Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Player Cities: Where we are and where we are going.
Just a few personal thoughts
City Cap- Due to the fact that there is only so much space on a planet to start with they should be in place. I agree that I do not want to run through the countryside and just go through one city and another not seeing any trees or lairs due to overbuilding. But I think the city cap should start at a city rank of 3. Most PA's and class guilds would benifit being able to create an outpost and then building to a village. The city area is still small the benifits would be realized in support structures for players as well as the smallest city benifits. All around it would be a viable solution for creating a true localized support structure for a player association without detracting from planet area, city slots and would not gain any of the advanced abilities that TRUE city should have if rank 3 or above.
What is a city-The city my character developed in was coronet. It had imperial, rebel and neutral people living within its walls. WE ALL came there to work and play and pvp and whatever. Militia was there to only enforce against those whose factional rating went against them. And in all this chaos we all had a good time. Should a player city be the same way? I would like to see post from someone in each city letting us know what their player city is bassed on. Is it a war stronhold? is it a factional city? is it a open city? I am just interested.
Anyways, something needs to be done. There are already too many player cities, and too few serious player cities. I have no problem with a few outposts here and there, especially extremist/fanatical factioned ones with faction bases in/by them (that has a great GCW feel, reminds me of Montana, though, lol). But I can't walk anywhere without walking through cities constantly. It feels like there's more city than wilderness. And on my server (Eclipse), Dantooine is turning into Coruscant!
Make them much more money-sucking, I say! Not only do we need more money drains, but this would solve many problems. Many of the outposts should fall into disrepair if not properly maintained. Big cities should cost a TON to maintain -- they're BIG CITIES! The Isle of the Misfits probably has well over a billion credits among it's top ten richest members (honestly, probably more like 5 billion -- no exaggeration). Some 50k a week fee is NOTHING. It should cost at least a million a week -- at least. And even outposts should cost quite a bit. It'll mean that small groups can have them, but they have to work for them. We have to work our butts off for faction bases, right? I mean, I'll make at least 10 million credits from missions just while saving up for a faction base. An outpost should represent at least as much work as a faction base. It also has 10 people working on it instead of just one! A city has 50 people contributing.City maintenance should be EXPENSIVE!
Then we wouldn't have to worry about first-come first-serve BS, that doesn't reflect realism, frustrates everyone, and is a horrible way to dole out anything. We also wouldn't have cities covering the whole landscape, they would be valuable and take work (as they should!). We would also have an inflation-balancing mechanism, which is becoming important, and will become much more so (the inflation is exponential -- CDEFs will cost millions in a couple months!).
I plan to have an outpost with a few of my buddies. One with an imperial headquarters, too. And I would have no problem paying a ton for it. It would not only give me something to work for and be proud of, but make it valuable. I wouldn't be just another schmo with an outpost, like everyone else has, that sits in the corner of a planet just for show. It would instead say, "man, some people are working hard for this, they have their own outpost!" It would be something...
Where we are: about 200 meters from where we started
Where we are going: Into the nether regions (or maybe into that skyscape hidden in my buildings)
City Drift Fix Needed Before Publish
Xodarap777 wrote:
Anyways, something needs to be done. There are already too many player cities, and too few serious player cities. I have no problem with a few outposts here and there, especially extremist/fanatical factioned ones with faction bases in/by them (that has a great GCW feel, reminds me of Montana, though, lol). But I can't walk anywhere without walking through cities constantly. It feels like there's more city than wilderness. And on my server (Eclipse), Dantooine is turning into Coruscant!
Make them much more money-sucking, I say! Not only do we need more money drains, but this would solve many problems. Many of the outposts should fall into disrepair if not properly maintained. Big cities should cost a TON to maintain -- they're BIG CITIES! The Isle of the Misfits probably has well over a billion credits among it's top ten richest members (honestly, probably more like 5 billion -- no exaggeration). Some 50k a week fee is NOTHING. It should cost at least a million a week -- at least. And even outposts should cost quite a bit. It'll mean that small groups can have them, but they have to work for them. We have to work our butts off for faction bases, right? I mean, I'll make at least 10 million credits from missions just while saving up for a faction base. An outpost should represent at least as much work as a faction base. It also has 10 people working on it instead of just one! A city has 50 people contributing.City maintenance should be EXPENSIVE!
Then we wouldn't have to worry about first-come first-serve BS, that doesn't reflect realism, frustrates everyone, and is a horrible way to dole out anything. We also wouldn't have cities covering the whole landscape, they would be valuable and take work (as they should!). We would also have an inflation-balancing mechanism, which is becoming important, and will become much more so (the inflation is exponential -- CDEFs will cost millions in a couple months!).
I plan to have an outpost with a few of my buddies. One with an imperial headquarters, too. And I would have no problem paying a ton for it. It would not only give me something to work for and be proud of, but make it valuable. I wouldn't be just another schmo with an outpost, like everyone else has, that sits in the corner of a planet just for show. It would instead say, "man, some people are working hard for this, they have their own outpost!" It would be something...
OMG... pure genius, man... pure genius
Kaylin wrote:
There are too many small outposts who have 10 to 11 people with disorganized houses that eat important city lots. What'sbad about thisis that groups like my own, of 50+ have lost out to these tiny outposts. Not only that with the zoning restrictions set into place, there is no way to move in on these small outposts and take over either.. Oncesomeone has a city hall down it's over..there is nothing you can do.In the endwhich wastes 1000m lots of land and causes a massive rift of hatred in the player community.
The currentsituation is simply unfair...A possible solution..have people compile money to buy a city hall lot. This would stop land rushes, and create a waiting line for the option to place a player city based on the ammount of money put into. Bi monthly the top 5 bidders in line would be able to place a city hall
I thought exactly the same thing. On Eclipse, our UBER PA, full of all of the richest merchants and powergamers, the Misfits (of which I am not a part, but they really do benevolently control the server, ask anyone), were unable to place a city, because their politician could not get into the servers on restart on the first morning of player cities. So all of these relatively noob-controlled small groups placed a bunch of cities. It was silly. The player cities on our server are totally unrelated to guild and player dynamics.
I thought it should be something like city halls cost 50 mill just to place. That may sound steep, but 1) it'll ensure that people are really serious about placing a city, not just "ooh that sounds neat" and then they place it and don't really do anything with it; 2) it will usually require a group of people all willing to invest in their city; 3) this game BADLY needs money drains, and this would be a good one (inflation is TERRIBLE on Eclipse); 4) those who "deserve" cities will get them (think IRL -- you don't found anything without a ton of cash). In fact, I first thought it should be 500 million. That wouldslow down development (it's out of control right now!), and produce a much needed major money drain for bloated smiths and merchants.
Too late now, though... 
I just wanted to touch base on the Player City Caps. We had hoped to increase the Player City caps before this publish, but the migrating city issues and the vendor recovery issues took precedence. For a heads up for those of you that read the forums, we are raising the Player City Caps with this publish so when it goes live, now is your chance to create your cities.
For those of you that have been experiencing some problems with maintaining your player cities, please contact a CSR so we can work with you to get everything taken care of.
Ackeck wrote:
Now, any idea when that publish is gonna be? /crosses fingers for tomorrow
A bunch of folks are hard at work (right now actually)trying to start the Trickle Patch tomorrow. We're going to be doing it the way we didit last time in partial downloads so we don't choke your machine with one big 20+ MB gulp. We want this processto be done by sometime next week and thats our goal.
Hey there TH... please excuse my lack of understanding on certian terms
When you mean "trickle patch" do you mean that either fixesor additions will be sent to a server that will be enabled and"live"the moment they are uploaded and distributed to the clients, or do you mean these fixes and additions will sit on a server and get distributed to the clients over a week and then the final patch will enable the content.
If my first understanding is correct, then is is possible the vehicles will be the first to be enabled and live in the "trickle patch"
Thanks for your time