Player Associations Archive
Thread: Allegiance Method.. GONE! New PA Leadership Voting system in!
Vrond wrote:
I think I should explain my situtation better.
I am in a smaller guild about 30 members. Most of the guild are crafters of some sort and have their lots tied up in harvestors and such. Our guild leader to whom we are all totlally loyal is an entertainer and she has a large house museum and the guilds cantina in her name 10 lots used.
As a combat type I had little need for lots so I was selected to hold the guilds PA hall. I also have a small house where I store my JTL stuff and a factory for my smuggler work.
We do own multiple halls as our mall is a PA hall also our tailor owns this building.
For our leader to take control of a PA hall will be very difficult. Her museum is full of display items and not easliy transfered. Reading through this list I am not clear on what the status will be of the guild when this all goes live.
Since we own mutiple halls but the guild leader is not owner of any of them which hall will be the "guild hall"?
Which ever hall she chooses to claim will become the guild hall. The only thing I can recommend in your situation is a lot trade between the leader and yourself. Perhaps she could transfer the large house to you and you keep her on the admin list and you swap the PA Hall to her. That's really about the only option you guys will have. She'll have to choose a hall before you can use a guild terminal again.
I've submitted alternatives and suggestions often but so far the devs aren't willing to change the system. The guild leader will have to own the hall.
Rothin wrote:
I've submitted alternatives and suggestions often but so far the devs aren't willing to change the system. The guild leader will have to own the hall.
I have been racking my brain trying to understand why they have taken this position. There is no precedent within the game or within real life. In fact, in real life, it is often the opposite case, where the leader gets free housing. The governor doesn't own the capitol, and a governor's mansion is supplied for freewhile the person remains governor. Pastors don't own the church, but often the church provides a parsonage.
Within the game, city halls and faction bases can be placed without lot penalty.
I just don't understand why 5 free lot spaces are required for guild leadership. I can't seem to relate one with the other. (In all fairness, I must say that I am glad it is not still 9 lot spaces.)
I realize this is NOT your personal position. In fact, from your posts, you appear to share the same opinion as the rest of us. But perhaps you can attempt to help us understand the developers' position on this.
It appears to be just one in a large number of changes that make life as a crafter progressively more difficult. Lot spaces are to a crafter what weapons are to a combatant. They are the single most limiting factor in the speed of obtaining resources and running factories. This all but eliminates an active crafterfrom a position of guild leadership. With so many recent changes causing non-combatants progressively more frustration, I can't help but wonder of there is an underlying agenda to increase the percentage of combatants in the game.
Additionally, it is getting progressively harder for a one-account player to enjoy the game.
The sad thing about this is that guild politics are one of the few features of the game that are entirely player-designed. Guilds are players, very simply. And the government of those players is open to their own choosing, hopefully with limited interference from the game infrastructure. My own guild is run by an executive council. The guild leader has fairly limited powers, but a responsibility to keep the terminal up to date. Our current guild leader does a very good job of this, but since she is primarily an architect, I don't see how she will be able to remain in that position. Less than 10% of our guild is made up of pure combatants. The remainder of us are limited in lot spaces.
You have been faithfullypushing, for as long as I have been reading your posts, for a more player-responsive method of changing guild leadership. It is sad that, after all this time, you finally get a positive response that contains an albatross such as this one.
Rothin, I want you to know that I appreciate the hard work you have done in your position. It is hard to bear bad news, as correspondents must do at times, especially if that bad news is something you fought against.
I just want to say first, the Developers aren't out to try to make life more difficult on Crafters, Entertainers, or anyone for that matter. They aren't trying to up account sales and make it more difficult on single account players, in fact thats one reason they have been lowering the lot requirements for the halls, upping the storage, etc.. they are trying to make it easier on the casual gamer.
With that said, the vision has always been that guild halls should have always been guild only structures. They were never intended to be used as malls, museums, houses, or any other type of building. They were meant to serve as a central meeting place or decorated structure for the guild itself. This was in part shown by the fact that the person who created the guild had to be the guild hall owner originally. You had to free up the lots to place the hall originally and then create the guild, thus showing you are dedicated to the guild itself. The /transferstructure command was actually never supposed to work with guild halls, only regular housing but it did. Which overall with lot swapping, dual accounts, high lot costs for the halls, etc.. all got us to where we are now.
They've taken a few steps to make things easier on people. Lowered the costs from 9 to 7, then to 5 where we are now. Increased the storage capability by 150 items to a total of 400 items per hall. This was all designed to try to make it less of a burden on the guild leader to own the hall. The Guild Hall is technically owned by the guild itself, that's why they all bind to the guild when a member places them. I don't believe guilds were even meant to have more than one hall associated with them, but again it wasn't disabled either. So eventually it became commonplace for it to happen.
These changes are designed to get us back to the vision of guild halls belonging to the guild itself rather than an individual. I hope this is only the first step in doing that because as we all see it's not enough to do it on its own and as it stands, really creates a lot more issues for us. I just hope that they'll consider my suggestions (Which everyone here has agreed with) and impliment them as that's the only way I can see guild halls ever truly belonging to the guild itself. Until then, unfortunately, I do have to be the bearer of bad news (but there was some good news to go along with it I think).
The thing about crafting guilds is, just as effectively as you can have someone hold the guild hall, they can hold factories or storage houses, harvesters, etc.. in its place so you can hold the hall. It's more of a hassle to have it done, but its still very much in the realm of possibility. (I know because I used to have people do it for me when I was pure crafting when the gamr first launched) and very much like you said, I share the same opinions you guys do because I am a player and know how it'll effect us.
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Message Edited by BioEngine on 03-23-2005 04:20 PM
This is the patch note I was referring to: "In many cases, the owner of a PA hall and the PA leader will be different characters. In order to prevent a PA from losing a PA hall due to the absence of the hall owner, PA leaders now have a limited ability to claim PA halls they do not own. A new guild terminal option "Accept PA Hall" will appear (for guild leader) if the hall owner has not logged in for 28 days. Once the guild leader owns the hall, the structure may be transferred to another player using the /transferStructure command."
Rothin wrote:
I *believe* our issues were addressed, I'm trying to get clarification on some of the patch notes and will let you know once I find something out for sure. Stay tuned!
This is the patch note I was referring to: "In many cases, the owner of a PA hall and the PA leader will be different characters. In order to prevent a PA from losing a PA hall due to the absence of the hall owner, PA leaders now have a limited ability to claim PA halls they do not own. A new guild terminal option "Accept PA Hall" will appear (for guild leader) if the hall owner has not logged in for 28 days. Once the guild leader owns the hall, the structure may be transferred to another player using the /transferStructure command."
First off, thank you for trying to clarify developer motivation on the guild hall ownership issues. I know it is hard, because you had to give a perspective you might not entirely agree with, while at the same time being careful not to violate confidentiality. Such perspective helps us try to understand the goals of the changes, so that we can decide whether it is the goals themselves that are issues or merely their implementation.
As a side note, none of the buildings in the game was designed as a shopping mall, museum, etc. One of the things that makes an MMORPG fun is the creative use of limited items provided. The whole Galactic Home Show is dedicated to just those creative uses. They are not inherently bad. Two ways that they can become bad come to mind: 1. if they are used to bypass game balance, or 2. if they damage an important look-and-feel concept, and therefore hinder immersion. It sounds as if your own desire to use guild halls for only guild halls would fall under category 2.
In the current changes, it looked as if the primary motivation was really just to protect (on behalf of the guild itself)a guild hallowned by aprevious leader when that person disappeared from the game. If that's the case, I think the goal is an excellent one. It is only the implementation that appeared to create an undue burden.
Your message above suggests that maybe a workaround is possible. Temporarily freeing up five lot spaces for the transfer process doesn't create the same kind of burden that a fixed requirement for a guild leader to own a guild hall would create. If new guild leader can accept the hall, then transfer it to a guild member to maintain, the end result will be the same as what we have now.
And yes, it is in theory possible to have guildies hold factories and harvesters, but harvesters have to be moved to follow the spawns, and only the owners can move them. Having a combatant guildmate donate lot spaces is one thing. Having the same person travel around placing harvesters every week for another profession is something else. Additionally, the factory messages when they run out of materials or space, or have some other problem would be going to the wrong person. Both harvester and factory messages about running out of maintenance or energy (and therefore stopping) also generate messages that would go to the wrong person.
Personally, I'd love to see a new building introduced to the game that is designed to be a shopping mall or a museum. A shopping mall should have open area with lots of alcoves for departments, but no walls acting as barriers in the main area. A museum should have a directionality about it, with a certain path of travel taking you by every display room. Both should be exceptionally well-lit. Current guild halls are well-designed to be just that: guild halls. They have many good locations for large, medium, and small meetings, and good places for item exchange (armories, communal property, etc.). Ultimately reserving a guild hall to be only a guild hall (and perhaps subsequently increasing item counts) could be a very nice option, but until the alternatives for other large multi-use buildingsare available in the game, placing that limitation on the guild halls right now would seem to me to be a crippling nerf.
Please keep us posted on the clarification of that statement, and whether it is an overall workaround, or just a fix for the transition. It really seems that it might be a sufficient fix to the ownership problem.
Oh, and once again, thank you for helping to fix the leadership transfer issues. It took nearly a month for our guild to get a transfer and name change completed under the old system, and it required purchasing a new guild hall. Under the new system, that transition would have been a LOT smoother.
).Its definitely different then the patch me and Rothin had tested on TC a few days ago.
- It seems the PA leader is no longer required to own the PA hall, for it to work. Our PA hall is still owned by a guildmember<>PA leader and the terminal works for me and for the leader.
This also fits with the stuff that got deleted from the live-patchnotes compared to TC ones. It said there, the PA leader has to take over the hall after an Election for it to work. Thats not there anymore.
- PA hall can't be stolen anymore. Well it can, after 28 days of not logging in. But the griefing potential is a lot less this way, and I think actually its a good thing now, the PA leader can take over the PA hall and if necessary give it away again to another member. This also fits my first point, that the PA hall still works even if the PA leader doesn't own it.
- The only point that is strange is the paragraph about "Direct Transfer":
The person who will receive leadership must also have enough lots free to take ownership of the PA hall. If they satisfy the requirements, the PA leadership and the PA hall ownership will be transferred to them. If they do not satisfy the requirements, the existing leader will receive a message as to why the change could not be made
Which is somehow totally different. It might just be an oversight in the Patchnotes here, that they forgot to delete this.
But it could also be, that a direct transfer still checks the lots and even transfers the PA hall.
I can't check it here, can anyone else?
1) If the PA leader owns the PA hall and tries to transfer leadership, does it:
1.a) not work if the new Leader has less than 5 free lots?
1.b) if he has more than 5 free lots, does the PA hall get transfered as well?
2) If the PA leader doesn't own the hall:
2.a) does/doesn't work if the new Leader has less than 5 free lots.
2.b) does require 5 free lots but the PA hall stays with the original owner
2.c) it transfers the PA hall over from the original owner (who is NOT the leader and might not know about this happening), to the new leader.
Rothin wrote:
I'll be able to test it once I get home from work if no one else beats me to it.
A hint?
