OktoberTheYeen

I don't know if I'd support the additional features like auctioning off land claims and such mentioned in the follow-up reply, but I think the 1 in game year is a totally reasonable timeframe to use. Even with TOPS (or any other always running, 30 day month server) and 1 Game Year being 2 irl weeks, at a totally arbitrary 20 RG upkeep cost a full stack of 1,000RG lasts 50 cycles, or 100 irl weeks. And for another arbitrary amount, an upkeep cost of 100RG per 1GY would have a full stack of 1,000RG last 10 cycles or 20 irl weeks. Pleeeeeenty of time to top up the stack, even with the super large upkeep cost. And that's just with arbitrarily large upkeep and player funds as examples, they'd both probably be much lower to be more realistic, but for those that do actually have a lot of RGs and want to claim a lot of land it would still be viable.

I think this could be a good idea, but in my opinion it absolutely would require some sort of grace period where the first in game year or two are free, as like you said most people don't persue RGs all that much other than occasional trader use. A grace period allows people, particularly new players, to learn the game and not have to rush to earn money right away. Also, if this were to be implemented there should be a block to deposit the RG into, and it should support the full stack size of RG - (1,000). That way you can stock it up once and not have to worry about it for a long while. The reason I bring up these points is because for servers that are always active and therefore always running, even at 30 day months an in game year is only merely 2 irl weeks. I wouldn't expect a new player to not only grasp all the core aspects of the game while also hustling for RG for their land claim