Pay your Rent or loose your home

One thing I did not like about Archeage...if you went on an extended vacation (I believe the time limit was 14 days) and you didn't log in to pay your rent, you lost your home (max prepay of rent). On the flip side, we don't want people to hold sandbox land that don't ever log in. What is an acceptable length of time we should be allowed to prepay our rent, so we don't loose our Home in town, or our Freehold? Apartments, as they are instanced should just be a lockout until we pay our rent, but sandbox homes?
What is everybody's feelings on this?

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Azherae

Three months prepay max.

Four if the devs want to be very kind.

They can also try 'extending it by some amount based on the time you've already held the property' (for example you can prepay 1 month if you've held the property for 3, but 4 months if you held it for 1 year), but I don't like this, within the context of Ashes' current design. It would be both 'unlikely to come up' (at the rates I used as example, anyway) and 'more abusable fiat'.

It would be 'nice' though, in certain ways, particularly for players who play early and live in the nodes that happen to do really well.

tautau

Here is some information you may find relevant:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Housing_taxes

AnimusRex

Seems like they are considering some sort of Direct Debit system.

Then I guess if you don't have the assets, it will come down to what length of grace period is offered. Same with non payment of subscription.

It can get a bit tricky when you consider that there will be players in RL who will experience events that stop them playing the game suddenly with no notice. Illnesses and deaths unfortunately will happen.

Aszkalon

Azherae wrote: »

Three months prepay max.

Four if the devs want to be very kind.

That " is " - very kind.

Everything above Three Weeks is neat time. Even when someone get's sick in Reallife and has a hellish Time for at least 14 Days, like when i myself caught a damn Flu at the End of January and it annoyed me to the Middle of February ... ... ^.^#

Venacier

tautau wrote: »

Here is some information you may find relevant:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Housing_taxes

Looking at this, doesn't actually answer my question as to the actual amount of time they are thinking of. They do say they are "thinking" of allowing pre-payment, and that you may be able to set up a warehouse or such to draw auto-pay of rent, but still nothing solid, except if you don't pay for the subscription, your out on the street lol.

If we are allowed to have autopay set up, I think that would settle the issue. I do travel, and do not always have internet where I go, or have the desire to log in while camping on the Great Wall of China or such. I could log in for a day to pay rent...but that just seems stupid to have to do if on a vacation. For example my one in June will be 18 days long...if 14 is the max...well...I guess I won't bother trying to acquire housing or freeholds.

This is actually why I left Archeage, and never returned.

AnimusRex

Venacier wrote: »

tautau wrote: »

Here is some information you may find relevant:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Housing_taxes

Looking at this, doesn't actually answer my question as to the actual amount of time they are thinking of. They do say they are "thinking" of allowing pre-payment, and that you may be able to set up a warehouse or such to draw auto-pay of rent, but still nothing solid, except if you don't pay for the subscription, your out on the street lol.

Putting a solid time period on this right now would be premature, and frankly not a priority.

But I would bet my lefty that it is more than 14 days. And/or there is a autopay mechanism in place.

You can still pack your tent.

Azherae

Aszkalon wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

Three months prepay max.

Four if the devs want to be very kind.

That " is " - very kind.

Everything above Three Weeks is neat time. Even when someone get's sick in Reallife and has a hellish Time for at least 14 Days, like when i myself caught a damn Flu at the End of January and it annoyed me to the Middle of February ... ... ^.^#

I don't think of this in terms of 'the player themselves being unable to play physically'.

I think in terms of like 'my parent passed away and I'm doing a bunch of legal stuff that has an explicit end, a point of closure where it is not only acceptable but healthy for me to go back to my game'.

Sure, some people just play anyway during that time, at least enough to pay their rent or whatever, but all sorts of similar circumstances come up, where 'priorities' wouldn't shift in total, but the period where they shift entirely is longer than a month or two.

Noaani

IMO they should have a system where you pay tax weekly, and if you want to pay ahead, each week forward doubles in cost.

Thus, if a week is 100g, two weeks would be 300g (100g for the first week, 200g for the second week). Three weeks would be 700g (100g + 200g + 400g). Four weeks would be 1500g (100g + 200g + 400g + 800g).

Tax in a game like this serves two main functions - it is there as a coin sink, but it is also a mechanism by which land owned by people no longer playing falls back in to the pool of available land within a reasonable time frame.

With a system like the above, people are only going to pay a week or two in advance if they are expecting to continue to play, but are given an option to pay for longer if they are planning a holiday and don't wish to log on to pay tax, or get someone else to do it for them.

Almariel

What if we look at this more like on mmo. We have family system that allows us to give permissions to our land for family members. Why our family members cant pay tax for our land when we are absent?

Like normally we can pay for 2 weeks in advance(like in Noaani example 100g each). After that when our land is no longer paid we and our family members gets notice and any of family member that have permission to our land can pay tax, but because it was not paid in advance tax is 115g/week. Only land owner can prepaid tax.
When landlord account subscription is not paid family members can pay for land maximum for 1 month.

With that solution:
- we will have less wasted parcels - someone will be paying taxes so it should earn for itself,
- if we are playing active but something happened our land is secured if we have good family relations

- if we are paying our subscription monthly we have 1,5 month to make our mind if we need more time or want to invest RL and in-game money.

What are consequences? How minmaxers will try to exploit that and how easy will it be? In Archeage they were happy for family members to be very casual players getting online frequently enough to pay taxes and rarely enough to leave parcel to minmaxer to use. Supscription in Ashes will make it less obvious to exploit.

AnimusRex

Almariel wrote: »

What if we look at this more like on mmo. We have family system that allows us to give permissions to our land for family members. Why our family members cant pay tax for our land when we are absent?

Not everyone will have family members in the game. Or they might be absent for the same reasons.

Almariel

AnimusRex wrote: »

Not everyone will have family members in the game. Or they might be absent for the same reasons.

And it is just fine. You can be lone wolf, you dont need to be part of family or give permission to your land to somebody you dont trust. That is fine. That means that you need to take care of your land. If you dont you might lose it. Ashes is meant to encourage people to be part of small comunities, to interact with others. Zergling is bad. Small groups like party or family gives player opportunity to not only enjoy game but to enjoy gamers as well. But, and it is important 'but', that mechanic dont force you to be a family member. It can be beneficial, but it dont give you anything better.

On the other hand imagine what is perspective of other players. I play regularly, I spend few hours online everyday. You are better player than me, but you have better things to do than spending your free time online. Because you are better player than me you have aquire parcel before me. Fair and square. It turns out that you claim last parcel in our node. I'm sad but it is what it is. You are good player, you got wealthy, after some time you are going to meditation camp in Tibet in RL. You prepaid your land for 3 months. In that time your ingame parcel is empty, nobody is using it because you dont have ingame family. Node economy is disturbed because not only you are not using your land. After 3 months you come back and return to what you have before, you are happy because you have your land.
That kind of long prepaid time will allow people to be able to lock out great percentage of freeholds out of economic ecosystem.

To the second part. Personally I'he rarely played (party, family, guild) with guys from same city and even so I cannot came up with a reason why I or my online colegues cant log in (on the assumption that we still want to play) to pay ingame land tax. Good reason is long vacation but who is traveling for 3 weeks with online friends? Not many of us. And because probability of that is extremly low I think game mechanic should not be build on that.

In my opinion if you are unable to maintain your freehold for 2 weeks (1,5 month with help of your ingame family) than freehold ownership might not be for you. What about in town instanced apartment? Those are cosy too. And maybe those can be yours as long as your ingame wallet allows it?

3Snap

Noaani wrote: »

IMO they should have a system where you pay tax weekly, and if you want to pay ahead, each week forward doubles in cost.

Thus, if a week is 100g, two weeks would be 300g (100g for the first week, 200g for the second week). Three weeks would be 700g (100g + 200g + 400g). Four weeks would be 1500g (100g + 200g + 400g + 800g).

Tax in a game like this serves two main functions - it is there as a coin sink, but it is also a mechanism by which land owned by people no longer playing falls back in to the pool of available land within a reasonable time frame.

With a system like the above, people are only going to pay a week or two in advance if they are expecting to continue to play, but are given an option to pay for longer if they are planning a holiday and don't wish to log on to pay tax, or get someone else to do it for them.

That's actually a great idea to be honest. I'd argue there should be a hard limit of 30 days max though. If you can't log in for a few minutes to pay for more than a month, then your just wasting space someone else could be using.

AnimusRex

Almariel wrote: »

AnimusRex wrote: »

Not everyone will have family members in the game. Or they might be absent for the same reasons.

In my opinion if you are unable to maintain your freehold for 2 weeks (1,5 month with help of your ingame family) than freehold ownership might not be for you. What about in town instanced apartment? Those are cosy too. And maybe those can be yours as long as your ingame wallet allows it?

Intrepid will have to consider a range of circumstances and some beyond a player's control.

They shouldn't want to lose future subscriptions by pissing someone off who couldn't log in for a while due to a one off circumstance, especially with the scarcity they are forcing on freehold ownership. That's just bad business.

For lazy absences, I'm not sure why you are fixated on 2 weeks. If someone can prepay their taxes for 3 months then the taxes are paid like anyone else.

Almariel

AnimusRex wrote: »

Intrepid will have to consider a range of circumstances and some beyond a player's control.

You are right. And in my opinion that healty range might be 1,5 month.

AnimusRex wrote: »

For lazy absences, I'm not sure why you are fixated on 2 weeks. If someone can prepay their taxes for 3 months then the taxes are paid like anyone else.

Freeholds will be very exclusive good and it should be paired with responsibility. It is not Archeage where everybody could have some land and most of active players have many of those. There long term prepaid had very little impact on server economy. In Ashes, where only 10% - 20% of players will be able to own a freehold where best things are gonna be made the impact of completly wasting will be significant.
In this game Verra is main character, not you or me. Unhealty economy for pleasure of one player is not good for game.

So is there better solution to prevent 'stagnation' and land waste with long term prepaid ability at the same time? Tax can be crazy high. But is that good for you to struggle to pay taxes and be forced to minmax your income?

AnimusRex wrote: »

They shouldn't want to lose future subscriptions by pissing someone off who couldn't log in for a while due to a one off circumstance, especially with the scarcity they are forcing on freehold ownership. That's just bad business.

First, Intrepid is not focused on numbers. It is not about gaining coins. There is no P2W. That is not mobile game. And that is why we belive in Ashes. They main goal is to make great game. Not money. If you will quit because you lost your freehold after two months of absence local community will be devasteded, but they will survive. Because 50 other lads will gain ability to prove themselve and fight they way to claim this chunk of land that was empty for last two months.
And that is why I suggested that family responsibility thing. You are not alone, your buddies are there for you.

unknownsystemerror

I doubt that any time/grace period of paying rent in advance will be more than a month, possibly two at the most. People seem to think that they will be able to leave Ashes for weeks on end and come back to everything fine and dandy. While you won't lose your blueprint/cosmetic layout, there is no guarantee that a freehold will not be lost while you are away. Complaints of "I paid my rent 6 months in advance, only to have my freehold burned down a week later." will be a CS nightmare for them. You can go back to the latest freehold update where they explain that they think that land availability will not be an issue in game, because there is no permanence. Also, remember that tax is variable, based on a few factors such as what stage the property is gained at, how many other freeholds attached to that there are, (increasing with number), and a variable sliding scale that the mayor can set for certain other things in the node. I have a member in my gaming group who has had a property in ArcheAge for years that they got during a land rush at the beginning of that server. She doesn't play the game anymore, but logs on every now and then just to pay the tax with funds she built up when she did play. Has no intention of going back, but does it "just because I don't want anyone else to have it." This is another point Intrepid has said they don't want, those that don't play, don't get to keep their stuff active on the server, either through losing it to lack of tax payment or through node destruction.

TheDarkSorcerer

Ew no. Real life is already a struggle for many. I don't want real life problems in a game that's supposed to be a wonderful escape from that reality.

Azherae

TheDarkSorcerer wrote: »

Ew no. Real life is already a struggle for many. I don't want real life problems in a game that's supposed to be a wonderful escape from that reality.

This barely matters anyway, though, assuming you can pay Freehold/similar taxes from the mobile app.

It'd be quite odd to be able to farm on your Freehold from an app, but not be able to pay taxes so you can keep farming from the same app.

Aszkalon

Azherae wrote: »

I don't think of this in terms of 'the player themselves being unable to play physically'.

I think in terms of like 'my parent passed away and I'm doing a bunch of legal stuff that has an explicit end, a point of closure where it is not only acceptable but healthy for me to go back to my game'.

Sure, some people just play anyway during that time, at least enough to pay their rent or whatever, but all sorts of similar circumstances come up, where 'priorities' wouldn't shift in total, but the period where they shift entirely is longer than a month or two.

This is actually the most hard-sounding Instance i never expected to see here. This sucks a lot more than everything else when the own Parent/s pass away.

One more Reason to be Buddy-Buddy with People ingame and have a good, social Relationship with other Players.

Friends can help You ingame if you hindered by something for One or several Months.

AnimusRex

Aszkalon wrote: »

Azherae wrote: »

I don't think of this in terms of 'the player themselves being unable to play physically'.

I think in terms of like 'my parent passed away and I'm doing a bunch of legal stuff that has an explicit end, a point of closure where it is not only acceptable but healthy for me to go back to my game'.

Sure, some people just play anyway during that time, at least enough to pay their rent or whatever, but all sorts of similar circumstances come up, where 'priorities' wouldn't shift in total, but the period where they shift entirely is longer than a month or two.

This is actually the most hard-sounding Instance i never expected to see here. This sucks a lot more than everything else when the own Parent/s pass away.

My father passed away on New Years Eve. I spent at least 6 weeks arranging initially funeral, then estate, and other family legal issues. I'm still waiting on some rulings from various authorities. As well as grieving of course.

There's no way I could have spent any significant amount of time on a game. Maybe enough to log in and pay taxes, I don't know. But that's just me. Maybe others could, or would need to.

AnimusRex

Almariel wrote: »

First, Intrepid is not focused on numbers. It is not about gaining coins. There is no P2W. That is not mobile game. And that is why we belive in Ashes. They main goal is to make great game. Not money. If you will quit because you lost your freehold after two months of absence local community will be devasteded, but they will survive. Because 50 other lads will gain ability to prove themselve and fight they way to claim this chunk of land that was empty for last two months.
And that is why I suggested that family responsibility thing. You are not alone, your buddies are there for you.

I'm pretty familiar with the business model. And yes, subscriptions rely on a high player base. And maintaining it.

But Steven, although well off, doesn't want to blow his entire fortune making a game, whether it's a passion project or not. So yeah, it is about gaining coins as well. Right now, he's got a large and growing studio to pay and a ton of other costs that go with it. There's a reason the packages offered so far aren't exactly cheap.

I don't think he has 'publisher's greed', but he's not a charity either.

And now I'm about talked out on the topic.

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