Lot Reset Overhaul
Hello everyone. I feel like this is long overdue as an issue, but in light of one of our Elders losing the last 9 years of work, I must address it now. Due to the low activity on the server it is a hinderance to our regrowth to continue the lot reset protocol. I can count over a dozen users who had their lot reset and never returned since. And to many the thought of buying a grace period through donation is not agreeable.
Lot resets are no longer relevant in the one-month timeframe**. I have some thoughts about the proposed changes that could be made to the reset system:
- No resets for one year after achieving the rank of Master- this gives another incentive to achieve rank progression.
- Change the current 1-month reset to 3 months for Settlers through Designers.
- **Tie voting participation into the reset system. For every vote you get one day of delayed reset. This could still work with the 1-month reset that we still have. But in addition, users should have a message every time they log in of how many days they have saved up through voting.
- This one is a little bizarre (and requires a custom plugin), but you could create an item that- once placed on a lot- extends the reset time and can be bought for a lot of uncs in the shop. The item could be Uncovery's character head. Something like this could force users to pick which lots they would want to save if they might have a reset. (This doesn't have to include an item per se, just thought it would be an interesting decoration- could very well be a custom flair).
Just a note: I made several attempts to contact the user where this happened and did not get any reply. I was ready to restore the lots but I don't even get a reply as to which lots should be restored.
If people are so distraught but don't even answer to emails, I am not sure what's really going on.
- sounds fine to me.
- we can rather talk about a general progression with the ranks that would eventually lead to 1)
- that's fine with me.
- FYI Everything is a custom plugin here :D. But otherwise I am not sure this helps. So far nobody planned to stay away that long, so I wonder how much that would actually help.
Another thing could be a simple notification to users some time before the lot resets. There could be an action that triggers a 1-time extension as a kind of grace period for emergencies. But there is an issue that specially younger users do not use their email a lot and often even lose the access to their email account. I'm not really able to send whatsapp messages through the website. But if there is no reliable way to reach the user, this is all a bit tricky.
I'm glad you brought up a 1-time grace for reset. That sounds good. And honestly, I myself have lost access to my email I registered so I can see how that might happen. At the point of warning users via email I agree, while that would be good, it could be assumed that it wouldn't help much in prevention of a reset.
The easiest way to promote the server while avoiding unwanted resets would be my #3 proposal since users can simply vote on any device they have. If a user is a donator they may be exempt from this feature until their donator status runs out- to avoid any confusion (or the banked votes could kick in afterwards, I dunno).
Which brings me to incentives to donate (since this is impacted by reset extensions):
- One extra home. This can be taken away after donator status expires, but that would require the home's name to have a fixed name if integrating with the current /home function (i.e. 'donator'). The easiest way to keep the coordinates of the 'donator' home would be to create a menu /donator so it doesn't conflict with the /homes and so forth.
- Donator World. This can be a custom world that is more enriched with desirable blocks. However, in order to encompass all desirable items it would need to have its own End and Nether worlds attached and I don't know if that is feasible. Maybe it should have elements that make it more difficult to traverse, such as: hunger only helped by golden apples and the sun burns you at all times. *This would be a great incentive.
- One discounted empire or flatlands lot. I was originally thinking of making the lot at no cost but users must be serious about land acquisition. Maybe set it to 50k uncs?
- A tool that can copy a survival lot to a Draftlands-type world for easy lot planning. If I'm not mistaken, Draftlands was set to the Kingdom's dimensions so this would have to be a sort of isolated map that only the user has access to. It would essentially copy/paste a lot into a blank void.
- Free shop items per month: one of every kind of spawn egg, a dragon egg (unattainable otherwise right now), and a stack of iron blocks.
Sorry for the bombardment of suggestions. I promise this is all I have now for the next 10 years. Haha.
I am not sure I agree that extending a reset by 1 day by voting will fix anything. It would need to be 1 month or so. If people do not have a chance to log into a minecraft server for months at a time, I do not think that they will remember to vote every single day. Of course this is just an assumption, but still.
I think that the reset-extension per userlevel is much more effective in this case.
Regarding your list, almost each one of them would break an important principle that I have held very high so far: No Pay to win. I already now have the issue that the longest playing users have amassed so many resources that it severely shifts game balance. If people are incentivized to pay money to get ahead in the game, this creates even more issues.
Let's try to userlevel-based reset limits first and then see how that works.
Quote from uncovery on 2020/10/06, 09:20Another thing could be a simple notification to users some time before the lot resets. There could be an action that triggers a 1-time extension as a kind of grace period for emergencies. But there is an issue that specially younger users do not use their email a lot and often even lose the access to their email account. I'm not really able to send whatsapp messages through the website. But if there is no reliable way to reach the user, this is all a bit tricky.
This suggestion (an email notification) would have probably prevented my lots from resetting. I forgot to log in for a while while I was inactive and an email would have definitely triggered my memory. When I logged in and found everything gone, :(, but fair (the rules are the rules).