Cities And Housing Archive

I had this idea for the development NPC city thread:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=55824#M55824

Apartments:

• I love the idea of having an apartment. It could even be instanced to improve speed in the city. The elevator can be the load screen. Allow me to takemy group into my apartment with me in the elevator. This might even be a more efficient means of taking a group into a multi-player ship.
  
• If I had an apartment to put 100 items, I wouldn't need a safety deposit box at the bank, and this feature could be removed. Basically what I use my space yacht for now. It should cost 1 lot but hold 100 items (not the normal 75/lot).
  
• Make the apartment rent be equivelant to alargehouse upkeep for spaceport cities, same as a medium house for shuttleport-only cities. Give me a window with a view specific to the city I'm in. Allow rent to be automatically deducted from bank account. If not enough in the bank at the time rent is due, then email warning is sent and 1 hour after reading the email, the apartment is vacated and all remaining items are destroyed.
  
• Do not give specializations to NPC cities, as this takes away too much from the Player cities.
  
• Only one apartment per player. The apartment should NOT have to be the player's main residence.
  
• Apartments should not have a management terminal. All group members with the owner should automatically be on the entry list while there, and only the owner should be admin. (No lot sharing!)

Faction:

• For NPC cities that purport to have a faction, place covert faction terminals and garrison guards at all entrances, spaceports, and shuttleportsas checkpoints to keep out the unwanted troublemakers. This would also help to encourage overt players to keep residence in NPC faction cities for the added protection.
  
• Provide some hint of the political leanings of a city from the planetary map.

Quests:

• Each city should have notable people that can give quests or direct people to NPC's who can.
  
• Each NPC city should have a progressing storyline (like the election in Bestine) that players can take part in.

Market/Merchant Kiosks:

• Allow a Merchant to craft Merchant kiosks that can be manned by the merchant while he/she is online. The kiosk should come in several varieties based on the type of goods the merchant wants to sell (weapons, ship components, med supplies, food, armor, etc.)
  
• Treat this merchant as a droid deed with a storage compartment treated as that of a vendor (linked to the merchant's level). If the merchant goes off-line the kiosks is automatically stored.
  
• Kiosks can be called by any novice merchant by calling the deed like a vehicle or droid. Once called it is immobile.
  
• Kiosks can only be called/created in pre-designated market sectors of NPC cities and take up one square. Each city has a limited number of market squares. There should be a 10% (20% for spaceport cities)convenience fee surcharge on all purchases from a kiosk. (a choice spot like this can't be free!)
  
• Kiosks could also replace the junk dealers in NPC cities. Kiosk merchants should be able to hand out loot kits, but the owning merchant shouls not get the revenue from this static game element.
  
• Kiosks can buy junk components like the current junk dealers. This does not create revenue for the merchant, but the item is removed from the game (like the current junk dealer) instead of going into the vendor's storage.
  
• Items purchased from a kiosk must be placed in the purchaser's inventory. If the inventory is full, the purchaser cannot purchase that item. (What if the merchant goes offline before the item is picked up?)
  
• Allow an architect to craft a 10x10 Market deed for Player cities that act like the NPC market described above, but without the 10% surcharge. (player cities already have sales tax)
  
• Each kiosk has a vendor manning it that gives a junk dealer discussion thread with the additional option "Let me see what you have for sale" that brings up the vendor interface.

That should be it. Homes, stores, protection, purpose for living. What else does a city need? I tried to balance my suggestions so that it would not take away all incentives for player cities.