Deletion of inactives (mechanic)

[Chris]

What mechanic should be used for removal of inactive players? So far I have seen:
- silent removal of the character after X days of inactivity
- food and death from hunger [RPGs]
- incineration by other players (inactives eventually reach 0 land or 0 troops because of attacks of other players which triggers character/account deletion) [strategies]

Personally, I'm not a fan of any of these... I'm looking especially for something thout would fit into RPG/adventure/sim/political game.

[Nox]

What about some mechanic aka fame that would decrease throughout the time (maybe only if it hasn't been increased recently) and players have to keep it up by various deads so the public knows and talks about them and if they haven't done anything notable recently, they will begin to more and more forgotten, eventually will turn into nothing but a bunch of tales

[Jesterhead]

When a player doesn't log in for a while, there is no leadership.
Peasants will start to revolt/aristocrats will try to gain more power...

- Maybe you can send the player an e-mail after 3 days where the king's (you) advisor says that people start complaining etc.
- After a week you send them another e-mail that there were some peasent revolts
- etc...
- Until after 2 weeks or so, aristocrats have taken over the power of your kingdom and your account is deleted.

If you log in once during this time, the e-mail chain is reset (as you are active again)

Just an idea.

[CygnusX]

I actually find inactives to be beneficial in my game.  It provides a nice juicy account for other players to attack.  The problem occurs when there are too many of them. 

Currently, I only plan to remove accounts at the end of each round that have been inactive more more than a month.  However, I have considered adding once-per-72-hour checks to see what the overall % of inactives are (ie, those who have been away for more than 2 weeks).  The check and subsequent removal would work to keep this at no more than 50% of players. 

[Chris]

When a player doesn't log in for a while, there is no leadership.
Peasants will start to revolt/aristocrats will try to gain more power...

Interesting idea, since I need it for a medieval game I'm especially interested not in a kingdom level but in a feudal lord level (a noble with some land, not a king).

Some kind of bar that displays the time to peasants rebel or time till other nobles will claim your title and land (not sure how to phrase such variable, "usurpation" maybe?). I guess it would work best if there was also a game mechanic to lower that variable by actions (with little effort).

Like: Each day Peasants rebel bar increases by +3%, when it reach 100% your account is deleted. You have a cheap option to bring that variable to 0% (inspection? judging peasants? solve disputes? increase stability?)

[Jesterhead]

Well, I didn't really intend a real in-game feature... more like a small story trough e-mails (not just you're account has been deleted), once the player logs in, the rebels stop.

But of course you can expand this idea:

Why would peasents rebel?
- Taxes to high
- Hunger
- War
- As an example look at "the Jacquerie" in France (1358), "Peasants Revolt" in Great-Brittain (1381), etc...

Maybe the bar can change depending on these factors.

PS: This is actually in my game, when the taxes are too high (or the food production is negative).. people will emigrate and move to nearby villages.

[Chris]

Well, I want to have it ingame as a visible progress bar (emails are unreliable, if your game is popular all of these will end up in a junk folder anyway because of the volume of emails sent your domain will be marked as spam site sooner or later). So players can see that if they do not visit the game too long they will lose account.

[Jesterhead]

Well, I want to have it ingame as a visible progress bar (emails are unreliable, if your game is popular all of these will end up in a junk folder anyway because of the volume of emails sent your domain will be marked as spam site sooner or later). So players can see that if they do not visit the game too long they will lose account.

True, but if players don't log on.. they won't see the bar either. I think it's best to combine these 2 features