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Surrender apartment

Currently, when you want to move out of place, it then has to become evicted, and only past that it's up for rent again. What I would like is an option for the owner to surrender the apartment, forgoing any already-paid rent, and immediately freeing it for the population to rent. Would especially help with the cheapest and most newbie-dense housing.
I think that's a reasonable option, if the renter is willing to do it.
Could this be abused OOCly?
To what end? Only the person with the master code can do it. And you are not supposed to give it up to anyone, right?

Or if that is not desirable, then leave the surrender option available only for the person who holds the lease.

Players hoarding apartments and selling them privately is the abuse that I could see. But i'm not arguing the point or anything, just elaborating on what ynk said.
Oh. I don't think that's abuse at all, just 'legit' biz from OOC point of view imo.
Slum lording is not code abuse
This is a good idea and actually one that I have suggested in the past. I still support it it as an idea.

https://www.sindome.org/bgbb/game-discussion/ideas/voluntary-moveout-1569/

Thanks Mong, I knew I had seen this before but couldn't place it. Seems like it was well received. Do I recall correctly in saying that this is what led to shorter eviction states in some apartment complexes as a trial run? Curious to how it is working out and if it would be implemented everywhere. Two weeks is a long time and a lot can happen in-between, and voluntary surrender, even if not mandatory, is a nice way of a player doing their part to help free up some accommodations.

I think the "abuse" sounds more like an IC issue then an OOC issue.

Agreed on the point of potential abuse being an IC issue.

Shorter eviction times were introduced on lower rent properties as a result of the previous suggestion and whilst I don't doubt it has had a positive effect in terms of getting properties into the hands of active players sooner I still see only positives in the idea of players being able to forfeit the remaining time on their properties to even further reduce the delay.

The ability to put the property straight back on the market would make sense ic and ooc on a number of levels. Landlords want paying residents moved into properties as soon as possible (hence I suggested -partial- refunds might be a viable incentive) and residents often want to make a clean break from a property for any number of reasons. OOCly of course it opens up limited resources to players in need and might enable us to extend eviction periods back a little bit for players who are genuinely in need of the grace period.

The only way this works is if we incentivize it and I don't know how much sense that makes from an IC perspective. I could add this code to simply surrender an apartment with no reimbursement and l suspect only one person a month would probably use it. Maybe even accidently.

Is there that much of a housing issue in game right now that people don't have places to live? From the looks of it a number of places are not fully booked.

I'm interested in hearing more thoughts on this.

The only way this works is if we incentivize it and I don't know how much sense that makes from an IC perspective. I could add this code to simply surrender an apartment with no reimbursement and l suspect only one person a month would probably use it. Maybe even accidently.

Is there that much of a housing issue in game right now that people don't have places to live? From the looks of it a number of places are not fully booked.

I'm interested in hearing more thoughts on this.

It seems unnecessary to me, honestly...and might over complicate some of the housing scams I've seen happen ICly.

I feel like this should remain akin to vehicle ownership transfers and be service or puppet (landlord) requests just to add a bit of inherent staff oversight. This would be especially important in the event we ever saw some more technical implementations of breaking and entering.

Otherwise, it does seem fairly benign.

I'm assuming this is only a problem with the CHEAPER places to live. People with lower income, newbies and such that don't want to live in cubes or a coffin. These usually get bought up fast, I've seen.
@Slither it is a very real problem with the cheapest (and most obvious) places, like Westinghouse. You don't have to hang in its lobby long before you see an immie crawl across the floor and leave disappointed after not being able to find even a single available place, but many in "evicted" buffer. And when there is one, it is gone within hours, tops.

Those places can also be very handy to older players due to their location and cheapness, which doesn't make it better. But then those older players would have an option to surrender it after use, bringing more fluidity to the market. Granted that without incentive this won't be a massive change, but I really think that every bit helps.

@Slither thanks for taking the time to reply and a big thanks in general to staff for everything they do in and out of game to make this community and game as awesome as it is.

From a strictly gameplay related viewpoint whether or not the availability of housing is an issue depends on how high you want to set the cost of living in game. Overall there is no shortage of vacant properties but there -is- a shortage of vacant properties in the more affordable sub 7.5k ranges. One can go weeks making rounds checking cheaper properties without finding vacancies. Again whether or not this is an issue from a gameplay perspective depends on how high you want to set the cost of living which I imagine is based off economic data I am not privy to.

This is perhaps an example of bleed on my part and only a small issue for me in an otherwise very enjoyable game but my personal feeling is the pricing of housing does create pressure to donate irl cash for the IC benefits of doing so. Having to payout 7.5 thousand chyen a week and/or spend weeks making the rounds hoping to snag a cheaper property in game can feel like being penalised for handling bills in an IC manner rather than simply shelling out cash irl. Effectively earning 7.5k a week is no small advantage to players who choose to donate either.

The idea is that you are supposed to not have a fancy place. The 7.5k is supposed to be a massive dent, and if you decide to spend it you do it for style over substance, which is very CP. But also I think there are too few very cheap apartments, which are more suited for players without membership, and withough the time commitment to spend 3-7 stacks/week.
I think it is pretty thematic for low income citizens to live in cubes. After reading snow crash many years ago, every time I visit my storage unit I just picture them all as converted living quarters for the poor., and a lot of those are even bigger then the IC cubes in SD. With the addition of another cube hotel in the mix (a good re-configuration of the unused space might I add) it is hard to see apartments not as a newer players need but as a want. If you NEED a place to live, you can rent a cube for a few days at a time. If you WANT something bigger, you gotta play the hand you are dealt and work with what is available that you can afford.

Slither brings up a good point too. While SOME players will recognize that it would be a good housing helper move to surrender their apartment, there is no incentive to. I think that if you got maybe 1/4 of the rent back, it could make sense in that the landlord will want a tenant they can get back in there paying full price ASAP (which is how it works renting in life, the property manager wants a tenant quick because that is their income interrupted when the unit sits vacant)

We also have to recognize that the eviction process is a good thing. Even sometimes I can't log in due to real life circumstances which for anyone should take precedence over Sindome, and schedules don't always align with paying rent on time. I do think two weeks is a big chunk to afford someone though. I think one week should be the standard. However if you do not need an eviction grace period, surrendering for a little bit back I think could be an attractive option for many people, especially when we are fighting for every chy note we can muster.

On what Marleen said, I do wish there was another mid-tier apartment block or two between the more expensive places (which seem to be waaay more available) and places like Westinghaus.
Good feedback and thoughts on this. I will do some more thinking and also engage with the builders on what their plans are moving forward.
This sounds like a housing availability issue and not a feature request at this point. My only other concern is what's going to stop me from ICly using the Surrender Apartment mechanic to demand to force someone to hand over there place to me completely?
An ic solution to an ic problem it sounds like.
@ReeferMadness What's stopping them from sinking 200k into said apartment, then killing themselves so nobody would have it out of spite?
I assume that apartments recycle when a PC is permed but I may be incorrect. You and Grizzly a totally heard though. In the event of the implementation of this, I am confident IC and OOC solutions to problems that arise would certainly be accounted for by Staff.
A couple of thoughts.

I agree with @Grizz that apartments should be a perk that people strive to get into. Given that, I am not clear on whether the "issue" here is that there are not enough apartments, or if there are not enough places to sleep. In my mind, as long as there are cubes available when people need them, then there is nothing to be fixed here. It seems extremely themely to me that non-cube housing would be at a premium.

(At the risk of turning this into a discussion about the pros and cons of perma-pads, and the 'haves and have nots' of Sindome.) As others have said, it's easy to view the perma-pad donation as almost a requirement to get decent housing. I think $40 a year is a completely reasonable amount to pay. I pay it and appreciate it. The money I don't spend on rent allows me to put chy into the hands of other characters. My character gets a place to sleep and the economy gets some stimulation.

I hate to reference anyone's RL economic situation, so please take this with a grain of salt. But if a person wants to really play Sindome on a regular basis, I think they should be able to come up with $3.33 a month ($40 year / 12 months) for stable housing. Even if a person is only making minimum wage, it takes less than a hour of work to come up with that monthly bill. If a person is literally so on the edge of keeping the RL lights on and a roof over their head that they can't afford $3.33 a month, do we really want to be encouraging them to spend hours of their lives in front of the computer instead of out improving their real lives?

One final thought on the "RL cost" of permanent housing. I think that temporary housing is setup well. It exists as a way for new players who want to try out the game to do so without any expense to themselves. They can get an idea of how much chy they can reasonably earn in an hour. They can then assess whether they want to grind out that chy ICly to pay rent, or if they want to shell out quite literally a few dollars to save themselves that time. In my case, I played for a couple of months and then made the decision that I want to continue playing here in the long term. Once I made that decision, I donated for a perma-pad.

Regarding the original subject of surrendering a pad, I think it is a good idea. Maybe I'm a new player who rented a cube at the New Rose for a couple of weeks, but then decided to pay for a perma-pad. Or I did the same thing at the Westinghaus. While I could ICly try to sublet it out for the remainder of my rental period, it's easier and more efficient to just cancel the lease.

Like @slither said, the feature will be infrequently used. But when it is, it will save time. It will be one less thing for the admins to have to deal with. And in my mind, ANYTHING that saves admins time, even if it's only a few minutes every couple of weeks, is worth it. Those minutes add up to hours and days when you have a game running 24/7 like this one.

I have a different opinion on this. You can make enough for a cube for the night (maybe two nights) which is functionally as safe a place to sleep as an apartment in one courier run. There is dirt cheap housing available as some folks know, that is even cheaper than cubes by the week. If you ask around. There are also gangs and corps which offer free coffins for members. It does make life easier on an ooc level to have a membership-- but I don't think it adds too large or insurmountable a barrier.

I also agree that having an IC shortage of nice places is themely.

I've broken the off-topic discussion off into a new topic here: Perma Pads & Large Pads. Let's continue the convo there.