Give abandoned/empty POT's a ruined village look on the Overland Map

Basing the POT status on the level of resident activity makes a lot of sense. And I would love to have public billboards - it fills in a gap in the POT communications system.

 

I agree with Frank on this one.

Dara Brae is more of a celebration to the Celtic/Arthurian/Ultima heritage with a walkthrough showcasing many things. Instead of a bustling town with eCommerce. Nothing else exists. Should it get a run down look? No.

 

I want the ability to hide empty towns client side.

 

A related thing that would be nice, would be a few options on how your POT is displayed.
This could tie in to showing inactive pots as a little empty field dotted with ruins.
I own a desert POT and I'd like my "overland look" to actually look like desert/adobe buildings (see: Desolis on worldmap)
Doesn't need to be anything complicated. Maybe a half dozen selectable options and as part of that, absolute inactivity could revert to a particular style.

I don't like the notion of hiding them completely as they are meant to be part of the world even if their owners have left the game. At some point they'll likely try to sell them off anyway if they really aren't going to do anything with it. I think a visual indicator of inactivity is sufficient for players to avoid them if they want, or explore them if they want.

Another idea would be inactive governer POTs could become infested with creatures!

 

As spoken above, this should be an option for all POT owners, not just a specific subclass.

 

Just to put a frame around this idea, here's what we're really talking about:

"The game has enough problems that some people who dreamed big to the point of sinking thousands of dollars aren't playing. Lets figure out a way to graphically represent that. rather than fixing the problems and bringing them back."

How about instead asking them why in a survey? What's going on that they are leaving their land fallow? Business 101, don't lose your biggest customers, and if you do figure out why.

Figure out a way to help them sell their POTs if they are never coming back. The exit of RMT from the forums made the sale of them much more difficult than it needed to be, so facilitate the trade somehow. Those owners probably aren't wanting gold or COTOs so what is the plan?

"Just screw 'em over!" is probably not a great idea, but it wouldn't be the first idea of that caliber to be be implemented in this game. I can't see it turning out well though. Figure out a better solution.

 

I'm not sure who isn't a POT owner here...

Also not sure how this screws anyone over. The plan would be to inject life into dead pots in a unique way, and make them interesting to play and explore.

And again, this idea applies to Pots whose govenors haven't logged on for a set amount of time and reversible by Govenor instantly.

It was an exercise and creativity. But whatever... let's just keep the status quo. That seems to be working.

 

Vlad I totally agree that figuring out why the big spenders have disappeared is a much more important task than finding a way to mitigate the abandoned towns they left behind.
But that's not something that we, as current players, really have any control over. I don't know how much/how little time is invested in this by the team, or how many big 'everything must go' sales they've really sat and read the reasons for over the years. I agree with you that finding out what makes people leave and fixing it is key. But its not simple or black and white.

What I see this suggestion as, is basically "well, here's what we've got, what can we do with it -now- ?" Empty/abandoned pots create poor perception. Its probably too late to get those people back, if they walked away from such an investment. But we can at least try to mitigate the poor perception. It makes no sense to try and mow your lawn while your house is burning down, I totally agree. But once its burnt and done, you can at least try to make the area look more appealing. Its not much, but its something.

 

Not a bad idea. I don't see any harm in displaying a different image of a POT graphic on the overworld map due to it being inactive. It could show at a glance that it probably hasn't been visited for a reason and save people some time dealing with a loading screen for nothing.

On the flip side of that, I think removing the POTs from the overworld map or from the game entirely due to Governer inactivity is problematic. It's been a debate that was going on since I started playing at persistence and probably longer. I feel like the only way this could be acceptable is if the POT owner has absolutely nothing placed in the POT in question and has shown no signs of doing so. But once that person did log in, it would need to reactivate the POT and immediatly restore it back where it was and the Governer would be none the wiser. But If they drop something in that POT it should make it static.

While I understand from an adventurers perspective that it's bad optics and can be endlessly frustrating to accidentally click on a POT and enter it only to have to deal with 2 loading screens. If a POT owner wants to build their POT out and let it just be a part of the world for people to explore or live in, they should have that option. And if people choose to live in that POT, pulling it out from under them because the governer hasn't logged in would surely infuriate anyone who's home just became harder to get to, or worse in their bank.

The goal should be getting more people into the game and retaining them. The more people you have the less of a problem this is. That's been the biggest problem with this whole game, it's always been about the quick fix and not the long term solution.