Architect Archive

Okay, anyone who has any questions, feel free to post them here, and maybe, just maybe, someone with answers will give them to us.

My question: The Player Cities article by Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart says "Any structure placed by a player within the borders of a city becomes a part of the city and any player who has a declared residence within the borders of a city becomes a citizen." Is this exactly the case?

What I mean is, say I place my house in a cozy little spot where no one else has placed yet. Three weeks later a guild or something comes and decides that the area I've decide to be my front yard would be a great place fortheir player city. According to this, if my house is within the Town Halls city area, then I'm a member of that player's town, regardless of whether or not I want to be... either that or I have to move my house, regardless of the fact that I was there first.

This really does not seem fair to me. It gets even more unfair when you throw factions into the mess. A Rebel decides that the location an Imperial base is on would make a great spot for his guild's town. So, he and some friends go out, take out the base one night and plop down a town center where the base used to me. Now, because all the surrounding houses are those of Imperial players, he decideds that he's going to tax them heavily. Acceptable? Definitely not.

True, one could always vote the person out of office, but the problem with that is there there may very well be many more members of the guild who (following the placement of the city hall) placed their houses near by and can always out-vote the Imperial members.

I'm really hoping that the Devs give the owners of thepre-placedstructures a way to decline fromjoininga town they have no desire of joiningw/o having to pack up and move their house... cause, yeah, that would suck.

yes you are subject to tax, yes you are a citizen of the city.

The logic behind that seemingly unfair idea is that you will benefit from the citie's privieleges. Close cloning facilities, cantina, medical center, shuttle, etc. As such you are subject to pay.

The one question that I would like answered is how large is the initial city? We're worried about placing of houses that some of the houses will be outside of the area.

I think you only get taxed if you are a citizen, but I could be wrong... as far as the rest goes... hey, it might seem unfair, but realistically if you're on a big wide open space you shouldn't be surprised to see that city pop up.

Also, even if the houses in that area are all included for tax purposes, I don't think the person can immediately start taxing you. I believe an election has to be held to put them into office to begin with so they can't just create a city, elect themselves, start taxing and then get voted out. hard to say til the final info comes out, but I just don't see that being a real problem.

if you have a structure (actually building or harvestor, but those are the only types), then it's taxable. Regardless of citizenship. This has been officially stated.

We are, however, unsure of the implementation of the taxation system. Whether the mayor can just put it in as he likes, then get votes to change it, or if he needs aproval first, we don't know.

I have a situation like that. I'm part of a small town, and these rebels that live nearby have threatened that they will place a town center and move a bunch of houses in as soon as the patch goes live. Then, they'll tax the stuffing out of us. They've threatened to squezze us out because we have this cool location. Sucks. There must be a way to fight that.

This bugs me for another reason...I dont want jerks moving into my town (well other then me of cource lol)

Right now we have 20 buildings laid out (with 30 more coming) in a remote area with space for parks, decorative buildings, city structuresetc...I shudder to think what would happen if a bunch of trailer trash with their small genearics were to move in... spouting l33t speak and letting there pitbulls (banthas)run wild and cloging up the streets with old tires and whatnot. Ive seen some of their future "towns"...look like a poor mans version of some third world slum...buildings and factories spread out like some great cosmic force upchucked all over a piece of land...no thanks. As soon as those type of people move in, I want to be able to fire up the metaphoric bulldozer and send them packing back to the cesspool where the spawned. =)

I had this question on the main board too, but it went extinct 10 second later, so I'll drop it here...

PLAYER CITIES... NEAT NEW FEATURE OR GRIEF TOOL

Ok guys, you say player cites are getting close, so this question is not jumping the gun. Imagine the following scenario... all these actions are possible WITHIN THE RULES YOU HAVE RELEASED. (IMP and rebel used only for illustration, no flames please)

Small rebel PA spends a couple years before SWG release planning for the day when they can build a city. They take their 20-30 players and log into the game and begin from day one building their city. The find a good location and push several of their members to Master architect. They lay out their city like a city. They begin to grow but are still only a medium sized crafting PA. Their houses are ready and their players are all set to go when cities finally release. While waiting for cities, they stockpile resources.

In the meantime, another PA starts to grow. An imperial PA. They spend all their time farming Krayts with ATSTs, doing nothing but combat and never crafting a thing. Before long, they are a fabulously wealthy PA of over 100 players.

Now player cities finally hit! The crafter PA springs into action and within the week have all the basic amenities. they become a medium sized city.

The IMP PA who never did any kind of work towards city building see this cityand all it's cool amenitiesand begins moving their members in. The city size grows and soon the city qualifies for all the city amenities. The crafters PA who had control of the city as mayor built and supplied all the city buildings.

Then the larger PA makes it's move. Within a couple weeks they have moved their people into the city and vote their PA leader into the mayor's office. The crafters who did all the work are voted out of office, the IMPs Raise the taxes to the point where their nonPA people can't afford it (their guy is the mayor... he can refund their taxes)

Now, the crafters PA that did all the work, can't afford to live there, they aren't big enough to get the mayor's office back, and now they have Imperial militias /warning them so they can't get to their houses.

The crafters quit in frustration and leave, the bigger PA now owns all their hard work.

NO ONE should have to worry about all their hard work in this game simply taken over by sheer numbers! Technically, it only takes 1 week for a large PA that never did any work at all to take over a player city! Only one week! There is no way to say "We're a rebel city, we don't want Imps" or vice versa. Hell! As far as we know, the Imp PA only has to take over control of the city mayor's office, redeed the city hall and BANG! They destroy the rebel city! This CANNOT be allowed to work like this!

Player cities are the main reason I started this game. If I lose all my hard work to someone whose only effort was droping some pistol exp so they could take up politician, then I'm leaving. I'm sure all the others working for cities would too.

How to solve this?

In my opinion, player cities must be sponsored by PAs. The city building should be owned by the PA and no one can build in the city limits without approval. You don't have to be IN the PA to live there, but you do need the city permission to move in. (Notice I say "city limits". this could keep the griefs from happening with people already there.) Sure, you'll have small PA villages spring up, but unless they bring im more people, they won't get the good city stuff. If they set up too close to each other, they won't be able to expand.

1)the answer to making cities is simple. Put a huge entrance fee. If there's a tax on placing structures, just put a giagantic sum and then reimburse it to qualified citizens (if the mayor can do that).

2)Jerks who want a town won't work very well. The politician gets xp by votes. Cities get perks based on politicians abilites. Alienating others will slow his xp. Also, the city itself won't grow. Shuttles won't be made available until class 3 or 4 city (forgot which) and that means a sizable city. And we all know shuttles are really the main want of the city. Hence if you move out, they lose out.

From what I've gathered, the servers will only be able to handle like 4 or so player cities per planet per server. If that is the case, first of all, only the biggest PA's will be able to have cities. Secondly, if there are only 4 player cities perplanet per server, you'll have only a very small chance of actually getting annexed by one.

Anian

Sorry but there is no, I got here first in this game. If you want a city and want to control it, you better be sure you have a good group of people lined up to be citizens and start working on alliances with other like minded PAs to move in. They are not making cities private. Anyone can move in. However, you as the mayor can /ban people so everytime they come to their house you can have your militia kill them. That should give them the message pretty quick. Sorry, but the game is not designed to be a city building game. Groups of 20 who have been dreaming for 2 years about having a little city on Naboo by the lake are SOL. Cities are developed to add new strategy for politics, creating alliances, building them up and maintaining control.

As far as the number of cities per planet. They have not stated a certain number that I am aware of. What they said is that a city hall can only be placed such that its maximum possible radius, which they haven't told us, will not overlap with any other city radius, be it NPC or PC. Knowing that there will be a finite possible number of locations to build a city. On planets with more NPC cities like Corellia and Naboo, fewer cities are possible. On Rori, Dantooine where there are few NPC locations, room for more cities.

On the screenshot from the indevelopment page it showed 125m as the starting radius. Who know if that is what it will be when it goes live. In our city we already have houses 200m plus out. We hope to be able to jump to city status 2-3 on the first day and get the radius to include all houses.

My impression is that whoever drops the city hall is the mayor for the first week. Just like whoever drops the PA hall is the leader. Yes, the mayor can do whatever they want with taxes that first week too.