Politician Archive
Thread: FanFest Update: Politician + Player Cities panel
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Zelos1
Fri Jun 04, 2004 6:13 pm
#1
Developer attendees: Thunderheart, Greenmarine and Kirk Black (don't know his alias)
Greenmarine stated that Politician's skill point expenditures were "not fair". He mentioned a possible pyramid-shaped skill tree that would require fewer points.
The inability to ban players from shuttling into the city is an "oversight" - but no word on the fix for this.
A "short-term" goal is for a portion of mission term payouts to go to the city.
The 50,000 creds/day treasury withdrawal cap is "probably impractical" and should be increased.
Flattening land is "really server-intensive" and it was basicallystated that this wouldnever happen.
Cap changes (between ranks) were "not quite as dynamic as we would like to see" and they discussed several potential systems for alternative methods of cap computation.
There was much mention of eminent domain, particularly as a perk that could be rewarded to cities that had existed for a period oftime. The implication was the period would be short - two months was mentioned at one point. However, I got the impression that this is still "in concept" andtherefore we won't see it for a while.
ThrawnUO
Fri Jun 04, 2004 7:02 pm
#2
Cool. 
not all or the most important of our concerns met, but some headway nonetheless
not all or the most important of our concerns met, but some headway nonetheless
Zelos1
Fri Jun 04, 2004 7:13 pm
#3
There are a couple other points that more directly hit the "top issues", but I don't have specific dev quotes to point to. Usually because the points took a lot of words to say and I'm not that fast of a note-taker
- Resignation is coming as a priority. All the devs at FanFest are notoriously evasive on timelines on anything, so don't read TOO much into this.
- The attendant devs see Politicians as the primary catalyst for social activity. (To me this was a big point, even if it doesn't address anything in particular)
- Master Politician box was emptied "temporarily" by Greenmarine because of a bug-type issue. It was not removed as part of a design issue.
- The possibility of seeing who owns houses was raised, and the devs took a few notes at this point, but no promises were made.
- GCW talks mostly centered around the devs encouraging us to contribute to Pappi's stickied GCW thread. All three of the devs seemed to be aware it existed. Furthermore, they all seemed pretty excited about getting cities into GCW.
Zelos1
Sat Jun 05, 2004 5:56 pm
#4
Additional item: the devs think having something like a "city bio" that can be examined is a good idea. No timeframe available.
aaronhullett
Sat Jun 05, 2004 6:37 pm
#5
The most important thing is however they havnt forgotton about us at least there are some things in motion even if its only along way off
SethlinNetril
Sat Jun 05, 2004 8:01 pm
#6
WHat would be cool is if Mayors could do rally effects to their militia like a SL can do for his group
THAT WOULD ROCK
ALso we need the ability to be able to pick up someones house in the city and place somewhere else, this would be so helpful its hard to explain
DoctorGriggs
Sun Jun 06, 2004 12:11 pm
#7
Zelos1 wrote:Developer attendees: Thunderheart, Greenmarine and Kirk Black (don't know his alias)Greenmarine stated that Politician's skill point expenditures were "not fair". He mentioned a possible pyramid-shaped skill tree that would require fewer points.The inability to ban players from shuttling into the city is an "oversight" - but no word on the fix for this.A "short-term" goal is for a portion of mission term payouts to go to the city.The 50,000 creds/day treasury withdrawal cap is "probably impractical" and should be increased.Flattening land is "really server-intensive" and it was basically stated that this would never happen.Cap changes (between ranks) were "not quite as dynamic as we would like to see" and they discussed several potential systems for alternative methods of cap computation.There was much mention of eminent domain, particularly as a perk that could be rewarded to cities that had existed for a period of time. The implication was the period would be short - two months was mentioned at one point. However, I got the impression that this is still "in concept" and therefore we won't see it for a while.
Well, it is a start
Pappi
Sun Jun 06, 2004 11:59 pm
#8
I'm finally back
I've talked to greenmarine, TH, and jest3r a bunch during the fanfest, and I've told them that I'll be contacting them for politician stuff. they were enthusiastic about it, so continue to give me your opinion and I'll send them in
the people I met at the fanfest were great also whatever rumor anyone heard about me, a table, the bar, and exotic is probably true, although I was probably the most sober person in the whole room (yes, that includes TH and the devs) 
edit: if you have any questions for me related to the fanfest, here would be the place to ask
I've talked to greenmarine, TH, and jest3r a bunch during the fanfest, and I've told them that I'll be contacting them for politician stuff. they were enthusiastic about it, so continue to give me your opinion and I'll send them in
the people I met at the fanfest were great
also whatever rumor anyone heard about me, a table, the bar, and exotic is probably true, although I was probably the most sober person in the whole room (yes, that includes TH and the devs) edit: if you have any questions for me related to the fanfest, here would be the place to ask
Message Edited by Pappi on 06-07-2004 12:28 AM
DaQuilla
Mon Jun 07, 2004 3:10 am
#9
Pappi wrote:
if you have any questions for me related to the fanfest, here would be the place to ask
So ... back to the table dancing ...
Any pictures of that - and where you wearing hawtpants?
Seriously:
Did you encounter any other politicians?
Pappi
Mon Jun 07, 2004 3:34 am
#10
DaQuilla wrote:
Pappi wrote:
if you have any questions for me related to the fanfest, here would be the place to ask
So ... back to the table dancing ...
Any pictures of that - and where you wearing hawtpants?
yes, I have pictures... Jake (ood_bnar) even has a video, although since I don't give a hoot if he posts it in public or not, I doubt he would. it's just not as fun that way
no, I wasn't wearing hawtpants. Jessi needs to make me some, but she can't sew irl
Seriously:
Did you encounter any other politicians?
yes, I went to the politician panel (which they changed the time on me without telling me), and even got to talk to a few politicians separately. I met some very cool people there
Laeren
Mon Jun 07, 2004 7:45 am
#11
I posted this as part of a "forums I attended" thing, but thought it worth repeating here:
Politician/Player City forum (run byGreenmarine, Thunderheart,Kirk Black)
Gist:
Unfortunately, bad news for player cities as nothing has really been allocated in terms of new things. Bug fixes will be taken care of as time permits on the bug list priorities, but nothing new is being planned for them by themselves.
However, if player cities and politicians can slant their requests towards the GCW, they can shiv player city changes in with the upcoming GCW revamp. Perhaps more involvement of the player cities in the revamp willl also mean changes and additions which would not happen as a stand-alone request.
Some questions regarding player cities/politicians:
"Why can't we have cities that flatten the terrain? Or what about eliminating radial flora from a player city area? Or what about the addition of city streets?"
Answer:
Flattening terrain is a huge coding deal and very server intensive, especially for an area as large as a player city. Not gonna happen. Radial and non-collidable flora removal would be much more possible. City streets would be possibly only by changing the color pattern used for the ground in which you wanted to create the street (doable, and not as intensive as flattening the terrain).
"Why can't mayors simply delete people's houses from the city, especially if that player has quit the game?"
Answer:
The problem lies in how much "imminent domain" should a mayor have over their city, and how much these powers could be used for griefing. Since the whole /citywarn debacle, a lot of concern has been brought down upon how people use various features to grief other players, and a lot of care is taken so that any new features are ones that can't be used to grief players, or at least minimize the risk of such. They are trying to give the mayors some power in their cities, without giving them total power in the case of grief-prone situations. One idea was to set a timer on a city, such that if a city has grown and thrived for X amount of time, some of these powers might come into effect, simply because such long-established cities would be much less likely to grief people within it. Other types of things would be implementation of the ability to see owner and condition/time remaining on a structure (not just for mayors but for everyone) which would be a tool that mayors especially would be able to use.
"Is there any help for mayors wishing to give up office and give the office to the other candidate running for mayor? Or is there any help for cities in which the mayor has left the game, but is still winning the weekly election?"
Answer:
If it is a truly dire case of needing to switch the city over to another mayor, CSRs can help the city with this, especially in the case of where a mayor has left the game (cancelled account) and the next mayor is trying to get elected.
"Why does politician cost so many skill points? Is there any idea for a change to this?"
Answer:
Back when the professions were being created, they were limited in the template of the profession they could create--i.e. it had to be 18 skill boxes. However, apparently this rule or template has changed, and there are plans to possibly change politician (and possibly other professions) to be less than 18 skill boxes, and if so, then Politician would cost much less skill points to master and keep. So, mayors would still retain full bennies for their profession, and still be able to do other things.
"Why were the double-specialization abilities at Master Politician removed?"
Answer:
Simply, they didn't work as intended, so were removed pending further review of the code.
darklightr1
Mon Jun 07, 2004 1:13 pm
#12
"Is there any help for mayors wishing to give up office and give the office to the other candidate running for mayor? Or is there any help for cities in which the mayor has left the game, but is still winning the weekly election?"
Answer:
If it is a truly dire case of needing to switch the city over to another mayor, CSRs can help the city with this, especially in the case of where a mayor has left the game (cancelled account) and the next mayor is trying to get elected.
Ok, When i heard that i went back to my room and sent in a CSR request to be removed from mayor as i am trying to move and give to someone else without tearing the city apart. surpisingly i got three replys so far from CSR in 48 hours wow, new record?
But they all told me they would not do it, that they couldnt do it. I kept telling them that at the Fan FEst we were told you could, they were like whoever told you that isnt speaking truth, uhh, who do we believe here?
Papi, mind sending this on to TH, i really want to move on with my life in the game, but cant do so cause i dont want to leave 60+ people with nothing. Only way i see i can get out of it is to destroy the CH and let the new guy take over. My problem is i cant get 31 people to log in in a weeks time, i am a old player city and a lot have left the game or just not on as much. I really dont want to leave the city with no shuttleport, no cloneing center, no garage etc. what would happen to the cantina or the hospitals in town? will the player have to take them up?
Se what you can do Papi. thanks, and nice to meet you!
DaQuilla
Mon Jun 07, 2004 1:25 pm
#13
darklightr1 wrote:
what would happen to the cantina or the hospitals in town? will the player have to take them up?
They would stay no matter if the city would be destroyed or not.
But I do agree that we should try and make the devs let CSRs know how to help us players in this case. If the CSR get the OK from both the old mayor and the mayor to be there should be nothing stoping them - and from posts I read in these forums there are ways for CSR to even take over mayorship themselves.
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