Cities And Housing Archive

Pavement would so enhance the immersion aspect of player cities.

JuJu VooDoo .. AI

This comes back to that one question that keeps getting asked....

"Why do all player cities look deserted?"

... and to a lesser extent...

"How can it be fixed?".

Roads

I feel strongly that part of the "dead look" issue is do to the fact that Player Citys look over grown. They have ditches running thru them left and right, bushes in the middle of streets, trees everywhere but where we want them, and depending on what planet your on (Im from naboo) they are knee deep in grass. Some sort of road/pavement system would go a long way towards cleaning up this look. Id like to see it lay-able by a voted city official (mayor or voted city architect?) in 2x2 tile squares. Yes this would be alot of work for the personbuilding the road but, if you were to place huge sections at a time you end up with excess pavement (and there in excess lag) in places you dont need it.

Populace

Roads are the start of a fix but not the end. NPCs should have a small spawn rate (like faction bases) in player cities. Because NPCs tent to wander around some this would add a little bit of a lived in feel to player cities even when no players are around. Im not suggesting that a level 4 city should have 50+ npcs in it, just some. They should spawn within a certain range of city buildings, and should be a static number except in the city hall area.

City Max NPC Population at any given time....

Rank 1 5

Rank 2 10

Rank 315

Rank 4 20

Rank 5 25

Walls/Gates/and Arches

I dont know how easy this would be to implement but the art is there. Most static citys have Walls of some sort. Id like to see them added to Player Cities as well. I understand there is a griefing concern as well here. I belive a work around for that would be to make it so no more the 4 wall pieces could be chained without a opening (being a gate, arch, or nothing) and a wall can not be built within 2 spaces of a structure.These two ruleswould make it imposable to create a solid wall around anything short of maybe a personal harvester. Walls would be made is sections 3x1, gates would also be 4x1, and arches should be large enough to span a large road so id make them 6x1 making it possible for a4 tile road to pass under it.

Additional City Structures

By this I mean things like the cantina and med center things that arnt ment to have the door locked so to speak. I dont list the theator with because it needs a compleat revamp. A few new merchant building would be nice. The tents are a great idea. If a player sees a tent they know that most likely a vendor can be found within it. However for player citys this gives a flee market apeariance and there in adds to the run down look. A true mall building would also be nice to have. Guild halls will never be replaced as mall you can fitso many vendors into them they cant be. However a mall building that is long like the guild hall and has 8-10 rooms about the size of the large one in the naboo square would make a great mall building with each merchant haveing there own room for displays and such. I know a lot of professions would like a "workshop" type building. Let is give bonuses equil to that of the crafting aprons and have a differnt look then we have seen before. I also know the architects have had a few good threads on possable ways to implment combat rings, indoor shooting ranges, and a lot of other intresting building that would bring people into player citys.

Additional Player Structures

Here Im talking about resident type buildings. We have a good number of houses avalibe yes but unless you go to a adventure planet you see the same 3 houses over and over in player citys, small style one, small style two, and medium. some new floor plans in this area would be nice too because it would add more variety to the game.

Beautifaction

So far we have talked about buildings, roads, walls... ...large solid objects that add a varity and more realistic look to things. How bout some little soft items though that only serve to beautify the city or residence. I feel all buildings should have a bench added to the porch. One you can actuly sit on. In the case of large structures like City Hall, Cantina's, and Large houses to name a few, they should have two or more of these benches. The ability for a player to buy flower seeds from a BE and plant them at thier house terminal yielding a small flower garden beside their porch would look real nice. This area has alot of possabilitys without induceing much lag.

Broken or Bugged

Parks with benches - benches cant be sat on

Theator - Cant place items outside so the player theator is useless

Cloning Center - Last I knew when moving items inside the cloneing center they would transeport themselves to the clone cylinder and sometimes become unrecoverable.

Sales Tax - Again last I knew this was broke

Nice Stuff for Mayors

The ability to restrict the placement of factories and/or harvesters within certian raduses of the city or restrict it alltogeather

The ability to designate no build zones and give a mayor aproved over ride (would allow for better roads and the reservation of lots for city structures

In close player citys are great for the comunity. I comend the developers for the ideas that have been implmented already. These arejust a few suggestions that I have come up with or seen presented on differnt forum boards that I think would enhance player citys and make them more attractive to the player base.

Id like to thank anyone who has contributed any ideas I have stolen and presented here.

I would like to thank anyone who has taken the time to read this post and welcome constructive comments

Finaly I would like to give a big thanks to all SWG Mayors both Current and like me Retired. Its a big job, i salute you.

Thanks,

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Major Tolk Esrafa, MRiflemen-BH-Ranger, Antarian Ranger
Capt. Aris Esrafa, MBH-MCarbineer, Antarian Ranger

wow there was only one post here when i started typeing that

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Major Tolk Esrafa, MRiflemen-BH-Ranger, Antarian Ranger
Capt. Aris Esrafa, MBH-MCarbineer, Antarian Ranger

indeed, apparently even our metropolis' and cities are only for cavemen. we can build ships to traverse the stars, but pouring sand and water to make pavement is over our heads.

InVictus Kell - Smuggler for Life
Started: Beta 2
Retired : 1-27-06

It's been fun...

Levelling a town would be a horrible idea, it would ruin the picturesqueness of my current town in several areas and the spot that I picked originally (but had to leave due to poor placement of the city hall and low buildzones, however there are other spots there that would have worked I found out afterwards) would have lost it's entire purpose of being picked. I understand the want for slight alterations of the ground, my city is on Corellia, however on top of the inability for this code-wise it would also remove some of the natural feel of the area. Work with the ditches and it's amazing how well a trench can work as a street. As per tile, if you where to tile an entire 450 meter radius, again it would just lose the natural setting. My metropolis isn't supposed to be 1950's Manhattan, it's supposed to have some greenspace and a tree or two growing on their own.

The only way I could reasonably see this work is by giving mayors the ability to tile areas via a new free garden type that would work up and down the area gridmark by gridmark in order to keep the consistency of the grade. However that's asking for a bit much and considering all the other things on the developers plate I'd rather wait and get combat, the GCW and several professions to 100% before concerning pavement as a must have item. Same goes for walls (which are easily exploitable to limit access to areas and just generally wall people out of certain spots of your town) and definitely bridges since those would be a nightmare to make considering the various lengths they'd have to span and not look too awkward.

Perhaps the approach to pavement is just wrong and can't be done (of people actually putting em down)

But why not having it automatic? (Not in the sense of the whole city is paved within radius...thats TOO extreme)

Whenever you place a house, covering its entire footprint would be a "foundation" - pavement extending all around the outside the structure (until it hits the footprint limit). This footprint pavement links to other footprints and creates a paved area (aka streets) within a certain radius...such as maybe within 2-5 tiles

The only problem with this would most likely be that large avenues or open spaces may not get fully paved...but if you think about it, within 5 tiles of each other is a fairly nice number since 1 block is sufficient for a small street, 5 for a big main avenue, and 2-4 for a large street (these are the figures in my City on Chilastra...main street is about 3 medium houses [5x5 footprint] long, and 5x5 footprint wide...bigger than this could potentially be TOO big)

Likewise, gardens, statues, fountains, and maybe even streetlamps can contribute to this but on a smaller scale (except for gardens...maybe streetlamps "pave" a block 2x2 max, while a medium garden would pave more than a medium house). Essentially anything that can be put down, could pave the ground.

Either that where its automatic, or maybe have it only in cities.

However that leaves the question on tatooine cities - do we need pavement or not?...

--Stern Synex-- --Master Commando-- --IDI Forces----Proud Commando of 42 Months-- --Last Commando Correspondent--
We fear no enemy...we are the few, the proud, and the brave. We are, Commando!
Pyro Games

A free new garden that mayors can lay down as payment may not be feesible...as I don't think the devs have any coding in place (or a way) of players being able to lay down foundation where houses already exist (ie footprints)...where as the new free garden (pavement) would have to have a footprint in order to even be laid down in the first place...

--Stern Synex-- --Master Commando-- --IDI Forces----Proud Commando of 42 Months-- --Last Commando Correspondent--
We fear no enemy...we are the few, the proud, and the brave. We are, Commando!
Pyro Games

That would suck if it was a 1x1...placing each and every tile heh!

But hey heres a thought...maybe that idea and my idea on auto-pavement whenever you place a building can work hand in hand!

For housing thats bumped up next to each other (yellow-yellow...cant place a 1x1 pavement tile)...they automatically generate pavement...which fades off into the ground at the very edge of the footprint. Other building's bumped up to their foorptrint, will catch the pavement and continue. To fill in any squares that don't have a house on em, use the 1x1 (or also have bigger squares too) to fill-in.

--Stern Synex-- --Master Commando-- --IDI Forces----Proud Commando of 42 Months-- --Last Commando Correspondent--
We fear no enemy...we are the few, the proud, and the brave. We are, Commando!
Pyro Games

Well bigger squares would likely lose the contour of the grade was my thought. Gardens have that large non stepped part of them sticking out when the ground pulls away from them but just 2 grid squares over it's practically even with the ground. If you have something wider or longer it would just lead to awkward situations on the sides.

And yeah your idea sounds fine I just figured mine would work nicely for areas that don't have homes right smack next to them for one reason or another or where a street has 3 or 4 squares between the yellow of homes. Just make sure that the "auto pave" feature only works in the front and doesn't go all around. Everybody likes having a backyard But still I doubt this will happen for a year since the CURB, GCW, and specific professions are queued up before player cities and have been waiting longer to boot.

Well...auto-pavement would have to go fully around...as there really isn't a back yard in any of our houses heh...now if we only got a deck or something! Now that be cool!

Besides...a backyard thats only .5 the length of a square? Thats a mighty small backyard for BBQ's and whatnot

--Stern Synex-- --Master Commando-- --IDI Forces----Proud Commando of 42 Months-- --Last Commando Correspondent--
We fear no enemy...we are the few, the proud, and the brave. We are, Commando!
Pyro Games

...and never will

Well...at least, I hope so!

--Stern Synex-- --Master Commando-- --IDI Forces----Proud Commando of 42 Months-- --Last Commando Correspondent--
We fear no enemy...we are the few, the proud, and the brave. We are, Commando!
Pyro Games