Proposition
We currently have a system for planting items that prevents people other than the planter from messing with the item unless the original planter has sufficiently neglected the item to the point where it's effective quality is less than 10. This helps clean up areas where deeds have disbanded without having everything go to waste.
I propose that something similar be done for locked items.
Feature Requirements
Minimum Viable Product
Any player shall have full permission on a locked item with an effective quality less than 10 that is off deed.
When the effective quality of a locked item is lower than 10, when examined, the lock description shall have “ that has rusted open”, “ that is ineffectively in disrepair”, or some similar text added to denote the lock is not functioning.
When the effective quality of a locked item is raised above 10, it should again be checked for permission as before dropping below an effective quality of 10.
Supplemental Requirements
When the effective quality of an off deed item is below 10, a player shall be presented with an option to remove the lock.
Reasoning
I speak mainly from my experiences with deeds that have been disbanded in excess of a year.
If you want to expand a waterfront road, but someone has moored a locked boat to the shore, you boat must sit on the road until it has decayed away. A preferable solution would be that the boat could be moved and repurposed.
If there is an area where several chests have fallen together beside a road where a multi story house decayed away leaving just the locked items behind, you can't do anything about the except let them decay away. A preferable solution would be to repurpose them for other uses.
If there is a wagon or cart abandoned by the side of a road, or in the old parking spot, the animals hitched to the vehicle are doom to stand there for an eternity waiting for the vehicle to pop. Many will never know the freedom of running free, or at least traveling to new and exciting places, because they are trapped there by neglecting former hitchers.
Since we already have made the decision that planted items should be able to be moved and reused after being neglected for a suitable amount of time, I find that it is only reasonable to extend that rational to locked items.
Items that are abandoned that decay over time could be considered similar to a lost treasure in the lore of the game.
For a legal standpoint, the Kingdom could consider this as being a law that any item sufficiently abandoned should be considered abandoned and the property of whoever reclaims it. An item may maintain ownership if it is checked regularly (I.e. repaired), by the owner, a confidant, or a generous stranger. After sufficient abandonment, the original owner loses the rights to the items on the grounds of abandonment and littering. (All remarks in this paragraph pertaining specifically to lore, and not to any actually coded functionality.)
I don't suggest the lock automatically drop off when the effective quality drops below 10, because that saves someone who actually does reclaim the item the need to reapply the lock and redistribute copies of the key.
