Development Cycle Archive

Good evening folks!

With the addition of any big new feature for the game, there is bound to be a lot of discussion. There is some confusion about the player caps, rogue city halls and many other issues being discussed and I want to cover it all. These challenges are bound to occur whenever a major system is introduced into a game world and we are dedicated to working things through with you and getting it right. We know many of you have been waiting patiently for your cities and that time has come.

Player City Caps :: Caps raised but not Removed

There is a bit of confusion here for a few reasons, but let me clarify it all here right now. Yes, planetary caps are in place, but that’s because the Player City feature is a huge system that is tied into many different other game systems. To implement this properly, we are rolling it out in stages.

Now some of you have speculated as to why. The reason is not wholly because of the cities themselves, but the additional item storage that comes with each building. Because this can multiply very quickly, we want to do this in stages so we can address issues as they come up quickly and effectively. The alternative is to put things in with no caps and risk server instability. Given the choice of a quick rollout with no city caps and a big crash or a slow roll out with city caps and a more stable environment, we choose a slow roll out with city caps. The goal here is to keep the game as stable as possible.

The current caps are not permanent. We will be lifting the caps some time between now and the next publish which will be early December. To find out exactly what that number will be, we will be doing additional Player City Testing on Test Center. We don’t know what that number will be, but don’t despair, we have solutions to address many different player concerns here.

The most important change is that for all of the small settlements that want to be Player Cities, we don’t want to disappoint you. What is going to happen is that we are changing the functionality of Player City Outposts (City Level 1) a bit and removing them from the taxation and voting cycles. This way, any group, even small groups, can have their settlements evolve into a Player City. It will be a small outpost, but from what I’ve been hearing, many of you want that.

I do want set realistic expectations here though. Planet Caps are going to be raised, but not removed. The cap amounts will be progressively raised until a point where server stability is effected. Whatever that maximum number is will represent the maximum possible number within technological limits. That will be the maximum. We don’t know what that number is, but we will push it as far as it will go.

Additional Commentary may be found in Blair’s thread here:

A word on the player city cap...
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=10940

Rogue City Halls :: How to Reclaim your Territories

The Player City system has always been intended to be a big part of the game and its time has finally come. There have been instances where players have plopped buildings down into the middle of settlements and this is causing players distress. This is something that was unavoidable, but then, the system was designed to be able to deal with such incidents.

In essence, if this has happened, you need to vote them out and claim the hall for yourself. Here’s how to do it:

1. Declare your houses as residents of the city. This will make you citizens of that city.

2. Select a person in your group to be your leader. This person will be your mayor.

3. The mayor has to travel to one of the three capital cities and should take the Novice Politician Skill. This will allow that person to become a Mayor and to put their name on the voting ballot.

4. Return to the City Hall and go to the terminal in the main hall.

5. The mayor can use the radial menu to enter the race. Select the menu item, “Register to Run” to run for mayor.

6. Once the mayor is in the race, have all of the citizens vote for the mayor of your choice. Players should use the Voting Terminal to vote for their mayor. Players may select “Vote for Mayor” to place a vote and “View Standings” to see the number of votes per mayor. Players can change their vote up until the last moment and anyone who is a citizen can vote.

Player City :: Changes

As with all game systems, when it gets introduced onto live servers and thousands and thousands of players engage the system, there are always issues the come up and need to be changed. To better balance the creation of cities and to make things fun and playable, the developers have decided to make the following changes over the next few days and weeks:

* Player Outposts: This is the first evolution of a player city and begins with a city hall. Originally outposts could tax their residents and were counted in the initial (and temporary) planet cap. Instead, we are going to raise the population count of outposts to 10 and outposts will no longer count against the planetary cap. Now, small groups of players will be able to keep and maintain their Outpost Cities (which we feel is very Star Warsy). From there, it will be the responsibility of the players to vote for their mayors and grow their city. City Growth Cycle 2 and above will keep existing rules and taxation rules will be in effect.

* City Citizen Counts: The number of citizens in a Player City that will dictate the size of the city will all increase by 5 citizens. We feel the numbers reflect a better growth cycle for players. For instance, 5 people were required for an Outpost. That number will be raised to 10 players. This change should occur early next week and we will let you know if that changes.

* City Building Costs: All the prices for city structures have been updated. City Halls will vary with the city size. It is no longer a flat 50k and will now be based on the rank of your city which is controlled by the growth rank. For instance, an “outpost rank” city hall will cost less than a “city rank” city hall.

TH: will we still get vote XP as Mayors while we are an Outpost? or do we have to wait until we are Rank II to start gaining XP?

~~Shabhaii, Mayor of Tombra, Naboo
www.cityoftombra.com
The REAL BT
(Snitter): There isn't any island, Rowf...
(Rowf): There is... there... can't you see it... Our island...just stay with me.. I'll get you there...

You will get voting XP as an outpost

When you change the outpost requirment to 10 players, will current Outposts with 5 - 9 playes be disbanded? If they lose there city halls, how do you plan to reinburse them?

(Sorry for spelling)

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Whatever happened to the idea for the red light districts? I remember that was one of the skills you were supposed to learn as a politician when it was first tested in the Test Center.

I'm concerned about the change to the numbers... 10 for an outpostisn't so bad, but if it's five more for each... that means fitting five more houses in each city radius to expand. Not a problem at the high levels, but it's encouraging some uncomfortable cramming in of houses at the middle sections. Fifteen houses in the central radius takes some juggling already. Twenty will be rather cramped.

You may just need to reorganize . . . we've got 17 and are using not even half of our radius.

~~Shabhaii, Mayor of Tombra, Naboo
www.cityoftombra.com
The REAL BT
(Snitter): There isn't any island, Rowf...
(Rowf): There is... there... can't you see it... Our island...just stay with me.. I'll get you there...

The city I'm in has 26 as of last count residents (35 structures) in the initial radius and we've still got plenty of room.

Not everyone wants to be on a flat land though. Our future city is on the hills of Corellia and there are a few grand canyons around where our city hall will be placed thanks to its use for higher rank cities (nice and in the middle of the plateau) but oh well we can live. I"m curious though...if we become an outpost and hit 20 citizens when the cap is still at 10 what happens when the cap is upped? Do we get to go to rank 2 or is it whichever of the outpost towns have the most citizens get to go up while we smaller ones get screwed yet again?

I know you guys are going to eventually let us embrace the citites as planned but allowing lets say 50 outposts, each able to hit 20+ residents then upping the cap by an unforseen number that is potentially smaller then 50 makes me question how well this fix is going to work.

Placement limits due to terrain are VERY loose in player cities. Someone on test placed a med center literally on a cliff. (You had to walk up a back and forth ramp to get to it, it was like 3x normal height)

So will the race now be to see which cities on each planet hit the 20 citizen mark for the level 2 cap? Sounds like a great way to encourage cities to work hard through the week to make that goal but I imagine cities will still be evaluated for advancement based on the order they were placed right?

Um. Well, I'm happy they're going to raise the cap for people--but I'm very much not happy if they raise the minimum population for an outpost. If this goes up from 5 to 10, my plans to start a modest city with my friends and then attract other citizens is right out the door. If instead he meant lower the barrier between level 1 and level 2 to 10 from 15, that's more workable. I'd be happier with the chance of being easily voted out than with the chance that my city will evaporate suddenly due to a change in the rules.

So let me get this straight.... if you narrowly avoided being locked out the first time, now you can possibly be locked out a second time?