So I recently bought some nice-looking but heavily dead towns. Namely shtoomtopia, shroomtopia2, and shroomtopia3. And I have some problems.

1) I cannot buy or claim shroomtopia4 because the owner was away for 6 months and then popped back in for a day, now probably gone for months again (there's even a post about how he's leaving and wants to sell his town...but he isn't around).

Possible fix: this situation is really the toughest because technically by logging in, he became "active." Perhaps we should redefine activity to more than one login per six months?

2) I could theoretically claim shroomtopia6, but it would cost me upwards of a million to get to the rank to do that (plus claim costs).

Possible fix: let presidents claim a town, or let tycoons claim 2. All the claims do is allow defunct towns to be revitalized...

3) I cannot claim shroomtopia5 for about five months as the owner (done by in-game deal it seems) has been gone for a month only.

4) I cannot transfer original ownership of shroomtopia1-3 to myself because the original owners are long gone (that it would take thousands of $$ is also true but besides the point). Also, in-game deals prevent a true trace of town ownership.

5) This is my main concern. I cannot build new towns bordering to those I have bought because my towns' original owners no longer exist. Also, the other bordering towns' owners no longer exist either.

Suggestion: serious, comprehensive Rework of original owner system. The current method stymies town development and server regeneration/revitalization. It also prevents town recycling, ensuring that defunct towns, especially those larget sets thereof, remain defunct barring obscene amounts of money (millions upon millions) invested. Changing this would also increase cash flow throughout the server because towns would become worth more. Now people sell their towns for 30-40k since anyone buying them cannot add to them, only build there. This creates a situation on the server such that towns are almost all mini-aethers...and we all know the aether is essentially useless.

I am NOT suggesting that users be able to purchase new features in towns they own (unoriginally). However, I find it ridiculous that users who have quit ot nearly quit the server can dictate terms of town placement. I recommend the following: unless users file a leave of absence post, they have an ABSOLUTE maximum of thirty days to respond to requests for town placement or claiming. Once those thirty days (or less) are up, the town can be claimed or the new town placed near their town.

 

At the moment, unofficial town trades = official town trades (the official ones just have contracts to provide a trail).
And it would not make claims obsolete, (note especially last part), it would simply create a (maximum) 30-day response time to a town claim request or town placement request. As it stands now, if an owner logs in every 5.99 months, no town can be placed near theirs (Assuming they dont reply to mail/ forum PM / etc.) nor can their town be claimed.

 

In thinking about it, I see how it makes sense to keep claiming laws as they are, although I stand by your more available/earlier claims rank-wise. Also, and this may be stupid, but what if we let people who were truly 100% quitting opt-in to a "claim my town whenever" scenario or even a "buy my town whenever through a trusted agent" scenario?

As far as making zoning opt out, that sounds like a perfect encapsulation and solution to the zoning issue.

In fact! @Nicit6 @kukelekuuk00 please lock this thread, I'm going to split up the two groups of suggestions here.