Politician Archive
Thread: Anyone NOT HAPPY that inactivity rule is gone temporarily?
First and foremost, if ya gotta go ya gotta go, this system or any other wouldn't be the sole cause of anyone's reason for leaving. And if it is, well begone with them and don't let the door hit you on the way out, I ain't got time for those anyway. Now honestly, as much as people complain about the general lack of numbers in the game, I'm really not seeing so much of a problem, I meet more new people everyday than I lose old friends. I may be a special case and the figures may not coroberate my story, but that's how it is. Hell, maybe the people around me are just happier with the game in general because of the group they play with. Couldn't tell you the reasoning behind that one. And new content comes out all the time, maybe not fast enough to suit you, but I can tell you, I personally haven't done half of what's out there to do. So i don't particularlyagree with you on that topic either.
Meplorium wrote:
There were many problems with this plan. First they are unable to proved new content quick enough to make many old players keep paying to play. Most of their customer base is old players. This causes more unpaid accounts than new accounts being opened. This means most cities are losing active citizen quicker than they can replace them. Player cities are a very important part of the game. Players on the edge of quiting may be pushed over that edge by losing their city services they worked hard to obtain. The suits don't like this one bit and may have had a role in this rules removal.
Once again, you are missing the picture, this was not intended in anyway to remove people houses. Removing the inactive citizens from the city list had just that effect. Next time they log in and walk back into their house, well they're citizens all over again as if the city boundaries just recently grew over their house. In other words, stop confusing the two topics, which is what I've been picking up on this thread. It has been said before and I'm certain will be said again, and i don't see any change coming for it, SOE will not remove players houses from the system, they will be removed when they decay ad at no other time. Hell if someone decided to violate the TOS, all a CSR would do is rename the house, so give up that pipedream for the moment. As far as real estate is concerned, I have seem too many cities with well over 100 citizens to sit here and listen to anyone complaining about there not being enough room. If you can't manage to get probably well over 200 citizens in a 900m diameter area you're just doing something wrong.
Meplorium wrote:
The second problem is one of land. People quit the game faster than their houses go away. House maintanence is too cheap and they can easially pay up for 6 months until the space expansion comes out. This is a very commen occurance with people leaving the game. They like the game and are willing to play more when there is more content to keep them from getting bored, ie space. This leaves cities with a lot of structures yet little land. Then once a city falls in rank they lose even more land. It creates a domino effect that doesn't leave many options to rebuild other than a full relocation.
So let me get this straight, every city out there that is just starting out and working hard to maintain their little haven, living from one week to the next, you are willing to forsake just so you can have a little blanket with some ghost residents to keep you at class 4 or class 5? I know that's not what you said, but it really seems like what I'm reading from this comment. Hey I'm not a rich man, but I can probably earn enough each week to pay the city maintenance and all the maintenance in every structure in my city and still live comfortably. So you see you wouldn't be hurting the the supposed ghost cities, only the little ones struggling to make ends meet. And dropping millions of credits on city maintenance and structures etc etc. is just what those little cities have to live with. I know I nearly bankrupted myself in the first month the cities where out.
Meplorium wrote:
The real solution to this problem is simplying increasing the city maintenance costs or just being more patient. Ghost towns can not play for themselves and will go poof given enough time and/or maintanence burden. Active cities, even those with some inactive players, will still be paying the bill and shouldn't be harmed. Yes there is a lot of money in this game, but not so much that 80 houses plus city maintanence is overly simple to pay for.
And finally you make a valid point, and actually get back to the intention of this system. This was it's sole purpose and you and I are in agreement, it performed it's job well. So why did you write all that other stuff for? I just don't understand.
Meplorium wrote:
The rule in the short term did do two things that were useful. The true ghost towns, not the active cities with a bit of attrition, were knocked down in size. This was a good thing as the 5 dude cities with 80 cross lot swaps went away. Second it got rid of enough dead weight that cities that wanted to change a mayor could. This was a big help in our city, holding stead at 85.
this never effected us. we gain one we lose one we gain one we lose one....
kinda frustrating hovering at 80 citizens for 3 weeks (I WANT METRO!!!!)
but we have lost none due to inactivity. Our city is hella active.
KeliG wrote:
Meplorium wrote:
There were many problems with this plan. First they are unable to proved new content quick enough to make many old players keep paying to play. Most of their customer base is old players. This causes more unpaid accounts than new accounts being opened. This means most cities are losing active citizen quicker than they can replace them. Player cities are a very important part of the game. Players on the edge of quiting may be pushed over that edge by losing their city services they worked hard to obtain. The suits don't like this one bit and may have had a role in this rules removal.
First and foremost, if ya gotta go ya gotta go, this system or any other wouldn't be the sole cause of anyone's reason for leaving. And if it is, well begone with them and don't let the door hit you on the way out, I ain't got time for those anyway. Now honestly, as much as people complain about the general lack of numbers in the game, I'm really not seeing so much of a problem, I meet more new people everyday than I lose old friends. I may be a special case and the figures may not coroberate my story, but that's how it is. Hell, maybe the people around me are just happier with the game in general because of the group they play with. Couldn't tell you the reasoning behind that one. And new content comes out all the time, maybe not fast enough to suit you, but I can tell you, I personally haven't done half of what's out there to do. So i don't particularlyagree with you on that topic either.
Nice additude there. I play the game to have fun, not to do work. So does everyone else. Once the game becomes work and not fun, there issome serious game design issues. The rules of the game must be change or something added to itforthe game to become fun and not work. Moving a bunch of factories and houses due to a poorly thought out rule is not fun. Content seem to be right up there with bugs as the biggest complaint of this game. I suggest you read the boards a bit more to figure that one out. Your personal micro group may in fact be happy, it is not representitive of the rest of the players.
Once again, you are missing the picture, this was not intended in anyway to remove people houses. Removing the inactive citizens from the city list had just that effect. Next time they log in and walk back into their house, well they're citizens all over again as if the city boundaries just recently grew over their house. In other words, stop confusing the two topics, which is what I've been picking up on this thread. It has been said before and I'm certain will be said again, and i don't see any change coming for it, SOE will not remove players houses from the system, they will be removed when they decay ad at no other time. Hell if someone decided to violate the TOS, all a CSR would do is rename the house, so give up that pipedream for the moment. As far as real estate is concerned, I have seem too many cities with well over 100 citizens to sit here and listen to anyone complaining about there not being enough room. If you can't manage to get probably well over 200 citizens in a 900m diameter area you're just doing something wrong.
Meplorium wrote:
The second problem is one of land. People quit the game faster than their houses go away. House maintanence is too cheap and they can easially pay up for 6 months until the space expansion comes out. This is a very commen occurance with people leaving the game. They like the game and are willing to play more when there is more content to keep them from getting bored, ie space. This leaves cities with a lot of structures yet little land. Then once a city falls in rank they lose even more land. It creates a domino effect that doesn't leave many options to rebuild other than a full relocation.
Wow, there is some serious reading comprehesion going on there. Not once did I say anything about CSRs or moving peoples houses. I explained a mathmatical problem where land usage is greater than land being gained and therefore creates a situation where all the land in a city gets used. This has the effect of no new structures being able to be placed and hence loss of city rank. There are some cities, now stay with me here since you have difficulty doing so, who have been active enough and have terrian issues that cause much of their land to be used up. In a city full of crafters you have many factories and many storage houses. This is a game design issue again dealing witha database that is not capable of handling the game mechanics. It isn't that the players are doing something wrong, it is that they are active and using the resourcesat hand. Once one of those accounts goes inactive, that is a lot of land to lose. Maybe you just don't have enough experience with a fully activecity to understand these issues.
Meplorium wrote:
The real solution to this problem is simplying increasing the city maintenance costs or just being more patient. Ghost towns can not play for themselves and will go poof given enough time and/or maintanence burden. Active cities, even those with some inactive players, will still be paying the bill and shouldn't be harmed. Yes there is a lot of money in this game, but not so much that 80 houses plus city maintanence is overly simple to pay for.
So let me get this straight, every city out there that is just starting out and working hard to maintain their little haven, living from one week to the next, you are willing to forsake just so you can have a little blanket with some ghost residents to keep you at class 4 or class 5? I know that's not what you said, but it really seems like what I'm reading from this comment. Hey I'm not a rich man, but I can probably earn enough each week to pay the city maintenance and all the maintenance in every structure in my city and still live comfortably. So you see you wouldn't be hurting the the supposed ghost cities, only the little ones struggling to make ends meet. And dropping millions of credits on city maintenance and structures etc etc. is just what those little cities have to live with. I know I nearly bankrupted myself in the first month the cities where out.
Cities with income issues are the ghost towns. They have issues with money because no one is on making money. Cities that are active are actively making money. That shouldn't be a difficult concept to grasp. Also keep in mind the 6 week rule does nothing to address the cross lot sawps. Have to wait for 8 minutes to catch the next shuttle, log into the other server and then come back. It is too easy to stay current on those cross lots. Note logging in and then out generates no income and therefore does not provide and funds that could go to the city. This is why the maintenance issue is key and not inactivity. Inactivity is too easy to work around, until you run out of land that is.
Meplorium wrote:
The rule in the short term did do two things that were useful. The true ghost towns, not the active cities with a bit of attrition, were knocked down in size. This was a good thing as the 5 dude cities with 80 cross lot swaps went away. Second it got rid of enough dead weight that cities that wanted to change a mayor could. This was a big help in our city, holding stead at 85.
And finally you make a valid point, and actually get back to the intention of this system. This was it's sole purpose and you and I are in agreement, it performed it's job well. So why did you write all that other stuff for? I just don't understand.
Abido wrote:
I am NOT HAPPY.
Other than stopping it to fix the "duel citizenship" bugs, this should have continued. Arguments that "Cities will eventually have noone in them" and "this didn't effect cities with lot swaps, AT ALL" are just folly.
The stoppage goes against the fluctuating Player City atmosphere we have all come to understand, and those that are against the timer have no arguments that have worthy merit, other than they're trying to hang onto what might be lost.
As usual, the first 15 minutes of that first day are continuing to dictate what cities are where, and the shape of fluctuating planets.
The fact remains that the vast majority of lost citizens are people who have left or taken a break from SWG, chosen or otherwise. (We have at least one member who's deployed in Iraq right now, for example, and a couple who have lost jobs and had to take a break while searching.) The problem isn't that cities don't fluctuate, the problem is that there's an artificial cap on the number of cities per planet. If they fixed the database adequately to allow cities to grow if they have the citizens, then the need for an inactivity timer disappears. (Truly inactive cities *will* fall due to maintenance, unless someone's picking up the tab week after week which isn't worth the effort.) I understand what the timer was meant to do, it's just a bad solution to the wrong problem.
Meplorium wrote:
There were many problems with this plan. First they are unable to proved new content quick enough to make many old players keep paying to play. Most of their customer base is old players. This causes more unpaid accounts than new accounts being opened. This means most cities are losing active citizen quicker than they can replace them. Player cities are a very important part of the game. Players on the edge of quiting may be pushed over that edge by losing their city services they worked hard to obtain. The suits don't like this one bit and may have had a role in this rules removal.
First and foremost, if ya gotta go ya gotta go, this system or any other wouldn't be the sole cause of anyone's reason for leaving. And if it is, well begone with them and don't let the door hit you on the way out, I ain't got time for those anyway. Now honestly, as much as people complain about the general lack of numbers in the game, I'm really not seeing so much of a problem, I meet more new people everyday than I lose old friends. I may be a special case and the figures may not coroberate my story, but that's how it is. Hell, maybe the people around me are just happier with the game in general because of the group they play with. Couldn't tell you the reasoning behind that one. And new content comes out all the time, maybe not fast enough to suit you, but I can tell you, I personally haven't done half of what's out there to do. So i don't particularlyagree with you on that topic either.
Nice additude there. I play the game to have fun, not to do work. So does everyone else. Once the game becomes work and not fun, there issome serious game design issues. The rules of the game must be change or something added to itforthe game to become fun and not work. Moving a bunch of factories and houses due to a poorly thought out rule is not fun. Content seem to be right up there with bugs as the biggest complaint of this game. I suggest you read the boards a bit more to figure that one out. Your personal micro group may in fact be happy, it is not representitive of the rest of the players.
Darn right it's a nice attitude, and one I have come to accept. Speaking of acceptance, maybe you should accept the FACT that you are complaining about your own short sighted experiences. What work are you talking about? Moving houses? I've never had to move my house unless I wanted a bigger one or wanted to move to a different area. Moving harvesters? So the resources shift and hey you don't have to move your harvesters, just leave them there until another resource comes along that you like, you don't have to do any work whatsoever. So come again as to why you've had to move a house because of a rule that wasn't in effect WHEN you placed your house? Hence knowing full well what it intended? See short sighted in the websters dictionary. And I never said that the statistics coroborated what I said about my little click of players. We are happy mainly cause we don't have to deal with whinners all the time. It works for us. If you aren't happy playing the game, look within your self and then look at those you play with. Do something about either of those two or leave the game. The game is what it is, it will change here and there but the main focus remains the same. Accept it or leave it, Sitting here complaining about it in well thought out, and sometimes not, arguements isn't going to change the fact. Also don't complain too much about the rules which haven't recently changed, you really are just harping at that point. Now if a rule does change at some point at it causes problems then you have a serious gripe. Other than that, I personally don't want to hear about it, as I'm sure most others don't as well.
Once again, you are missing the picture, this was not intended in anyway to remove people houses. Removing the inactive citizens from the city list had just that effect. Next time they log in and walk back into their house, well they're citizens all over again as if the city boundaries just recently grew over their house. In other words, stop confusing the two topics, which is what I've been picking up on this thread. It has been said before and I'm certain will be said again, and i don't see any change coming for it, SOE will not remove players houses from the system, they will be removed when they decay ad at no other time. Hell if someone decided to violate the TOS, all a CSR would do is rename the house, so give up that pipedream for the moment. As far as real estate is concerned, I have seem too many cities with well over 100 citizens to sit here and listen to anyone complaining about there not being enough room. If you can't manage to get probably well over 200 citizens in a 900m diameter area you're just doing something wrong.
Meplorium wrote:
The second problem is one of land. People quit the game faster than their houses go away. House maintanence is too cheap and they can easially pay up for 6 months until the space expansion comes out. This is a very commen occurance with people leaving the game. They like the game and are willing to play more when there is more content to keep them from getting bored, ie space. This leaves cities with a lot of structures yet little land. Then once a city falls in rank they lose even more land. It creates a domino effect that doesn't leave many options to rebuild other than a full relocation.
Wow, there is some serious reading comprehesion going on there. Not once did I say anything about CSRs or moving peoples houses. I explained a mathmatical problem where land usage is greater than land being gained and therefore creates a situation where all the land in a city gets used. This has the effect of no new structures being able to be placed and hence loss of city rank. There are some cities, now stay with me here since you have difficulty doing so, who have been active enough and have terrian issues that cause much of their land to be used up. In a city full of crafters you have many factories and many storage houses. This is a game design issue again dealing witha database that is not capable of handling the game mechanics. It isn't that the players are doing something wrong, it is that they are active and using the resourcesat hand. Once one of those accounts goes inactive, that is a lot of land to lose. Maybe you just don't have enough experience with a fully activecity to understand these issues.
Reading comprehension? hmmmmmm "Anyone NOT HAPPY that inactivity rule is gone temporarily?" what in blazes does your original paragraph followed by paragraphs 2 and 4 have to do with the subject at hand? But let's stick to your rebutle, factories have no place in a city, if they are there, called it temporary assignment, put them outside the city boundaries, going in you knew exactly how large your city could grow geographiclyAND you knew when the city patch was being released. Didn't do your homework and get everything setup the day before? Maybe not huh? if you did you wouldn't be complainng about it. I can tell you I personally did not, I slapped my city hall in an area which allowed to make my city a railroad haven all of 700x300, instead of the 900m diametercircle I could have made use of,due to nobuild zones and terrain issues, hey I did it not anyone else, no point in me crying about it, now is there? No, didn't think so. I currently allow peolple to place some factories within city limits, but they know full well they'll have to move them if we have problems with room for new houses, not citizens, houses. Now you sit here and complain about game mechanics and databases and other things, bottom line is the game was designed a certain way and that's that. See first red paragraph "acceptance". Also don't insult everyone's intelligence talking about things you know nothing about, I have had my city up from day one. I have had more than 200 people move into my city, not all at once mind, we've never had more than 80 citizens at any given time, but people come and people go, we've had as many as 5 completely seperate guilds residing in our city at once, we have made full use of the resources we where given. You seem to have a problem with reality, You are given boundaries and you work with them until they no longer suit you, well in game and in life those boundaries are set and you need to abide by them.
Meplorium wrote:
The real solution to this problem is simplying increasing the city maintenance costs or just being more patient. Ghost towns can not play for themselves and will go poof given enough time and/or maintanence burden. Active cities, even those with some inactive players, will still be paying the bill and shouldn't be harmed. Yes there is a lot of money in this game, but not so much that 80 houses plus city maintanence is overly simple to pay for.
So let me get this straight, every city out there that is just starting out and working hard to maintain their little haven, living from one week to the next, you are willing to forsake just so you can have a little blanket with some ghost residents to keep you at class 4 or class 5? I know that's not what you said, but it really seems like what I'm reading from this comment. Hey I'm not a rich man, but I can probably earn enough each week to pay the city maintenance and all the maintenance in every structure in my city and still live comfortably. So you see you wouldn't be hurting the the supposed ghost cities, only the little ones struggling to make ends meet. And dropping millions of credits on city maintenance and structures etc etc. is just what those little cities have to live with. I know I nearly bankrupted myself in the first month the cities where out.
Cities with income issues are the ghost towns. They have issues with money because no one is on making money. Cities that are active are actively making money. That shouldn't be a difficult concept to grasp. Also keep in mind the 6 week rule does nothing to address the cross lot sawps. Have to wait for 8 minutes to catch the next shuttle, log into the other server and then come back. It is too easy to stay current on those cross lots. Note logging in and then out generates no income and therefore does not provide and funds that could go to the city. This is why the maintenance issue is key and not inactivity. Inactivity is too easy to work around, until you run out of land that is.
No you are wrong about city finances. It's much more difficult to grow a city than it is to maintain it. Increasing maintenance cost for the cities will only hurt the little cities just starting out, they have no real revenue, no one knows about them, they have HUGE startup costs and recruiting expenses. The larger cities? well let's say maintenance and upkeep is a fraction of the cost of buying and building houses and city services and beautification projects. That's where the real money sink is in any city. Ask around, I'm sure most mayors will agree with that. And once again let me reiterate on the purpose of this system removing inactive citizens, because they aren't around anymore. this system is not intended to remove houses and such, it just was never meant to do that. I understand there where bugs and inactive citizens where removed from the roster, I'll not be the one to chastize you for complaining about that. And I certainly hope no one lost any services due to that. That truly just does suck, considering anyone dropped to a class 3 city on one of the big three will have almost no chance of ever regaining that loss. Not to mention the shuttle which will only be placeable again if and when they make it back up to class 4. Especially since the system was removed from the game, maybe never to come back, we don't know that yet. None the less, many cross server cities where caught by surprise by this and did in fact drop down a notch because of this system. I say work out the bugs with the inactivity thresholds and reinstate the system as fast as possible, the more I think about it the more I like it.
Meplorium wrote:
The rule in the short term did do two things that were useful. The true ghost towns, not the active cities with a bit of attrition, were knocked down in size. This was a good thing as the 5 dude cities with 80 cross lot swaps went away. Second it got rid of enough dead weight that cities that wanted to change a mayor could. This was a big help in our city, holding stead at 85.
And finally you make a valid point, and actually get back to the intention of this system. This was it's sole purpose and you and I are in agreement, it performed it's job well. So why did you write all that other stuff for? I just don't understand.
That's right, I don't understand..... WHY MOST OF YOUR ORIGINAL POST WAS PLACED IN THIS THREAD. The only thing you had to say which added to this particulardiscussion wasmy last quote of your original post. I'm not really complaining about most of what you said, even though I don't particularly agree with it, everyone is entitled to their personal opinion, but I am complaining that you decided to post it here. You could have easily found another thread which did in fact pertain to each of those points, or you could have created one or two or three. Oh wait no, I'm sorry, that would have involved alittle more work and you've already told us about your aversion to such.
Now for everyone else who managed to read through all of this, my sincerest apologies for putting you all through this, it was bad enough this thread was pulled so far off topic, but I should not have gone this far in endulging myself and meplorium at your expense.
Keli you don't have to agree with the math in this case or myself. You DO have to accept the math as it is a fact not an opinion.
Time of City Death = AvailableLand - (Rate of LostLand to non citizen structures over time - Rate of Regained Land due to non Citizen Structures Destruction)
It is a very simple equation. Citizens drop out of the game quicker than their houses and other structures are destroyed. Cities will always lose land. Eventually all the available land will be loss due to non citizen stuctures. The amount of time will vary per city due to 3 factors:
AvailableLand - how much land, after bad terrian, no build zones, static spawns/structures there are that take up room.
Rate of LostLand - How many people quit the game and go inactive and how long their buildings persist
Rate of Regained Land - Tied directly to the above variable. At some point those buildings will go away. This is indepentant for each structure, however a general over all rate can be derived from the average of structure lost overtime.
So if you built your city on very flat land with no obstructions your available land will be much larger than someone building a city on challenging terrian. This does increase the life space of the city. It does not make it live forever though. If the regained land rate matches that of the lost land rate, then there would be no problem. You lose land as quickly as you regain it in that case. However that isn't the chase as many people pay up their houses for months after they are gone. Basically people are leaving the game quicker than their structures do. This is the problem I speak of.
Again, you do not have to like or agreehere.These are the facts though. You do need to accept them because it will kill your city if the inactive rule goes back into place. This is a poor game mechanic as it sets up every city to fail, not mater how hard and profiecent the players are at running a city. There will always be a rate of land loss. It may take 3 months to lose all the land or 3 years. Those rates are highly variable per city. Some are hit very hard, some are not. The people from lightly hit cities like this rule due to the human nature of wanting to see others fail while they succeed. Those hit hard hate this rule as they are the ones failing.
Just to address a few points you brought up to correct some issues there. Factories are used by crafters. Some of whom do not have combat skills to remove aggressive creates from their factories. One of the main features of player cities is no spawns in city limits. This was to help crafters gain easy access to their factories and homes without needing combat skills. This is an important game mechanic and a necessary one for those crafters. Factories are intended and mostly needed to be in city limits. The whole economy is based on the crafting economy and the loot used in the crafting economy. The player city is a crafter friendly game eliment, not fighter friendly, hence the lack of anything to kill. The fighters do get to shop while not having to watch their backs while that vendor takes 30 seconds to open. So it is friendly to them in that reguard.
Cities are cheap. Houses are cheap. Parks are cheap. I am not sure what your point about struggling cities and their difficulties getting buildings. I just finished a 1k set of walls mosly used in over 100 BER14 harvester factory runs I have been doing. Enough materials for 2 level 5 cities. It isn't difficult, at least for most, to come up with those structures to build a city. If it is difficult for someone, then a city is not right for them.
Avallach wrote:
The fact remains that the vast majority of lost citizens are people who have left or taken a break from SWG, chosen or otherwise. (We have at least one member who's deployed in Iraq right now, for example, and a couple who have lost jobs and had to take a break while searching.) The problem isn't that cities don't fluctuate, the problem is that there's an artificial cap on the number of cities per planet. If they fixed the database adequately to allow cities to grow if they have the citizens, then the need for an inactivity timer disappears. (Truly inactive cities *will* fall due to maintenance, unless someone's picking up the tab week after week which isn't worth the effort.) I understand what the timer was meant to do, it's just a bad solution to the wrong problem.
kudos to abido. reactivate the system... but do something about the actives being removed first.
That, in my opinion, was the only problem with this rule.