Fire decay

[shubla]

Hearth fires should decay if character has not logged in feew months.
Because theres way too much random hearthfires in forest that are ages old.

[MrPunchers]

+1
They should naturally decay and be repaired by dreams.

[xTrainx]

maybe some good samaritarian sould should go out there, claim the heartfires and destroy them

[sMartins]

Changing colour also when take decay damage to advise you and other people around if that is an active hearthfire or not....
Like someone already mentioned 3-4 months sounds fair...
If you come back after a long time and you have no more your hf, simply spawn random in the center like new players...

[Granger]

maybe some good samaritarian sould should go out there, claim the heartfires and destroy them

Nice plan, but no longer practical as you would need to make two trips to each fire (as the claim has a cooldown), either the cost would be immense (since the LP cost of additional claims) or you could only remove very few per day.

Fires inactive for 2-3 RL months should either turn color and be breakable without criminal acts, or simply vanish from the world. The location of them could still be tracked by the server, so should you come back from a longer hiatus you could still spawn there (if not blocked by an object or prevented by a claim you have no rights to) instead of a random wilderness location.

[burnemall]

+1

Grangers way of handling it sounds legit.

I hate hearthfires, always hiding them behind houses.

[tyrtix]

a good thing for the server too, that items such these decays overtime, it frees resources.

[jorb]

Maybe. Will consider.

[✧]

*bump*
I was about to suggest this but decided to try using the search function first. Bump inspired by this post -- how is this player to know if the hearthfire in the place they want to claim is long-abandoned or still active?

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Hearthfires litter the world and there's not even a way to determine their age. I've really been enjoying the world renewal mechanics that have been added lately, especially the pavement-eating vines and the wild tree growth. Imo hearthfires might be worth addressing at some point too.

It might be worth making it clear that a hearthfire was once in a certain place, though. I live in-game in a big and expanding city, and I find it charming and interesting to come across the hearthfires of people who must have lived here long before our city was founded. I wonder what they did here, what this place was like before our current group arrived. I like that feeling and wouldn't want it to go away, but at the same time I wish I could tell if the hearthfires were from fellow recently arrived villagers or from people who'd been there a long ago.

I also dislike coming across hearthfires all the time in the wilderness. It makes the world feel so... un-wild. I want to roam the wild free lands and it seems like there are none left sometimes. The hearthfires do already seem to be less dense than in previous worlds, though. I also wish I could tell how old the hearthfires are in these situations; I feel rude settling down where other people might be active but I can't tell if the hearthfires are months or days old.

Related idea: the amount of time a character lives, and the number of ancestors, should both affect the appearance of their hearthfire. (Hearthlings should be able to sense these things about another hearthling when seeing something so connected to the spirit as a hearthfire.)

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Also discussed, with various suggested mechanics, here, here, and here.

[shubla]

With new decay mechanics, it would be a good time to add this!