Suggested changes to the Land Grab and Land Management system

1. The 6 month land lease is becoming less and less attractive as the land management system gets more sophisticated and the only ones making any significant profits are those that purchase their land. It is difficult to justify investments in a society held Land Area (e.g.,adding DNA) that will very likely change hands every 6 months.

What I would like to see is instead of the land returning to MindArk (Marcus Callendar to be specific) after 6 months, let the land remain in the possession of the society. Then the Land Grab would simply be a period of time where the society's land is threatened and must be defended for the appropriate length of time (90 minutes, 12 hours, etc.). During this period anyone is able to attack the holding society and try to remove them from the land and claim it for themselves. So basically all the same rules would apply, except the land owning society would have the advantage of already holding the claim before the fighting starts. As anyone who has fought in the Land Grabs knows this can be a huge advantage. This advantage alone may give a society more confidence in investing in the land (given that they feel it is an area that they would like to hold onto and develop).

Of course, a society does not have to defend the land if they are interested in claiming a different area. In this case once the Land Area Battles begin the claim would be open to whoever can claim it as soon as the 30 second time limit expires on the current owners.

With a set up like this, one where the land truly must be taken from a society rather than simply returned to MindArk and offered up for the taking at a later date, it seems much more in line with land ownership and the defense of that land.

I would also propose that if a society is able to successfully defend the same claim in a certain number of successive Land Grabs, the society should become the permanent owner of that land. This would mean the land area would no longer be part of any future Land Grabs and the society would have the same rights to the land as someone who has purchased it (including the right to sell all or part of the land). Some of this may sound familiar as it was part of the original plan for the Land Grab.

From the original Land Grab rules:

” The land owning societies will also in a later stage be given the opportunity to sell house-building lots to any Project Entropia participant. The lots available for sale will vary in number and size depending on the size of the land owned by the society."

This was over 2 years ago, shouldn't we be at least nearing this "later stage".


2. In order for the above to work however, there would need to be more land areas released for future Land Grabs. That's the true nature of a Land Grab, grabbing and fighting for unclaimed land. But once you claim the land you should have some kind of assurance that you actually own the land (i.e. it can't be taken from you without a fight). Removing ownership of the land every 6 months to artificially create unclaimed land to fight over (and thus being able to call it a "Land Grab") doesn't seem like a viable solution to me. Actually that sounds a lot like a "game" not a "Virtual Universe". Are we trying to create a virtual universe or are we playing capture the flag.


3. As far as land management goes there needs to be a more open system allowing other society members to help manage land rather than putting all the work and responsibility on the leader. An easy way would be for there to be a Land Deed that goes to the leader when a land area is claimed. Who ever possesses the Land Deed would have access to all land management tools, such as the Fertilizer Station, Event System, etc. The leader could elect to do the work himself, he could designate a person as Land Manager, or the society members could even take turns managing the land for periods of time. The Land Deed of course could not be sold and could only be exchanged between tax collecting members of a society.


4. There also should be a way to Repel unwanted creatures from your land. This would solve the problem of nice spawns of desirable creatures to hunt being polluted with wandering mobs like exarosaurs, trilomites, equus, etc. that slow down hunting, waste ammo and just become a nuisance. Maybe there could be an additional cost in Improvement Points to Repel wandering mobs, or a new enmatter altogether that could be added to the Fertilizer Station (an Anti-Fertilizer) that would do the job. Even better would be to bring back mob fighting and let the DNA created mobs kill off the mobs that wander into their territory.


That's all I have for now, sorry it was so long.

+rep

I almost fully agree with the post above, but for a single statement: I think LAs acquired through LG should never become the permanent property of a society, but should be challenged during each and every LG event.
This will put pressure on the present top societies to maintain or increase their skill level, with the risk that other societies could take LAs away from them.

Take care,
BB

+rep for a good post... A couple of things though...

I don't think any true soc ownership of this type will be feasible until the soc can actually function as a single and seperate entity in the VU... Here's what is needed to make this VU work for socs (and also give the economy a HUGE shot in the arm)..

1. The soc should have it's own PED account accessible to authorized or voted members
2. The soc should have it's own storage for items accesible to authorized or voted members.
3. When soc owned items are sold by authorized soc members, the PEDs go to the soc account directly (perhaps with a % value going to the member who sold it).
4. Soc items can be "checked out" of common storage by authorized members and could remain with the member for a 24 hour period before reverting back to soc storage.

Implementing just these four ideas will provide an entirely new dynamic to the game and stimulate the economy considerably.

Not too sure on this one, I think free royalties for 6 mos is a nice reward for a society to win the grab. Too much more and those societies with the royalties would have an unfair income to continuously gain even more advantage over competitors for free. Over time it would get much harder to even compete for land for any society other than the owners, if they had it ongoing.

Im a freelancer, so it already is impossible for me, but essentially, most non-owner societies would have an increasing impossibility against the owning-societies with the financial advantage to get better gear/buy more skills, on an ongoing basis.

It is a cool idea though defending your land, but in my opinion, you should have a paid investment of some sort to defend, rather than defending what was gained for very little time and cost. Simply for fairness overall.

Not to mention unfair to people who have paid large sums to own land for the very purpose of ongoing ownership/control.

6 mos to me seems a nice reward, without tipping the balances too much.

As unpopular as it may be, I also think that current owners be ineligable for the following land grab, to help balance things, and give the many many other societies a chance and opportunity without having to be top 10. Not unlike alot of competitions run by owners. Because really, the societies that can even compete or have a chance in grabs, is only a handful.

Not to say that dedication and organization of those societies isnt worthy, it is, but 6 mos of free royalties is a nice enough reward for that dedication in my opinion. Considering that reward isnt realistic for most other societies, who put in thier own dedication and organization.

Land management from what I can tell as an outsider, could certainly use work, and your ideas would seem to be beneficial.