Cities And Housing Archive
Thread: Cleaning up Dead cities
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Warkk
Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:52 pm
#1
The dev's should really clean up dead cities. Nothing pisses people off more then when you're about to place a city hall and you get the "player_structure[max_cities]" error
I Love my
Tzosskinati
Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:59 pm
#2
Exactly....Sorry I started this game Late Dev's ,but I am a paying customer now with multiple accounts and its not fair that me and my friends dont have the oppurtunity to start a city on naboo because we just now got into this game.
Too many cities are abandoned...being maintained by a few people who have a majority of there housing from lot swappers from other servers.
Give the new players coming into the game the oppurtunity to create a city with my friends now that we play. That is what is advertised with the game , correct? Build your own city with your friends. Well here we are..we all been playing 3-4 months now and we dont get the oppurtunities to play the game like others who started before us.
CLEAN UP THE CITIES !!!!!
That should be your top priority...A Massive purge of all accounts not active.
Its not fair that New Players coming into the game dont get a chance to create a city anymore...Be Fair..I pay for this game just like all those who left..now purge there accounts and make room for the people who WANT to play the game...or find that people leave to play another game.
Too many cities are abandoned...being maintained by a few people who have a majority of there housing from lot swappers from other servers.
Give the new players coming into the game the oppurtunity to create a city with my friends now that we play. That is what is advertised with the game , correct? Build your own city with your friends. Well here we are..we all been playing 3-4 months now and we dont get the oppurtunities to play the game like others who started before us.
CLEAN UP THE CITIES !!!!!
That should be your top priority...A Massive purge of all accounts not active.
Its not fair that New Players coming into the game dont get a chance to create a city anymore...Be Fair..I pay for this game just like all those who left..now purge there accounts and make room for the people who WANT to play the game...or find that people leave to play another game.
Warkk
Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:09 pm
#3
Tzosskinati wrote:
Exactly....Sorry I started this game Late Dev's ,but I am a paying customer now with multiple accounts and its not fair that me and my friends dont have the oppurtunity to start a city on naboo because we just now got into this game.
Too many cities are abandoned...being maintained by a few people who have a majority of there housing from lot swappers from other servers.
Give the new players coming into the game the oppurtunity to create a city with my friends now that we play. That is what is advertised with the game , correct? Build your own city with your friends. Well here we are..we all been playing 3-4 months now and we dont get the oppurtunities to play the game like others who started before us.
CLEAN UP THE CITIES !!!!!
That should be your top priority...A Massive purge of all accounts not active.
Its not fair that New Players coming into the game dont get a chance to create a city anymore...Be Fair..I pay for this game just like all those who left..now purge there accounts and make room for the people who WANT to play the game...or find that people leave to play another game.
amen, brother
Warkk
Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:15 pm
#4
The account purge would be sweet, it could work like this:
Once your account has not been online for X Months, it will become inactive, all houses, buildings you own will be destroyed and you only keep whats in your inventory.
If you are still inactive for X Months it will be canceled
If you decide to play again, it will ask you to re-activate your account (much like web-based e-mails do ie. hotmail, yahoo ect.)
LukeBorgman
Wed Feb 16, 2005 5:10 pm
#5
A Dead City purge does not necessarily require a character purge.
I (and a lot of other players recently) have returned from a few months away (4 in my case). SOE is wise to delay destruction of player items in hopes they will return. I hope more do because more players is better for the game as a whole and those of us playing it now. There's probably things they could do to leave their options open for players putting their items on ice, but massive deletions is not necessary and would hurt a lot of potentially returning players. Before instituting a purge, they should create a storage facility mechanism, that is not a player structure, where you can put all (or most of) your items to keep them in the database but not cluttering the landscape. ...but I digress.
The real issue of the original post is Player Cities. I think lot swapped cities are not good for the servers they're on. Did they ever re-institute the system that removed residents who were "inactive" for too long? At the very least, closed accounts should not be counted as residents.
They could also add some overall PC inactivity check that would make a City Hall poof if no one votes or too few residents are active.
Again, I support the idea of PC purging, but not player structure purging. They are two separate issues.
Message Edited by LukeBorgman on 02-16-2005 04:11 PM
MBLAST
Wed Feb 16, 2005 6:29 pm
#6
I agree. Dead cities need to be cleaned up. Our city has had this problem before, but luckly, it went away after a while.
ReinerdOne
Thu Feb 17, 2005 12:14 am
#7
Warkk wrote:
The account purge would be sweet, it could work like this:
Once your account has not been online for X Months, it will become inactive, all houses, buildings you own will be destroyed and you only keep whats in your inventory.
If you are still inactive for X Months it will be canceled
If you decide to play again, it will ask you to re-activate your account (much like web-based e-mails do ie. hotmail, yahoo ect.)
ummm not inactive , but cancelled accounts.... i work on ships and i sail for 4 months at a time, i'd hate to find out i lost 2 years of work because they implemented this while i was away and still paying premium to make sure my items arent destroyed
GrafvonSoden
Thu Feb 17, 2005 8:50 am
#8
I've been in this game since the last beta, and I agree. Something needs to be done. They keep saying they're going to purge accounts that have been cancelled for over 6 months, but they just can't seem to get around to doing it.
I think they should purge anything not in the characters bank or inventory. If you are going to leave the game (cancel your account)but plan to return, then take care of business and put what you want to keep the most in your bank or inventory.
But as it stands right now, the Devs have changed the house decay to automatically deduct credits from the characters bank, instead of just decaying away. While this does drain the credits from the inactive and/or cancelled accounts, it still leaves too many buildings in play that shouldnt be there.
Thanks
CrimeDog1
Thu Feb 17, 2005 10:02 am
#9
There is a bigger issue, as a city grows you might want to move your shuttle, or develop a new area of town. But guess what? You can't because there are structures from people that havent played in 6 months and there is no way to contact them.
People decide to quit, and off they go...leaving behind structures withmonths/years of maintenance in them and the response is "there is still a person on admin and a few items in the house so there is nothing we can do. Eventually when the maintenance runs out the house should go away, until then try contacting the owner and see if they will move it". Can't really contact someone who is gone...
Homes havestopped decaying. Ihave one sitting on 33% now for overfour weeks. Just when I thought I was about to getsome room in my city...
I bet if they did a purge there would be alot of happy mayors...and why should the city expansion and game play of active players be given a backseat for those that want a break to play other games "while waiting for SOE to give me the content I am looking for". Quit the game, or play the game, but don't blockade player cities with dead structures.
Cheers,
Criminalus
Rutigrr
Thu Feb 17, 2005 10:16 am
#10
This is just an idea, but how bout this:
If a citizen of a city doesn't vote in two or three consecutive elections, they cease to become residents of the city. Give city mayors an option to give eviction notices to non-resident players. A non-resident player has 30 days to either re-declare their residence or the building can be torn down by the city.Maybe this is drastic, but it gives a non-active player ample opportunity to take time away from the game without losing anything. It also gives mayors a chance to purge the dead wood from their cities.
This doesn't answer the question about those of you who on away on duty who want to keep their accounts safe. There are several options open to you. First, keep a residence outside of a city for your posessions while you are away. You cant reall y expect to keep prime real estate in a city when you are not active in the game. Allow active players to participate and enjoy some of the experience. Honestly, are you any different than the afk buffers or entertainers....just taking up space while you aren't at your computer playing the game? Another option, though a risky one and probably not endorsed by SOE, is to give your account information to someone you trust. Have them make periodic logins with your char, keeping your toon up to date on the status of your city/guild.
Bottom line, even people who only play casually should take responsibility for their homes. By living in a city, you owe it to your fellow citizens to participate in the city or to move out.
Railean
Thu Feb 17, 2005 10:45 am
#11
How about leaving all the buildings in the city alone, but just cancelling their city status? This way people can place new cities, but the old buildings of removed city status are still there.
Crimsonsplat
Thu Feb 17, 2005 10:50 am
#12
This is a messy issue and SOE hasn't been able (or bothered) to create a good answer. On the face, it seems to be a good idea to delete"orphaned" buildings. On the other hand, I use 2 factories and three houses (for storage) belonging to people who aren't in the game anymore, or no longer play on my server. I don't know which ("inherited" a couple). I pay maintenance on all of them. Two are in the same city; the rest are "free-standing." SOE has obviously not come up with a solution that won't outrage the thousands and thousands of players doing the same thing.
Spare me the moralizing about how I'm breaking the game, please. They leave them in, partly just in case players come back, but it's largelypoor game design. The problem is SOE's lot limits are tied to characters, not classes. And all crafting requires huge numbers of lots. Mining resources takes lots--lots of lots!. Storing resources and sub-components takes lots. Storing completed items takes lots. Multiple factories are needed to produce items in a reasonable time--more lots.
A crafter is faced withfour alternatives:
1. Lengthy production times, & large runs:On 2nd account,I set up a single food/chem factory and decided to make a full 1k run of Stim-b's.It has taken over four days for just the three sub-components. Then the final run will probably take two days. After that I'm going to have 20-100 crates. (I forget how many stim-B's in a crate.. 20?) Now multiply this by a wide array of items. Result = fewer stacks of resources stored, but more product.
2. Lengthy production times & small runs: Factory-produce a few of each item, and then store the components & schematic between runs. Less stock kept on hand, but higher requirements for resource/schematic storage. Also problems with forgetting and using up a key resource in multiple schematics. (I'm bad about this with furniture.)Quality resource needs are highly unpredictable, depending on sales, and out-of-stock problems nearly constant. Requires close attention on almost daily basis.
3. Quick production & large runs: Multiple factories used to produce sub-components in bulk.Very large storage requirements (esp. for Architects and non-crated OMU's). Requires more factories & large numbers of lots, but lends itself to pre-planning & leaves the most free time for other pursuits.
4. Quick production& small runs: Worst of both worlds. More lots tied up in factories; large amounts of resources kept on hand, dozens of schematics. Multiple final items may be possible from the same sub-components, which encourages hoarding of sub-components & small finalproduction runs as needed. Very high storage requirements on both ends of production process.
My Architectuses#4 due to lack of harvesters for ore: I can make semi-large runs of power cores, generators, etc. from grindresourcesand then do OMU's/Turbo FluidicPumps, etc.& assemble what I need when the quality ore/aluminum/steel become available for the final combine. But this means when a high quality resource pops, I jump on it and mine as much as possible; then sit on it until the remaining quality resources pop in turn.
It is for these reasons crafters have been begging for an increase in item storage (the recent increase helped) and have resorted to using vendors for storage. Many screamed when a bug fixing crafting station storage limits was fixed in Pub 13. I have kicked around several suggestions for fixing the problem; the best one I've been able to come up with is that certain skill boxes give lots that can be used only towards specificstructures:
1. (new) Shop: larger, profession-specific vendor location. Vendors not allowed in anything but Merchant Tents and Shops. High box ormaster of eliteprofession required.
2. (new) Warehouse: 1 lot, 1000 storage items. You can have only one, and must be at least novice in an elite crafting profession.
3. Increased lots used only for harvesters, available with the surveying tree of Artisan & elite crafting professions.
Database room for items 2 and 3 to be made by reducing the global lot allowance to 7, anddeletingtheorphaned/excessstructures. (The items have been confiscated by the Empire & sold to finance the war!) Record all the itemsto backup & if someone returns to the game, charge them $15-20 (or 1-2 months fee) to retreive it. Only the owner can retrieve the items.
The hard part would obviously be the transition from the current system to the new one. It might be necessary to delay full implimentation of the delete by 30 days; in the meantime anyone on the admin list of a structurecan retrieve items/deeds etc. through a specialized bazaar function for free. Warn everyone in advance so that they can try to get all their necessary items into homes they own or storage vendors. (obviously the new warehouses,withtheir higher limit,can't be introduced until the database has been cleared of sufficient items).
Maybe it's not the best idea, but it's an idea.... I need to go cross post this elsewhere.
Resetgun
Thu Feb 17, 2005 2:24 pm
#13
01-23-2005 SoeTyrant wrote:
Our character and housing purge system is coming. Houses which belong to inactive accounts will be removed from the world, regardless of maintenance fees. More details will be out on this within a few weeks, well before it hits the servers.
Gordon Walton
Sony Online Entertainment
01-20-2005 SoeTyrant wrote:
This is coming soon (within a couple of months). The design will go into In-Concept soon. Short version is housing will be rolled up after 6 months and characters deleted after a year of non-payment. Yes, there are a lot of other provisos and details, but please wait for the design to show up and we will take feedback on it in concept.
BlacOtaku wrote:
This issue has crossed my mind more than once and I finally have the time to address it. How long does it take for a deleted character to be removed from the system? Also, if the account is deactivated, how long is it before the system purges the character? Any response is appreciated.
Gordon Walton
Sony Online Entertainment
Message Edited by Resetgun on 02-17-2005 01:26 PM
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