So I have started working on the new kingdom lot system. This affects only main lots, not the street lots. Those would remain as they are, maybe become a bit more expensive. Here is how it would work:
Core Mechanics:
You get a lot by buying it. Once you are done with your build, and it satisfies some quality criteria, you can “give it back”. That means that you give it to me, it becomes a showcase like the builds in the city. Here are the details:
Getting a lot
Each kingdom lot would cost you progressively more. If I use the same formula as for the deposits and start at 10k Uncs, we get the following progression:
- 1 lot(s): 10’000 UNCs
- 2 lot(s): 80’000 UNCs
- 3 lot(s): 270’000 UNCs
- 4 lot(s): 640’000 UNCs
- 5 lot(s): 1’250’000 UNCs
- 6 lot(s): 2’160’000 UNCs
- 7 lot(s): 3’430’000 UNCs
- 8 lot(s): 5’120’000 UNCs
- 9 lot(s): 7’290’000 UNCs
- 10 lot(s): 10’000’000 UNCs
The formula is: (no. of lots)³ x 10’000. It’s the same as for the deposit boxes. This is of course quite steep. Another calculation option would be this one:
- 1 lot(s): 10’000 UNCs
- 2 lot(s): 40’000 UNCs
- 3 lot(s): 90’000 UNCs
- 4 lot(s): 160’000 UNCs
- 5 lot(s): 250’000 UNCs
- 6 lot(s): 360’000 UNCs
- 7 lot(s): 490’000 UNCs
- 8 lot(s): 640’000 UNCs
- 9 lot(s): 810’000 UNCs
- 10 lot(s): 1’000’000 UNCs
Here the formula is (no. of lots)² x 10’000. If find this almost too cheap. Essentially I want to make sure that the size of the build has a cost that is in proportion to the amount of work it would take to finish it – and the number of people it takes to do something like that. If you want to build a 4×4 build, you should not have 10 of those at the same time in the works, and a 9×9 build would rarely be a single person’s project.
It’s a draft and we have to see if we stick with that. However, there is another opportunity to get lots much cheaper: Join with others. If you anyhow plan to build with others something that is 4×4 lots, you can let other people buy 1 or more of the lots and let them pay for it. But the achievements/reward for finishing a lot would then also go to that person! I.e. we would not allow anymore to transfer lots to other people since there would be too much of an incentive to cheat the progression system by simply handing 10k to some settlers or secondary accounts and have them later give you the lot back once you gave back another of them to collect your reward.
Getting rid of a lot
There would be 3 ways of getting rid of a lot. Abandoning it, giving it to me or leaving the server. If you think you will never finish it, you can abandon it and it will be reset. If you think your lot is “done”, you can put it up for inspection. That means that Elders and myself would go to the lot and check it out. We would look if the lot is build well enough to be given to me. There would be a questionnaire that would ask questions along these lines:
- Is the space well used (or is there just a lonely hut?)
- Is it built along a theme (or is it just a clutter of random builds?)
- does it line up well with the neighbor lots (or are there massive gaps in the landscape)
- is it interesting to look at (or is it just a bunch of 1×1 noob towers)
Once this inspection is passed as successful, you would lose the lot and get rewards. This would be any possible yet to be decided reward, which could be physical (such as rare items (beacons, dragon eggs, whatever), perks (disguises) and achievement levels (badges on your user page etc) or donator status months etc.
The other way to get rid of a lot would be if you leave the server for good and the lot would be reset otherwise. That means that there would be no more resets due to people leaving. In that case the lot would go back into the pool of “free” lots and people could by them just like empty lots and decide if they want to finish the build or reset them.
What happens with the currently occupied lots?
Some people have a substantial number of main lots in the kingdom. Essentially, they would have the issue that they cannot buy any new lots since that has just become prohibitively expensive. Other lots, that are properly built, could be given back just like above.
I think its a little…steep. Maybe each main lot should be 10k to 20k above the previous?
The first lot 10k, the 2nd 20k, the 3rd 30k, and so on?
I’m wondering if we could have a certain number of lots that don’t start the increment trigger or if there could be a different calculation for verified cooperative builds?
I think many people, including myself, have a core set of Kingdom lots we consider our primary home on Uncovery. It would be hard for me to give those up. I don’t use my Kingdom lots for resources other than what I get as by product of clearing for building or landscaping. I plan to be building my mini-kingdom for years to come, and I want to live there. But keeping those means my cost for next lot would be more than I’d be willing to commit to a community build. I want to participate in community builds, but not at the expense of my own because in the end, I don’t know that anyone else is going to finish or stick around and see a community build through.
Pricing Kingdom lots like deposit boxes and homes will certainly curb people using Kingdom as a resource world, but I think they are too steep to encourage community builds. Participating in a community build is already a risk, and these prices–for me–put that risk too high.
I’m with Dani on trying to figure it out a bit. Since I also play creative and have all of my lots in Flatlands, Kingdom is also my survival Home. I think if we have users the option to purchase Empire/Flatlands lots, this issue could be reduced in the future.
Yeah there is a plan for that as well. Now that I have created the mechanic, making Empire lots saleable is nothing more than changing a single line of code, once we have the right pricing.
I’m totally okay with the first pricing model you listed above if the empire/Flatlands pricing model took on the current kingdom model or was just adopted the the 2nd model you listed above.
There is no need to give up a kingdom lot if you don’t want to. But if you want to build something big. and need a kingdom lot for that, you need to make a choice.
But I see where you are coming from. The question in the end is however also if you are not interested in giving up your kingdom lot and starting from scratch in a new one if you can get the perks that this gives you.
We have to talk prices and make sure they make sense, but I want to make sure that people don’t hoard lots.
The initial proposal up there is just a rough draft, let’s see what we can do. If we go a LOT lower, then we are back to were we are now. We need to avoid that. Otherwise there is no incentive at all to EVER finish and give back a lot.
This may have already been discussed and I didn’t follow, but just to clarify: If you return a lot, does the price go back down? For example, you buy a single lot, finish the build, and “give it back”, and then decide you want to start another small project, is the next lot you want to buy the price of a first lot, or the price of a second lot?
I understand that returning the price to a lower level means people could strip the lot for resources and then abandon it again, buy another lot cheap and so on and so forth, but if the price never goes down after you return a build, it would also make it increasingly hard to start any builds after you’ve already completed a couple. Just something I think is worth considering.
> If you return a lot, does the price go back down
Yes, you pay based on the amount of lots you own. if you give one back, the next one you buy is the same price as the one you gave back.
Your concern is justified. If someone buys a lot and builds it nicely and gives it back, it wont be up for sale anymore. If someone “gives up” and abandons the lot, we would have to put a limit on how often someone would be able to do that. That could be either limited by time (e.g. once every 6 months) or by frequency (2x and then no more kingdom lots). The other question is how much one can strip from a lot to make the purchase worthwhile and how expensive lots are.
This thread makes me feel poor. I don’t believe I have ever had 80,000 uncs, let alone 270,000 uncs. I think maybe 250,000 uncs total if I had saved every unc I ever got. Does/Has anyone ever had 1,000,000 uncs? That should be a badge or vanity title.
Well I guess there are several things here:
– You never TRIED to get that much money (by charging a bit more for your stuff)
– you spent money on stuff (many kingdom lots) because it was cheap instead of one kingdom lot
– yes, there will be vanity titles to accumulate money like that :D
I like this idea. Here are some options to modify your formula, if you are still looking for ways to tweak it.
One option that builds on your idea: If quadratic growth (n^2) is too large, then maybe you can go with something like n^(3/2)? Should have roughly the same behavior for large n.
Another option that I’ll throw in is to go for a geometric growth formula. For instance, if n is the number of lots, we could take
Cost=(2^(n-1)+1)*(10000)
for n>1. The potential benefit of this is that kingdom lots are somewhat relatively lowly priced for the first 3 or 4 lots. After about 6 or 7 lots, the growth of this function prevents people from buying much more (In fact the growth rate dominates polynomial growth). Here’s the pricing for the first few lots.
https://gyazo.com/60a1269c44a4189ece10f8023cb994ed
Anyway, just throwing in some options.
I like the idea of higher pricing, but to say someone won’t can’t undertake a huge build all by themselves is wrong. I have a number of lots in the Kingdom, and did most of the building on 3 cities all by myself. AzJaguar helped with my asian city, and a few people have put up a building in a town, but over my time on here, I just kept plugging away and did most of it myself, and the scale has been pretty big. I still have plans to build another huge port city in the inland city that is home to both my big builds, and the southern part of Heaven’s Reach. I like Pine’s idea of pricing going up after a few lots, just because I don’t want to take away someone else’s chance to build something epic all by themselves.