So I was reading the auto pay thread, and I got an idea for something kind of similar. And thought I should make a new thread for it instead of as just a reply to the auto pay thread. The idea: Rentable [access] signs for individuals, with the rate and time period on the sign itself. For example: Instead of [access] on the first line of the sign, you would type [rent]. Leave the second line blank (to be auto-filled with the renter's name). Custom phrase on the third line (will elaborate why, further down). Price and rental period on the fourth line, perhaps separated by a slash instead of colon so as not to confuse with buy:sell shop signs (with the rental period in Days for simplicity). And perhaps once rented, the [Rent] on the first line could change to [Rented] but this wouldn't be necessary. This all would of course, once rented, grant access to the renter of the rented item. Like switches, doors, chests, etc. So it would look like this: [Rent]...................... Sign designated as a rental sign. ImParanoid............. The renter's name (example name used). Room 108................ Custom phrase (hotel room number for example). 100/7....................... The price/time period. This example: 100 rupees for 7 days. And just as with the shop sign system, you would left click the sign to rent access, perhaps multiple times too to compound rental time. Also with this system, two simple commands could also be implemented. /rentals and /renew /rentals would return a summary of all signs the renter has rented. In a format like: (residence)...(custom phrase)...(time remaining)...(price/time period) Example: 8645...Room 108...3 days...100/7 This is where the custom phrase comes into use. To keep track of which signs on a residence have been rented. /renew would allow for an easy way to renew your rental. Format: /renew (residence) (custom phrase) (price) Example: /renew 8645 room 108 300 (would buy three rental periods) With a system like this, the owner of the rental sign could basically "set and forget" their available rentals. An auto pay system would not be needed if the renter purchases multiple rental periods up front, and is able to renew for multiple rental periods at a time if they wish. And as I was thinking of this idea, I realized it would be less of a headache if chests were not rentable. Or if they were rentable, maybe a grace period could be added based on when the person last logged on. Like if they log on and a chest is overdue, they receive a message that "Storage Chest 1 at 8645 is overdue. Use /renew to update your rental, or remove items to prevent loss." And if they ignore it and log off without renewing, their items in the chest are deleted. This was the idea I thought of to prevent the possibility of chest rental abuse by someone renting the chest, not renewing upon expiration, and otherwise tying up the chest so it can't be rented.
As i put on the other thread, I dont know if this kind of code would be possible, though it sounds cool. The auto access to doors, switches, etc would definitely not work though... I have seen some people set up rent signs in their hotels (i was thinking of implementing it myself) so their tenants can pay rent like this... i.e. krysyyjane9191 1 350 paper-(rent) I was thinking of putting some chests set up like this on each level with an access sign for rentals, though most of mine i try to keep as one time buy payments instead as it is easier.
Yay I'm in your example. Also sounds like an amazing idea, and I'm pretty sure our staff is skilled enough to code this.
This idea seems reasonable and easy to understand. I, personally, would love to see this in the future
The issue I see with this is the number of issues it could cause down the road - still it seems like a reasonable idea if they can be worked out. Here they are - in no particular order. The price / time period sign would need a common format, 100/7 is 7 days? 7 minutes? 7 weeks? This rental sign would give use access (I assume) to the object for a period of time. I'm not sure there's a timer available in minecraft for X number of days without having to be scripted on its own. Lag concerns around having lots of timers running. In the situation of a hotel room, the biggest issue I see is that they would be granted access to a door, but nothing inside the room, you'd still need access signs. I know we've got dozens of signs per room in our hotel. How would it handle this? You could put a rental sign on each object, but that defeats the system purpose.
The 100/7 as mentioned in the OP would be for 7 days. Days being the common format, so the shortest rental period would be one day. You could easily set a rental period of one year by entering 365 in the days section, one month by entering 30, etc. But as to the timer issue, I don't know how much lag to the game this would cause, unless it were something that ran off the website somehow. Similar to how the timer for rupee bonus for login works. However that DOES work, which I don't know. And I thought about hotel rooms and chests inside them, but didn't post what I thought could be obvious or an easy workaround. You COULD have rental chests in the rooms too, and the renter could decide for themselves whether to also rent them with the room or not. Or you could use an enderchest, unless how those work is going to be changed. But rentable chests in rentable rooms, would be like amenities and upgrades. And yes, this would be for "use" access, so I don't know if that's possible.
