Architect Archive
Thread: Urban Planner may not be a new profession after all... (from dev chat)
Honestly. I'd prefer if they added the new profession it'd distinguish me from other Architects.
But I think that Urban Planners should actually place the structures. but be appointed by the mayors to do so. (perhaps a mayor could appoint several?)
My vote goes to making it an Elite-Elite Profession. Urban planners should be more than just aMaster Architect. Itwill also make it a rareprofession, as architect is pretty popular at the moment. I would like something to distinguish myself from other architects.
Just a side note. I can't wait tillIcan builda city.
should have been:
I think placing the Schematics for city structures in the architect profession will upset more players than it will make happy. why?
Devs, instead of nerfing things like melons and the starting screens before the login server, could you please add an edit button to the forumns ?
thanks
Jarun Thaks
There willbeZERO market for city structures outside of your own city.
Every city already has at least one Master. Mine has two.
Why make U.P. "special" when it will be a useless profession inside of one week. Who here has not stockpiled for there own city already?
Why do you wish to curtail your character simply to be able to build two structures per month for your city. If you think all the buildings are going live at once you are deluding yourself.
We will be lucky if the monthly update includes one or two new structures for cities. SImply because if they release all the buildings at once then my city will be completed in a week. Then I would be able to dump their asinine "elite-elite" profession.
I would like to see this as an elite-elite profession. I'd also like to see that structural integrity declines in structures in so much that walls have to be replaced and such. Thus, giving the Architect class a viable income.
Taking on this elite-elite profession means that we'd have to sacrifice a lot but let's be realistic here....those mobs that were just beefed up and placed everywhere now kick my butt most the time even with Marksman, pistol 4. So, I'd be giving that up as well as my scout, exploration line. Ok, not only can I not shoot anything now but I'm to slow to get away....that's gonna make it really hard to survey and place/maintanence harvesters. Here are my thoughts on that...no, don't give us extra skill points to use but instead have the elite-elite professions cost less than the others as far as skill points go AND cost a certain amount of Apprentice points as well. This way, we might be able to keep some combat and maybe exploration one.
I don't know about anyone else but I'm about as excited to see a finished product as my customers. Not having the ability to help set up the city is just a smack in the face really. Giving Politicians the option to contract Urban Planners to help them set up the city would be a great idea. Or maybe even making it a dual process, have a structure not placeable without the final OK of a Urban Planner, make a small box appear that makes us verify the placement....we are constuctors after all, yes? Maybe even make it so that once a structure is placed it can be rotated but only by a Urban Planner using a special tool.
Whelp, those are my thoughts and ideas. Feel free to discuss them.
The more I read the more I am coming to understand that a lot of the people who have mastered Arch aren't even devoted to it. Someone mentioned i'll ditch the'assinine' elite-elite profession. Which means they may not even be truly in the Arch profession, they are free to do whatever else they want, while having the ability to build whatever they want.
This is why it is hard for us who want to be pure builders, because everyone else can master building as well as a combat skill. Then your set? Might as well negate Architecture altogether. This is one of the reasons why its so hard to stay afloat, because anyone can be a master Architect and it is different than Armorsmith/Weaponsmith because it is not a business of scale (excepton the supply side where you have to collect massive amounts of materials). It should not be that everyone can build PAs and the just ditch the profession. One person should be able to solo-build an entire city(with some help on the resourcecollection side)AND be good at combat.
It's not 'assinine'to excpect that one person can't build an entire city and then do whatever else they want as well.It's assinine to assume that one person ought to be able to do all that AND have whatever else they want.
ArchitectureAND Urban Planning shouldrequire more effort to attain, so people can't ramp upthe skill tree andthen just drop it. I'm only about to become a Novice Architect so it isn'tthe case of 'going up theking's road and then shutting the dooron everyone else'Thiswould effect me. Furthermore, I don't think the Engineering line should be able to build mines. They shouldbe able to buildcomponents possibly, but not even personal mines. Themarket is alreadyflooded.
A person can runONE easy mission and have the ability to buy a personal mine and then some.Doing Artisan missions(that anyone can do by just being novice Artisan)from Moenia to Deeja Peak using a shuttle doing4 trip(2 on the way and 2 comingback)can make enough money to buy a house in 2 full cycles of that. Which practicallytakes no time. That's redicilous. I can rack up enough money on what are simply delivery missions in a few days to buy a large house. There should bemore money-sinks and less money supply. But that's another issue altogether.The drop rate on MOBs should be lowered, and missions should not give out so much money. Maybethe Architecture business should be mademore difficult (in otherwords you can'teasily bailyourself out on simple delivery missionsif you have over extended yourself) Those with a successful business model willbe seperated from those who don't have one. It should beHARD there should bea need for miners and this will force theprices up, because then thosethat want to do Architecture on the side won't be able to, it should be full-time.
It would be highly disappointing to find that they are going to merge architect with urban planner. There are already too many Master Architects for a 2 month old game (I just started a week ago and I am already finding this out). When I was on Moenia there were a few Master Architects, a few more than I expected actually. Though I figured that since it was an art colony on Naboo it made sense. It turns out that there were more Master Architects then at Moenia on other planets and cities, that is another issue though, but related.
I cast my vote against merging Urban Planner with the Architecture professions. My reasons are essentially in line with allthe others who want UP to be seperate.Though I do believe more content should be added to the Architect profession, more housing etc ... Though it would be best for the Architect to have the ability to truly design housing.
As far Architects being able to build fusion reactors so they should be able to build civic buildings... the fact that Architects are building fusion reactors negates the realisitic logic used to justify that they ought to build civic buildings.
It's not a matter of what would make sense in a RW setting, it is about game balance and the relationship between various elements that may resemble and even mimic RW happenings, but do not neccesarily follow the same logic. Though there has to be an interesection with reality for a person to connect to.
Another example is buildingmaintenance,building maintenance was not impelmented sopeoplecan feel they are in a more realistic enviornment. It'sjust a mask fora money-sinkto combart hyper-inflation. Seperating UrbanPlanning from Architecture is a game balanceissue. Many state (in fact those that want to merge Architecture with Urban Planning)that there will bea small market for Urban Planning, so make it a very difficult profession to achieve! I truly believe that this is not a profession for deletantes.
While Architecture has always been a game of theinexperienced Aristocracy has played, Urban Planninghasmostly been the province of kings andprofessionals. This isn't to take away from Architecture, as greatArchitecture requiresa lot of skill and creativity.It's just that a dabbling aristocrat can fail at achieving a pleasing building without too much of a problem.You can't 'dabble' in Urban Planning withouteffecting thelives of a great many people.
Thisiswhere an intersection with reality ought to occur,if a person truly wishes to have their ability effect a great many people in a concrete way(through a specific skill set, as there are other ways of effecting people), they oughtto have to make some sacrifices.This is a profession thatpracticallygarantees that influence, it isn't a sideeffect of it. A marksmen can go through life howeverhechooses fightingMOBs or PvP, andcaninfluence otherswith charisma, but the very nature ofan Urban Planner's jobis tohave a great influence on others, as is thepolitcal profession.
1) Gives you a sense of accomplishment.
2) Stops the "First Architect to place the city hall at server up after the player city patch wins!" syndrom.
3) It will decrease the amount of posts on the forumns from players complaining that they didn't have a fair chance at creating a city on thier server. And they would be right!
4) Not to mention the players who went out and purchased a second account for the sole purpose of making an Urban planner for thier PA. I guarantee you'd see alot of those accounts close if they placed the schematics in the Architect Profession.
anyways, those are my reasons for keeping it as originally planned. If anything , they should do something about the Experimentation Branches, they're totally useless. remove them and put something else in there for us to make. or better yet, make that a color scheme branch. the higher up you go in it, the more colors you can dye furniture.
Jarun Thaks
Chilastra
There are too many master architechs for Urban Planner to have master architech as a prerequisite.
Consider this; why are there so many masters? Beacuse people grind up to master to make a PA for their PA hall. The grinding kills the architech economy. So will putting even MORE yummy juicy desirable content at master architech and above cause less people to grind architech? I'm afraid that an "elite elite" profession will simply create more grinding, more master architechs, and an even worse economy.
Well, as one of the earliest Master Architects, I'll put in my two cents worth.
1. The most important question is when will we have the ability to make a shuttleport. This will ultimately be the deciding issue on where the city is placed. If SOE messes it up, and makes us wait until a level 3 city before we get them, all player cities will be as close to the build limits of current cities as they can get. Who wants to make a city 6k meters from town if you have to spend two hours walking there for the first 2 months?? Shuttleport in phase one, starport in the last phase.
2. Skill points... Make this an elite elite profession. I want it to take up as many skill points as possible. I want this to be a rare and necessary profession so I can participate in the economy just like a weaponsmith does now. Excessive architects selling large mining installations for 25k have drained the life out of my profession, forcing me to go out and hunt for a living. BAH! I love my harvesters...
3. GIVE ME MORE LOTS INSTEAD! It is so outrageously rediculous that a Master Architect is subject to the same amount of lots as a marksman or brawler! They should have less, and an Architect should have more. Even a small house requires about 50 times more resources than any weapon a weaponsmith can make, so why am I limited to the same number of lots as them.. An urban planner, if you are going to make him responsible for the lots in a city, should have about 50 lots.. Have a skill column dedicated to lots if you have to.. What we have now is not feasible.
4. Do not do anything with cities that require a single person to run them. In my experience, if you give any single player that much power, it usually goes to their head. I don't know how many guilds I've been a part of in the past where one snot nosed little punk decides to take back his lego's and go play elsewhere, and 50 people get screwed because of it.
5. Make it expensive, make it difficult, make it exclusive. I'll start a second account to go play, if need be. That is good for SOE, and good for me, as it increases your incomes, and makes it more difficult to achieve and more profitable for me. I'm in this for 5 years, so do it right.
This won't be very popular with some architects, but in the bottom of your heart, you know I'm right.
Lewk BodyKraft
Naritus, Talus, Daeric
L&M Construction
I would perfer it to be another class, because then there would be more diversity among classes. If theres a limit on player cities just think of all the architects dreaming of being a urben planner who will dump all the architect skills. I would like to know what power is given to the player that places the city hall other than maintence and less lots available for them Since the mayor has all the city power. I hope that here is no number limit and only a distance from City and Player city requirment.
Just my piece of mind
This won't distinguish you from any other architcts. All the ones who want it will drop other skills to get it, and even more 2ndary mules characters will be reserved for this class.
I vote to put in the already semi-baked profession of architect. This should flesh it out nicely.
-Phal