User:Tesa

Working on a DPA law atm. Below is just a bunch of notes so that I can keep them together.

T2/3

Departed Person Property Reclamation Act by Squiranha

(copy of Amanesus' law in Tale 2)

1. Definition of Departed Person

A player will be deemed "Departed" if he fulfills any of the following criteria:

1.1 His account status is "Quit", "Exiled", "Dead", or similar, and he has not logged on for 7 days.

1.2 His account status is "Expired" or "Trial", and he has not logged on for 14 days.

2. Departed Guilds and Promotion of Members

2.1 In the event that all Elders of a guild are Departed, the highest-ranked non-Departed guild members will be given the option to promote themselves to Elder at the guild hall.

2.2 If a guild has no non-Departed Elders for a period of 14 days or more, the guild will be defined as "Departed".

3. Treatment of property belonging to Departed Persons or Guilds

T4

Departed and Absent Player Cleanup (DAPC)

A player will be considered Absent if they have not been paid for the past 31 days and have at some point been paid for a total of 3 months or more (not necessarily consecutive).

A player will be considered Departed if they have not been paid (or in the case of a Trial account have not logged in) for the past 31 days and have only ever been paid for 2 months or less total.

A guild will be considered Absent if all players in that guild are Absent or Departed. A guild will be considered Departed if all players in that guild are Departed.

The highest ranked non-Absent/non-Departed player in a guild may promote everyone of their rank to Elder.

If the owner of a building is Absent any paid player may "remove" the building. Removing a building will give all salvaged materials and all items held within the building to the owner (implementation is left up to the developers).

If the owner of a building is Departed any paid player may salvage or take ownership of the building.

T5

Departed Player Act rev 2

Intent: To keep egypt's landscape from becoming cluttered with dilapidated buildings from players that have long departed.

This law will allow anything player-built(excluding microphones) to be claimed by any currently paid account, provided the following criteria is met.

1) A "Trial account" that has been inactive for 14 or more days.

2) An account that has remained "unpaid" for 60 continuous days or longer.

3) A "Quit" account 60 days after they have quit and their account goes into "unpaid" status.

4) A "guilded building" where the guild hall belonging to that building has been torn down shall be immediatly claimable.

5) A guildhall that has had no currently paid members in it for 60 days. (if all elders of a guild have become "unpaid" then all current "paid" members of the next highest rank with a "currently paid" player in it shall become elders.)

Also there shall be an option for every paid player to name 1 player to "inherit" their posessions. Should a player quit or remain unpaid for 60 days, the inheriting player shall have 14 days to claim the departed person who has named them as their inheritor's buildings. If these buildings go uncliamed longer than 14 days, they shall be free to be claimed by any currently paid player. (this would be a total of 74 days from the time someone who has named an inheritor becomes "unpaid")

Once an entity (person or guild) has been deemed Departed, any citizen clicking on this entity's property will be given the option to "Claim" or "Tear Down". These options will remain until a citizen selects either one, at which point the property will become his, or will be torn down, respectively.

4. Exceptions

4.1 A work of art having fewer than 20 more negative votes than positive votes may not be claimed or torn down under the terms of this law.

4.2 Mentor shrines may not be claimed or torn down under the terms of this law.

response

There are two motivations for these laws:

1) Free stuff: People like obtaining things in some fashion that requires less work than normal.

2) Freeing up land that is currently otherwise unused.

I've campaigned against most of these types of laws since Tale 1. Egypt is huge, and even with large swaths of desert, has far more good camp locations than we ever manage to use. The claim that we need to generally be able to clear space to allow for people to build new things is not accurate. Yes, there is some advantage to being able to build closer to a chariot stop, but I think the harm these types of laws do outweighs that advantage.

Free stuff is always nice! And, there is a plus to injecting valuable materials that might never be used back into the economy.

But, as time goes on, Egypt never really lacks for usable land or for materials. What Egypt does tend to end up lacking is people. Tellings are long, and have various stages that different people enjoy to various degrees. Many people like to come and go ... or would do so if they could leave and know that when they return in a few months everything they have worked on will still be there. instead, with laws like these, anything they have built is more likely to be gone, and the player will face starting over from the beginning ... and quickly decide they will just not bother returning at all. This harms Egypt and the rest of its players far more than some locked up land or locked up resources ever can. Past tellings have seen this issue dealt with to a small degree ... allowing to set someone to inherit your buildings and such. But that may only delay things as you now have to rely on that next person not leaving, or not deciding to return your things to you.

These laws always always cause more overall harm than good.

For this particular law:

It goes beyond discouraging former players to return, and allows one to steal from a still paying player. Paying for one's account should be enough to protect all of your buildings. I'm against allowing stealing in general, but making sure keeping a paid account protects your buildings encourages people who may wish to take a break to continue paying ... and the more people who are paying to play the more likely we are to see an improved game.

It makes using bonfires to mark various things long term a non-option. There are plenty of other options that can be used that are just more annoying, but we'll see them used instead of small bonfires.

T6

This law would help keep excess clutter left by quit players to a minimum.

This law will allow anything player-built(excluding microphones) to be claimed by any currently paid account, provided the following criteria is met.

1) A "Trial account" that has been inactive for 14 or more days. 2) An account that has remained "unpaid" for 60 continuous days or longer. 3) A "Quit" account 60 days after they have quit and their account goes into "unpaid" status. 4) A "guilded building" where the guild hall belonging to that building has been torn down shall be immediatly claimable. 5) A guildhall that has had no currently paid members in it for 60 days. (if all elders of a guild have become "unpaid" then all current "paid" members of the next highest rank with a "currently paid" player in it shall become elders.)

Also there shall be an option for every paid player to name 1 player to "inherit" their possessions. Should a player quit or remain unpaid for 60 days, the inheriting player shall have 14 days to claim the departed person who has named them as their inheritor's buildings. If these buildings go unclaimed longer than 14 days, they shall be free to be claimed by any currently paid player. (this would be a total of 74 days from the time someone who has named an inheritor becomes "unpaid")