Politician Archive
Thread: Are the new player cities an exercise in futility?
I am mayor of a recently planted player city. I currently have 17 citizens on Naboo.
The frustrations that I have experienced so far is that my city grows to the next level in 4 hours. People do not want to move to an outpost or a city that can offer little accomodations to them.
Even if i do manage to get to the next lvl and am able to plant a cantina (or even to a lvl 3), it will not be visable on the map and so the patronage will probably be almost non existant.
There is not much of achance of my city becoming much other than just a drain on the pocketbooks of myself and the current residents.
To add to the hardship, there is no admin on the city hall so I cannot give the rights to decorate. It means that my decorator must make the items, drop them in a nearby house where I go to pick them up and place them. If they are creative pieces, as some are, I spend hours in both communication and in attempting to create the piece that I want. A friend that has one of the first player cities, and is now a rank four, told me that admin rights were available to them. I am feeling like this is just another discrimination, in a long list of many, against new player cities.
It seems as if the raising of the city player cap was just an attempt to placate the hundreds of people that werethe unfortunatesof the intitial player city introduction blunder. The obvious advantages that the initial player cities have over those of us that have just recently come into being,generates the feeling of despair among many. Are the newly added player cities just an exercise in futility?
There's more to a city than a shuttleport... It's not that hard to work someone round to the idea that it's quicker on a speeder anyway, and won't it be great to get a new cantina and have a party. Positive attitudes rub off onto everyone else, especially when it's backed up with community events. Community is much better than a shuttleport. Old cities could be good or bad, and still get residents because they were cities. New cities will have to be good to succeed. It won't be easy, but I don't think it's impossible either.
As a previous poster said, a shuttle port isn't everything. we just made it to rank three last friday. we were all very excited about this. we planted a hospital and a cloning center. We're close enough to two other player cities with shuttle ports that our residents are no longer considering the shuttle port a number one priority. we did a vehicle run from our city to the mining outpost on dantooine (6km or so) and made it in less time than the average shuttle wait.
create a nice layout, throw down some decorations. get a clone center and a variety of mission terminals. get a cantina. try and attract masters of a variety of professions, this can be cheaper than placing trainers and it helps to bond a community. it helps if you're close to some points of interest or other towns. if you are, push this as a selling point. growth may be slower than the server swap cities, but an active town community really does help to offset that with many players.
this won't attract everyone, but you will get some residents that see the value in this. the whole point, as i see it, is to have fun with it, experiment. keep your city stable. as other cities fail or as residents tire of the ghost towns, you may have a chance to sway them to your area.
even if you can't register your city yet, your terminals will show up on the map. your bank will show up on the map. merchants in your city can show up on the map. your cantina can show up on the map. these are all rank 2 things at the most. use the vendor registration to your advantage.
You're not going, I should say WE're not going, to have the population explosion the first cities did.
But chances are, like us, you'll be whacking down some mission terminals today or tomorrow, and bit by bit we'll slowly grow, and increase our facilities. We have to try harder than the first wave did, it's true, but we can do it.
Here is what I did to attract players:
- Created a CITY BROCHURE accessable by all on my web site
- This holds our CITY MAPS
- Each city map shows the LOT LAYOUT, the CITY STREETS that were Named, and the Projected City RADIUS for each rank increase in addition to major Civic Structures
- Our CITY YELLOW PAGES that lists all the citizens, their lot number, city street address, and their building name
- A FAQ page that lists the most common questions a new citizen or a recruit might have
- A link to our Forums where anyone can apply for citizenship
- A screen shot of a 'proud citizen' is peppered throughout the brochure (each time the city planner laid down a new structure, the new citizen had his pic taken for 'City Hall Records'
- A CITY GALLERY that tells the History of the City, and how it was built. Included are screenshots of the city as well.
- A CITY CALENDAR (in the works) that will show a list of Community Events that any citizen can attend
- URBAN DEVELOPMENT pages that shows the civic structures' requirements, maintenance costs, and other important information; the Politician's Skill tree and how he gains skills that affects city growth
- A NEWS PAGE that is updated frequently that informs citizens and the world of our progress and any news that pertains to the city
- In addition to the above, I run various promotional campaigns. This past week I am running a "Send a FREE SWG Greeting Card to a Friend" campaign. There is no hard sell here to join the city. It's just a service to the community, but it does bring them to our City Brochure so they can have a look around and decide for themselves if they like what they see.
- Finally, all the citizens are committed to promoting the city and do so by their own initiated recruiting methods. Our community is based on team playing, and as their Mayor, I am committed to supporting their ideas and goals. I make stuff happen for them, while keeping the city costs in check.
- Our City Planner (that's me also) has surveyed the entire radius, meter by meter of the city and has set aside various locations to accomodate small guilds or groups of folks that want to stay together. We call these areas 'Neighborhoods', and they can accomodate structures that the neighborhoods request, including their own PA Halls.
You can view our CITY BROCHURE at www.sacrednemesis.com/SWG
It takes an enourmous amount of effort to build a city based on an organized plan. We missed the land rush, just like you did. But we are enjoying the journey of building our city and the community feels like it is part of something much larger than just a "plop em down, and race to Metropolis" effort.
Hope this inspires the rest of you who also missed the initial land rush 
Enjoy.
Raduk wrote:
Now thats what I call a fan site Nemesis...
Thanks!
I believe new cities will have a harder time to actually grow, however as many others have already said if the city is planned out and has helpful citizens, the city will grow. You have to remember that many of the older cities might not last because of either political corruption, lost of interest or other means. I know on Dantooine on the Chilastra server, there are not too many big cities. I believe Crystal Valley is one of the only ones that is a metropolis on Dantooine. Though I know there are many level 4 cities just by seeing how many cities have shuttles
Also Sacred Nemesis, very nice site though I do have to ask how can you copyright your site when it is completely obvious that you tookthe designfrom Gamespot? Unless you are affiliated with Gamespot by some means, which if it is the case, I apologize but I am very curious on this.
JaronElus wrote:
Also Sacred Nemesis, very nice site though I do have to ask how can you copyright your site when it is completely obvious that you tookthe designfrom Gamespot? Unless you are affiliated with Gamespot by some means, which if it is the case, I apologize but I am very curious on this.
Actually you cannot copywright an overall website design. You can copywright logos and individual pieces of Art, and things like that (buttons, effects, animations, etc). Same goes for names, titles, fonts, and such. But for Gamespot to have any claim he would have to have copied a lot more than just their overall "look". Which he did not since he made his own buttons and everything else.
Fantastic site, I may have to "Steal" a few ideas from you myself! :-p
I'm off to PhotoShop to go make some buttons like that!
Actually you misunderstood me. I am not giving you a compliment (except that it is a nice site). On your site is a copyright, however, it is obvious to see that you have taken much of the design and even the color schemes from Gamespot. Now it is perfectly legal to do that, for though Gamespot is commercial based, SN is not. However, it is not legal to place a copyright on your site, for you yourself are infringing on Gamespot's copyright. Basically what you are doing with the site design and having a copyright is illegal. I believe you should either take the copyright off or change the site, which of course I doubt you want to do.
Only reason I am telling you this is because I, myself, am a web designer and I hate to see people take other's work and calling their own and that is basically what you are doing. Just a heads up.
Actually you can Vadikar for I have done it on a few of my sites that are commercial based for other companies. Individual images and fonts can't of course be copyrighted but the overall design as an entity can. And it is completely obvious that it was taken from Gamespot for their entire website looks exactly like Gamespot with a few alterations even many of the colors are the same which doesn't help their case.
But yes you can copyright designs for commercial based websites. Their site is only illegal because they, themselves, put a copyright on (because they are calling their own designs original). Just take that copyright off and they would be fine.