Politician Archive
Thread: focused discussion for 1/19 changes (I'm only reading this thread!)
Ko-aIri
Thu Jan 20, 2005 3:42 pm
#14
Zero skillpoint issue:
As I see it, this will cause a tremendous amount of potential problems.
1. Literally everyone will have the option to become politician with zero risk involved. At least now, you have to be serious about investing the skill points to even pick up novice.
2. Mayors will be forced to enable zoning if they care at all about their city, else a rival guild or group can drop houses in and vote, especially with the new voting rules which don't count votes from people who don't actively participate. No skill points = no problem to pick up politician and give it a shot if they want to destroy someone else's city. Hostile takeovers could be a severe and real problem.
3. Similarly, any mayor who already has potentially "dangerous" (i.e. former guildmates who had a falling out, for example) residents could suffer the same fate. All they have to do is pick up Novice Politican (at no cost, risk or investment now), luck out the one time that people forget to vote for the incumbent mayor, win the election, and destroy the city hall and thus the city.
These scenarios may be worst-case but are very plausable. I'm putting my city on lockdown and I'm praying that my 14 months and millions of credits that I spent building up a city don't come to an end due to a very potentially devastating rule-change that penalizes those of us who are serious about it and favors the dabbler.
As I see it, this will cause a tremendous amount of potential problems.
1. Literally everyone will have the option to become politician with zero risk involved. At least now, you have to be serious about investing the skill points to even pick up novice.
2. Mayors will be forced to enable zoning if they care at all about their city, else a rival guild or group can drop houses in and vote, especially with the new voting rules which don't count votes from people who don't actively participate. No skill points = no problem to pick up politician and give it a shot if they want to destroy someone else's city. Hostile takeovers could be a severe and real problem.
3. Similarly, any mayor who already has potentially "dangerous" (i.e. former guildmates who had a falling out, for example) residents could suffer the same fate. All they have to do is pick up Novice Politican (at no cost, risk or investment now), luck out the one time that people forget to vote for the incumbent mayor, win the election, and destroy the city hall and thus the city.
These scenarios may be worst-case but are very plausable. I'm putting my city on lockdown and I'm praying that my 14 months and millions of credits that I spent building up a city don't come to an end due to a very potentially devastating rule-change that penalizes those of us who are serious about it and favors the dabbler.
MadeEvil
Thu Jan 20, 2005 3:52 pm
#15
I think it will be great to see more people running for mayors
If your the best man for the job I think you should beable to get the votes.
Also I do think we need a sniper rule put in place to keep peopel from regestering for mayor the last day of the election cycle getting a few votes and becoming mayor I think they should have to regeister within a certain amount of time before the election is overy lets say 5 days
If your the best man for the job I think you should beable to get the votes.
Also I do think we need a sniper rule put in place to keep peopel from regestering for mayor the last day of the election cycle getting a few votes and becoming mayor I think they should have to regeister within a certain amount of time before the election is overy lets say 5 days
yoda101705
Thu Jan 20, 2005 3:52 pm
#16
Here's my suggestions from the Patch Notes thread concerning the maint changes:
-Give mayors the ability to destroy "condemned" houses. Say aftera house sits condemned for a week or so, a mayor can enter the condemned house and destroy it.
-Give mayors the ability to relocate "condemned" houses to outside the city boundaries. Say after a house sits condemned for a week, mayors can redeed the house and move it outside of the city. All items in the house would stay intact. Because of this, the hosue would have to be replaced within 24 hours.
-When a structure reaches 0 condition, it is condemned for a week. At the end of the week, the structure deletes itself and all items within the structure are put into a temporary bank account. Once the player logs back on, he/she will have one week to withdraw the items from the bank account before the bank account deletes itself and all items in it. If a player does not log in for 6 months, the bank account is deleted.
-Instead of condemning houses, fix the mail notifications to give updates at 10% decay intervals. For example, at 90% you get a mail notification. Then at 80%, 70%, 60%, etc. you get more reminders.
-Leave the system as-is.
Those are a combo of my ideas and some others that were tosses around here. Thought I'd put most of them together in a neat little list. Sorry if I forgot any suggestions.
Kaessa
Thu Jan 20, 2005 3:55 pm
#17
Ok, the way I understand this:
1. If I let the maintenance run out on my house, I now get time to correct that.
2. If houses are condemned after reaching zero maintenance, they'll no longer poof. Hence the uproar. As mayors, we want to have nice clean cities with no dead/condemed housing.
3. Character purge is not going to be effective, because some of these houses are from people who still play the game, they've just moved to other servers.
Ok, possible solutions:
1. If I haven't logged into the server for 2/3 months and my house reaches zero maintenance.. well, it's obvious I don't care. It should poof. No "condemned" time for someone who doesn't log in to the server.
OR
2. I like Pappi's idea, and I don't understand why the devs would have a problem with it. Instead of a house autopoofing like it does now, it gets a "condemned" sign on it and the mayor has the option to make it poof. Nothing really changes as far as the current system goes, it just allows the people who forgot their maintenance that additional leeway.
OR
3. Poof the house into the bank until the character is purged. Nothing changes as far as database storage is concerned, but it gets the offending house out of the city. Perhaps this could be an option only when a character hasn't been logged on for a month or two. That way, nobody loses anything, everyone is happy, and the database can still be cleared during the character purge.
For those of you who are worried about the money coming out of the bank.. it doesn't autopay from the bank, the owner has to actively attempt to enter the house to pay the maintenance. So worrying about houses of people who have huge bank accounts is irrelevant.
1. If I let the maintenance run out on my house, I now get time to correct that.
2. If houses are condemned after reaching zero maintenance, they'll no longer poof. Hence the uproar. As mayors, we want to have nice clean cities with no dead/condemed housing.
3. Character purge is not going to be effective, because some of these houses are from people who still play the game, they've just moved to other servers.
Ok, possible solutions:
1. If I haven't logged into the server for 2/3 months and my house reaches zero maintenance.. well, it's obvious I don't care. It should poof. No "condemned" time for someone who doesn't log in to the server.
OR
2. I like Pappi's idea, and I don't understand why the devs would have a problem with it. Instead of a house autopoofing like it does now, it gets a "condemned" sign on it and the mayor has the option to make it poof. Nothing really changes as far as the current system goes, it just allows the people who forgot their maintenance that additional leeway.
OR
3. Poof the house into the bank until the character is purged. Nothing changes as far as database storage is concerned, but it gets the offending house out of the city. Perhaps this could be an option only when a character hasn't been logged on for a month or two. That way, nobody loses anything, everyone is happy, and the database can still be cleared during the character purge.
For those of you who are worried about the money coming out of the bank.. it doesn't autopay from the bank, the owner has to actively attempt to enter the house to pay the maintenance. So worrying about houses of people who have huge bank accounts is irrelevant.
Message Edited by Kaessa on 01-20-2005 02:57 PM
Message Edited by Kaessa on 01-20-2005 02:59 PM
IolasMacLeod
Thu Jan 20, 2005 3:59 pm
#18
Pappi wrote:
update:
I was just on TC testing this, and currently politician sp stuff is bugged. I'll let you guys know when it gets fixed.
keep in mind that there will be a purge of "dead" houses after this new system is put in, so keep that in mind when you comment.
p.s.: I will not comment on anything that's posted outside of this thread (including the cities forum), and if you want your voices heard by the devs, POST HERE (once).
Message Edited by Pappi on 01-20-2005 02:37 PM
yes but how often will this happen? If it happens once a year then it truly does us no good
Pappi
Thu Jan 20, 2005 4:01 pm
#19
IolasMacLeod wrote:
Pappi wrote:
update:
I was just on TC testing this, and currently politician sp stuff is bugged. I'll let you guys know when it gets fixed.
keep in mind that there will be a purge of "dead" houses after this new system is put in, so keep that in mind when you comment.
p.s.: I will not comment on anything that's posted outside of this thread (including the cities forum), and if you want your voices heard by the devs, POST HERE (once).Message Edited by Pappi on 01-20-2005 02:37 PM
yes but how often will this happen? If it happens once a year then it truly does us no good
I have no info on it, however I would assume that it's similar to the initial plans of "every month purge buildings that have been inactive for 6 months." this is not official, just an educated guess.
KardenTyrell
Thu Jan 20, 2005 4:07 pm
#20
Since the change is allready there, might I suggest that politician changes skillpoint usage to 25? 5 Novice, 4 Master, 1 skillpoint per skillbox
Kaessa
Thu Jan 20, 2005 4:07 pm
#21
Ko-aIri wrote:
Zero skillpoint issue:
As I see it, this will cause a tremendous amount of potential problems.
1. Literally everyone will have the option to become politician with zero risk involved. At least now, you have to be serious about investing the skill points to even pick up novice.
This doesn't hurt anyone who is an active mayor.
2. Mayors will be forced to enable zoning if they care at all about their city, else a rival guild or group can drop houses in and vote, especially with the new voting rules which don't count votes from people who don't actively participate. No skill points = no problem to pick up politician and give it a shot if they want to destroy someone else's city. Hostile takeovers could be a severe and real problem.
Hostile takeovers are always a possibility, whether politician takes skillpoints or not. If someone wants to try to take over your city, they're not going to be looking at skillpoint cost. If you care anything at all about your city, you should have zoning enabled anyway, as this is a very real possibility even in the current environment.
3. Similarly, any mayor who already has potentially "dangerous" (i.e. former guildmates who had a falling out, for example) residents could suffer the same fate. All they have to do is pick up Novice Politican (at no cost, risk or investment now), luck out the one time that people forget to vote for the incumbent mayor, win the election, and destroy the city hall and thus the city.
Two weeks in which candidates can register to run. One week to gather your forces to get your citizens to vote. If you can't get enough votes at that time to beat the interloper, perhaps your citizens are a bit too apathetic about the whole process.
These scenarios may be worst-case but are very plausable. I'm putting my city on lockdown and I'm praying that my 14 months and millions of credits that I spent building up a city don't come to an end due to a very potentially devastating rule-change that penalizes those of us who are serious about it and favors the dabbler.
I understand your concerns, but for the most part they are unfounded, and can happen nearly as easily in the current ruleset. If someone wants to "greif" your city, it's very easy to take Novice politician and run against you as things stand right now. Removing the skillpoint requirement isn't going to change the way that happens.
(Edit: I'm not adverse to SOME skill point cost, if it makes people feel better about the whole thing. I'll stay mayor regardless. But 77 skill points is just silly.
)Message Edited by Kaessa on 01-20-2005 03:11 PM
Mystyrys
Thu Jan 20, 2005 4:13 pm
#22
Woooo! I've never seen so many locks on threads here. /awe
On the one hand I like the zero point thing because I was struggling with which of my professions to drop to continue in politician. On the other hand, it's worrisome. They need to be real sure they have that loophole fixed and closed up tight that is allowing citizens to register to run right up to the last minute and not just in the first 2 weeks as intended. Or I agree with what others have said previously. There will be ninja elections.
Our city has zoning on and always has, but every now and then a militia member gets lax and lets people move in that are not properly screened, and/or they forget to revoke the rights immediately after the house was placed. We've been lucky so far in that respect, that no one has snuck in a batch of friends under the cover of the 24 hour blanket... but it could happen and be devastating now, with the Zero SP and dubious election registry limitations.
As for ghost houses being cleared with the char purge, I sure hope it comes sooner rather than later. Losing our ghosts will likely lose us our rank and shuttleport, but at this point most of our residents don't care. We'd rather get rid of all the ghosts. Our city is only 1300 meters from the Espa starport anyway. Maybe some gated city can gain rank and have a growth boom. Maybe some mayors and citizens will finally choose to merge with other citiesto the benefit of all and reduce the bloat of gated cities.
But allowing the structures of players who take long absences from the game to remain untouchable and thereby *gating* cities from expansion or restructuring is not a viable option. I understand and empathize with the needs of players who take a break, or say, those who are in the military and get deployed for long periods of time and when they do come back, they'd like all their stuff to be as they left it. But there also needs to be a means by which mayors and cities can work around these "layaway" structures!
Gating cities to appease players who rubberband cancel and renew or to those who simply can't be bothered to keep track of their structure maintenance status, is not fair to those of us who play with no interruptions in subscription or long absences from a particular server and who do take responsibility for what we own and operate within the game.
Pappi
Thu Jan 20, 2005 4:35 pm
#23
Mystyrys wrote:Woooo! I've never seen so many locks on threads here. /awe
this way folks know I mean business
I want to minimize the noise level here.
LordBluefire
Thu Jan 20, 2005 4:37 pm
#24
Pappi, I normally post in green as it is my favorite color, but for you I will do my summary post in white! /hug
Ipropose the following in the interests of keeping the game for active players, not people away from the game. Inactive players, defined as a user that does not login to the *server* where the house is, are the biggest problem for managing a town. Ignore whether the account is cancelled or not. House move or packup should be based on inactivity only. This player could be very active on another server, but they aren't here - my active town is! I have absolutely no confidence in a manual or "every 6 months" character purge. It has to be something coded and automated or it will not happen. Three months is too long to wait for an inactive house to go away! Two months = 1.6 years of SWG time!
Inactive Proposal
1) Inactive 1 month timer => permit mayor to move (not pack up the house, just move it around)
2) Inactive 2 months timer => house packs up and moves to player's bank - removing them from citizenship and from all taxes, etc.
2) Inactive 2 months timer => house packs up and moves to player's bank - removing them from citizenship and from all taxes, etc.
3) The only thing that matters is inactivity on server, not account status or maintenance levels. If a houses maintenance runs out, let it decay and die like in the past. Give cities an inactivity timer.
Skill Points
1) I agree with theskill point reduction, perhaps 1 skill point per box - or zero. It is true that most mayors are alts. Iam grinding Jedi just to open the alt slot so I can get the town a mayor with master politician.
City Take Over
1) Based on the post today regarding a takeover in 26 hours, this issue needs to be looked into and tested. My citizens would be devestated ifour town was taken over, picked up and destroyed. Tib has been around since shortly after the citypublish.
Wishes
1) Starport Terminals in our towns. 
2)Increase city object counts to be more in line with the NPC cities. Wecurrently cannot droplights on our streets and make a metropolis look like it has roads because of the tiny count of city objects allowed.
3) Let the city make money off the mission terminals
4) Fix thesales tax issue
5) Give us a true management system forplacingitems in the city. Currently it is a nightmare to attempt to place items in a uniform matter. (You are too close to building X - move out1 meter - you are too close- move out another meter - drop object - /cheer - realize that you moved too far to the left of the building!! doh! pickup, try again) Any reason we can't move objects using the same commands we use in astructure?
6) Why can't trainers be placed in the city related structures (or any structure set to public in a city)such as theCantina,Hospital, Theatre, etc? It would be a nice touch to have a dancer trainerstanding near the bar.
7)Let us move things aroundvia an overhead view so we can arrange our cities nicely. After all, I am pretty sure we have satellites and the like since we have lightspeed capable starships. LOL!We should be able to move player houses as well as all other city items. When you live in a city you are agreeing to be zoned, and want to live in something that looks like someone cares about it. Why should citizens have to spend time in game trying to understand why their mayor wants them to pack up their 250 items in their houseto move it two squares north becausethe city would look better with a roadthere? Theywant to play Star Wars, we want to administrate a town that is in a period of technology that is far superior to RL. I am sure they have droids that can relocate sky scrapers on Coruscant yet for some reason we look like villages with this strangebuilding in the middle of town (Corellia town halls).
8) Apartments! Get apartments opened in the NPC towns andgive us the ability to buy high rises and place in our towns.
9) Auto walls. Walls thatautomatically surround the town if the mayor turns selects them - the walls will have x number of openings thatoccur were there is open space between structures. (I know easy sounding, nightmare to program). The walls add a cost to the city and stay inside the perimeter of the city limits. The players can select more than x openings and point to the local of the opening which is verified to be away from a structure that would block the opening. When structure is placed near a wall opening and could possibly block it the opening would move.
10)Player voting terminals that actually let us runpolls on things like voting in a tax increase/etc.
11) The ability to add citizens to the citizens mail capability as an attribute seperate from malitia.
12) Malitia should be able to grant zone rights to themselvesas an additional malitiaattribute.
13) Remove the requirement for people to be standing next to the mayor to be added as a malitia member. They should just have to be a citizen.
14) Giveplayer cities a revamp! We need some creative ideas other than RP to bring life back to the fun cities in the game.
15) Give architects some more interesting structures for towns. Perhaps a high-rise that can be used as a mall, or apartment complex,or hotel even where people can temporarily bank their wares while they go off to hunt near your town... for a small fee.
Thanks for doing what you do!
Message Edited by LordBluefire on 01-20-2005 06:40 PM
Geevo
Thu Jan 20, 2005 4:38 pm
#25
I love the 0 SP change. I am a Triple-Master Smuggler (TKM/Pistoleer/Smuggler) with 3 SP on Force Sensitive Skills.
I will not give up my template for politician, but I have wanted to be a Mayor since they released player cities. I understand both arguements ... but I fall on the side of 'thank you devs'
(added this forum on my locked threads and made arrangements to become mayor as soon as the publish hits).
Laeren
Thu Jan 20, 2005 4:40 pm
#26
I'm pretty happy about the change to 0 skillpoints. I was just thinking to myself that I wish I had some architect to go along with being a master politician, so I could make statues and streetlamps and fountains with specific names to help the city out. Now, I will be able to get the necessary skills to do these things, without having to drop master merchant, master poli and master artisan.
The maintenance change does have me worried. I like the fact that things disappear after a while, simply because it frees up new land to place new citizens. We have a fairly active city on Starsider (Rauha, Naboo) and we have weekly citizen changes (someone has left, their house poofs, we get a new citizen or two, etc). Sometimes people even come back - but none of them seem bitter if their house poofed. They know it was likely to happen, and they take it in stride. I don't think this change will help people who have been gone for months and months and months, but it will certainly hurt the people who have continued to play.
The maintenance change does have me worried. I like the fact that things disappear after a while, simply because it frees up new land to place new citizens. We have a fairly active city on Starsider (Rauha, Naboo) and we have weekly citizen changes (someone has left, their house poofs, we get a new citizen or two, etc). Sometimes people even come back - but none of them seem bitter if their house poofed. They know it was likely to happen, and they take it in stride. I don't think this change will help people who have been gone for months and months and months, but it will certainly hurt the people who have continued to play.