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#### The Storage Unit (for Removing Inactive Home Owners)

Allow me to start out with a little preamble before getting into my idea. Also, my apologies if someone's already thought of this before, I haven't had the time to read everyone's thoughts on this.
THE PREAMBLE:
Clearly community and benevolence are big things for Glitchen. Streets (for houses) were created in such a way that having neighbors matters, but if we keep along our current trend that means that soon there might be only a single active player per street. This isn't the game's fault, or our fault, it's just how people work.
I'd personally be okay to 'boot' someone from a house that hasn't played in a set period of time (a month? three months?). They don't have to play for long, just log into the game for 1 second and 'poof' the 'counter' resets. I am wholly against anything that punishes how a person is required to play (eg: if you don't pet this many piggies, or donate this much stuff, you aren't playing 'enough' to own a house).
THE BIG IDEA:
When someone is forced out of their house due to lack of playing, I don't think people should lose stuff (minus, perhaps, animals and trees, because they'd likely be dead at that point anyways - but even this is debatable). Anything in the house / storage cabinate should be transfered to a [new to Glitch] Storage Unit.
A Storage Unit would be a place that is only accessible by you, would have a full size storage cabinate, and the ability to store items on the ground. It'd be very small, have no trees, no crop plots, and no animals allowed (they'd instantly get 'sad').
When you get pulled from your house (with appropriate warnings ahead of time via email and in-game, etc) everything you owned would go to your Storage Unit. If you already owned one, the sale value of your house (80%) would transfer back to you. If you didn't already own a unit, one would be purchased in your name (using funds out of your house's sale). I'm presuming since it's such a restricted space / single player only it'd cost no more than 500 currants (but would require papers, just like owning a house).
This solves the freak-out people might have with 'losing everything' if their house was taken away, and creates a nice middle-ground for finding more Glitchen ways to deal with the problem of wanting to have active neighbors yet not wanting to 'harm' others by forcing them to forclose and lose their fortunes (without implementing things like rent).

Posted 13 months ago by ✦ SHI∇IΔΠ ✦ | Permalink

### Replies

Previous 1 2 Next

- Makes sense to me. If you don't play for a while, the Giants of Ur might forget you, but if you remind them they're glad to give you your stuff back.
  Posted 13 months ago by Knitomaton | Permalink
- Knitomaton: I love this reasoning / plot point / idea! You win stars! ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
  Posted 13 months ago by ✦ SHI∇IΔΠ ✦ | Permalink
- Hmm... like the idea. Only not losing the actual house! Maybe the house would be duplicated, the actual house transformed into a Storage Unit and transported to a far away land? Basically, once you log on and transform back, and your house will come back. Maybe the location will be different, or the street will have just been made longer... but you will still have the same house in the same world.
  Posted 13 months ago by Palindrome | Permalink
- Yeah. Especially once we have the ability to customize our houses. Putting all that time and effort in to not only be kicked off your street, but to lose the house and find all your stuff thrown into storage would not sit well with a lot of folks and make the idea of returning a big ol' hassle. Seriously, if I came back and found I'd have to duplicate hours of effort (esp without the hope of being on my street, which I know and love), I don't know that I'd want to bother.
  Posted 13 months ago by Vera Strange | Permalink
- Well I am one that due to illness I don't log into the game everyday, day in and day out. I do however log on and set my learning and read the forums as much as I can. Does that say I am inactive just because I don't log into the game and level and chitty chat? No. I am as active as I can be and possibly more active than others that do not even log ON the webpage at all! Do I feel they or myself should lose our houses? A definite NO!
  I disagree with the "storage locker, unit" whatever you may call it. I know for me when I worked hard to obtain enough funds and bought my house I took my time to see if it was an area I was interested in. At that time I lived in those horrible tree houses but hey it was better than no home at the time. Had the house not been in an area I would like to be at I would not have bought that particular house. I am a pretty picky girl! So, if by some unforeseeable reason I could not log on for weeks or months I would be pretty miffed if I came back to a "storage unit". To me being put into a storage unit would be punitive and I don't feel that is the way of Glitch or how Tiny Speck envisions their game.
  I love that this game and the company Tiny Speck has offered us such lovely game called Glitch. A game we can play the way we want to play it and lets us set our pace with no time pressures, to me that make this one of the best games out there!
  Posted 13 months ago by Casombra Amberrose | Permalink
- In a game played by people in all zones in the Real World (tm) there is no way you can determine that the "never see a neighbor problem" that I read about on the forums is actually occurring. I assume that you sleep sometimes, work sometimes, associate with fleshies instead of Glitchen at least once in a while.
  After all we've only been open for business a little over a month, so it is a bit premature in my opinion to have this kind of discussion.
  Even though I am active on the game when i can be, my goals at this point do not include block parties beyond populating my neighborhood areas with piggies; then visiting them to reap the benefits of said population. I see more piggies than Glitch in every neighborhood I visit.
  When i do see real live glitchen, it is rarely communicative or friendly, as yesterday, in a not uncommon example, I got splanked for visiting one street over from mine. Even though I was the one that placed a half dozen of the piggies in/on their street and spend time watering and petting their trees...
  Maybe as subscriptions start to expire this will be an issue that needs addressing. I visited several neighborhoods in streets on the way walking home from Pollokoo (sp?) to Marypole last night that had open houses. I see new neighbourhoods all the time in areas that have never had housing before. many of the old areas have expanded from a very few streets inside to a dozen of more, not to mention (ok I just did ) the highrise apartment buildings (condos?) for dead cheap. The housing market will expand as streets are built as well.
  Place your faith in the Stoot, and Spriggan will provide ;p
  ~~TJ Fuzzybut
  Posted 13 months ago by Thaddeus J Fuzzybut | Permalink
- No thanks.
  For some of us, the actual location is more important than the style of house. Your suggestion does nothing to assure me that I will be able to have a house (of any style) in the location that I have carefully chosen.
  Posted 13 months ago by WindBorn | Permalink
- Other games have housing where you click on a single 'door' in a 'town' and then you get zipped to whatever cookie-cutter house for the friend you want to visit. There's no technical neighbors, no houses sitting empty next to yours. You're just a name in a database and players don't ever see anything but the inside of your house, and the bustling community city-street.
  However, Glitchian Housing is clearly setup to be a community system. There's physical streets you walk down, there's numbers and animals on those streets. You identify a house from others by what it looks like and it's markings, etc. This is a system designed to work with players who play.
  Yes, TS can keep expanding housing at a rate of 1 house for 1 user. However, that also means that in this game (like many others) the number of active players will end up being minuscule compared to the number who signed up, played, got housing, then stopped playing. It's not anyone's fault, it's just what naturally happens.
  If that housing is allowed to remain, without any sort of 'tending' necessary (either rent, or a login-per-quarter requirement, etc) then you'll slowly amass more, and more, and more inactive player houses.
  No amount of well-wishing will make everyone who current plays keep playing, no amount of donating to the Stoot shrine or rubbing my idols will change that (sadly).
  Imagine in a year or two from now, if no 'solution' is put in place to free up houses from inactive users, when the only house on your 'block' that has an active user in it, is yours. Everyone else in your block, or perhaps whole neighborhood, no longer plays because they all started around the same time you did, so all purchased housing around the same time you did, but slowly (over time) all stopped playing. Now your whole quarter is a ghost town. Sure, the street outside your quarter is active, but no-one that owns housing there plays anymore. Streets 1000 to 5500 are totally lifeless, the only people keeping up the animals there are you, and a select few who come in to harvest their products, but don't actually have a house there.
  This, to me, is the problem I (and others) are concerned about, and looking for a potential solution for.
  And make no mistake about it, if TS changes nothing about the way housing works, this situation will come to pass. There is absolutely no way around it with their current system of endlessly owning a piece of property.
  ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
  Casombra Amberrose as someone who self-admits to reading the forums all the time, I'd have hoped you would have read mine more thoroughly. As said above: "They don't have to play for long, just log into the game for 1 second and 'poof' the 'counter' resets." and I'm thinking that they'd have to do this once every three months. So this concern of needing daily play, or play that somehow meets some sort of unwritten requirements other than logging in for 1 second every 3 months, is unfounded by my post.
  ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
  And to remind people, it's not that I'm saying you should lose anything. You'd keep everything, and keep the house's value. When they release customization for your house, you keep that too. Either you get every currant back you spent on things OR you get to keep them to add to a new house (like clothing you purchase from the store in your wardrobe). Re-establishing yourself in a new house would be easy a punch.
  Perhaps there's even a "move in" button after you buy a replacement house that takes everything form your Storage Unit and auto-transfers it to your house. You might have to re-setup a few things, but if you were gone for 3 months (or more) I don't think spending 30m re-setting back up your house is a giant concern.
  What about trees / animals? Would you have to plant new trees because yours died? Yes. Would you have to grow new animals because yours died? Yes. But you would have to do this anyways if you abandoned your house in Glitch for 3 months, so these aren't valid concerns we should be discussing (not that anyone did, just being proactive).
  ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
  As Palindrome suggested we could have houses 'disappear' from the street entirely after a set period of time (and houses would theoretically 'shift' to fill in). Sadly I don't believe the game is currently architecturally setup in this way, so it might take more work on TS's part. However, it might be cool to see and would solve everyone's "I want absolutely nothing to change if I stop playing for 5 years and then come back" concerns.
  The side effect of this is that if tons of players come back, some streets might get reeeeeeeally long. Further, if people's houses get added back to where they were (not on the end) then you might get some really cheesed off home owners because someone who came back after 3 months 'stole their spot' that they purchased.
  ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
  So to go back to my situation stated at the beginning of this post, would you actually want to be the only person in your whole quarter who actually plays anymore? Would you be okay with seeing you quarter fully deserted of active users?
  Maybe people are okay with this ghost-town situation we'll eventually find ourselves in. Even though I don't feel anyone should be forced to play with others, it'd be nice to know that I have people who also actually play living on my street and in my quarter - even if I never see them / talk to them.
  Posted 13 months ago by ✦ SHI∇IΔΠ ✦ | Permalink
- it's not that I'm saying you should lose anything.
  Oh, really? So when I finally return, I get to kick you out of the house I owned previously? The house that I wanted because of its location? Because if I can't come back to the location I chose, then I have lost the most important thing about my house.
  Posted 13 months ago by WindBorn | Permalink
- "...would you actually want to be the only person in your whole quarter who actually plays anymore? Would you be okay with seeing you quarter fully deserted of active users?"
  Like I've said elsewhere, I don't really care if I'm the only person on my block. Makes sooo little difference to me that I can't possibly explain the lack of caring I do about that. Neighbors are fine, but ultimately, unless I'm next door to my very bestest friend in the whole wide world (my RL bestest friend, no less), the amount of people on my street is of no concern to me; unless I feel my street is too crowded- that's about as far as I consider street-pops. Nor is it my business to worry that they don't play enough. So that might not necessarily be the argument that resonates with everyone.
  Posted 13 months ago by Djabriil | Permalink
- What is the current trend that you say? It hasn't been two months since the launch of the game, so there are no players that you could call inactive.
  You and I live on the same street, but I have never seen you in-game. That doesn't mean you don't play. I do not agree that having neighbours in this game matters that much. Since I moved to this house a few weeks ago I only ran into a neighbour once.
  Posted 13 months ago by Macadamia Ellicott | Permalink
- Windborn: you bring up a valid point. What if a Quarter was 'limitless' - in that the streets went on forever. So if you came back and you used to be house 4400 but it was now 5 years later and the first open house was 25000, would you take it? Is the Quarter the important part to you or the physical number / location on your particular street within the Quarter?
  Djabriil: This stance fascinates me. I enjoy the fact that everyone can play Glitch like they want to, and some could give-a-crud about people who do / don't live next to them. For you, this isn't a problem, so I get that. I wonder what the overall feeling on this situation would be from the community. Personally I'd say that streets were designed with community in mind, not for a solitary experience, hence their arrangement and design. Yet, that doesn't mean one has to experience it that way.
  Macadamia Ellicott: the trend is already occurring. Yes, based on the '3 months' rule, no-one is currently inactive. However, as I've noted multiple times now, this is an inevitable eventuality if TS continues to leave housing exactly the way it is. It can not be disputed.
  This isn't about forcing people to play together, or anything like that... it's about making sure a neighborhood has the opportunity to be full of active players, rather than being a ghost town with only a few (or one, or no) active members in it (in the eventual future).
  So, yes, not a 'current' problem, but ghost towns will eventually happen if nothing changes.
  Posted 13 months ago by ✦ SHI∇IΔΠ ✦ | Permalink
- Suggestion: Less figuring out ways to deprive people who do not play the same way or as often as you do of property they have earned via gameplay, more personal responsibility for moving away from a neighborhood you perceive to be too abandoned or unused for your tastes.
  Posted 13 months ago by ✰ Lorelei ✰ | Permalink
- This suggestion feels too commandeering in my opinion. As someone who goes through phases of interest/disinterest with games, I can understand how people would react coming from a long hiatus to find their stuff crammed to a cabinet and their flora and fauna gone. It might send out a signal that Tiny Speck only wants "dedicated" players.
  How many do you think would start playing again if they found they had been ushered to the sidelines for merely being inactive?
  There will always be only a small percentage of active players versus all registered players, and I'm sure the devs have ways to deal with the natural flow of players in, players out.
  Posted 13 months ago by Souran Sweet | Permalink
- I couldn't support this idea, mainly because I think it's unwise to try to set a definition for "inactive" just yet. I see what you're trying to do and think that it wouldn't be a bad solution for that problem... I'm just not sure it's a problem.
  I mean, I could pay a year's subscription and never log in for eleven months. Or I could log in every single day but go out of my way to avoid my neighbors, merely because I'm an introvert. Do either count as inactive? See what I mean?
  If I ever find myself alone and bored on a street, I'll move. Alternatively, I'm sure TS could devise some strategy where a mostly abandoned street would simply be allowed to die down (ie, the last active person moves out but their house doesn't get re-sold) naturally and eventually gets replaced. Gentrification!
  Posted 13 months ago by Wintera Woodswitch | Permalink
- Wow, people in this thread are crazy snarky for no real reason. I've been pleasantly surprised with the Glitch forums so far, but this might be the tipping point to stop reading. Good job, y'all, you're as bad as the rest of the internet!
  I don't particularly care if my neighborhood empties out, but I do really like the storage idea. It'd make it a lot easier to move should I choose to, and I might use storage as a way to declutter my home. (Right now there are large piles of cheese and other cookie supplies all over the place!)
  Posted 13 months ago by Knitomaton | Permalink
- +Wintera.
  My views on this are in the other thread.
  This idea, however well-intentioned, is a dangerous and v. slippery slope.
  If you want an active neighborhood, get organized, get your friends together, and when a new one opens up, take it over.
  And leave the rest of us alone.
  Posted 13 months ago by CrashTestPilot | Permalink
- The concern about people losing their carefully-chosen locations is a perfectly valid one, but I don't understand the issue people have with losing their flora and fauna. If you're inactive for a period of time then you'll lose them anyway without changing any of the current game rules...
  In essence I support the idea (although the location issue is one that cannot be completely ignored). The period of inactivity before booting should be long (maybe longer than three months, maybe a year). And rather than logging into the game itself to renew or refresh your inactivity counter, it could count logging into anything that uses the API, including this website and these forums. So merely looking at the forums for a few moments every few weeks or even months resets the counter. Or even visiting external sites like Glitch Academy.
  All that being said, perhaps it is too early to bring up this issue. Over the coming months lots of things will change, and we don't know what will happen.
  On a side note, I think storage lockers would be a brilliant idea even without kicking people out of their homes. Depending on locations of storage units, you could stock up on supplies well away from your home but close to a location you frequent. Or you could hire one temporarily to help you move house.
  Posted 13 months ago by Xain | Permalink
- Cross post:
  So a Glitch who stands at the Tool Vendor in Cebarkul all day, buying and selling from the auctions is worthy of keeping their home, because somehow, this makes them a good neighbor and keeps the neighborhood healthy and active. It's ok if they ignore all contact through mail or IM, and it's ok if they never ever go back to their house.
  On the other hand, a Glitch who has an equal amount of interaction with their neighbors and their home by not logging on is not worthy of keeping their home.
  I suppose the next suggestion is to have TS let everyone know when the last time you entered your house was. That way you could be booted from the neighborhood for contributing to blight if you don't come home often enough.
  Posted 13 months ago by WindBorn | Permalink
- WindBorn, can you point to a post where someone suggested that? As far as I can tell, it's pure hyperbole that you've now posted in 2 places.
  Posted 13 months ago by Knitomaton | Permalink
- @knit: under general forums, housing issue.
  Posted 13 months ago by CrashTestPilot | Permalink
- I read that thread and didn't see anyone suggest that. If I just missed it, I'd love a link.
  Posted 13 months ago by Knitomaton | Permalink
- Another blatant, transparent attempt to steal houses from players. Stop it. If you want my Groddle Meadow cottage (or someone else's 50K Alkol mansion or whatever type of house), then stay up all night obsessively refreshing the real estate page until you can buy one. That's how I got mine. Stop trying to steal houses with thinly disguised "helpful" suggestions. There is already a rather lengthy thread about it www.glitch.com/forum/genera...
  To summarize my position:
  1. Keep your filthy paws off my house
  2. The game is less then two months old, there are NO inactive players
  3. Really, keep your filthy paws off my house
  Posted 13 months ago by Billy McBinky | Permalink
- This has been discussed at great length in several threads now:
  http://www.glitch.com/forum/general/11857/
  http://www.glitch.com/forum/general/11586/
  To summarize the major points made there:
  1. Glitch is less than 2 months old. Absolutely no players can be considered "inactive" by any reasonable timeline. There are no inactive players in Glitch as of today.
  2. If you want neighborhood community, move to a neighborhood where there is a community. Not all players want that, and not all players think that should be high on the list of criteria for home ownership.
  3. People aren't worried about losing the belongings they have in their house. They're worried and "freaking out" that they might LOSE THEIR HOUSE.
  4. Housing is not a finite resource. To the contrary, an almost infinite number of houses can be added to the game. The came is not fixed - it is in constant development, with new areas and housing quarters being added on a regular basis. Any perceived shortage is temporary.
  Please - for all of you in favor of this, please take a gander at the other threads where this has been discussed. Nine times out of ten, this comes down to "I want my house/community/friends in X location in X kind of house, and there are people who have houses who aren't using them in the way I would, which is inherently better."
  I believe that most of the people spearheading these ideas have good intentions. But when you push something like this through, it sets a precedent that has very negative consequences for all players. Please consider what you're asking.
  Communities change, neighborhoods evolve, and what is important to you today will change tomorrow. You may want a house in a certain neighborhood, or you may want a certain type of house. As you play the game, your needs and wants will probably change. You will likely move at least once in the time you play this game.
  Other people move too. People are moving regularly - they are moving to different areas, different house types, or different street names that they like. As new areas open up and new quarters are added, people will migrate. The grass IS always greener.
  My point is that the odd "inactive" player by any definition doesn't really matter. The people in your neighborhood will change, and you too will probably move at some point. You don't need to push this extreme and shortsighted agenda in order to achieve your goals. But by doing so, you are sacrificing long-term happiness for short-term immediate gratification, and asking for a policy that will threaten every single player in the game.
  Stuff happens. You think you can play every day, and that's great. But maybe your internet provider craps out, or you serve in the military and get deployed. Perhaps you have or develop a medical condition that affects when you can play, and sometimes you can't play for weeks at a time. Maybe you change jobs and move across the country, or to a different country altogether, and you can't get online for a while.
  Why should you be penalized for that? And if you think this won't happen to you - maybe you're lucky, and you have a lot of gadgets and you live in a big city, and you are always online. Good for you. But not everyone has those luxuries. There are people who play this game who can get cut off whether they want to be or not, who would be very negatively affected by this, and unfairly so.
  Yeah, there are players who go dark. Some join and may never, ever log in again. These are exceptions to the rule, not the norm. Let's not create a policy around an exception that will impact everyone playing this game.
  Riddle me this, though. How many players join, make enough to buy a house that you want, and never play again? That's weird, isn't it?
  Who invests that much time and effort into a game and just leaves? How do you know that they're gone? The game is 1.5 months old. The fact is, you can't possibly know that they're "inactive." The criteria being used to argue in favor of this kind of thing is inherently flawed. There is absolutely no evidence being offered to support this initiative. Time is just going to have to tell on this one. The game simply hasn't been live enough to make a balanced judgement about housing.
  TL;DR? Stop doubting our commitment to sparkle motion. Just because people don't play the game the same way you do and have the same priorities or opportunities that you have does NOT mean that they have any less rights than you. Look at the long term potential effects of this, and consider that this might be a very shortsighted solution to a temporary problem.
  Posted 13 months ago by Xev | Permalink
- This idea that you are proposing is very, very far from the benevolence that we all prize so much in Glitch.
  " I am wholly against anything that punishes how a person is required to play. . ." Yeah, but it sounds as if you are wholly in favor of requiring people to play or else be punished.
  I do not for a moment doubt your sincerity in wanting to have a fun, vibrant neighborhood and wanting such a thing is fantastic. But trying to enforce it on other people who don't necessarily want it is wrong. Having a fun, vibrant neighborhood cannot be created by using punitive measures on folks who simply don't want to do the same things that you want to do.
  Terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad idea.
  Posted 13 months ago by Flowerry Pott | Permalink
- I am with the many others here. I would say 9 out 10 posts are pretty much, in a nutshell, like what Billy McBlinky straight out says:
  1. Keep your filthy paws off my house
  2. The game is less then two months old, there are NO inactive players
  3. Really, keep your filthy paws off my house
  What you want in a neighborhood is not necessarily what others want in a neighborhood. I am perfectly fine if I never see my next door neighbor or even the one a few houses down. To be honest I am actually happy NOT to see any neighbors or see a block party. Where I live I have not seen one neighbor actively since I moved into my place and guess what? I DON'T CARE! When I do actually log in for a bit I am too busy doing my own thing and I choose who I interact with. There is no law saying that my neighbors are the only ones I can interact within the game and if that was the case I would not be playing this game at all. I meet most of my in-game friends OUTSIDE where I live and all over UR.
  What you perceive is an issue is not an issue to many of us discussing these topics. Some may agree with you but I actually question those of you asking to "remove players from their homes" bottom-line motive. I mean really why is it even YOUR business who logs on and who doesn't? Why is it anyone's business other than Tiny Speck's?
  In closing let me part with this nice little poem I found and love:
  Nosy People
  by Dutchmisses Nosy. People.
  Why you all up in my business?
  Is it 'cause you
  ain't got no business of your own?
  Should I show you some regard,
  some sort of apology?
  Should I pay you any mind,
  when you ain't even important?
  All you do is feed off my bad situations
  You rewrite my tears into smiles
  Make me seem hilarious
  In the eyes of your peers
  Hey, don't talk about me
  behind me back
  Even if I do you because
  they say two wrongs don't make a right.
  So take your nose somewhere else
  Leave it on your own face
  Don't try and place it on mines.
  Find your own business
  Nosy "little" People
  Posted 13 months ago by Casombra Amberrose | Permalink
- +1 to Flowerry Pott:
  "But trying to enforce it on other people who don't necessarily want it is wrong. Having a fun, vibrant neighborhood cannot be created by using punitive measures on folks who simply don't want to do the same things that you want to do."
  This raises a second thought:
  If the proposed solution is, in fact, all stick -- what would a carrot solution look like?
  Obvious:
  Make your neighborhood so amazing, be so inviting, be so friendly that people want to be a part of it and move there to be with you.
  Like attracts like.
  Posted 13 months ago by CrashTestPilot | Permalink
- @knitomaton
  Here are the quotes from the person who started the thread in the General forum:
  The point was inactive player homeownership
  I propose to the devs a system where players have to reach level 20 and remain active within 3 months or their account goes inactive, the house is released and the cost of the house and its contents is returned to the player should they return to activate their account.
  By inactive players, we are referring to someone who joined Oct 3, hugged a pig at level 7, bought a house, and hasnt earned an achievement since.
  So, by the standards proposed in the General forum, it's ok if someone earns achievements because that proves that they are "active". My Cerbarkul example would be an "active" player by this definition.
  But it wouldn't solve the problem they say is really their concern: we have approx 50 (cuz I lost count) of our 301 homes owned by inactive players. We need active neighbors to be a community.
  Unfortunately, by their own definition, the Cebarkul example would be an active player, but would not add one bit of activity to their neighborhood. They have made "active player" and "active neighbor" interchangeable, when they are really different things.
  Posted 13 months ago by WindBorn | Permalink
- Hey ya'll, Blanky once again has made a thorough and excellent post on this subject elsewhere.
  Posted 13 months ago by Xev | Permalink
- Well Xev we can pray and hope no more of this will be brought up but I am not holding my breath lol. But good that Blanky stepped in huh? I give it another month or few weeks and I am betting we see more "inactive players should lose their homes cause we want them" sort of topics will come up.
  Posted 13 months ago by Casombra Amberrose | Permalink
- -100
  NO. Please stop trying to manage the behavior of other people. That makes me feel like I am being picked on and harassed for how I choose to spend my leisure time. If you intend to foster "community and benevolence" you have chosen the wrong method.
  Posted 13 months ago by KhaKhonsu | Permalink
- Just so people know, I'm actively ignoring this post. It makes me sad to have to do this, but the comments and responses are not just discussions, but contain levels of impoliteness that make talking about this idea in a brainstorming way no longer cool. Disagreeing rocks, talking rocks, being a jerk never rocks.
  PS: Blanky herself has now stated that houses will NOT be permanent if you aren't playing for a long time. I guess everyone having intensely powerful reactions that are 'DON'T TOUCH MY HOUSE' based can now take it up with him.
  So disappointing to see so much rudeness.
  Posted 13 months ago by ✦ SHI∇IΔΠ ✦ | Permalink
- that's "her", you know.
  Posted 13 months ago by WindBorn | Permalink
- No, what she said was that players "who have no intention of returning to the game" would lose their houses. Simply not playing for a long time is not sufficient.
  Please be more careful when you summarize someone's statements.
  Posted 13 months ago by WindBorn | Permalink
- Rude? Seriously? I'm astonished at how polite this discussion has been.
  You should be ecstatic that this discussion has been so polite. Future discussions won't be, and I'd bet real money on it.
  Posted 13 months ago by Kjel | Permalink
- There were some comments that were... strident. However that I believe is showing the depth of interest in the subject of retaining the items, including the pixel house, for which we traded our time, the very hours of our lives if you will...
  I still disagree with Shivian fundamentally on his stance regarding the removal of players from housing, unless they have actively and purposefully canceled their accounts which is what Blanky spoke of in her post referenced above.
  I do however like very much the idea of the "storage unit" not as a punishment, but as a short-term way of storing excess junk. Either for moving or in anticipation of a player run event, street opening, etc.
  I have always disliked the concept of "rental fees" for our housing, but the Storage Units could be a great currant-sink to remove some of our excess currency from the game in a way that wouldn't generate more economic activity and inflation.
  Charge a high enough rental fee that it encourages short term storage and in this case (as in the real world) if you don't pay your rent for X days in the real world, your stuff is sold off (in this case bit-bucketed.)
  ~~TJ Fuzzybut
  Posted 13 months ago by Thaddeus J Fuzzybut | Permalink
- Future discussions won't be, and I'd bet real money on it.
  I wouldn't. TS is pretty strict about discussions staying civilized. You may want to re-read the ToS and the Community Guidelines.
  Posted 13 months ago by WindBorn | Permalink
- I can go for over a year and then return to a game. (Good exapmle is my KoL playing! lol) This option is really not something I like since I have spent a lot of time chosing exactly where my house is, what kind of house is beside it and how close it is to the neighborhood trees.. and really, I couldn't care less about who my neighbors is as long as they aren't annoying - or I don't see them at all o.O I would be very sad if I were to get back after being inactive and find my house somewhere else :(
  Posted 13 months ago by Tsuki | Permalink
- So, maybe it's possible to turn this question inside-out usefully.
  How can those of us who want active street communities find other like-minded Glitchen and their streets? Right now I can't really see a good way -- most street groups are closed until one buys a house on the street, and there isn't really a word-of-mouth around this, or anywhere for community-minded Glitchen to advertise. (Bringing up KoL again -- there's in-game advertising for clans.)
  Might it also become possible to "transplant" houses to other streets, assuming an architecture match? So if I want to move next to Dagnabbit Rabbit (disclaimer: I already live next door to DR and I love that!), my house can pull a Baba Yaga and plunk itself down in Mien Evoke, though I might have bought it in Estevan Meadows originally. (But I wouldn't be able to plunk it down in Jethimadh, because it isn't a bog house.)
  Okay, now I'm near-fatally amused by the idea of Glitch houses striding about on chicken legs...
  Posted 13 months ago by Clumdalglitch | Permalink
- It's interesting that whenever someone advocates a bad, even malicious, idea, they then retreat into complaining about how "rude" and "impolite" it is that people point out their idea sucks. I'd argue that trying to steal my house is the highest form of impoliteness, if I wanted to pretend I cared about not offending people who rather transparently want to steal houses. Since I don't, I'll say that bad ideas don't deserve to be treated as if they had any merit.
  @TJ Fuzzybutt: Yes, storage units for glitches who wanted to, for example, store stuff while househunting or moving would be a good idea.
  Posted 13 months ago by Billy McBinky | Permalink
- @Billy McBinky:
  In my estimation, the assumption that the original post was made with malicious intent is what led to rudeness. There's a legitimate concern that some people are trying to address. There may be no great answers to the problem, but that doesn't mean that raising it is "malicious".
  Say I buy a great house in an area I like. There's a few neighbors around and I enjoy socializing with them. Then after a few months all of them stop playing and I'm the only person active on my street. It's a ghost town. Tumbleweeds roll by, and dust storms gather on the horizon. I still love the house and the location, but now I'm locked into a street that has nobody else on it. If I want active neighbors, my only solution at that point is to move out of the location that I like.
  Not to rehash the entire discussion, but that leads to a fairly obvious conclusion: introduce a mechanism that kicks players out of houses if they are by some measure inactive. This could be lizardpeople repossessing the house due to failure to submit the proper forms, or rooks devouring their place because the Glitch didn't maintain the imagination field necessary to maintain the house.
  I would not be surprised to see Groodle streets become totally desolate as the game goes on. The houses there are very easy to obtain (you can buy one after only a day or so of playing time), and players who stick around usually upgrade out of them.
  I am personally not a big fan of evicting players, even if they haven't been around in a while, so I don't support ideas like the one in the original post. It's a klunky solution to a design problem with the way housing is currently run in the game. But it's not being suggested by malicious players, it's being suggested by players who don't want to be left alone in their neighborhood. Nobody is trying to put their "filthy paws" on your house.
  I suspect that the upcoming customizable group owned houses will address this problem. With those, friends should be able to more easily control who they are neighbors with. So I am just going to sit tight and see what unfolds there. I don't even have a house yet - I'm sitting on a pile of currants waiting to buy into one of those.
  @Clumdalglitch:
  I really dig your baba yaga idea! I can totally envision cottages and swamp houses doing that. :)
  Posted 13 months ago by mirth | Permalink
- If the problem is a lack of active community in a neighborhood, why is the first, and majority view that the only solution is to take some people's houses away from them? The fact that users are advocating taking away from other users is why the assumption of malice is so quickly made. As I have said elsewhere, during times that I have been very active in the game, you may not find me in my home or neighborhood for days on end. So people are proposing the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
  Since this is not a problem I am particularly involved in needing a solution to, I don't have a huge list of alternate proposals, but I love Clumdalglitch's Baba Yaga proposal above. Let houses move so that friends can move closer to friends if they like. I'm assuming that the community halls that TS has said are being worked on are another solution to the community spirit issue. Those of you that have this need, please propose ideas that add new features to the world, rather than interfere with other users.
  Posted 13 months ago by KhaKhonsu | Permalink
- If I want active neighbors, my only solution at that point is to move out of the location that I like.Not to rehash the entire discussion, but that leads to a fairly obvious conclusion: introduce a mechanism that kicks players out of houses if they are by some measure inactive.
  Over in that other thread in the General forum, WindBorn had a brilliant insight into a basic confusion in this reasoning. (I'm sorry, but I don't know how to post a link to that topic so I hope WindBorn won't mind if I summarize.) The idea is that active neighbors are being conflated with active players. It is possible that an assumption is being made that those "inactive" neighbors means that they must therefore also be "inactive" players. But the two don't equate, really.
  All the credit for this insight goes to WindBorn.
  It's possible that an "empty" street is in fact full of active players. However, they may not be active neighbors. If a street full of active neighbors is what you are seeking, removing people who don't make their presence felt wouldn't necessarily solve that issue. Other people might move in who still won't be active neighbors, whatever their activity level as players.
  Posted 13 months ago by Flowerry Pott | Permalink
- @mirth- The solution to your hypothetical is simple- if you don't like the level of activity on your street... MOVE. Just like you've already stated- problem solved. Nobody's stopping you. You may not get to have your cake and eat it too- i.e., get to keep your little Groddle cottage and have a buzzy street-scene at the same time (though, really? It's standing-room-only everywhere in Groddle, so I don't even know how "ghost-town Groddle" is even a realistic scenario at the moment)- but it's the option that doesn't screw with other players' properties while still giving you the option of improving your location.
  Posted 13 months ago by Djabriil | Permalink
- @Mereret / Flowerry Pott: As far as I can tell from reading all of the threads on this topic, there is not a single player who advocates evictions who says they want to measure a player's "activity" based on whether or not they visit their house or participate in a HOA. I am confused that you and others are reacting as though this is the case. All the examples that have been brought up are of players who never log in and seem unlikely to ever do so again.
  @Djabrill: Being forced to move because of an inherent game design flaw seems pretty lame to me.
  The problem that eviction advocates point out is that completely inactive players (i.e., they never log in to the game) who have put very few hours into the game are capable of permanently locking up limited resources. Many housing blocks are now completely full, and there is not a way elegantly add more streets to a block. This has been a typical problem in MMOs since early muds, and the Glitch designers created a particularly nasty variant of the problem for themselves when they created limited public resources that can be owned forever with no required maintenance. On Glitch this problem is conflated by the low barrier to entry into the housing market - in most games I've played with a similar housing model, you need to have at least a couple weeks if not several months worth of play time under your belt before you can make a permanent purchase. On Glitch you can play for a couple days, buy a house, get bored, and never come back.
  Aside from recycling the limited resources (aka "screwing with other players' properties), possible fixes, most of which have already been mentioned, include:
  - Add more streets to already-full blocks. This has been repeatedly mentioned, but is a band-aid, and will start to look ridiculous after a while.
  - Create a better way for players to intentionally co-locate. The upcoming Group Halls may be the trick. The ability for player groups to purchase/create/imagine their own streets on blocks would be another way to go. I also like the Baba Yaga idea, although that would require some underlying infrastructure like house "patches". It's currently impossible to get houses near multiple friends, especially if you care about house style or location.
  - Change the housing model to raise the barrier to ownership while grandfathering existing owners into their property. This could mean a rental model for all cheap housing with actual purchases being significantly more costly (not just currants, but possibly require collection of construction materials like a Street Project). It could also mean putting cheap housing in skyscrapers only (which can grow a lot without it seeming too weird).
  - Add in required maintenance for houses. This could be taxes, rent, fixing up the place with engineering blocks, or something. This seems totally in theme with the game as plants and animals also need to be maintained. (Ok, this is basically evictions, but with a thematic reason.)
  Posted 13 months ago by mirth | Permalink
- Thank you, mirth, for talking about ideas in a thoughtful way with a polite demeanor. One of the interesting parts of Glitch for me is that the world is new, these kinds of challenges exist, and that we, as players, have been asked to participate in the conversation.
  Posted 13 months ago by Knitomaton | Permalink
- @mirth - How is it a flaw? If you don't like the level of activity on your street, it's up to you to make the change. The only way it's a flaw is if you're going off the assumption that everybody else should play as you do- which, hate to tell ya, will never happen.
  Posted 13 months ago by Djabriil | Permalink
- The underlying assumption seems to be that if a neighbor isn't active in the game that is somehow makes the housing block less desirable for some players.
  Although no one has yet described why I would be a valuable neighbor if all I ever did was stand at Cebarkul buying from auction and selling to the Tool Vendor. As opposed to someone who didn't log in. From the neighborhood point of view I'm just as much a liability in either case.
  Posted 13 months ago by WindBorn | Permalink
- @Djabrill: How can I make the change if my street is full of houses with players who never log in? Hint: "move out" is an insufficient answer.
  @WindBorn: The person who never logs in is demonstrably not playing the game at all, and is taking an in-game resource away from another player who might get something out of it. The person who auctions constantly is playing the game in their own way and they have every right to do whatever they want with their house.
  Posted 13 months ago by mirth | Permalink
- How is it insufficient? Seems pretty straightforward and common-sense to me. Besides, why do you get to legislate how people play- is it simply because they're not playing your way? Because that's what it sounds like. Unless you're looking at every player's profile to determine when they've last logged in (which is a bit stalkerish, let's be honest), how would you know? And how is a person, say, letting their skills accumulate before playing, or playing in fits and starts (whether to avoid getting burnt-out or in anticipation of something like group-halls and customizations) not playing their own way? That seems like the very definition of playing their own way to me. And unless you know exactly what people's intentions are, you have no way of knowing. I don't have issue with people who haven't played in a year and half being considered "inactive", but, as others have noted, the game's not even been open two months, so determining who's gone for good and who's not is a crapshoot at the moment. Ultimately, your argument seems to boil down to "I don't see my neighbors enough for my liking and hijinx aren't ensuing in my street; therefore, the people not doing what I want them to should get the boot". Which is the weaker and more self-serving argument?
  Posted 13 months ago by Djabriil | Permalink

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