Cities And Housing Archive
Thread: The Death nail to player cities is on the test center
ana-mo-cara
Wed Jan 19, 2005 8:25 pm
#14
Hey this is a good thing. Yes sometimes factories and harvesters bug, and self delete. They somehow burn through surplus cash and explode.
The player cities obviously need overhauled at this point. I have seen far too many cities that look like junkpiles where players put no effort in whatsoever.
FunkyFresh
Fri Jan 21, 2005 11:55 am
#15
I don't understand why soe would want these useless houses taking up space on the server. More importantly, with so many broken things in the game I would think they'd be working on the more important issues and saving stuff like this for down the road. Maybe we'll get lucky and this will never make it out of test center.
coronula
Fri Jan 21, 2005 6:08 pm
#16
If no one panics when they see something on test center then it will go into the game bugs or not. In only a few instances have big changes been made that were not just fine tuning or half-hearted compromises.
Irxosskisx
Fri Jan 21, 2005 9:44 pm
#17
This really seems like a Change with Active players in mind. Making it easier for players to pay for houses and prevent us from loosing all of our stuff if it goes boom.
If they want to prevent "greifing" or empty towns the simple thing to do would be to give Mayors the ability to Demolish Condemed buildings. Also when a Mayor Demolishes a building, it sends an email to the owner giving them 5 or 10 days for them to either top up or reclaim the deed before the structure Dissappears. This prevents mayors from just deleting any house they want.
Cybst0rm
Fri Jan 21, 2005 10:37 pm
#18
Irxosskisx wrote:
This really seems like a Change with Active players in mind. Making it easier for players to pay for houses and prevent us from loosing all of our stuff if it goes boom.
If they want to prevent "greifing" or empty towns the simple thing to do would be to give Mayors the ability to Demolish Condemed buildings. Also when a Mayor Demolishes a building, it sends an email to the owner giving them 5 or 10 days for them to either top up or reclaim the deed before the structure Dissappears. This prevents mayors from just deleting any house they want.
Yeah, from what I see now... we (Mayors) will never get rid of Player Structures. Hopefully, something like this will be put in place as well. It really sickens me how things are now. I have been watching a player structure that I have admin to slowly disappear and I do mean SLOWLY... it has zero maintenance left and takes about 3-4% damage a day. It's painfully slow!
Jhett
Sat Jan 22, 2005 2:09 am
#19
I am very happy with this development, personally... It is good to know that no matter what happens I will not lose any more structures. (I am often called away from the game due to work for up to a month at a time wil no warning. Twice now I have lost nearly everything!) I also don't see how this will hurt our cities. I have run two cities in game now. The first I ran like I think you guys are talking about. I got all the neccessary people to come in and fill the slots and we grew to a metropolis in about eight weeks. Noobs, inactives, and deleted toons were our primary (and majority) citizenship base. We had two semi-active guilds in the city that made up about 50 of the 100+ citizens. When one guild left to form their own city we dropped a little below metropolis and everything slid downhill. Because our active base was so low we had a hard time recruiting people into the city. Our borders shrank, we lost more people... You know how it goes. In a very short time we were at level two. Finally we decided to get out of the city game. In a very short time our empire was gone. Fast forward to our current city. The rules are all different here. First off it is a private city. We only invite people we know well and can trust. No warm bodies allowed. The mayor is given admin on ALL buildings placed inside the city. We (the ciizenship) communicate regularly to keep up on who is coming and going so that if there will be an extended absence maintenance fees can be taken care of. So far only two people have left the game and in both cases they came in and redeeded for us. Our city might be slowly growing, but it IS growing. And it is being populated with good people that we can count on, and that's what matters, right?
My whole point is this: This change to maintenance really shouldn't affect your city if your run it properly. As mayor you have a responsibility to know your citizens. If you just let any old person come in and set their roots you will have to live with the consequences.
ana-mo-cara
Sat Jan 22, 2005 2:12 am
#20
We have to be realistic. This problem existed before this TC thing anway. Joe shmoe drops house in player city right in the wrong spot joe shmo cancells account structure still there.Joe put 5mil maint in the house. The house isnt going anywhere. If your just now getting to the point that you realise things like this are a problem you missed a train somewhere.
The devs arent going to tell a player hey yeah we want you to come back, but your house and all its contents must be deleted.
There needs to be a system for the players not to have to make these choices, and speaking as someone who has cancelled an account. 100 bank spaces 50 in a backpack 59 on person. Um yeah your going to notice thats not alot of ample room for storage. So you got a choice start getting rid of stuff you want or need to keep, or ample up a house just incase you come back.
What needs to be done, and I should just start a petition for it. Is allow players to trade up lot space for bank space. That way no player can say I have no choice.
You cancell your account the house should auto vanish on the spot. Seeing as you have the storage space you really have no excuse.
Jhett
Sat Jan 22, 2005 2:14 am
#21
One comment on the proposed 'demolish' option... I DO like it, but I wouldn't get your hopes up. It seems like an easy way to potentially grief, especially with a timer as short as 5-10 days. But if it WERE put in game, perhaps they could make little storage boxes that would appear when a house is demolished. These boxes could hold all of the contents of the demolished houses. They would be "exit only" meaning that you could not put more things inside them. They would continue to hold a player's lot alotment and could only be opened after the outstanding balance was paid. What do you think?
Mordrack
Sat Jan 22, 2005 7:58 am
#22
Err wait a minute.
If there is indeed a bug that burns through the maintenance quickly, what happens when the factories are then linked to your bank account? Does it still burn through credits quickly? *panic*
I had hoped more for a solution like this: When a strucure is about to go *poof*, it sends an email WITH waypoint to the owner, and only 1-4 weeks later when nothing changes it really goes poof. So if it burns through cash quickly [or loses money due to a rollback, what happened to me -- that was kinda scary] or normally runs out of cash, you have at least a couple days to react..
Cheers,
Mord*
DrClawX
Mon Jan 24, 2005 5:03 am
#23
banks shouldbe safe storage and be kept in the data base the longest and character too. If u are quiting and hoping to come back u could put valuble items in the bank and on character to save the longest. Where player houses could be more risky to leave the game for long periods.
If the account is paid in real life for the stuff shouldent dissapear, if maintinece isnt paid in game it should. At least give one known place to safely store items. Known as in u are warned many times to store most valuble stuff in bank for long term leave.
There are only a few reasons of inactivity,
1 the person quit dosent plan on coming back,
2 real life event makes them quit and wants to come back,
3 needs a break 50/50 chace of coming back,
4 plays 2 servers respnceable for paying maintenence
5cross server trade which should be harder to do. Perhaps requisites to drop the struture and well as being comdemend
Mabye even give a choise when account is canceled to determine the chance of player coming back.Givin responce stuff could be savedlonger.
There is some personal responceablity to set up ways to keep your stuff safe for long period, it should be outlined so people can take steps before leaving.
Lonaris
Mon Jan 24, 2005 10:06 pm
#24
Lol ... heya Jhett ... was just thinking about yah 
You need to get to my server and let me use you visciously for your other lots that are open 
You need to get to my server and let me use you visciously for your other lots that are open Yah I like the way your current city is progressing much better.
Our city has been around since day one of cities .. and yah its rather sad when people leave game ... but its kinda nice when they come back to their stuff ... I know some people pay up their houses for 4 months because they know they are gonna be gone that long.
On the other hand ... would be nice if Mayors were given a notice when a house in their city limits became condemned... then after like say 4 weeks or less whatever ... of it being condemned the mayor was given the option to delete the house. That might help alot ... might also open room for griefing not sure ... just an idea to throw on the pot.
Catman-Does
Tue Jan 25, 2005 6:53 am
#25
Let me describe our little problem...
We recently took over a town, the people there all quit and went off to WOW and they kindly let us take over the city hall. Before we moved in most of the players had packed and left, the town had dropped to rank 1: outpost.
However some players just upped and left, leaving there houses down. What's annoying is
1) Some of the buildings are right in the way of where we want to build.
2) We have no idea how long these building will stand for.
3) We're not too sure who some of the owners are as names like "Guild Storage" don't give much of a clue.
We can't even get into some of these buildings. I've added the owners I know about to my friends list in the hope of catching them if they ever comeback online but it's been several months and I've not seen one of them.
We're quite willing to wait out and let the houses that have been abandoned get destroyed when their maintenance pool runs dry - as we don't have any other option.
So we've inherited several problems and another one presented itself last night: tried to put a streetlamp down only to be told the town was at it's maximum limit for decorations... expect there are no decorations in the town, only trainers and mission terms, a bank and a garage that was placed last night that doesn't allow us to repair our vehicles?!?.
What I would like to see is this:
Mayor can enter any building in the town. Has access to:
- view status.
- add to maintenance pool.
And these as new features:
- declare building for demolition.
- cancel demolition
Now people could just add the mayor to the admin list of their house but some people wont want to do that and what happens if the town elects a new mayor? It'd be better if the mayor (and maybe militia) could add to the maintenance pool of any buildings within the town's borders.
The Mayor(/militia?) should also recieve emails that a building within the town is at or near 0 in the maintenance pool. He/she can then opt to either let the house collapse or place some funds into the maintenance pool. I believe this would sort out several problems: if a player or players are away for extended periods theres not such a worry that their house won't be there when they get back, also the mayor can keep tabs on all buildings.
The new feature I've suggested: "declare building for demolition" will freeze out the maintenance pool, no more money can be added to the pool and no items can be placed in the building and the owner is sent an email requesting they take down their building. The building will still eat up the maintenance pool at the normal rate but unless the owner takes it down it will collapse. The "cancel demolition" will return the building to normal and notify the owner.
I think that's a fair enough system; rather than the mayor blowing up peoples houses with little or no warning. I know it still doesn't address the issue where buildings are blocking development but at least it would add a degree of control.
We recently took over a town, the people there all quit and went off to WOW and they kindly let us take over the city hall. Before we moved in most of the players had packed and left, the town had dropped to rank 1: outpost.
However some players just upped and left, leaving there houses down. What's annoying is
1) Some of the buildings are right in the way of where we want to build.
2) We have no idea how long these building will stand for.
3) We're not too sure who some of the owners are as names like "Guild Storage" don't give much of a clue.
We can't even get into some of these buildings. I've added the owners I know about to my friends list in the hope of catching them if they ever comeback online but it's been several months and I've not seen one of them.
We're quite willing to wait out and let the houses that have been abandoned get destroyed when their maintenance pool runs dry - as we don't have any other option.
So we've inherited several problems and another one presented itself last night: tried to put a streetlamp down only to be told the town was at it's maximum limit for decorations... expect there are no decorations in the town, only trainers and mission terms, a bank and a garage that was placed last night that doesn't allow us to repair our vehicles?!?.
What I would like to see is this:
Mayor can enter any building in the town. Has access to:
- view status.
- add to maintenance pool.
And these as new features:
- declare building for demolition.
- cancel demolition
Now people could just add the mayor to the admin list of their house but some people wont want to do that and what happens if the town elects a new mayor? It'd be better if the mayor (and maybe militia) could add to the maintenance pool of any buildings within the town's borders.
The Mayor(/militia?) should also recieve emails that a building within the town is at or near 0 in the maintenance pool. He/she can then opt to either let the house collapse or place some funds into the maintenance pool. I believe this would sort out several problems: if a player or players are away for extended periods theres not such a worry that their house won't be there when they get back, also the mayor can keep tabs on all buildings.
The new feature I've suggested: "declare building for demolition" will freeze out the maintenance pool, no more money can be added to the pool and no items can be placed in the building and the owner is sent an email requesting they take down their building. The building will still eat up the maintenance pool at the normal rate but unless the owner takes it down it will collapse. The "cancel demolition" will return the building to normal and notify the owner.
I think that's a fair enough system; rather than the mayor blowing up peoples houses with little or no warning. I know it still doesn't address the issue where buildings are blocking development but at least it would add a degree of control.
DaedalAho
Tue Jan 25, 2005 9:43 am
#26
Since this has gone into effect across the universe as of 12.1 it is an immediate concern.
I replied to the 12.1 announcement with a request that a mayor be able to destroy a condemned structure within his/her city. Lets just hope someone is listening. Sometimes, a member of an opposing faction will sneak a house in to your city and name it something like "imps suck, (input reb guild name here) rules!"
since the 12.1 update, this structure has the potential to exist in your city eternally.
This happened to one imperial guild, and they had to up and move the whole city.
This is a serious concern.
I replied to the 12.1 announcement with a request that a mayor be able to destroy a condemned structure within his/her city. Lets just hope someone is listening. Sometimes, a member of an opposing faction will sneak a house in to your city and name it something like "imps suck, (input reb guild name here) rules!"
since the 12.1 update, this structure has the potential to exist in your city eternally.
This happened to one imperial guild, and they had to up and move the whole city.
This is a serious concern.