Politician Archive
Thread: I love being a Master Politician: Here are my POSITIVE ideas on making it even better!
Hello everyone!
I've been holding back on posting on this issue and observing the thoughts of others while our Correspondent gets to grip with a our Top 5 (keep up the good work, Baj!) because i've been fortunate enough to never have been hit by a bug,but here are my thoughts (those of a professional Politician!) on what we need to keep the profession alive.
I'm still hanging on to Master Politician and working my other careers around it in the hope thatthe Dev team will deliver something great for us - this is the sort of stuff I would like to see as a reward for a role that does a lot to help other people enjoy living in SWG more and actually contributes content to the game.
Master Politician Perks
Here, like with most professions, there needs to be a tangible reason for people to keep it. I believe that politician is one of the most challenging but important roles in the game when done properly, and people getting this far should be rewarded. I would propose the following:
1. Garages should only be placed by Master Politicians - the presence of a garage will stimulate a city enormously and would be a good short-term reward.
2. Starports should only be placed by Master Politicians - the presence of a starport will stimulate a city enormously and would be a good long-term reward.
3. Master Politicians should be able to get a discount on civic maintenance (like Master Merchant does) so that running a city becomes a little cheaper for a Master. Naturally, they would use their superior political skills to negotiate better rates for things like maintenance - perhaps 25% would be good. And it would sure encourage people to keep the skill - dropping the skill loses that perk. (NOTE: Devs, you can just drop the Master Merchant code in here - it works great!)
4. They need to bring back multiple city specialisations soon - I've got nearly 150 people in my city and one specialisation is not enough to keep people happy! Perhaps we should just be able to choose two specialisations if a combined one is too difficult to achieve?
5. Master Polticians should be able to advertise their cities on the player loading screen for all players visiting a planet - would help to drive interest there. AND Master Politicians should be able to flag their cities as starting planets. I'm telling you know, people get going a lot faster if they wander into Darkfire with its 140+ inhabitants that they do wandering around Mos Eisley getting killed by thugs.
6. I think that the things in the Master box should only be available when the Mayor is a master. When dropped, these benefits should be lost.
Career Development & GCW
This will make you laugh, but some newbies have asked me if I am an NPC or a Dev because they cannot understand why I would spend all day helping people move in and teaching n00bs how to get to grips with the basics. I take that as a compliment, and it reminds me how important this role can be.
In MMORPG terms, Politician is very, very important in helping other people get the most our of their characters, and this should be recognised by the availability of other professions built on top of it. Another way of looking at it is that my city does a lot to boost people's careers and enjoyment (more experimentation, mission terminals, good GCW scenarios, etc..), but what does it for my character development once I have it.
For example, in the Space Expansion I hope to see an Elite profession based on Politician that is only available to Master Politicians and gives unique abilities - such as the ability to establish an outpost to their city on another planet (my citizens are asking for this a lot!) and perhaps membership of a galactic council of some sort, or the potential to become a Regional Governor with strong Imperial support, or a Rebel Coordinator with strong Rebel support.
Personally, this would be the biggest boost to the profession for me - making Player Cities forces to be reckoned with! 
Also, I think that Politicians should be able to get more involved in the GCW - the link between politics and war is incontrovertible, and it is current missing... For example, surely a politician should beable to use their links to buy faction points in a way similar to the way a Smuggler does?
Finally, I think that there should be a combat support role for Politicians (especially when in their cities) building on the militia defence bonus a Warmaster gets. This would also contribute to the GCW massively, and make Master Politician a profession to be proud of.
I'm interested to get everyone's thoughts on this - would it encourage you to become a professional politician? In the meantime, I'm keeping the faith and continuing to believe that Politician has a bright future.
Yours,
there needs to be something for people in the militia who make a contribution too - i do most of the work moving people in when DDD is away, and i don't get any XP or anything 
there should be a deputy mayor role, or something like city planner so that everyone who helps out get rewarded and not just people like my bf 
Yes, there must be more content for Politicians, but don't center *all* new content around fighting. I barely have enough fighting skills to keep my skin in tact while doing harvie runs. Just keep it balanced is all I ask otherwise I agree with the above post.
I like that - it isa good practical one that would be pretty useful!
Squidbush wrote:
How about giving a master politician the ability to use the rename and admin functions for public buildings?
Delphinine wrote:
Why do you believe master Politician should be able to place Garages, they are that special?
For two reasons:
1. Not every NPC city has a garage, and nor should ever player city or it will kill off the interaction between cities. One assumes that someone who is a Master Politician has a pretty successful city with a large population, which would justify having a special resource like this.
2. As you know, the Empire is keen make sure that it maintains a technical advantage over the Rebel Alliance, and you can be sure that they would make it difficult for people to get their hands onthe technology needed to make a garage work - noticed the way that everything the Empire has is shiny and new looking, while everyone is flying and driving stuff that falls apart (e.g. Millennium Falcon!).
Naturally, a Master Politician could be expected to have the diplomatic skills needed to make things like this happen and to negotiate with the authorities - similar to what a local politician does in RL.
Therefore,in terms of being real to Star Wars, balancing the profession and being logically following politicians do, I think that this should be a Master Politican perk.
Hope that answers your question
Havoclord wrote:I would propose the following:
1. Garages should only be placed by Master Politicians - the presence of a garage will stimulate a city enormously and would be a good short-term reward.
3. Master Politicians should be able to get a discount on civic maintenance (like Master Merchant does) so that running a city becomes a little cheaper for a Master.
4. They need to bring back multiple city specialisations soon
I really like those. I'm not holding my breath on starports (10 new starports per planet would be too many, I think), or it would be listed here too. Perhaps allow starports, with one or two max per planet, with the requirements being master poli + metro + placed before the starport cap is hit (when the slots are gone they're gone).
Dralar wrote:
Yes, there must be more content for Politicians, but don't center *all* new content around fighting. I barely have enough fighting skills to keep my skin in tact while doing harvie runs. Just keep it balanced is all I ask otherwise I agree with the above post.
Good point - I totally agree - fighting is only one aspect - some of my citizens have asked for special types of mall where the mall is advertised on the planetary map, rather than the individual vendors giving aspiring merchants more of a chance.
What else have you got in mind?
Yours.
I like the Master Politician+Metro+Cap approach... Bajeezus, what do you think? Any chance of floating this idea once we have the major stuff out of the way?
Sevarhin wrote:
I really like those. I'm not holding my breath on starports (10 new starports per planet would be too many, I think), or it would be listed here too. Perhaps allow starports, with one or two max per planet, with the requirements being master poli + metro + placed before the starport cap is hit (when the slots are gone they're gone).
As for garages I can see them as a private building for a new mechanic profession. This profession would build more advanced vehicles as well as small spacecraft. I don't see them as Imp only structures since the Rebs are quite proficient at patching up a broken ship with a stick of gum and duct tape. Until a class like mechanic arrives I'd be more than happy to place this as a civic structure though.