Architect Archive
Thread: City ganking... Can you see it coming?
My point is simple.
If my friends and I wish to start a city somewhere and spend our resources to build it, I expect our investment to remain ours. For a group to spend hundreds of thousands of resource units on a city to be voted out by a group that likes your layout or just your location is unacceptable. It is basically theft.
Dayln, if you so want this intrigue, why not allow Smugglers to slice factory/harvester hoppers, house locks, bank safety deposit boxes, player bank accounts, etc? What's wrong with someone stealing all your crap?It would be "Star Warsy". After all, it's a smuggler that's doing it and it does happen in real life. That makes it fair and right in game, right?
If you remember, back in Beta, you could walk in to someones house and split stacks of resources and pick them up until there was only one left... I mean, it'stheir own fault for leaving the house set to Public,right? They changed that because it's stealing. A hostile takeover of a city by unwanted citizens amounts to the same thing. Things that you have worked for and created are being taken from you with no recourse and no risk to the interlopers. (and no, hiring a guild to vote you back in to office is not "recourse")
I'd hardly call that "intrigue". I call that taking someone elses **self-edit** because it's easier then doing it yourself, and because you can. Tell me if that's right. I could care less about what happens in real life. That doesn't make it right or even acceptable.
If you want a private city, limit it's size. Make it so private cities can only grow to say, Level2 or3 before they need to be made Public/Free cities. There needs to be time given to those creating the cities to actually gain the backing of the citizens before there should be elections against outsiders that can move their voting block in with them (i.e. a guild).
"Being there first" is what counts. If a small group has picked a location and placed a City Hall, it's their spot. The uber guild has plenty of room elsewhere to place their city. I shouldn't need a 50 member group of pre-approved citizens ready to set down houses just to maintain control.
I would disagree with the comment that cities shouldn't be/are not like guilds. They should be a parallel to guilds. They are an economic, service and social groupingwhere a PAwill take the place of the factional, military and combatgroup. There will eventually be a split between the two. I'm not saying that one will replace the other because they have different functions and different goals in the game. They will not necessarily be independent of each other, but eachwill be able to funciton without the others involvement.
Providingthe ability forgriefers, arsehats, bullysand idiots to create "intrigue" (as Dayln put it)will create huge problems that will need to be addressed and should be addressed prior to the Live push. This game was never portrayed as being like Shadowbane with City vs. City combat or seige warfare. If people want that, they can play SB.
Myself, and many others I'm sure, just don't agree with the "that's the way it is" crowd simply because that's not the way it should be.
Marduke Akkad
I, like a lot of players, choose to avoid PvP because, while PvP attracts some of the best players in the game, it attracts a LOT of griefers. I do not play games with mandatory PvP.
Cities, as presently proposed, expose you to mandatory PvP: if you live in a city, other players can impose their will on you by destroying the city or by taking it over. It is, potentially, an extremely NASTY form of PvP because the system includes mechanisms for ganking.
What is ganking? Its when a stronger party attacks a weaker one, with the weaker one having no means of defenese. When PvP degenerates to ganking, it ceases to provide fun to anyone other than the griefers. In the case of cities, a numerically stronger group can sneak in in the middle of the night, put up their houses, and vote in their mayor. There is no way to defend against that. They can then loot the treasury and destroy the civic buildings. There is no defense.
Anyone who doesn't think this is going to happen has their head in the sand. Of course it will happen. And of course the people who have their city ganked will be pretty angry.
Sorry Eric but that is dead wrong, it should never be that way.
Both political parties in the USA would like that too, just their little USA and no one else can get voted in.
No...
Being their first politically means nothing, It didn’t mean anything for the Indians in the USA, It didn’t mean anything for the Hispanic in California, and it doesn’t mean anything here either. This is not kindergarten where people scream “Mine!! Mine! ".
If you want a private place like that then form a PA, that can be all yours, but cities are evolving things that NO one can, and no one should be able to "own".
Cities are not private places, not something that you can or should be able to force your personal control over. If you don’t want to contribute your resources to a city that you are not assured of controlling then don’t, just work on your private PA. Cities are not and should not be PA's. The are political entities, changeable, something to fight over, something to compete over, not your personal toy that you can exclude others from.
Dayln wrote:
Sorry Eric but that is dead wrong, it should never be that way.
Both political parties in the USA would like that too, just their little USA and no one else can get voted in.
No...
Being their first politically means nothing, It didn’t mean anything for the Indians in the USA, It didn’t mean anything for the Hispanic in California, and it doesn’t mean anything here either. This is not kindergarten where people scream “Mine!! Mine! ".
If you want a private place like that then form a PA, that can be all yours, but cities are evolving things that NO one can, and no one should be able to "own".
Cities are not private places, not something that you can or should be able to force your personal control over. If you don’t want to contribute your resources to a city that you are not assured of controlling then don’t, just work on your private PA. Cities are not and should not be PA's. The are political entities, changeable, something to fight over, something to compete over, not your personal toy that you can exclude others from.
Dayln,
You're right in principle but I think your view is too simplistic.
If a large group came into a small town and tried to take it over, you'd have a war. You can see lots of evidence of small towns resisting a large influx of people in today's world.
On the other hand, you can also see towns growing into cities. That's a natural evolution provided the location has the resources and reasons to support a larger population, but it takes time.
The problem they're talking about here is that it could be done overnight, with no opportunity of resistance by the original inhabitants. That is, indeed, ganking. And yes, there are plenty of peckerheads playing this game that would do it immediately. I have never heard of such a thing happening in 24 hours in the real world.
Wars, yes. Suddenly waking up to find that Smalltown, USA suddenly has three times as many houses and people as the night before the election, no. We have laws against such things. So should SWG.
Actually there is a system to prevent a hostile takeover, however you have to get to a couple levels into politician to do it...militia. What better way to say your not welcome then a giant drunken band of know nothing gun toting BH's saying leave? You can ban people from the city and as long as your town isn't "overrun" before militiamen are instilled your fine. As for being able to keep the city yours and yet allow people access to it (ie not banning everyone and their sister) then you have to open up to the possiblity that you won't be the majority party. If your PA outnumbers everyone then great you have the run of the house...but as any election you can lose.
Besides why would they take over the town with a lower lvl politician? Wouldnt that have bad effects if their mayor can't afford a shuttleport for a few weeks?
I agree that will happen,
Now tell me that is a bad thing, tell me it is not Star Wars.
The trade federation taking over, individuals gathering together to fight off the political takeover.
Look around you, it is like that everywhere. I agree that some towns fight that, and sometimes they loose too. You are free to fight that fight in SWG too, but realize you can loose that battle.
If Player cities were just going to be glorified PA's like some people here want them to be then my interest would be zero. It is the inability to assure control that makes it interesting, it is the political and social chaos that will ensue that will inspire people to band together.
if some PA with 100 people in it take over, then form rival group, move more people into the city and take it back, if you can. If not find a city more to your liking, but there is no guarantee that it will remain so.
All I have heard Eric say is that he wants his own private city that no one can take from him, he is against elections in a real sense, they cannot and will not give 300,000 players their own private cities, that is just not going to happen and should not happen.
What they are about to do is more like Star Wars than anything else politically the hve done yet!
I am really looking forward to it.
Plan your city...my friends and i found a plateau outside restuss, Rori. It is doubtful that in the plateus you could get a PA hall. If you could that would take a lot of room. I guess it could happen but the only other PA's are established in their own areas...
you want to grief a PA set town halls around it....but not close enough to let it in your town...then it has to pack up and join a town. When it does crank up the taxes on it.
My friends and i are prepared to share money with each other and the "nice people in town". Those we dont like we wont share ...and tax them out of existance.
Hey, that's real life, that's Star Wars.
Or, how about this: If you get shot, you're dead. Reroll. Mandatory PvP and Permadeath. Who can argue with the realism! I bet you'd LOVE it.
How about this: there are 'informant terminals'. Someone can inform on you by typing your name in as a 'suspected rebel.' Next time you log in, 15 Storm Troopers show up and haul you in for questioning. Maybe, in a few months, they let you loose (or what's left of you).
NOW you're talking Reality! NOW you're talking Star Wars!!!!!!
Maybe they should make player structures burnable. Flamethrower + House = Charred Rubble, everything inside it destroyed. Who can argue with the realism! Hey, it happened in the movie, its Star Wars. Put it in!!!!
Just because something is 'realistic' and 'just like Star Wars' doesn't mean its fun. Quite the opposite.
I understand, but if they make Cities glorified PA's like you want them, there there is no reason to have a politician class as votes will be meaninless. You would contol who could vote and who could not, that is not a political system, that is you just deciding everything for everyone else. That is a whole lot worse then a PA stepping and taking over a city.
If they are going to do that they might as well scrap the whole player city thing all together.
Brandon Reinhart / GreenMarine"
There's the solution to your problem. Get some politician XP and you don't have to worry about "city ganking"
FulminataXII wrote:
"A mayor with Civic Policy I can set the city to "require zoning rights." When a city requires zoning rights no one may place a structure in the city without permission. The mayor and the militia can grant a person permission to place structures for 24 hours with /grantZoningRights. Using /grantZoningRights again on someone that already has rights to your city will revoke the rights.Brandon Reinhart / GreenMarine"
There's the solution to your problem. Get some politician XP and you don't have to worry about "city ganking"
Cool. Hadn't seen that. Where's the ref? That solves the problem.