dont think full refund but something close to what you payed.) that this would make a reclaim system less of a nasty pill to swallow. Some form of reclaim needs to be done though, If you havent used your house or played the game in a year... until a system is implemented that allows for unlimited amounts of housing space, there WILL need to be a cut off line drawn.

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.

More wards is also only a band aid fix, with no restrictions on the amount of homes you can own, and no system for relinquishing homes after some inactivity, then the plots on the populated servers will remain out of reach for a large portion of the player base (on some servers). in the last Ward addition, they DOUBLED the existing wards and plots and it STILL wasnt enough. In my other thread I have gone on at length about issues with the current system and possible solutions. Within 10 min of servers going live, plots were sold out. By the time I got home from work that day, there was no chance I could get a house. Before you blame me for picking a high populated server or not having money or any other victim blaming, please check my thread, I've responded to pretty much all of them.

[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"

[ElieDavion]

anything that includes takeing something from ppl doesnt matter if active or inactive is usually not a good idea (with the exception of the fc master position)

[Gyson]

I don't think you should ever lose plots (or anything) solely on the basis of not logging into the game for X amount of time. The caveat there is that you must be paying a subscription fee the entire time.

Once a player makes the choice to stop paying for this service, I'm fine with things being at risk for loss. For example, if a player chooses to not keep their subscription active for X months, then I agree their plot should be relinquished. At that point they are no longer paying to have an influence in the game world (as the active subscribers are). In fact, that is a case of a non-subscriber chewing up resources that could otherwise be used by active subscribers.

In a perfect scenario character data would be stored intact forever whether you were actively subscribing or not, and there would be enough housing space for everyone. But there isn't, so this seems like the next fairest move. Whether someone plans to eventually return or not seems irrelevant - if you're paying for a service, you should benefit from that service. But once you choose to stop paying for that service then all bets are off. A monthly subscription buys you a set amount of game time, it should not guarantee your character immortality for the life of the game if it negatively impacts players who are still paying to play.

[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.

[MageBlack]

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.

Would you still be against it if there was a complete refund system? All items and gil was refunded? Is there any compromise you would be willing to entertain? Because until the plots are unlimited, there WILL need to be a line drawn in the sand. I don't want either side to be disadvantaged but I've been playing since 1.0 and just because I'm not on at the exact right time, I feel like i'm being punished.