Politician Archive
Thread: 0 Skill Points =/= No More Improvements
PsychoticChipmunk wrote:
Pappi wrote:
KJFett wrote:If you scroll the page kinda fast..its like a neon sign.
green hurts
Really? I find it just sticks out well no matter the background. I prefer the white but thoughts get muddled if you do that. Purple is nice and easy on the eyes...but I use the classic view so it'd hide itself in the background color.
if I want to highlight stuff, I usually use the pastel version of the color... the neon green does stick out against my SWG skin, but it literally hurts O.o
Pappi wrote:
KJFett wrote:
If you scroll the page kinda fast..its like a neon sign.
green hurts
PsychoticChipmunk wrote:
You realize, of course, that we're discussing the game as a whole and the performance of the development team and not the topic at hand. Right? You can take your road I'll be more optimistic, agree to disagree, but it has no tangible bearing on why I made this thread. Would you please tell me why we aren't going to have any focus or any fixes now that our profession is "free" or something to that effect?
MTolwyn wrote:
PsychoticChipmunk wrote:
And now the increasing efforts to drag people to NPC cities seem just to support
the general opinion that the devs want to eliminate the player cities.
Increased efforts to drag people to the lesser known NPC cities and out of Coronet, not out of player cities. Do you really think it'd be that awful if the spam got decentralized on Corellia and Doaba saw more then 6 people per hour, and they only land there because it's easier on their computer? I just don't see this new interest in face lifting year anda half old cities into something new as a threat to our cities. I see it as changing the boring landscape around a little bit. They've said we won't get homes in NPC cities pretty much ever so that threat is gone. You can't place a base in a town and I doubt there will be destroyable garrisons so PvP will still be PC based. Merchants will be the same, with a sea of green around Coronet and Theed. So really this is just changing our art folder and that's about it.
Well maybe you re a lucky mayor who hasn t to deal with the CSR monthly cause there are severe bugs and troubles arround your city all the time. And hear promises that devs work on it and fix it.
I am. All the mayors I know of on world are, and most of the ones I know offworld have little problems with their city. I had a CTD blackhole in it, griefing from PvP'ers, and a few lost item cases and little else.All our townsaren't on a server boundary line like yours is, however one of them was accidentally deleted by their mayor quitting and are now capped on Naboo even though I don't see 10 rank 4 cities on the map. It should come out in the wash though. I've heard about your problems and I believe you said your town was on a server boundary. Well this answer isn't one most people would like to hear (I wouldn't) but you may have to move. My first choice for a city wouldn't work because of the terrain around it. Too much no build since we where on a plateau and ended up having to move to lower grounds. It was a pain in the ass but it had to be done for the betterment of the town and the citizens.
Yea we had troubles from the beginning
- houses including all inside just vanished inside the city borders at server restarts and CSRs told us to prove they have been there
- I as mayor needed to be granted zoningrights from the militia to be able to place a house for nearly a year and CSR said it s intended this way
-city specialisation didn t work for 2 weeks but we had to pay for it
-city caps are broken on our world CSRs and Supervisors keep us promising that devs take care about it for about 8 months now
- 2 terminals vanished but still counting and taking cash, CSR told us that there s no tool for them to remove them
- we have citizens still on the list that left us months ago (including a reb spying on our city mails)
- ... and a few minor troubles
But still relocating and leaving teh world we have been for more than a year now is no option. We are living in a nice location on Naboo, 3.5k to the next starport and always have arround 70-90 citizens, even without having a shuttleport.
ok i cleared out the things already discussed
All i an all i think the devs did a lousy job so far but they especially screwing up the player cities from the beginning. They just pushed it out unfinished to focus on other stuff. Sure there are many important things to consider for devs but i would have prefered a good working/coded cities which enrich the comunity instead of what we got.
Sure it wont take long till the first will ask why i m mayor if i don t like it.
Because I see it as my job to help the comunity. I m guildleader, mayor and leader of an alliance. It s a pain to do and there s not much gratitude, but i see it as my duty and feel responsible for my people here.
I dedicate my time in swg to it and i won t give up bugging the devs till we get a working system.
MTolwyn wrote:
Pappi wrote:
hon, nothing personal... yellow is really hard to read toowe need more colors
also, what do you think I've been doing here since May?
no offense and nothing personal but i ve been also curious about it.
but i know that the devs have no interest in our profession and that you re on a lost post there but you also have to understand our frustration here, we get screwed on a regular basis and CSRs are mostly to incompetent to understand the troubles, and when they do we just hear "Sorry we can t help but we told the devs about it. Please be patient" (and wait another year and keep paying for your accounts)Message Edited by Pappi on 02-02-2005 12:16 AM
well, think of how I feel when I don't get any responses at all...
Pappi wrote:
MTolwyn wrote:
Pappi wrote:
hon, nothing personal... yellow is really hard to read too
we need more colors
also, what do you think I've been doing here since May?
no offense and nothing personal but i ve been also curious about it.
but i know that the devs have no interest in our profession and that you re on a lost post there but you also have to understand our frustration here, we get screwed on a regular basis and CSRs are mostly to incompetent to understand the troubles, and when they do we just hear "Sorry we can t help but we told the devs about it. Please be patient" (and wait another year and keep paying for your accounts)
Message Edited by Pappi on 02-02-2005 12:16 AM
well, think of how I feel when I don't get any responses at all...
/comfort
but without you watching our backs, we would be a whole lot worse off. 
They may not respond to most things, but even if 10% gets through to them...
ToppDog wrote:
I think the devs are in the midst of an overall shift away from the player city concept. They have been posting threads lately asking players what it would take to getthem back to the NPC cities etc. This is the writing on the wall for player cities I think. Although I like the idea of player cities & have been involved in building 2 of them, they did have an adverse affect on the NPC cities... & that combined with a shrinking player population has made many NPC cities seem like ghost towns.
Personally, I would like to see a compromise between the two. I really like the idea of having instanced condos in the NPC cities where the floorplan deeds could be crafted & purchased from architects. And having them then be instanced would allow any player who wanted one to be able to. I also think the NPC cities might do well to allow the developement of suburbs in designated areas within the city limits. There should also be a way for players to own or rent shops or instanced levels of a mall etc.
This should free up more land for player cities& housing in general... which could greatly benefit from a revamp as well. Ideally those who place houses or build cities should have the ability to work with larger plots of land & be able to landscapre them & place structures on the land itself, such as walls, gardens, pathways, roads, etc. Cities should be designed so that the commerse that takes place in all city structures profits the city & does not leave the game... travel fees & garage fees should go directly into the city fund, as well as taxes from malls, merchant tents, etc. Basically cities should be designed so they can turn a profit or at least pay for themselves... it is not right that many politicians are forced to keep the city running by paying for everything themselves. I know many are very dedicated & are more than happy to do so, but it's still not right...
This is the beginning of what I'd like to see... but I know how tough this would be to accomplish, so I'm not holding my breath. But I will dream...
I think a comprimise between the two is what they are after.
Remember back in the day when everyone was cloistered arouynd NPC cities the devs had huge issues with lag. Remember when the run between AH and Bestine there was no open land, just houses. Part of the player city concept was to spread out the player base acrooss multiple planets in multiple areas. That requirement and need has not changed.
They know that NPC cities will only somewhat come alive with content. They are looking for ideas to make people come visit them more often besides to just use the starship term or shuttle.
The did make a real bad move against player cities with the condemned structure concept. That really hurts player cities. But it is clear that is a ploy to entice players to come back and not a direct ploy against player cities.
PsychoticChipmunk wrote:
Could someone in the 'pro-sp cost' party please explain to me the causal connection between skill point expenditure and development attention? Ranger has been almost entirely ignored since the game has been live, so have smugglers and several crafters (primary amongst these being architects which are the backbone of the economy no less) All of these take skill points, more skill points than a master politician no less.
So that more or less counters the belief that you must have something spent in order to get something gained. However lets delve deeper into this beyond shallow pointing of fingers towards other professions.
Now, player cities are a cauldron for interesting events and ideas as well as PvP hotspots and epitomizations of the GCW with city feuds. We are the stomping grounds for greatness in our galaxy if greatness is our goal and ability. We can utilize our skills to make our “zone of control” more powerful in certain respects as well as garner a slight bit of control as to how people can access our cities. This is on top of the aesthetic appeal and prowess that a truly planned and thought out urban plan, with gardens and other décor accents, allows in a war of the wills type way. Our literal, professional skills don’t exactly bring this about though.
- Urban planning takes place in the mind of the creator, not the branch of urban planning our characters hold. The thought that garden A looks good in spot C is mine and mine alone, not the games and the ability to do this is hardly considered powerful in any respect.
- Placing terminals and trainers are simply a means to assist our citizens not confound our enemies or create urban appeal. (as far as groups of trainers being unable to pass off as groups of NPC’s, and the position of terminals not truly controlling people’s movements throughout the town)
- Our ability to levy taxes work on a town to town basis, mine was sales tax only until the bug forced us into donations. Being able to charge people an income tax was worthless and frankly useless to me but I’m sure others found it quite useful for their town.
- Specializations last so long as you wish to keep them and the fact that they require a skill is almost as intangible as it is the requirement of a city level. It may be there but it is only an impotence at the start and proof of a cities stature at the end.
We have nothing beyond our own personal abilities to make player cities something to truly shine and that is not going away. The ability to improve upon a city even more so is certainly something we need to strive for and development would be wise to assist.
Like I said, player cities are the stomping ground for events and activities to occur. The GCW does not exist, on my server, as faction vs. faction. Or at least not in the most common of senses, rather it exists as guild(s) vs. guild(s) and cities vs. cities. You don’t hear of a rebel victory over the empire in Theed nearly as much as you do a FIGHT victory over AXIS in ‘Lake Dread’ for example. (although it always involves groups of multiple guilds) The rebellion and the empire clash swords but the two guilds are personifications of their faction and the cities they fight in are controlled by them. Coronet and Theed are still and always will be major scenes for fights but they don’t have bases to procure bragging rights from. They aren’t truly owned by anyone to show off your ability when clone camping the enemy for hours on their own soil.
Summary and important part for skimmers to read!
That is why we need and will gain a revamp. Not because our skill point investment seems wasted, nor because our abilities as mayor make us fruitless in other aspects of the game, but because our influence in the game goes beyond our skills! We will get the ability to create our own quests, place factional décor and align a city with your side, truly defend our town from griefers because all of this will improve upon the aspects of the game that everyone is involved with. In the long run my character having 66 skill points invested to be a 3/4/4/4 politician does not mean jack, my city being the pivotal point of PvP (picking pickled peppers) on Corellia does.
simple
When determining priorites they need to look at player impact. Player impact includes
1) How many people in the professions
2) What is the cost to the person for that professions
3) The degree of the problem
Now it is clear that the devs do not consider politician as high impact anyway which is wrong since the PC affects a large base of players in itself.
Now with zero skill points we are not sacrificing anything they can measure. They can't measure our dedication to our cities.
Politicians is the only profession that driectly afftects the player base because of PC's, and the dev's seem to not recognize that.
Scoooter wrote:
ToppDog wrote:
I think the devs are in the midst of an overall shift away from the player city concept. They have been posting threads lately asking players what it would take to getthem back to the NPC cities etc. This is the writing on the wall for player cities I think. Although I like the idea of player cities & have been involved in building 2 of them, they did have an adverse affect on the NPC cities... & that combined with a shrinking player population has made many NPC cities seem like ghost towns.
Personally, I would like to see a compromise between the two. I really like the idea of having instanced condos in the NPC cities where the floorplan deeds could be crafted & purchased from architects. And having them then be instanced would allow any player who wanted one to be able to. I also think the NPC cities might do well to allow the developement of suburbs in designated areas within the city limits. There should also be a way for players to own or rent shops or instanced levels of a mall etc.
This should free up more land for player cities& housing in general... which could greatly benefit from a revamp as well. Ideally those who place houses or build cities should have the ability to work with larger plots of land & be able to landscapre them & place structures on the land itself, such as walls, gardens, pathways, roads, etc. Cities should be designed so that the commerse that takes place in all city structures profits the city & does not leave the game... travel fees & garage fees should go directly into the city fund, as well as taxes from malls, merchant tents, etc. Basically cities should be designed so they can turn a profit or at least pay for themselves... it is not right that many politicians are forced to keep the city running by paying for everything themselves. I know many are very dedicated & are more than happy to do so, but it's still not right...
This is the beginning of what I'd like to see... but I know how tough this would be to accomplish, so I'm not holding my breath. But I will dream...
I think a comprimise between the two is what they are after.
Remember back in the day when everyone was cloistered arouynd NPC cities the devs had huge issues with lag. Remember when the run between AH and Bestine there was no open land, just houses. Part of the player city concept was to spread out the player base acrooss multiple planets in multiple areas. That requirement and need has not changed.
They know that NPC cities will only somewhat come alive with content. They are looking for ideas to make people come visit them more often besides to just use the starship term or shuttle.
The did make a real bad move against player cities with the condemned structure concept. That really hurts player cities. But it is clear that is a ploy to entice players to come back and not a direct ploy against player cities.
I think one thing nobody is considering as much is that PCs don't have as much to do with the desertion of the main cities as Jedi does. Things started going to heck when the hologrind hit, and that was before player cities. The desertion of towns in general can be blamed on the proliferation of Jedi in the game. Everything can be blamed on holocrons and Jedi, pretty much. I hope the rumors of rollback and massive changes to how Jedi is done are true, because it will do a lot to improve PVP which is a big part of what draws people, and the PVPers themselves and even a lot of Jedi don't like the way things are. Everyone can agree that aside from bugs et cetera, the game was more fun prior to holocrons. It threw Everything out of whack.
The next biggest culprit is DOT weapons,ridiculous looted components such as have been for CM,and loot camping. In the beginning, SOE was all about proclaiming the strength of the player-driven economy and how nothing looted would be able to compete with what player crafters could make. Somewhere along the line, that got thrown out, which is a pity. It's screwed up the economy & made regular weaponsmithing in particular suffer big time.
Jedi needs to be brought under some sort of birth control & DOT weapons and other ridiculous loot drops need to be eliminated from the game. If these are done, painful as they may be for some people, the game will begin to get back on track and everyone will reap the benefits, especially the foundation members of the player base such as player cities, merchants, and crafters.
MTolwyn wrote:
I dedicate my time in swg to it and i won t give up bugging the devs till we get a working system.
hon, nothing personal... yellow is really hard to read too
also, what do you think I've been doing here since May?
correspondents are the portal between devs and players, and I'm been wroking on it this whole time.Message Edited by Pappi on 02-02-2005 12:16 AM
Pappi wrote:
hon, nothing personal... yellow is really hard to read too
we need more colors
also, what do you think I've been doing here since May?
no offense and nothing personal but i ve been also curious about it.
but i know that the devs have no interest in our profession and that you re on a lost post there but you also have to understand our frustration here, we get screwed on a regular basis and CSRs are mostly to incompetent to understand the troubles, and when they do we just hear "Sorry we can t help but we told the devs about it. Please be patient" (and wait another year and keep paying for your accounts)
Message Edited by Pappi on 02-02-2005 12:16 AM
Scoooter wrote:
simple
When determining priorites they need to look at player impact. Player impact includes
1) How many people in the professions
2) What is the cost to the person for that professions
3) The degree of the problem
Now it is clear that the devs do not consider politician as high impact anyway which is wrong since the PC affects a large base of players in itself.
Now with zero skill points we are not sacrificing anything they can measure. They can't measure our dedication to our cities.
Politicians is the only profession that driectly afftects the player base because of PC's, and the dev's seem to not recognize that.
Those are exactly the reasons I feel the devs will take a more active role in player cities and politicians. Not because of the cost for that profession or how many mayors there are, but because of how many player cities their are and how many members they all impact.
My skills mean bupkiss in the grand scheme of things. My 100 citizens mean a hell of a lot more, and if I can produce content for them and many others (re PvP tourneys/raids, etc) the devs don't have to. If I can draw people to come into my town and several others that is less lag in the areas that neutrals and random joe's are in. 10 less loot horders and kill stealers in the geo caves because they're over in Arcadia dueling.
The extent of the development appreciation of this is up for debate, however you can't judge the inaction in regards to player cities thus far as proof that they hate us. We may encompass a lot of people and interaction in the game...combat as a whole impacts far more. The GCW a few less but it is much more significant to the game as a whole. Bugs that where game breaking, service improvement, and making the game whole (JtL and the first 3 major publishes of mounts, cars, and cities) took precedence. They should have. When they get done and all the devs might and vision is directed at smaller parts of the game we will shine through. After all the revamps to all the core parts of the game and 2 professions that have had a promise for over a year, what's left? Us! That's when we, and all other parts of the game, will get the loving we deserve. Until then we have to wait our turn for things that are more important to a vast majority of the community.
Plus we've got Papps to remind them over and over about how much influence we can wield.