Politician Archive

I originally posted this on the Sunrunner forum; but I think there is some material in here that all politicians might find of interest. If you'd like any clarification, feel free to ask, although I did try to explain how the cities are set up on Sunrunner's Tatooine fairly clearly. Enjoy!

Now that player cities have been online for a few weeks, I think a look at just what they're doing for us is worthwhile. I've made my adopted home Tatooine, since I enjoy the old west feel that it has, a part of Star Wars I've always appreciated which I think fits best with the land-only aspect of Galaxies that we have so far. However, in a decidedly western turn, it appears that almost all of the player cities out there are ghost towns. Why is that?

As it stands, there is very little to convince a player to visit a player city rather than one of the pre-set cities. The only incentives, in my opinion, are that there are vendors, people can put a house down, and there is less lag. If we simply look at the southern half of Tatooine, it is clear whythere is such little incentive. All of the cities are far too close to one another! Why would I want to go to Traveler's Respite, for example, when it is only a few hundred meters from Mos Eisley? What kind of person needs a respite after traveling only a few hundred meters? I think what we're going through now is the novelty phase. Everyone was so fast in placing their town halls that no one really put much thought into exactly what purpose their city would serve, other than being able to see the cool new player structures. Now, there isn't anything necessarily wrong with this, I like seeing the new structures as well, but my fear is that cities won't pass this novelty phase.

Sure, there are a few cities that have managed to coax enough players to join so they could get their own medical center, cantina, and so on. But these are almost always empty. Well, some of them are decorated quite nicely, but to see someone in one of these structures is the exception rather than the rule. When a player goes to a city such as Bestine, however, they're almost guaranteed to find entertainers grinding their little hearts out just to make you smile, and a few doctors on staff (although members of these profession seem to be fewer and fewer nowadays). So, we have the following catch-22.

Players don't want to visit player cities. Why? Because they are ghost towns, and there are no service personnel located there. Why are there no service professionals at these locations? Because players don't visit them.

This as far as I have seen is prevalent across the planet. It's the case near the southern cities since they're far too close to the big cities. It's the case near the other cities since they're simply too far away. However, the distance from these cities will likely become smaller as vehicles are introduced (well, in a figurative sense). Camelot, Orodon, and Krayt City all seem to be positioned to be great cities, because they have a certain incentive for people to visit. Camelot has Jabba's Palace, Orodon has Fort Tusken, and Krayt City/Dragonopolis have the krayt dragon trade (which unfortunately looks like will die out with next patch, before either city really got the chance to shine). But people don't want to move their since the locations are too far away. What would help the cities? If people moved in, so a shuttleport could be placed. But no one wants to move in. Another catch-22.

Of course, again, cities are really somewhat new. I imagine as time continues, natural selection will take place, and the 'unfit' cities, those that do little to help the game, will be excised. The cities which actually provide some service for the player will grow and prosper. But as it stands now, things are pretty grim. Player cities have the potential to be as great an addition to gameplay as mounts. Let's hope that with time things will improve.

Questions, comments, thoughts, and women's phone numbers are appreciated.

You obviously missed walking through my town It's Mesa Roja, 1km north of Traveler's Respite. My town, unless we are all logged off, is always full. Our citizens hate going to npc Cities. We made our town so we never had to go into anchorhead for anything. And we even have a few resident non-citizens always running missions from our terminal. Now here's what makes us different from the others on tat. You will notice we are only rank 2. We stopped growing on purpose. We aren't making a city as a novelty; we aren't trying to be the uberest the first. We are trying to create a quality community that will endure till the day Sony kills the game. Like I said, we may not be the biggest, we may not be the best, but what you will find is a real community in our town. We even waited to advertise on th planet map, cause decorations and mission terminals were more important to us.

I do ask you, please do not generalize, and lump everyone into the same catagory. From the way you speak, it would seem to me you haven't visited every city. And I personally know the mayor of Traveler's Respite. We all made our cities on these spots the first week the gae was ever out, before anyone knew exactly what player cities would be. No one knew exactly what to expect when we all chose our sites months ago.

I just visited an hour ago. Not a soul. And the one star isn't appreciated.

I'll speak up and say something, since my city is one of the ones you specifically mentioned (Orodon). As I type this we have 55 citizens and I know of at least half a dozen more that will be moving in before our city update on Wednesday (it's on Wednesday because we relocated from the urban sprawl that is prevalent on the southern half of the map). Our city is far from a ghost town. There are always a handful of people running around and we have even had some entertainers take residence so the cantina will be staffed. The city is allowing people that never would have interacted to get to know each other. There are four PA's in the city right now, ranging from 5 members to 30. Now, instead of players only interacting with their small pa, they interact with the players of the other three also. I've seen parties organized from the city to go on hunts not just to Fort Tusken, but to other planets as well. For us, our player city is doing exactly what it's supposed to: build a community. In four days we'll have our shuttleport and that 4500m ride from Mos Espa will not be so much of a factor. For us, being a part of a vibrant player city is something to be proud about. We've built this city without ghost residents, bribes, free housing, or any of the other gimmicks used to increase population. For us, this is what player cities is about.

Aye, Arlan has also made another good town. We all have the correct idea, cities are to build COMMUNITIES. Though some people on our server have the idea that a city is a personal trophy, or a competition, it's not.

I hadn't meant to insult anyone's cities in any way, I'm simply trying to put the facts out as I see them. I will admit that I am a citizen of Krayt City, but I don't particularly have any agenda in posting this for the city. I'm simply trying to provide an analysis of the state of how things are, and how they could be improved.

I think it's great that both Mesa Roja and Orodon are creating communities; but that wasn't really the point of my post.

I can answer why they are ghost towns: towns are not allowed to effectively have their own personalty. In order to do this, rules must be enforcable in town and a town must be allowed to grow as it chooses, not by whomever feels like dropping a house there without actually adding to the community.

As you ask, why go to a player city? They are nothing more than a simple collection of buildings, much as NPC cities are, but without the NPC's. But what if you knew one of those cities was aheavilly guardedRebel enclave? Or a smugglers den with the best weapons in town at the best prices, but only if you gained their friendship and respect? Think faction, but live! Or that a town was full of roleplayers who actively kept their town such? Or an Imperial base, with a Moff who really would take 75 stormtroopers to surround your house if you ticked him off?

The game mechanics, and the changes coming, do not allow us to create the communities and content that this game sorely needs. These are some of the changes that we need in order to do this:

1.) The OPTION of completely zoning the full radius of a city for housing and permanent structures. This would NOT include harvestors ourside of the immediately controlled radius (so for example, an Outpost would be able to prevent new houses from it's full 900m, but prevent harvestors only in 150m). This would allow cities to grow with the type of citizenship that would benefit the community they are trying to create, while not depriving anyone of the resourcesany more thanthey would be losing currently. Note also, I say OPTION. A great deal of cities would purely choose to grow, and therefore not use it, so not everyone would be "deprived" of a city by any means.

2.) Grandfathering of structures there before the city hall was placed. If your house was in an area before the city hall was, you would be given an option to join the city. If you opt out, you cannot vote, nor do you have to pay taxes. You cannot use the cloning facility or shuttleport, because after all, you don't pay for them. You also cannot be warned. Or you can opt to join the city as normal.

3.) An effective and fair /cityban command. City ban cannot be revoked by absorption of a house as the citizenry had already determined they did not want that individual as a citizen (see also point 1, why this should not be an issue). Cityban, when used, would refund all city service fees paid within the past 24 hours (cloning services, shuttle tickets), and instantly lock down these services to the banned person.

4.) An active /citywarn command. With a correctly working ban command that refunded fees, warn would not be the griefing tool that it currently can be used for. Increase the timer to ten minutes so that parlay has a chance to take place, or alternatively, use it to log griefing for /report to a CSR if you choose. It would also allow someone plenty of time to leave town. At the end of ten minutes, a warned and banned person could then be attacked and killed, but would clone at the nearest friendly cloning facility. They would have to travel back on foot/mount/vehicle, which would get tiresome rather quickly.

5.) Flagged city types. Allowing cities to flag themselves as specific play areas with an icon, both on the world map and next to the city namewhen entering their radius,would give people fair warning what they are walking into. My suggestion for flags would be Rebel, Imperial, Criminal (use the Hutt symbol and we'll play the faction ourselves!), Trade Center, and Roleplayer. Make these flags part of Fiscal I and no additional cost to use.

These are just my suggestions, and feel free to rip them apart, but I think it would make for some very dynamic cities in the galaxies.

~~Shabhaii, Mayor of Tombra, Naboo
www.cityoftombra.com
The REAL BT
"The FS system only rewards the Veruca Salt's of the MMO world . . . not the Charlie's"

Tried to generalize and stereotype? Yeah, I did. I'm not making an in-depth examination of each city, I'm more trying to critique the system as it stands. I don't think that cities necessarily have to be filled with people. However, if cities are only useful to those who live there, then that's the only sort of traffic they are likely to receive. I'm talking about making player cities locations that people will want to go to, since it's in a key location or features really outstanding services. As it stands, most cities offer neither. If you're happy being a hamlet that serves only those that live there, that's fine; but I believe that atleast someplayer cities can and should eventually replace the static NPC ones on the planet as centers of commerce and gameplay, for the sake of making a more player-oriented experience.

You're right, player cities should eventually replace npc cities. But I will disagree only slightly on cities being placed near POI's. That reason there is why city warn is getting removed from the game. Too many people are basically trying to control POI's in the game. Cities and POI's are not meant to be privatized or owned. As for cities serving a purpose or interest to those in-game, well that is in the eyes of the beholder. Not everyone sees it the way you do. Personally, I could easily say your city is worse than mine, because it serves me no purpose. The real point should be, is that cities are still young, and new to the game, and have yet to receive real, worthwhile content to make them a valuable addition to the game.

I was unaware of the POI problem, I'm only suggesting that towns be placed nearby to facilitate transport and cloning near them. They definitely shouldn't be able to privatize such locations.

Aye I agree there. One other such problem we are having, and a reason why SOE is removing city warn, is that people are trying to control POI's and using it to grief players. We have a city on our server that is using /citywarn and /cityban to facilitate griefing. I won't name names, but pose this as a show that the problem exists on every galaxy. And yes, I have experieced the griefing first hand, and as a mayor of a city, I am peeved that people like that are ruining the game for all of us.

They should then make /citywarn ineffectual for a certain radius around POI's then. Problem solved.

~~Shabhaii, Mayor of Tombra, Naboo
www.cityoftombra.com
The REAL BT
"The FS system only rewards the Veruca Salt's of the MMO world . . . not the Charlie's"

It's a bit more complicated then that however. And I am not speaking about writing code, etc. IT starts with the mistake of letting people build near POI's and spans all the way to people abusing /citywarn to grief people. This issue is multifacted and very complex.