I like the ideas, Daniel, mind if I add/expand suggestions of my own?
Option to color players names based on race, allegiance, or faction, and adjust render distances for categories. You may want to set it to show hostile players within a certain range, and friendly players at a much longer distance.
Selling land plots in your beacon may be a good way to attract players, but the buyer then needs to be able to adjust protections within that plot from the owner and other players. This should be set to a monthly/weekly payment to prevent plots from going idle for ages.
On taxing and land ownership,rather than taxing players who live in your beacons radius, why not have it set up to give you a small percent of the profits when ever they sell something in your beacons radius? This provides incentive for you to make your territory as safe and friendly as possible to traders, while not forcing players who may just want to visit to pay a tax. You can get rich by founding a popular city, and players can travel freely between cities to buy or sell as they please!
Proximity chat is great in theory, but it may be less of a headache if the owner of a zone could set up chat channels for their own zone. example, my city may have a general chat and a trade chat that can be only read from inside the city, but the wilderness has a global chat.
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