In Game Name:

kenny0011​

What part of EcoCityCraft is this suggestion for:

All Main Servers​

Short title for your suggestion:

Mayor Bonus / Revamp Plot Towns​

What are you suggesting:

A system to reward mayors who own and run plot towns with both ECD, and various perks to further assist in running of said plot towns​

Why is this a good addition for EcoCityCraft?:

The Problem As I See It:

At the moment, running a free plot town is a huge task for mayors that provides no real financial positives. Many plot towns are left abandoned simply due to the amount of effort required to put into them, with constant evictions needing to be done, plot clearing etc. To top it off, ironically enougth, the only way to really profit from builder plot towns is via LWC removals. It seems counter intuative that realistically mayors would want players to leave the server in order to gain money.

This has left /warp plots - the staff run town - to be the default start for new builders wantig plots. I personally hate /warp plots. I think it is extremely unpersonal, and quite frankly I believe staff have better things to do than give out plots, and manage plot towns. As staff, doing plots work was always my least favourite part of staffing. Internally it was always hard to motivate staff to deal with evictions (myslef included), and often was left to one or two staff members to deal with evictions.

As such, several shortcuts were taken in managing of the staff plots town. These were:
1) LWC removals were not filed. SMod's typically dealt with evictions (who could just /unlock), and Mods who did evictions usually just had to ask in staff chat or poke on discord for locks to be removed.
2) Usage of spawned in items. Basic blocks like stone, grass and dirt were spanwed in by SA team for clearing of plots. Additionally, star tools (to be used only for plots evictions) were also spawned in. FInally, the welcome chest items (basic crops, food and torches) were also spawned in.
3) In extreme cases of large builds, world edit was used in order clear plots. which was requested to the SA team.

This provided huge advantage to the staff run plot town, creating a very uneven playing field. As such, a whole culture has now devloped that staff are now the sole providers of plots to new builders, going against what I believe the reason for the staff plots town (a place to be used as a last resort).

The Solution As I See It:

The core of this suggestion is a financial "reward" for plot town owners for taking in new builders. That being a small reward for when the builder ranks up to resident (say $5000 given to the mayor of the town that the new user joined), and then an additional reward for if the new user later got mayor rank (say an additional $10,000 given to the mayor of the plot town). This gives financial incentive to the town mayor to not just take in new players, but also to look after them and create more community, helping them get on their feet so that the new user can enjoy ECC, and hopefully, stick around.

As an extension of this system, perks could be given to the town depending on how many previous people have been ranked up through that town, with a tier system of rewards to help run the town. As an example of this could be:

Bronze Tier (5+ users ranked up in a month):
- Officially listed both ingame and on forums as an active plots town, with a portal at spawn linking directly to the town.
- Access to basic building materials for help in clearing plots

Silver Tier (10+ users ranked up in a month):
- Access to "community chest" of star / magic tools for clearing of plots.
- Access to basic crops / tools spawned in for starter chests
- Access to request a world edit removal of large plots

Gold Tier (20+ user ranked up in a month)
- Ability to request LWC removal directly to staff team without need to file on forums
- Reduction of cost of town features such as town-exclusive portals. (Could be done as a "claim back money" thing)

This tier system would give back to the very best mayors, and would also create competition between towns in order to actually entice users into their towns.​

Other information:

While this no doubt would increase work load on certain staff, I feel the reliance on /warp plots would be dramatically reduced. As such, staff would be spending less time doing plots related work in the long run.​

Plugin or custom addition:

No plugin changes. All parts of it are already possible with current setups.​

One suggestion per form:

I Understand.​

 

Yes, SA's would still be incharge of the /ecogive command, as I do not see this being downgraded to a GA command. For the getting of the money, I invisage the town mayor making the "application" to get their money, is some sort of thing that links the users resident app / what plot they are part of etc. This can be verified by SMod+ via usage of mod /rg list -p <user> commands, and by logblocking the plot (as to confirm residency in the plot). The staff member could give the "go ahead" so that SA can just give the money, and not nessesarily have to check themselves,

Personally I would like to see as part of this a "/warp towns" which would take a player to a curated portal room of partnered towns. These would take a player directly to active towns, and give information on the town owner. I know the idea of a portal room does bring PTSD to some people, but this would be heavily curated as to only have active towns on.

Could do yeah! Again, users often ask "where are towns", and the response is usually "check /warps", which are full of inactive towns. Having a centralised updated list of active towns results in a better response to new players who are looking for plots.

I might not have made this clear in the suggestion. This chest would be similar to the current /warp plots set up, with a star pick, axe, shovel, and maybe the addition of a magic L1 shovel for particularly annoying blocks (think obsidian portals or glass panes)

Somewhat yes. My initial idea would be some sort of private discord server where the requests could be made. Personally I think it could get quite cluttered having it on the forums, but I absolutely get that having everything on the forums. Either way, there would be an app of some sort with coords, user of plot previously etc. (I believe plots can be rolled back in a manner similar to how grief is rolled back).

I fully get your point here. Realistically potentially only one or two towns would actually qualify for this top tier however, and some sort of streamlining of the application proccess could be done. Realistically someone whose put in the effort to run a town to achieve gold status know what they are doing, and doesnt need the same scrutiny as a new town mayor.

I can imagine so yes. Again, the number or towns at this top tier would be very limited however, and usually these features would only be done once. Personally I can't see it being a routine thing, and can be done very much on a case by case basis.

 

Activity of a town can be vaguely monitored by if users are being promoted, or if evictions are being done. Obviously there is a huge "honesty policy" revolving anything like this, but I think if someone is going as far to make and setup a successful plottown, then they are unlikely to be profiting much in the short term by attempting to scam the system.

Hopefully this sytem will increase the number of plot towns present. If one town rejects a person, then another town will seize the opportunity to take the builder on. If truely no town wishes to take that person on, /warp plots can still exist as the option of last resort it was initally set up to do.

This isn't actually something I thought of when thinking of this original idea! Personally however, If both mayors helped set up a new user, I don't see why both shouldn't recieve the bonus. (I.E. in the case of a new user getting a free plot in one town, getting resident, moving to a different town that has a larger plot, then getting mayor, then the person who owned the first town still had an impact on that users experience)

Personally I believe it would be up to the owners of the town to division up the money between themselves. I historically helped run a plot town by adding people to plots, and in return loot from LWC was divided up in the end. Furthermore, the monetry rewards are placeholder values from when I initially sketched out this idea a few months back (based on when the builder bonus was $5000). With inflation, this can be adjusted.

I agree. This suggestion is not 100% perfect, and there is probably is a hundred things that I haven't actually considered. But the issue of the lack of active plot towns is present, and the current system doesn't reward running one. I hope as a commuity we can discuss and brainstorm ideas on how to make plot towns more viable. No "magic town manager" can be coded to solve this issue, so it is ultimately a community driven thing.