In another survival game I’ve played for the last 6 years, when you build a high quality building, it takes at least 6 months to decay. You can speed that up by claiming land where your border overlaps the building, but if the builder logs in once a month, they greatly slow down the decay timer and that building will last a year. The older players on that game actually make plans for projects that will take multiple real life years to complete. Some people treat it more seriously than their real world jobs.
The point of all that is you really have a feeling of ownership and skin in the game, when you can create things that last many years. I have buildings over 5 years old now. Made a huge tunnel through a mountain for ships that is a primary travel route for the server, several years later.
I hope Funcom starts thinking in terms of years of gaming enjoyment, rather than short term sales. It does feel like their vision is not on the distant future, but more on “what can we earn this week”.
In their defense, Conan is vastly more successful than the other game I play and I am here now. But, I keep all my properties on all my servers paid out for over a year, to insure I can return at any time, even if I do not log in for most of the year.