As many people know, it can be incredibly annoying when you find a large biome and it has been claimed, but nobody has done anything with it. Likewise, stumbling across an abandoned build can be quite inspiring - you might want to finish it or repurpose it. On the old Harmony 2.0, this was something we used to deal with regularly - but on Harmony 3.0, the flaws of the town plugin made this unfeasible. As such, specifically for the Cobblemon server and any future Pokemod server, we are going to be taking steps to deal with these situations again. The rules will NOT be changing on Harmony 3.0.

Basic definitions:

Natural structures: Anything that was generated automatically by the world, be it a village, a town, a castle, a pirate ship, a pyramid, or anything such as this. It does not include forests, standard cave systems, mountains or areas of coral.

Large claims are defined here as being 25x25 chunks for the sake of convenience.

Town (in)activity: defined as when the last active member of a town signed in, irrespective of rank or actual play time (which we currently have no way of realistically monitoring and would be unfair anyway)

Nation (in)activity: defined as when the last active member of a nation signed in, irrespective of rank or actual play time (which we currently have no way of realistically monitoring and would be unfair anyway)

Modified natural structure - any natural structure that has been modified to add extra features in - more crops, or my desert village with an airport.

Breakdown of the new procedures:

1: Large, empty claims with nothing built on them and no natural structures must leave a clear indication that they intend to build on the land (either in the form of some initial structure frameworks or something like this), or they will become eligible to be unclaimed a week after someone has requested it (or a week after the claiming town has become inactive, whichever is fastest). If there is a clear intention of land usage left, the town will have 30 days to show a genuine attempt at building on the land, at which point the normal rules will take effect, or it will be unclaimed.

2: Any other empty claims with nothing built on them and no natural structures, but that do not meet the definition of a large claim listed above, may also be unclaimed at an admin's discretion after 30 days of town inactivity if there is no indication that the land is intended to be built on. If the town is active, then they have 30 days to show a genuine attempt at building on the land, at which point the normal rules will take effect, or it will be unclaimed.

3: Sky platforms with no structures built on them will be eligible to be unclaimed and/or removed after 30 days of town inactivity.

4: Natural structures claimed by towns, where no real modifications have taken place, will be eligible to be unclaimed after 90 days of town inactivity.

5: Standard builds or substantially modified natural structures will become elligible to be unclaimed after 150 days of nation inactivity or 180 days of town inactivity, whichever comes first.

6: If a player is permanently banned, then their bases may become elligible to be unclaimed after 30 days, but this is entirely down to admin discretion and will depend on the exact nature of the ban in question. We also reserve the right to simply demolish any bases of such players with no items being retained after this time - again, this will depend on the exact nature of the ban in question.

7: Prior to any unclaiming being performed, we will check both above and below ground in order to make sure we don't overlook anything. We will also send a /mail to any town owner or, where we can tell more specifically, individual land owner who will be affected in the case of something being unclaimed under #1, unless the town has been inactive for more than 30 days.

8: If we do unclaim a base, all chests and other storage items will be removed. Where possible, they will be returned to a previous owner directly; if this is not possible (e.g. the item was clearly being shared by the entire town and specific ownership cannot be determined), then they will be stored in a safe place until a town member returns.

9: If we do unclaim a base, you will not have automatic rights to reclaim ownership upon your return - it will be considered the property of the new owner. You may ask for it back, but you must do so politely and you may not try and force its return. Of course, if you return and find your base unclaimed completely - then you may reclaim it as before, especially if you find a sign that states an admin had unclaimed it for a new player.