Emails sent about plot sizing

[Justa Mirage]

Check your mail, probably an official announcement coming soon.

A request for a community effort to contact players to help in a cleansing of unused plots so community plots can be made larger on both shards or resized.

[Trust]

Nice! Unfortunately, at our town (Ambato) we have a couple expert shops built on those small plots and I'm not going to be the the one who suggests tearing them down.

[Galeana]

Got it. Read it. It reads like polite we reserve the right to evict you notice although we're not actually evicting you at this time.

Rambling pointless venting concern follows.

I reside on my "too small" condemned plot for a number of reasons. First was affordability. Not everyone counts thier spending funds in gold required for large plots. Second was location/environment. I don't like the idea of sacrificing time spent on my virtual holding to vacate when it is very likely any size increased replacement will be beyond my means to re purchase thus sending me looking elsewhere when at this time there is nowhere vacant that meets my criteria anyways. My community is also small at the moment. I think two of the three dragon lairs are inhabited while I am the only active bi-ped plot resident. That means very little structure lag. Resolve structure based system resource usage issues. Assisting in constructing anything near all the stand alone city plots of Shepard's Island is beyond reasonably frustrating...

I think I'll stop wasting my virtual breath now, and wait for further info.

[Landowyn]

Check your mail, probably an official announcement coming soon.

A request for a community effort to contact players to help in a cleansing of unused plots so community plots can be made larger on both shards or resized.

Hmmm.... post the letter. I didn't get one. Nobuddy lubs me.... sniff.

[Drevar]

On Order I went through and deconned structures on as many of the condemned eligible plots in our community I could. 7 plots qualify.
3 of them are owned by non-actives and are not currently available for sale, one of those has an expert shop. These 3 are also occupied on Chaos, but not Blight.

3 that are cleared are also clear on Chaos and Blight so no conflicts there.

1 that I cleared is also clear on Blight, but not on Chaos.

We need to have the reclaim before any modifications are done to move/resize/merge plots to allow us to get the structures deconstructed. I am also hesitant to take down any big important stuff and then find out it will be weeks before any mods are done, leaving us without use of those important buildings. The stuff I did take down was pretty minor, 1/3 done t2 silos, T1 guildhalls, etc. Easily rebuilt.

Drev

[Silverblaze]

Istarias union has many storage plots...no place to put hte stuff.

I like the sentiment...but the implementation needs work.

[Lio]

3 things right now, can see a few more concerns possibly too, but will await more thread replies in case they get answered ..

1. Novian resources possibly reverting to 1:1 on destroy/decon (not 80% as now) for the duration of this particular period, hopefully, if it is agreeable to implement, this obviously needs to be done VERY quickly before too many (or any) decons of higher tier buildings !

2. I can understand the need for no buildings when re-sizing, but why would we need to release ownership ?

3. Hoping for our community at least, we can get a little more land on which we can have some decently resized plots .. as we have no other plots or communities around us, just cliffs .. lol .. AND as 7/9 of our Guild plots (ex the Key plot & our 2 lairs) are under 40x40 ..looking forward to what might be possible for our little corner of Istaria for sure !!

[AmonGwareth]

2. I can understand the need for no buildings when re-sizing, but why would we need to release ownership ?

Because it is not possible to resize many of the tiny plots due to a lack of space. So some need to be deleted in order to make room for others to be expanded.

[Lio]

well that certainly makes good sense, one rule for all etc, as some communities could be moved around, but not all, I can appreciate that .. I sure hope any decision on the Novian aspect could be thought about with utmost speed though, one way or the other.

[Steelclaw]

I'd feel a bit better about releasing plots to the community if VI would be willing to commit to an effort to offer the 'original' owner their 'resized' plot back before putting it up for general sale or auction.

In the case where plots get merged, some sort of conflict resolution between the involved parties can be employed, the easiest being "hey, do you really want this plot?".

[Thangorodrim Atanatari]

darn, they putting big effort to your guild communities resizing, email, for your owns sake. and all i hear is complaints and worries!
this is rediculous. be thankfull and co-operative people!
wish we in UoP had such a community place to work on as a guild. and its to late to start a new guild to get into this community thingy.
You guys are the lucky ones that controll the destiny of such important towns.

@galeana im pretty sure the plot will not be more expensive it will still be 1 silverm but just bigger after they are done.

[Vahrokh]

I wholeheartedly agree with Thangorodrim.

The developers are splitting their buttcheeks in three for us and yet all we see is whining?

I wish I got an email about them enlarging my plot at Parsinia (it even got "slack room" around). *hint* *hint * *nudge* *nudge*

[RuneDragoon]

I wholeheartedly agree with Thangorodrim.

The developers are splitting their buttcheeks in three for us and yet all we see is whining?

I wish I got an email about them enlarging my plot at Parsinia (it even got "slack room" around). *hint* *hint * *nudge* *nudge*

They work hard for you and although I agree here I also like steelclaw's suggestion: Give the player who tore their home down the resized plot back so that their efforts are not for naught.

Back to building the lair before all the machines in Lerena are vaporized...

[Shian]

I'm worried about not getting my land back if I sell it.

Wonderful that they are resizing them to make them better though. Perhaps so many of them will be done there will be more than enough land for everyone, so not that much cause for worry?

I would also like to see novians get 100% back. As we're being evicted, it would be nice not to have to rebuild everything when we do get a square of land.

[Steelclaw]

Gah.

First, there is no indication in the email that the request to tear down undersized plots is limited to just guild communities.

Second, it does sound like those who own undersized plots get the short end of the stick. They lose their storage structures, they lose the coin they spent to buy the plot (some of which was won in auction, well in excess of imperial price), they lose 20% of their novians, and they lose the plot.

There are approximately 620 owned plots on Chaos that fall into the <1600m^2 category (of 1729 overall in that category). Yes, some may belong to inactive accounts. However, the rest belong to active players. It's not just 1 or two players we're talking about here.

To say "Stop whining and cooperate!" is to say "You're getting fperjrq for my benefit, and I don't care.". That's downright rude.

Yes, the devs are working hard. That doesn't mean the approach to resizing plots is ideal, it doesn't mean it's acceptable, it doesn't mean there aren't better ways to go about doing it. It just means they're working hard and are attempting to do /something/ about the small plots.

I just hope a better deal can be worked out for those affected.

[Takora Drakan]

Hmmm.... post the letter. I didn't get one. Nobuddy lubs me.... sniff.

*hug* Here is the mail I got.

Greetings Fellow Istarians,

In my most recent "Developers' Desk" email I mentioned that while we're
working toward plot reclamation, the design team is also taking a close
look at communities where plots are "too small" to be effective. There
have been some questions and feedback asking us to define what "too small"
means and what our plans are for those plots, so I thought I'd provide some
more information. And there are ways that as Istarians you can help us
with this process, too.

Our threshold for plots we consider "under-sized" is 1600 square meters or
smaller - such as a plot that is 40x40 meters or 30x50 meters. What we
have done at this point is set any plots that are too small to a status of
"Condemned". Any plot that is Condemned is considered unworthy and can not
be purchased. It will either be reborn as a larger plot, or sent to the
eternal bit bucket.

Here's where you can help. If you, or a friend, owns one of these
unfortunate plots, we'd ask that you take the time to tear down structures
on that plot and sell it back to the community. Obviously this is not
something that we're forcing anyone to do, but it is a request. The more
of these under-sized plots that are owned by the community, the easier it
is for us to be able to work in the community - and provide everyone with a
selection of larger plots. It is often difficult, and sometimes
impossible, to modify a small plot if it remains owned by someone on any of
the shards.

If you know of someone who is currently unsubscribed and would like to
release their plot, we can certainly add a week of special "plot clean up"
time to their account. I encourage those of you who have guild communities
to try and contact members who may no longer play the game, especially
since we know that guild communities often contain these under-sized
plots.

I appreciate your help in this matter. If you have any questions, please
contact support at http://support.istaria.com and submit a ticket under
Plot and Lairs or just email us at [email protected]

Thank you and enjoy Istaria,

- Amarie

[Velea]

Folks you are blowing this all WAY out of proportion here.

It's ok, it happens, especially on these forums it seems.

First, where does it say that we're going to take away your too small plot? That we are going to "evict you", as some have suggested. Because I don't see it. If you are a subscribed customer who is happy with your 25 by 25 plot, great. Keep it. We may delete every plot around it that is unowned in an effort to resize yours. But no where did we say that we're taking plots away from any subscribed customers.

In fact, it flat out states this is not something we're forcing anyone to do! It is only to the benefit of the community as a whole, as well as the individual, for us to have as much space to work with as possible. And the sooner we GET that space, the sooner we can started on improving communities.

No, we aren't going to guarantee you a new plot back in the same community. It isn't realistic for us to be able to do that because we do not know how many plots will end up being in that community after revamp. For example, yesterday I was able to work with a community that was totally unowned. It started out with 20 small plots. It now has 8 large ones. What would have happened if more than 8 people in that community all said "We'll release our plot so you can work through our community but we want "our" plot back"? And no, I couldn't have made 9 or 10, or however many, plots out of the available space that were still at or above our stated design goal.

No, we're not going to give 100% novians for structures. As has been stated, we aren't forcing anyone to move. Were we forcing a reclaim of plots, then it would be a different story.

But here's the thing... If you are a subscribed customer who is thinking that you want a bigger plot, or are planning to move for some other reason, post reclaim, we are simply asking you to consider doing the tear down and move now rather than waiting until after reclaim. Yes, there will be some time when it isn't convenient and you're in a bit of "limbo" status. If that bothers you, then simply decide to not move until after reclaim.

All we're doing, folks, is trying to solve a problem here. Players have felt that plots under 40 by 40 are too small to be useful, and we agree. We'd like to remove all plots of that size from the world, but if you are happy with your plot at the size it is, we aren't forcing you off it.

So everyone take a deep breath and stop worrying about mandatory eviction notices. The Emperor doesn't work that way so long as you "pay your rent" (i.e. keep an active subscription).

[Adwene]

Very nicely put Velea and should put a lot of minds to rest.

[Sigi]

Do you have any idea about how much time there is between the "cleaning" of the plot and the resizing and or reclamation?

The storage on the plot is THE way to exchange things between my chars. So I'm willing to clear the plot and sell it to the community but I don't like being without "exchangeable" storage room for too long.

What's the last date for clearing?

P.S. It's eerie how this resembles my real life situation, there too they want to join "plots" with exactly the same problems occurring.

[Velea]

We don't have a timeline as yet because there are just too many variables at this point for us to be able to give any sort of good timeline.

As I said, it's something each person has to consider for themselves. I know there will be inconveniences, so it might not work for anyone at all. But we didn't know that until we asked, right?