New Deed *placement* Perimiter Rule, Good Or Bad

[Ayes 3,715]

In reference to Enki's post http://forum.wurmonl...meters-and-you/ I think it is best to start a new topic here to bring an important fact to deed holders, now and in the future. Here is the *change* to deed placement and the important fact to note: "You may not place a *PERIMITER* over existing structures if you do not hold the writ." Previously of course, new deeds could be placed with *perimiter* over existing houses and eventually they would decay away as the owner could not repair them, and then the new deed holder could later expand his *deed tiles* into that *reserved* perimiter to enlarge his deed tile area. With this change this will not be allowed to happen in the future.

Here is my initial reaction in a post made in another thread that was discussing this feature:

Wow! I just read this new policy about how now *new* deeds can *NOT* have their preimiter placed over existing buildings. This is a real *game changer* in relation to *deed placement*. Now any player, free or otherwise can tie up areas of land from the placement of deeds by simply building any shack (or larger building of course) which will block the deed placement if preimiter would touch one side of the building. This will make it much harder for even small deeds to be placed in more populated areas and larger deeds even further away. This I think is a bad *newly* installeld game mechanic which will come back to bite the game creator in the form of lost income from deeds, as spots being found for their placement will become harder to find as time goes on and more buildings are placed on free land. This can even be *abused* as well by others simply wanting to tie up free areas around them by building houses here and there close to them. At least in the past you could perimiter over these houses with a small deed and then expand once they decayed, now no more. As a fan of *paying for* land to place deeds, I think the consequences of this *change* are poorly thought out for making deeds have more value added to them, when in effect they are reducing the spots for deeds and income derived from them by this *blocking mechanic* of houses being placed over areas of free land that would otherwise be available for deed placement. Not my loss really as I have enough deed and perimiter land to play with for a long time to come. Best of luck with your *mistake* though.

As it is more directly related to this change that that other thread, I thought it best to move it here. More thoughts to come I am sure. What say you?

=Ayes=

Edited November 12, 2012 by Ayes

[Alyeska 2,621]

Free enclosures just became a more viable option. I guess the need to have multiple deeds has completely dissapeared for me. Saves me some nice money. Why pay for something I can have for free?

Edited November 12, 2012 by Alyeska

[dipse 231]

I agree with this change. It was never fair IMO that someone could in effect force someone out of a house they spent time and effort building. I do not agree that having a deed should make you more entitled to use land. A house a fenced off area should be sufficient to claim an area as your own as long as you put in the effort to maintain it. I think the bouses of having guards, no decay and various other bonuses will still mean many people buy a deed.

[Miretta 1,415]

I would say...there were some good suggestions regarding this and even if it stops griefing newbies (cause thats the other side of players) it's probably not the best solution

I agree that this can now be used for griefing too....so people can block deed holders and maybe don't even know it...or worse they do it on purpose!

mh...so ...I don't know...O.o I think it's a good step in that direction that newbies don't get harrassed anymore...which is awful when you build weeks on something and then someone "takes over" your place forcefully....

[Noizhead 622]

The only bug that was in play, as I understood the chat log, was that you could fiddle with your deed's dimensions to create a village with strangers' houses already inside its perimeter. I didn't see any other indication from Rolf that the other, pre-existing mechanics of perimeter expansion were the result of a bug.

Until I see clarification from him that says otherwise, I'm just going to run off the assumption that most everybody's gotten confused about what is and what isn't a bug. That said, I find it worrying that policies with years of precedent can be revoked on such short notice.

[EliasTheCrimson 348]

I see the reasoning behind the change, but it still boggles my mind why Rolf would not opt to give money towards his pocket the right of way. "Effort" isn't a reasonable metric in determining land ownership.

Edited November 12, 2012 by EliasTheCrimson

[Pollo 146]

So if I had excellent woodworking skill, I could place 1x1 houses in a grid pattern every 10 squares in any direction and control the land? Higher quality buildings take longer to decay so it probably wouldnt be hard to maintain them.

Or if you dont like someone, place 4 1x1s around his deed and lock him in place.

If you deed it, you own it, but you had better max your perimeter out if you want to expand in future.

I am guessing that this supports the free players complaints, and makes money by having the paying players pay more now in case they ever want to do more.

[Ayes 3,715]

On the topic of disbanding deeds because they would no longer be required to hold the area where they once were, I would caution deed holders to give this some serious thought, as you may then *never* be able to deed that area again if some others deliberately or inadverdantly build close to your remaining buildings in what was once your perimiter. I see certain of the more populous areas being blocked from deed placement for an extremely long time, as newer players or vagabonds build their small houses in small places on a basis that the decay rate will *always* leave a few standing to block deed placement until others take their place in the blocking line. What's next, increasing the decay on off deed buildings to compensate for this effect? Then you have just undone the benifit for non deed holders that this was supposed to protect; but I suppose I should not be presenting foolish ideas such as this or they may be implimented. Forethought of the ramifications of important changes such as this seems to be a difficult skill to cultivate.

=Ayes=

[Vroomfondel 1,128]

I have to agree this will cause more problems than before. Now deeds will be blocked by houses strategically placed just far enough apart to prevent placing a token. It only serves to reduce the value of deeds, and to promote claiming land by squatters rights.

[Wraithglow 787]

I agree that this can now be used for griefing too....so people can block deed holders and maybe don't even know it...or worse they do it on purpose!

This is why Enki also made it clear that it is your responsibility to reserve that land from the start with your perimeter. It's all about reserving the land before other people get there tbh, and so overall this change makes me feel a bit more warm and fuzzy about Wurm.

EliasTheCrimson - perhaps "effort" isn't a reasonable metric, but "first come first served" seems reasonable to me...

[Skatyna 432]

just give the option to expand deeds simply one direction you want, like North only, West only etc, not like it is now N+S and E+W. Or ever better, making "selectable" every tile you want in your deed separately. This would help a ton. None village in the word has only a "Box" version of the land. We should be able to select the tiles we want to include in our deeds and buy them. ofc with some limitations like new tile must border already existing village tile, and the purchase price would vary depending how far the tile is from the token. Would it be so hard to do?

[Miretta 1,415]

mh.... how about its beeing changed depending on the size, age or damage of a house?

as example you have a 1x1 house...which is fast to make and really annoying...everyone can make it, but actually everyone also can make a bigger house right from the beginning as far as I remember? so how about you can only perimeter over someones house if it occupys only 1x1 tile?

another solution would be, that if a house is "old" without damage on it and kept maintained, that this player has worked in and around it for a while, that this (maybe 3 months old house) cannot be perimetered over?

and the last and in my opinion best solution would be: it relates on the damage....

we all know that to keep a non deeded place, you need to maintain fences and such...and even if I hate maintenance and it's really bad as a newbie, why not make it so, that as long as a house stays under 50 or 70 damage it cannot be perimetered over?

or maybe a combination of all that O.o

there must be a better way instead of this black and white thing which just moved griefing to the other side of this coin...O.o

edit: btw i wanted to mention that I also like the new change in a way cause until now, perimeter were pretty useless, except for perimeter over others houses....and I always thought they should be for keeping part of the lands secured for future expanding

Edited November 12, 2012 by Miretta

[Keldun 335]

Hmm, the change can be viewed such and such. I think I prefer it the way it is now: Perimeter works the way it was intended As a reservation and buildings can't be griefed.

But what really bothers me is that "perimeter over buildings" was labelled a years old bug. If that situation was a bug, why was there code put it place (prevent repair) to deal with that situation?

[Wulfgar 1,104]

What bugs me most about this change is that there is no limit for enclosures. I remember Oracle posting a poll long time ago on the forums about limiting the size of legal enclosures, but it never happened.

I see more and more huge enclosures 50x50+ that is 50s+ lost for Rolf and monthly upkeep. Last week I saw a 50x50ish area enclosed completely by stone longhouses and 1 tile tall stone walls to cover the gaps.

Thats a huge amount of free land you can just grab with a minimal amount of effort and it just needs maintenance every 6 months.

Either increase off-deed decay on structures by at least 3-5x or put a hard limit on the maximum size of an enclosure.

I can understand this new change from a anti-griefing/anti-scaring away new players perspective, but its not very good from a business perspective.

The only advantage of a deed now is really just the spawn point and protection for your mine. Everyone will just plan a minimum size deed and enclose huge amounts of free land now.

Personally I am hoping that this upcoming expansion of Wurm due to all the new updates will make room for a premium-only server where houses can only be placed on deeds.

[Ayes 3,715]

More to consider. A person owns a deed (size not important). They want more area around them without other deeds being able to be placed. The smallest size deed that can be placed is 11x11 plus 5 perimiter all sides, totals to 21x21 plus 2 more tiles since a perimiter tile can *not* touch a house wall now. Smallest total open area now required to place a deed would be 23x23 tiles. With this in mind the current deed holder builds some 1x1 houses on each side 22 tiles out from their perimiter, thus blocking other deeds from being placed within this area. Want to block more deeds? Repeat process. Yes, the deed holder will be creating a large *free for all* building area around their deed for anyone to build in and it may in a way be benificial if one wants to *reserve* a *free* building area for other players to use. I have already set up an area like this before this change to create a newbie building homestead area but with a lot more buildings required to keep it *deed free* and one person did *sneak* a deed in there anyway but it has since disbanded. Now the area will be much easier to *protect* with fewer stone 1x1 houses required. In spite of my easier control of this *reserved* area, I think this new perimiter restriction over existing structures is a bad idea.

Of course this can be used against deed holders as well if you just want to prevent them from ever expanding their deed or their friends placing a deed later adjoining theirs. Heck, why not just build 1x1 houses across the server at locations that look promising for deed placement, if you are of that demented mindset. This change just opens a lot of areas to abuse, misuse and lessens the capabilities of placing deeds as well as reducing the desirable areas available to place them. Needing to place a deed to protect your house from being able to be *perimitered over* enhanced the value of deeds. People that will not pay for this protection should not have it and accept this as a risk for building on off deed land. More bad than good will come from this change I expect.

=Ayes=

[Torgrim 403]

I think it's a bad change. Sure nice for some new players, but for an experienced player with high skills and ql90 WoA tools, building a wooden house is not really an effort, it can be done in minutes. Also, new player sheds will be blocking people from deeding for a very long time after the player quit playing.

I have another proposal.

Let us mark one or two houses as our "home" and let those be protected by these rules but any other houses we build does not. The home flag could be on a timer, lets say one month, after that its not protecting the house anymore unless the owner logs into the game, which resets the timer.

Edited November 12, 2012 by Torgrim

[Sklo:D 2,210]

I agree because I am a victim of a perimiter...

It is unfair that other people put their perimeter over other houses and over the traders inside, so this is a change which I have been waiting for.

[Noizhead 622]

In a game where land is so valuable, no deed system, or the gray-area ruleset overlaid on top of it, is ever going to be perfect. The current/old setup is certainly flawed, but at least it gives priority to people who are willing to pay for their land.

I pointed out in the other thread that widespread abuse of the enclosure rule has already given a number of squatters more land than deed owners. If the ability to at least evict someone from what is potentially one of their many enclosures is being taken away from paying customers, why is the enclosure rule remaining unmodified?

If forcing someone to relocate by means of shoving your perimeter over their area is against the spirit of the Freedom servers, then giving people free reign to gobble up public land with an ever-growing sprawl of enclosures is just as much in violation of that spirit. If you are going to reign in the ability of mayors to evict people from their land, you must also reign in enclosures.

As long as land is valuable, it is an unavoidable fact that property disputes are going to get ugly. Any rules that you put in place must have hard checks and balances, ideally handled by the game mechanics so that thorough GM intervention is not required. That is the beauty of "deed it or lose it". While it is harsh to the newbies and the squatters who get the short end of the stick, but they were living on public land and did not stake a legitimate claim. More importantly than that: it sides in favor of the paying customer.

By adding in things like an unchecked enclosure rule, and now deeming a long-standing mechanic to be a bug, you're leaving even more situations up to interpretation, inviting more abuse, and doing nothing to solve this long-running tug of war over land ownership between villages and squatters. You're even giving more power to the squatters, by allowing them to hem in a deed and stopping it from expanding.

In a game where there is a system to pay for your land, does it sound right that you can now be blocked for expansion by a jerk with eighty planks and four large nails? It doesn't, to me. The suggestion that we are to all develop precognition, and are expected to know in advance how big our deeds and construction projects might get some day, is patently absurd.

[Ayes 3,715]

I have another proposal.

Let us mark one or two houses as our "home" and let those be protected by these rules but any other houses we build does not. The home flag could be on a timer, lets say one month, after that its not protecting the house anymore unless the owner logs into the game, which resets the timer.

A very creative idea that sounds good *but* certainly new players would use this "Home" option, build their small shacks everywhere, then quit in a few days to a week only to leave their protected "Homes" all over the lands. This concept could be perhaps modified on some basis where if they were currently in use over a short period of time they were protected in this way. Better yet, I would like to see this "Home" option be made available to only premium accounts, so at least they would be paying something into the game to get it. Still, too much time and effort to code this, so even though a good idea that could be expanded upon, I doubt anything will come of it. After all, look at how simple it was just to make the change to *not* enable perimiter to be placed over existing houses. *snaps fingers* Done and implimented in game.

=Ayes=

[Pollo 146]

I guess the funny thing will be, a person lays out a number of 1x1 houses to control a large amount of free land. No one can deed over this area, paying money into the game. Yet another free player can move into this area and build whatever they want, not on deed, and screw up the first person's plans, causing abit of grief.

The one thing in the land process that didnt make sense to me, and is a large part of the problem I think, is perimeters. I understand that there needs to be space between deeds so that people can move through and area. It is the fact that someone can put a huge perimeter around their deed fairly inexpensively that I dont understand. I know people dont want others around their deed but for a low cost they can control a huge area, preventing development.

The rule of the game is "Deed it or Lose It", it should not be "Perimeter it or Lose It". I think perimeters should be much closer to the minimum 5 squares (maybe 10 max), and I think buildings that were in place before the perimeter was placed should be repairable to protect free players. But I do not think that some random building should prevent me from placing a deed as long as the building is in the perimeter.

I think a perimeter should only be a buffer between deeds, not a plan for eventual expansion. You shouldnt be able to build in another persons perimeter, but you should be able to maintain previous structures. If you want to expand, "Deed it or Lose It".

[Miretta 1,415]

btw i never really noticed a difference between how active someone is? how about speeding the decay process alooooooot when someone wasnt online for a month or so?

[Torgrim 403]

I guess the funny thing will be, a person lays out a number of 1x1 houses to control a large amount of free land. No one can deed over this area, paying money into the game. Yet another free player can move into this area and build whatever they want, not on deed, and screw up the first person's plans, causing abit of grief.

The one thing in the land process that didnt make sense to me, and is a large part of the problem I think, is perimeters. I understand that there needs to be space between deeds so that people can move through and area. It is the fact that someone can put a huge perimeter around their deed fairly inexpensively that I dont understand. I know people dont want others around their deed but for a low cost they can control a huge area, preventing development.

The rule of the game is "Deed it or Lose It", it should not be "Perimeter it or Lose It". I think perimeters should be much closer to the minimum 5 squares (maybe 10 max), and I think buildings that were in place before the perimeter was placed should be repairable to protect free players. But I do not think that some random building should prevent me from placing a deed as long as the building is in the perimeter.

I think a perimeter should only be a buffer between deeds, not a plan for eventual expansion. You shouldnt be able to build in another persons perimeter, but you should be able to maintain previous structures. If you want to expand, "Deed it or Lose It".

You're totally wrong here. It makes very good sense to be able to make a buffer for later deeding. If not you are likely to have to move somewhere else the day you want to expand. This is mpostly true for new players who wants to buy something small at first while trying out the game and then later expand it.

Also, don't forget the PvP servers, perimeters serves other purposes there. Guard towers operates in perimiters, making perimeters very useful for defending your deed.

[Pollo 146]

Am I totally wrong? Just trying to come up with ideas. Maybe base the perimeter size proportionally on the deed land size. I am not sure what the max perimeter is, but I am sure it is far more than needed for almost any expansion. I dont think someone should be able to lay down 5x5 deed with 50 square perimeter, that is not expansion that is controlling the land.

The only thing I see as wrong, is that with this current ruling it seems that regardless of whether you want to deed or free, get there first and lock out the maximum space you can regardless of whether you can use it or not. The ruling does not allow for "community", because there are people who will land grab and control far more than they have a need for. If someone wants to pay deed price for a huge block of land, more power to them, but allowing people to cheaply control huge amounts of land through perimeters or free 1x1s only griefs people who didnt get there first and future players.

[Garis 210]

As it is more directly related to this change that that other thread, I thought it best to move it here. More thoughts to come I am sure. What say you?

Don't know about y'all, but I read that change last night and immediately spent the next five hours making enclosures.

EDIT: I feel it'd be wrong for me not to make a formal claim over something I've come to think of as "mine", and get upset when/if someone else did it first, then evict them through the use of my deed perimeter after they've begun to make use of the land. In that sense, I think this rule is fair and good. I know several mayors who are going to have to move their deeds now though, because it might be their only chance to expand.

Edited November 12, 2012 by Garis

[Macgregor 46]

I think this new perimiter rules isn't so bad. The biggest change is that it makes you plan ahead and make a larger initial investment. Nothing more. Plan ahead.

What I would like to see now that shacks have become one tile fortresses is to stop people from building even fences in perimiters. Perimiters should be given an added benefit since shacks are now fortresses. No building in a perimiter, period.

As for WURM becoming populated with thousands of 1x1 shacks. Highly doubtful. And any moron stupid enough to shoot themselves and all players in the head by doing something totally ignorant like that should be permabanned.

Edited November 12, 2012 by Macgregor