Deeds versus Plots

Here's my understanding of the devs current plan and some ideas that I think would work better in some areas. There are deeds, plots, houses, all initially unassociated. You buy a deed and you buy a house (or are given both one at game start due to pledging).

- the deed - allows you to claim or purchase from the game a plot of land that is not player owned. More expensive deeds allow for bigger lots. Pledge rewards include a first free plot selection.
- the house - represents an order for a house of a certain type to be built.
- the plot - different sized plots allow for different sized houses to be build. May be limited by geographical location. For example, towns could have limited plot sizes or there could be restriction on what can be built there, i.e. no castles in a town. But if you want a small house on a big plot of land in a town, you should be able to have one.

So the process for building a house would be buy a deed, claim a plot with the deed, build a house on the plot. From that point on:

- You own the plot and can do whatever you want with it. No house, small house, castle if it will fit and is allowed on the location.
- The value of the deed (to a player buyer) would be defined by the deed size, location of the plot, and the house put on it.
- You can retrieve the deed by abandoning or selling the plot back to the game (see below).

Here's the part I don't like in the current plans that I've heard/read. It's unrealistic.
- You can associate a house to a deed before it is associated with a plot. No reason to do that, they should be separate.
- You can un-associate a deed to plot and the house goes with it. Ridiculous. You should have to tear down the house and perhaps get salvaging return or abandon it. The next person claiming the plot would have the option of repairing the ruined structure, clearing the plot, or replacing it.
- A house and especially a castle should take time to build or tear down. It should not be a mobile home. I know we're an instant gratification society, but wouldn't it be cool to see your castle being built over a week?

Trading:
- People should be able to trade deeds whether they are associated to a plot or not. Only buy/trade house orders, not houses.
- You can never buy/trade a plot. You can claim a plot with an unused deed or you can buy/trade a deed that is associated to a plot.
- You never buy a built house. You can buy/trade a deed that is associated to a plot and has a house on it.
- The trade window should be the same as for any other transaction meaning that you can trade coin or other items as well to balance out plot location, plot size, building type. So I could trade you one hovel in BFE next to a pig farm for your castle with a nice view of the college of nekid belly dancing. But I would have to include 1 million gold pieces and one magic mace of magnificence.

This system would indeed make the plot/deed combo the valuable commodity. The house would be valuable also but could be changed by a new owner given some money and time. Every game needs money sinks. Allowing the house to be associated to the deed doesn't make sense to me.

 

@Goose Yep, that's basically what I suggested although you've raised a couple of new issues/problems. I think there is still a lot that the devs need to consider, I'm sure they have but obviously we want to be part of their discussions.

 

All current deeds purchased prior to the game launching have no other value than what their purchase price was and perhaps when they were purchased if face value is the same, to facilitate the eventual land grab, however that is going to be handled at launch for backers.

A deed's additional value is determined once it's tied to a plot of land, and this can rise or fall over time based on the dynamics of the game and how other players generally perceive its value. This is where the game needs to facilitate deed transfers between players since they can set their own prices.

Deeds purchased from empty lots may have some set base value, depending on their type, but we really don't know yet. It's unknown if they will set all unclaimed village deeds (for example) to be the same value in-game after launch, or will set pricing based on market conditions (e.g. statistical appraisals of some sort) in that village, or location within that village even, etc.

And yes, you can own multiple deeds but claim only one lot -- currently, anyways. So deeds that are not tied to any current plot will inherently be less valued than ones that have a plot (i.e. location) associated with it. A village deed is a village deed is a village deed. It only has real value when you know what plot it's tied to, if at all, when buying it from another player.

Potential buyers also should note if it's a backer deed (upkeep free), and it's originating type. For example, city-type deeds can move to towns or villages and back to city again. So that plot of land in that village in the boonies that nobody ever visits and isn't close to any valuable resource nodes? It might just be a city deed attached to it and could be worth more than just your typical village deed that is next to a high value resource node.

 

I think the arguments behind the valuation of deeds has been done to death in this thread. The point was to split housing deeds from plots, and to let them have values determined by the players.

This thread came as a reaction to something RG said, that he would devise a system (some how) to remove the location-factor from valuation. Given most responses in this thread it is very obvious that no one else had considered that, nor does anyone consider that to be a natural thing to do. However, if I understood RG correctly his rationale for doing such a system was to put more emphasis on the actual deeds. My suggestion was to split house deeds and plots into two very distinct items with value in their own right.

Multiple plots has been confirmed. It hasn't been confirmed whether we will only be one plot per town though (i.e. I have 2 plots but they must be in different towns).