Cities And Housing Archive
Thread: City Maint fees bankrupting mayors?
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Rodian-Bob
Fri Jan 21, 2005 4:54 pm
#14
Khristen wrote:
...Player's can easily afford 2k a week in income tax--even for a noob that's only about 2-3 missions off of the mission terminal...
With a weekly cost of a shuttleport city around 500k, taking in 2k a week for 60 players...
I ain't that good at math, but seems to me to be about 25% of the cost there.
Fact is, to keep a city afloat, you need quite a few active players willing to part with a significant number ofcredits on a regular basis. I congratulate my fellow Rodian Kinshi and his mightily successful town. I think every server has a couple of towns like that, it's just a challenge to pull off.
The mission-terminal auto-donation idea to generate city revenue that Veustuh suggested is a good one, and would help cities a lot I think.
I have been through 2 failed cities since they've been put in. In the first one, the Mayor had RL issues and disappeared for 2 months. The second one had a shuttleport for a couple of weeks and then thetown's established support PA drifted away until the town disintegrated.Upon my last move, (to Lok)I decided to be one of those dedicated citizens that donate every week or so to keep the place running.
Long live Perdition!
Message Edited by Rodian-Bob on 01-21-2005 03:59 PM
-Bob is Robii D'Luminatii
jphillips1868
Sat Jan 22, 2005 1:01 am
#15
Kinshi wrote:
You realize that the solo group nerf in NO WAY relates to not being able to afford taxes?
the city does not get a cut of the rewards from the mission terminal
This is techincally true, but if I as a citizen can go out and make 700k in a buff without,itsreally not a problem to make a large donation because I know I can quickly replace those credits. With missions at 10 to 11k a pop, I still donate to our city, but not nearly to the extentthat I was willing to before.
Our city recently faced this problem recently. We decided to raise the taxes. Like many guilds, we had a number of players leaveat least ifthey are going to have inactive houses taking up space, theycan contribute to our maintainence. The taxes make those houses go poof a bit faster too!
But I agree with the sentiment that if the city isn't breaking even or is at least fairly close to that, you have to raise taxes, eliminate some of your city services,andif all of that doesn't work, merge with another city.
Athela
Sat Jan 22, 2005 5:54 am
#16
I'm definitely not footing the whole bill but I put 150-200k per week in from my Tailor Business just to keep the funds nice and stable. I also held a town meeting and pointed out only about half the city maintenance comes from property tax, shuttle, garage and said I had been putting in the rest. Donations have been generous and we're doing fine now. I think you have to let people know, there is no reason to just suffer silently. Ask for help. Find your most active players, make them militia, give them the infamous "ownership" in the city so you have lots of help.
Minnie, Mayor Crimson Flats, Talus Kettemoor
WookieIsshe
Sat Jan 22, 2005 10:44 pm
#17
I have started donating 100k per week to my guilds city. I only get 2 days a week to play at most now with the new baby here and my job. But I make nearly 800k during those 2 days so I can easily afford 100k per week. Hopefully everyone else in our guild will do the same.
Smart_Darwin
Mon Jan 24, 2005 10:24 am
#18
This raises an intersting possibility... how about a reccomended income tax? This would not be mandatory of course, but the charismatic/active mayor could speak to his citicens about the needs of the city and suggest they contribute a certain percentage of thier weekly income. This way, less sucessful players would not have to deal with another burden but as thier fortunes increse, so do thier committments.
Gasp
Mon Jan 24, 2005 12:40 pm
#19
When I decided to run for mayor, I made sure I would be able to afford the city fees alone. Yes, I'm a resource seller on one alt & a master chef/tailor on another...so incoming credits haven't been an issue. However, all it takes is a well worded email to your citizens explaining the costs & the weekly fee..AND telling them how to donate anonymously! It works wonders
OldManDog
Mon Jan 24, 2005 4:55 pm
#20
The real problem is that cities are sorta backwards, in the "real world" one would think that a city is formed because a group of people built their houses near something of intreast.
ie. a Watering Hole, they need water to survive and why not be close, after a month you have 25-50 people building, I'd say that's turning into a community. Someone decides that a body/government should be formed to rule/protect the watering hole because im constantly bathing in it. Thusdropping a townhall to form an Offical City and Policing System (which this game is in total lack of)
Give Mayors the Ability to Evict & Fine residents and we'll soon find ourselfs living where we want to instead of in
"Mos Destined to Fail"
If the "Watering Hole" is too far fetched, use an in-game attraction, Bases/Places to declare your factionfor example.
Message Edited by OldManDog on 01-24-2005 04:00 PM
OldManDog
Mon Jan 24, 2005 5:15 pm
#21
Kandee, You might have to put it in simpler terms for them not to overlook what you're really saying or at least what I think you're saying.
- I Don't want to pay all the maintainences!
- How do I get people to stay in my city if I have to raise taxes so that I dont have to pay for the maintainences all alone?
I think that the people who did reply, were either Misunderstood or werejust trying to be nice about it. Because you cannot, people either want to live there or they dont. You can struggle with it, build an attraction that brings the people back or give up and either let someone else try or tell your citezens that all your hard work over the past 6-16 months was fun but everything must come to an end & should start moving out before the townhall goes along with the shuttleport.
/shrug
Lonaris
Mon Jan 24, 2005 9:28 pm
#22
There really are no benifits to living in a town ... other then being able to say you live in a town ... a ton of people have set up on the borders of our town (as we have zoning on to keep our city well layed out.)
However we have a real sense of comminuty and our town loves to be together. We were the secound player city on our server AND we still have our original mayor. We lost our shuttleport twice ... and still we stayed together and pulled through it. Recently no one was paying attention and our city went into the red ... terminals poofed and decorations went away. Was funny because the citizens freaked out and finally realized what happens when everyone does not help contribute.
The solutions we came up with is we auction off some of our items and donate the money to city ... we all have city hunts to raise money for the town. Dont know if that will help you much. Maybe ask your citizens to donate money or items once a week .. then you can sell off the items for cash for the city.
sweatyclimber
Mon Jan 24, 2005 9:50 pm
#23
as stated the biggest problem is too many citys and the fact that the main income source for citys IS BROKEN
fix the sales tax bug already!
LordDredd
Tue Jan 25, 2005 1:32 am
#24
I for one am also of the opinion that there are too many towns. Seems like every time someone forms a guild, they have to form a city as well. We're actually doing a census on Kettemoor of all player cities, and I will gladly share the results here. But the point is, that unless you have one or more large guilds supporting you and/or a great location, setup, and theme going, you are going to falter.
I am the Magistrate of a level 5 metropolis on Dantooine. Our normal maintenance with everything maxed, is about 650,000 credits per week. We have an additional 250,000 credits per week maintenance for several government and military owned buildings.
Being the richest man in the city, I cover 1/4 of the total costs myself. I make enough income from my three businesses(12pointweapons, starships, and low/high end resources,) that I can easily cover all of it without much of a dent if I wanted to. However, I realize it isnt just my city, and therefore not just my responsibility. And my citizens realize this as well. So how do we raise the other 3/4 you ask?
First, we have a weekly tax hunt. Since Mokk/Janta are still the top payers on Dantooine, we go on missions to collect "taxes" from all the local settlements. 
What about the non-combatants you say? Simple. Being an Imperial RP community, we turned a small generic building into an IRS (Imperial Revenue Service) Office. Inside we decorated it like an official office, and I placed a vendor inside in an Imperial uniform. I then filled him up with armor segments titled "Tax Chit" and placed them on the vendor for 50, 100, and 150,000 credits. So those who either cant fight, or their schedules make them miss the tax hunt, can now pay taxes directly. I then later deposit the money into the treasury once a week before the deadline.
Stormtrooper Detachment Omega
Laeren
Tue Jan 25, 2005 11:05 am
#25
Smart_Darwin wrote:
This raises an intersting possibility... how about a reccomended income tax? This would not be mandatory of course, but the charismatic/active mayor could speak to his citicens about the needs of the city and suggest they contribute a certain percentage of thier weekly income. This way, less sucessful players would not have to deal with another burden but as thier fortunes increse, so do thier committments.
This was something we started a long time ago. With every incoming merchant I tell them that we have a voluntary sales tax of 3% of their total earnings for the month. I tell them it's not kept track of and is really a form of donation to the city, but that 3% is a good guideline for what they feel they can donate.
The citizens have been very accepting of this and realize that they can do it or not do it, depending on their ability to do so.
I think this works pretty well for us.
Bhasayate
Tue Jan 25, 2005 1:19 pm
#26
Another thing that needs to happen.
There is NO way for Mayors to make money, except by pulling money from the treasurey.
That needs to change. We should have some sort of personal income that is not simply gained by taking away from the town, as I put most of my money into the town, too.
Perhaps something analogous to missions? Perhaps bonuses from teh "city authority" for being elected? Anything! WE don't get no loving, and yet we do hella work.
/grrr
There is NO way for Mayors to make money, except by pulling money from the treasurey.
That needs to change. We should have some sort of personal income that is not simply gained by taking away from the town, as I put most of my money into the town, too.
Perhaps something analogous to missions? Perhaps bonuses from teh "city authority" for being elected? Anything! WE don't get no loving, and yet we do hella work.
/grrr
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