Topic

System to deal with inactive players' houses ~ House elves!

allowing inactive players to hold their houses indefinitely is bad for the glitch's real estate market, it would have to forever expand to accommodate new players. i propose a system to deal with this issue: house elves (or gnome/unicorn/dwarf/dust bunnies/whatever)!

every week you need to feed and/or play with your house creature or it'll get progressively angrier, lashing out by ruining crops and trees, letting out piggies/butterflies/chickens, stealing items, leaving poo that lowers mood until finally after 3 months of neglect, in a fit of rage, it sells your home. items left in the house could be mailed back to the owner.

in reverse, if you feed it, it's favourite food or play with it a lot it might leave you a nice present. 

Posted 14 months ago by Fur Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I really like this idea.
    Posted 14 months ago by Sparklebooty Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like this idea as well.  Just one thing...I think players who expect to go on hiatus/vacation/take a break for a period of time should be able to, perhaps, hire an in-game creature-sitter service that lets them go away for a chunk of pre-determined time before having to worry about losing their home.  Not unlimited as that defeats the purpose, but enough where people can go on vacation, take a break, or just take care of irl stuff without worrying about losing their in-game home.
    Posted 14 months ago by VorpalCheese Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm not sure about this. I think I might add some exceptions to it. If someone's maintaining an active subscription (limited to the top one or two tiers, maybe?), add an account flag that grants immunity from house foreclosure for the subscription's duration. That level of subscription shows a continued investment in the game, and I don't think players should be punished with property loss just because their military unit happened to get deployed to Afghanistan.

    The immunity from housing repossession may encourage players to subscribe if they're on-again-off-again players, but it also manages to open up housing slots from non-subscribers who stopped playing the game (which is where the bulk of the problem will eventually come from). Free players who are actively maintaining their homes won't have to worry about it.

    I realize this sounds a bit like classism, but, as mentioned above, the real problem in terms of housing scarcity will be due to non-active, non-subscribing players - house owners who've lost interest in the game. Those houses should be reclaimed, since the players are no longer contributing to the game or to TinySpeck. People who are subscribed, however, are the lifeblood of the company, and chasing them off by seizing their houses would be inadvisable.
    Posted 14 months ago by Eleni Ivanova Subscriber! | Permalink
  • that could be technically called classism but it's not something that disadvantages active non-subscribers and gives a sure-fire, easy way for people to keep their property if they're going to be away from the game for months at a time. great suggestion Eleni, i would fully support subscription length of time = secure home ownership length of time.
    Posted 14 months ago by Fur Subscriber! | Permalink