Inheritance system / last will and char / account deletion

[Seytra]

Hi!

This has spawned from a thread in GD:
http://planeshift.oodlz.com/wbboard/thread.php?threadid=11211&boardid=13&page=3

In essence, there should be a system that lets any char designate a heir (or several heirs), who will receive part or all of the chars possessions (and debts) once this char is deleted (except if it gets deleted due to cheating, in which case the possessions must be regarded as cheated and thus need to be erased). There also should be a default heir who receives it if there is no last will (that would be children or the person the char married). If no default heir can be found, the property would go to the government (i.e., simply vanish). The default heir would also get anything that is left when the last will has been dealt with. There should also be the option to not accept the heritage, i.e., if you\'d get more debts than possessions or whatever. You can, however, only decline everything or nothing.

This will be important if a char that has been played for some time gets deleted due to the player not having interest in them anymore.

Also, the proposal has been made to create a \"missing\" designation that would automatically delete a character after it has\'t been played for a certain time (not to be confused with \"not logging in\", as there can be several chars in one accunt in CB!). This period should be about six to twelve months to allow for players to decide wether they really don\'t wish to play that char anymore. Once this period expires, the char would be deleted by the system.

There should also be a holiday option. This \"absence period\" should also be limited, maybe also to 6 months or even a year, so that orphan accounts don\'t clutter up the server as they do in MB. Everything that goes beyond this (already very generous) absence period would need to be requested of a GM in advance, who would then be able to set an even longer timeout. Needless to say, the account would be frozen until the player indicates that they are back, at which point any GM-extension of the absence period would be cleared and the \"missing\" timer resumes operation.
This way it would be possible to keep your account and chars by simply logging on twice a year, each time re-setting the absence period, but if you lose interest, the system would remove your account eventually.
You\'d, however, have to do something to keep it in existance (and therefore you need to decide whether you still have interest), but you will not have to do so much that it becomes impossible for you. If a player only logs on twice a year despite having plenty of opportunity, they\'ll most likely drop it after two years anyway so it\'d be fine.

[Zellgadess]

Would be nice if we could acctualy delete char\'s first
Sounds good yea, but personaly i think the dead\'s money should go to the state, i dont beleve in making the rich richer... unless it\'s me

[Zorium]

How about if you don\'t log in for six months the system should send you an email asking you if you want to either put your account in status or if you want to delete it.  If you don\'t reply to the email after a certain time period (three weeks or so) it should be assumed that you are unable to reply and should send a follow up later on.

This seems a little more user-friendly than instant deletion because there can be many valid reasons that someone may not be able to be active for extended periods of time (technical or personal).

-Zorium

[Seytra]

@ Zellgadess: Who said anything about the rich getting richer? After all, it\'s up to the player to give their possessions to whoever they wish. It might be the poorest or richest char in Yliakum. However, care must be taken so that players cannot use this to give all of their possessions to another of their own chars (easy thing to do), unless such behaviour is explicitely allowed.

Also, I believe the reason that you can\'t remove your char by yourself is to raise the barrier for causal char creation. This is important because the names can only be used once. Otherwise, there would be lots of people who keep creating countless characters without thinking about it, and also you\'d get players who are rude and just create a new char once they are known and ignored, just to start again. It would also be used to keep stealing without consequences (i.e., you have one \"storage char\" and one \"stealing char\". The stealing char would rob others and give it to the storage char. If the stealing char gets known and thus avoided, or if it gets punished (jailed), they simply delete it and create a new one. Furthermore, it would encouirage accidental deletion because you\'d not have sufficient time to think about it, which you would ahve with the \"missing\" system (i.e., you can delete a char by not using it for 6 months, or by explicitely asking a GM).

@ Zorium: That could be done as well, I just wanted to have it all done through only one system (i.e., the PS client) so that there will be nobody saying \"I can\'t because X, Y or Z\", as you usually get. However, email can be more easil accessed and therefore could be the better option in this case. I, however, left this option open when saying that there could be GM action upon request for longer periods. Therefore, if you are unable to log in, it would be feasible to ask the GMs to keep your account on hold.
Also, simply replying to an email IMO is too easy, it will not serve as sufficient barrier to players who have lost interest, i.e. not encourage them to actually not keep it alive, which, after all, is the entire purpose of the expiration system: to keep the database clean. Maybe this email would have a link to a web form where you can enter your login details and re-select the absence period. This would be fair to the players who still have interest and also serve as deterrent for players who don\'t.

[Adeli]

You used my government idea, cool.
To clarify for others who may be confused, we believe that a deleted account/character should mean that character(s) on the account are dead, this is where Seytra developed the idea of inheritance.
I like the \"missing\" idea. Very good RP.

[Seytra]

Yes, what I posted is the result of all ideas and modifications that were posted and accepted on the original thread, and what I see them resulting in. Not all are my ideas, of course (like government and \"missing\", IIRC, and maybe others).

[Adeli]

A very nice compilation of ideas it turned out to be, at least I think so.