Politician Archive

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JaronElus wrote:

I can understand what you mean, but the devs never expected so many cities (just think of the caps). Allowing smaller cities to get everything a bigger city has, what is the point in growing bigger? Bigger cities are a sign of real communities that work hard to make it work, but smaller cities are only there because either they do not want to join a city for personal reasons (RP or something) or they want to feel powerful to have their own city. I am just saying that certain perks should only be to the bigger cities, for that would weed out most of the smaller cities. Let's be honest, many of the smaller cities will probably be gone at some point because the players realize it is just a money sink with no value if it is a small city. But that is my opinion.

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Some excellent points here. The perks for cities are scattered across the skill level of the mayor and contingent on the size of the town. Make or break is dependent on everyone working together to make a Village a success. Should you wait to get a shuttle? Of course. A Med Center? Cantina? Theater? Of course at varying levels of population. And that is in the way growth occurs.

A garage is a utility....does nothing except generate funds......and if smaller towns are to grow to reach thier full potential the funds have to be there to provide for that. the difficulty in expansion and getting people to move in and become part of someone elses dream.

Granted, there are those Outposts that will never get larger than they already are. That is why that level gets little or nothing to it's size. But as soon as you can tax and fund....Level 2... there has to be additional income to provide for the expansion and the ability of the Mayor to get others to move to the Village....to create a town...to grow to a city and so on. It would be a selling point to know you don't have to drive half-way across the planet just to repair your ride.

Greetings,

As a citizen of a "second batch" city that will more likely than not never progress beyond level 3 due to the caps, I hope I can offer a bit of perspective from "the other side". Our city has well over 100 citizens, well laid streets, great leaders ... but all of the cities in the first batch on Naboo will get into the 4+ cap first. We were there the first day the patch was live, too, and 28 minutes after the server was up, we couldn't place our hall because the planet was already full. Should all the cities who weren't lucky enough to place in that first half hour forever be forbidden from a vital service? It's bad enough we'll never see a shuttleport.

I travle to my hometown from Kaadara (nearest NPC city) several times a day, along with many of my fellow citizens. Almost all of us travle by speeder (since we cant have a shuttleport), many of which are smoking or flaming as we go about our business. Its nothing more than a pain to have to go "to town" to have it fixed when you already are in a town. I can understand restricting shuttleports, but please, allow us smaller towns (especally since many are prevented from expanding) to own and operate a useful, desired building. Don't punish us further for not being able to place in the first 28 minutes.

One thing that should be understood in this thread is that garages, like cloning centers, are a money sink. Player-Cities will never be able to charge a fee for vehicle repair or make any money off of them. They are a convenience and a money sink for players and a money sink for city tax money to maintain. When garages were still being discussed and planned for pre-Player-City testing there was never a fee associated with them. When the full list of Player-City taxes was released (before the garages were pushed back) a garage fee was never listed.

Don't start hoping for tax-revenue from these, because just like mission-terminal or skill-trainer revenue it won't happen.

The DEVs REALLY blew it on the city caps... There are way too many fully equiped cities already, and it's got to stop somewhere. All the PC facilities should have their cost boosted to insane levels, and requirments should be raised at least one city level across the board. A metropolis of 100+ people should take 100+ people to maintain. NOT the token little cost that is now in place.

Here is a quote from TH on the day prior to the player cities publish, on the issue of city caps:

"The cap is only until the next patch and chances are we won't reach the cap by the time its lifted..."

I truely proves that the Development Team is out of touch with how the game is played (as opposed to the DEV's vision of how the game ought to be played). I could not find the precise post, but TH also made a pre-publish prediction that players would not be able to craft the halls for some time after the publish, thus giving everyone a fair shake at a city. Complete lack of understanding of the game dynamics. Someone who has been with SWG for as long as he has ought have known better. Enough TH bashing. He's not the root cause.

Truth is, we had our city established in 12 minutes, and 11 of that was the time it took the politician to travel the considerable distance from the capital city (political trainer) to the new city site. The city hall was pre-assembled, and only had to be glued together once the schematic was available.

I would propose that they quadruple the cost of cities to put a damper on rampant expansion. That would give the smaller cities a chance to "work" ahead of the established cities. Cities should be hard as hell to maintain, and facitilites should hurt like heck to get and keep. Our city is maintained by a piddly 5% sales tax and shuttle fees... ridiculous!

As for those that didn't get their cities placed, go join someone elses city, or go live in the country somewhere. If you're neighor's bantha has twins, and your bantha only has one calf, don't go around pi$$ed, thinking someone owes you another bantha calf... get over it and move on!

My post seems to have knocked this thread off it's intended mark.. sorry about that.

As for our population, we could maintain our level 5, 610,000 maintenance bill with only 12 citizens (the premire crafters), we don't need 100+. We actually have 125 citizens, but since we charge no property or income tax, it doesn't matter. We do enough sales in our city to maintain it with 5% sales tax and shuttle fees. Thats it.

Cities should be stressed to the point of breaking every day. THAT is the way to control the number of cities. adding more cities every publish is just going to clutter the map until every planet looks like coruscant!

There should be no more than 15 player cities per planet. make then so dang expensive, only the most fit can qualify to run them.

Forgive me if I seem heartless in this matter. And thanks for your objective couter-view.

I agree there shouldn't be so many cities on each planet, just highering the maintenance might not the best course of action. You might get quite a few sells in your city, but you must remember each server is completely different. My city is next to the crystal caves and have quite a few crafters and we make quite a lot of money off of that, but I don't think it be enough to completely pay for high maintenance fees.

Each server is different for their economy is different. Maybe your city is lucky to have some of the best crafters on the entire server so people will flock to them, but some servers are so spread out that it is not like that. It is a case by case situation I suppose. My city, we could pay for higher maintenance because our taxes aren't that high, but it would still be very difficult, more so as it is.

I don't know, I like your idea and your argument.

Jemelby, though I agree on some points, most of it is insane. First of all howmany citizens does your city have? In the early ranks it is easy to break even with tax and maitenance. So if you are rank 3 or lower than of course shuttle fees and 5% sales tax should make you go in the black each week.

However, rank 4 and 5 are incredibly hard to be in the black unless you have well over 100 citizens (which if you city does than no reason you only need a 5% tax), more than one tax and a busy commercial/shuttle district. My city has over 90 citizens and is near one of the busiest POIs in the galaxy, the crystal caves on Dantooine. We receive (an estimate of course) of about 150k just on shuttle fees. However, the only tax we have is the 2k income tax that affects all citizens. We have every single thing a city has (I'm 2-4-3-4 so you can see we have everything including gardens, lamps and so on). So on average we make about 330k off of taxes in our city, but guess what? We are over 360k worth of maintenance so we are in the red. Granted it is not that much and we have over 5 million in the treasury, but it is still in the red. Sure we could tax the citizens more with either a property tax or a sales tax but a sales tax just charges merchants and we like to promote growth in our commercial district, so a property tax might not be too far off.

But you saying that they should raise the cost of a city is ridiculous. Though I like to see smaller cities that won't grow to be gone so it won't clutter up the map, this is still not the way to go. It is already a money sink and if they made it even more expensive, it would just be worse. A city will never be in the black on their maintenance report unless they reach over 100 citizens or they tax their citizens to hell. Having smaller cities prohibit many of the bigger cities to reach over 100. Not many cities are to 100 and of course they are having an easier time and they should. You have to remember that big cities are alot more prosperous than smaller cities. Just because a big city is in the black doesn't mean maintenance should be higher. It just means that bigger city has more avenues to receive money and more citizens for tax, nothing more.

So raising maintenance is not a good idea even if it would weed out the smaller cities. I think raising the cap on the cities was not a good idea. It doessuck that if you couldn't place your planned city because the cap went so fast the first time, but that doesn't mean raising the cap twice as much was the answer. I mean having 50 cities on Dantooine seems a lil too much. Yes, I know only a few will become big cities but still that is alot of clutter. Thank God my city is far away from most cities I don't know what to do to make city realism better but right now finances are in the right place and shouldn't be messed with.

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JaronElus wrote:

In the early ranks it is easy to break even with tax and maitenance. So if you are rank 3 or lower than of course shuttle fees and 5% sales tax should make you go in the black each week.

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I believe it should be at level 3 and no higher for the simple reason that an artificial cap has been placed on level 4 cities that can have shuttleports.

Fine, let the level 4 cities have their precious shuttles almost forever locking out the others (yes, i'm one of the precious), but give those who likely can never attain one an alternative to this problem. At least give level 3 cities garages since it is that group of players who will likely be using their vehicles moreso just on travelling to and fro to get to a shuttle, something level 4 cities don't really have to worry about.

It's already a bad system, and i understand teh reasons, but it simply cannot be at level 4 or 5 as a requirement.