Politician Archive
Thread: polling our new top 5!
Tekmal-HS
Mon Nov 22, 2004 4:46 pm
#14
1. fix this voting xp every 3 weeks. can't survive on 750xp a week
2. bring back /citywarn
3. city chat channel
4. give politicians the chance to advance past a player city mayor
SamRebo
Mon Nov 22, 2004 9:54 pm
#15
I have one that I feel is very important and that I don't see mentioned.
#1: Allow cities to make money from city mission terminals.
This was actually mentioned at Fanfest as something that could be done, unfortunatly I think it fell to the wayside. There are a couple of ways to do this:
#1: Code the mission terminals like a faction bases.A faction base automatically withdraws some of the mission reward puts it towards maintanance. On my server there is a small Forward Outpost that has been there for over a year now, and it has about a year and a half worth of maintanance in it. Not too shabby!
#2: If for some reason, a PC's terminal cannot be coded like that, then give mayors the ability to set a "Mission Terminal Tax" of some degree, maybe a percentage of some kind like sales tax.
That would go a long way to help offset the costs of running a city. My rank 4 City takes 525000 a week. Luckily I have wonderful citizens that donate on a regular basis.
A couple of side notes:
I think that Politician should have reduced skill points, not zero skill points. There needs to be a cost involved with this profession. If there isn't, any time someone gets ticked at you they could pick up and run, and without a skill point cost, there would be no fear of electing a mayor that can't do anything for the town.
Ex: Tim is Mayor and a Master Politician, and Joe wants to be on the Militia. Now Joe doesn't show responsibility to have zoning rights in Tim's eyes, so he denies the request. Joe is a melee stacker, and has almost every skill point tied up in melee combat skills. In the current system, even if Joe picks up Novice Politician and runs, most of the citizens will realize that there is no way that Joe is going to drop enough skills and lose combat ability to effectivly run the city. Now if there was zero skill points involved, it may cause a "revolving door" of mayors every election. Now maybe that appeals to some people, but I myself would probably choose to move out of a town that didn't have stability.
I think it is very important that we continue to work to have our issues read and heard. Now that JTL is out, it has freed up resources. We have to approach this in a constructive way of coarse, screaming about it won't do the trick. Politicians are a very, very important and under rated profession. Without us, Player Cities could not function, and I think that Player Cities are one of the best things taken for granted in this game.
Now is the time, let's make our voices heard.
PsychoticChipmunk
Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:03 pm
#16
#1 a Sales Tax!!!
- The master box. It has been just over a year and that is still empty. It doesn't necessarily need to be dual spec's again but we need something in there. Perhaps an ability to increasestats (even further if already buffed)via "motivational speeches" like Baj proposed.
- The bugs and oversights of the new system. MASC city, one of the finest and most respected towns on my server, was destroyed due to a bug in the election. The mayor wasn't able to get on in time to register and the town just went and asploded since there was no previous mayor to revert to. It is my understanding that GM and some of you corr's are aware of this (well I know that Delta/Brisc is aware since he is on my server as well) but I cannot overemphasize the importance of getting all the kinks out of this system.
I would also like it if mayors where auto registered to the ballot due to reasons I ponited out earlier. If we have to be on the ballot in order for the town to not destroy itself and the real world starts to press in those 2 weeks simply won't be enough. Why should the town suffer since I broke a leg/ am vacationing in Europe/ lost a family member/ was transported to a separate plane of existence where I get to play God? This is a game, not work. I shouldn't have to come back home every 2 weeks to make sure I didn't foul up those TPS reports.
- Skill point requirement. As others I have qualms about making it a free trade (especially with the ease of replacing a mayor now) but it would be nice if the requirement was reduced allowing us to fill more roles for our town instead of being gated by politician.
- Ongoing content. Someone on my server attempted to make a "senate" but it failed due to lack of interest. At the beginning (which it couldn't really get out of) there just wasn't any power wielded by the body so it was nothing more then a roleplaygame inside of a game. I plan on trying to revitalize the idea a bit but dont' expect to succeed myself since there is no real palpable power that anyone can wield. I wouldn't be able to chastise someone in the "senate" for breaking a rule at least not in any meaningful way and the only chance I could get people to follow rules would be via peer pressure and board activity. If we where to be given an inter-planetary body that was NPC run but PC driven and had a real impact on the server (frequency and types of live events, costs of mission payouts, fireworks displays constantly at night in some areas and other such things) it would work no problem. It doesnt' even have to be politician required but would deffinitely give us a politiking role.
- More and new types of decorations. The gardens and statues are great same goes for the civic structures (oh by the by, fix the clone center decoration bug since I can only do so much without /move commands) but they're old. Give us some new ones with a zing. I could easily go into detail for a few ideas with the art department and I know that I'm not alone. Give out a militia hq building allowing for a tighter control over milita-men (like a PA hall add or remove the ability to /cityban or /grantzoning to people so they keep the stronghold bonus but lose the responsibility not everyone can handle) a few more small, medium, and large gardens for all the worlds and maybe a few more exotics. Make some factionally aligned municipal items for the GCW revamp when it comes out.
- More Developer involvement. Aside from posting the newest info and a few FYI's when was the last time a developer posted in this forum or most others for that matter? It would be great to get a quid pro quo going and toss ideas about. I know Tiggs is really busy but it would be nice if we (as well as some of those inferior other professions) where able to truly communicate with the devs. Strike up a conversation and just shoot the breeze about what was discussed in the meeting. I realize, and I'm not alone, that most information the devs give is soft...but the time lapse between one tidbit and another is just too long to let it go as just here say. I mean TH's word is gospel only because we never hear anything else for a good long time and when we get a detailed update that is the opposite we feel cheated. We werent' cheated we just weren't involved in the development proccess and didn't realize it.
Well without going into too much detail (well detail that can't be easily skimmed) there you go Papps. Although I don't know what good this will do, we're untouchable until after the curb and only will see some progress in the GCW revamp that I can percieve.
MTolwyn
Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:22 pm
#17
1) fix city caps
there are several large level 3 cities with 70+ citizens out there waiting for 10+ months now to advance and just get the weekly "Screw you!" mail
2) master box
3) city get s a percentage of the mission payouts and also of money the trainer charge for their training
4) factional city decorations
5) message board in the city hall where citizens can post mesages
Pappi
Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:34 pm
#18
MTolwyn wrote:1) fix city capsthere are several large level 3 cities with 70+ citizens out there waiting for 10+ months now to advance and just get the weekly "Screw you!" mail2) master box3) city get s a percentage of the mission payouts and also of money the trainer charge for their training4) factional city decorations5) message board in the city hall where citizens can post mesages
hon, there's nothing wrong with the city cap itself, rather the server's not updating them correctly. you can ask them to implement char purging and let these (well deserved) cities have their rank, but raising city cap isn't an option.
also, anything factional would probably be covered in the GCW revamp, which *should* happen before the poli one if ours happen.
cnlfailure
Tue Nov 23, 2004 4:57 am
#19
#1 : Give politicians something to do.
Every skill box we have allows us to use a one-shot "power". I for one am unlikely to need to place any more banks. The issue regarding the skill point cost would be less of a problem if those skill points allowed us to do something for our citizens. Yes, I'm talking about missions, but more besides. The devs are a talented and imaginative bunch I'm sure they have some ideas as to what they'd like to do with cities.
#2 : Revamp city finances.
As well as a full breakdown of how the city budget is being spent week-in, week-out I'd like to see more financial tools in cities. For one, I'd like to be able to pay my militia - they'd earn a set number of credits for performing a task set to them (the range of tasks dictated by the mayor's skill level - could range from "stand guard for x minutes" to "clear city pests" and "inspect public property"). This would make the militia role a little more desirable. Potential exploits? Not really. If a militia member doesn't perform their task they can be sacked. If a militia member doesn't want to perform their task, they don't have to do it. A nice simply way to bring some activity into a city, giving both mayors and militia-members something to do on an ongoing basis.
#3 : More civic structures.
Introduce more civic buildings to the game. They don't necessarily need any functionality, but I'd love to be able to place the kind of NPC "shanty" buildings we see in NPC cities. Everything ranging from shops, workshop layouts, warehouses, ship hangers, barracks and anything which could be conceived could be placed then transferred to a relevant city member (in order to occupy their building slots). Not to mention the fact that it'd break up the "housing estate" look of current cities. Increase the number of decorations available while you're at it.
#4 : An NPC presence.
Most player cities, when you enter them, are dead. If you're lucky one or two players may be seen, but for the most part the inhabitants are elsewhere. Let us breed some life into the cities by adding NPCs. If these NPCs could serve a purpose that'd be even better.
#5 : Give cities some purpose.
This is more of a summary point, but it'd be my #1 issue. There is, right now no point to having a city beyond status. If you operate a roleplayer city, or your citizens are heavily involved in the GCW you have some point, but for those of us who represent people who are just playing the game the city is simply a place to store your stuff. There is little to no reason to visit it at all, especially when other activities ingame have some appeal. City involvement doesn't need to be the most exciting thing in the game, but give us some tools to provide something for our citizens to do. We're sat here eager to put our imaginations to use to create something, but the only way we can do it right now is to mis-use, or creatively use tools designed for other purposes (vendors barking clues in quests, medical centre's reworked to become malls, crafting terminals used to generate local NPCs, etc), and even with these "exploits" used we're still very much limited by the game mechanics as to what we can do.
We want to create content for you. We want to provide the very thing players complain the game is lacking. We have invested a sizable portion of our skill-point allotment into a profession made up of one-shot powers. We are an enthusiastic profession, but that only takes us so far. We need your help, so we can help our citizens.
I appreciate that the points made above are futile, but I strongly feel that the above would improve the game for everyone involved in any way with player cities.
MTolwyn
Tue Nov 23, 2004 5:09 am
#20
Pappi wrote:
MTolwyn wrote:
1) fix city caps
there are several large level 3 cities with 70+ citizens out there waiting for 10+ months now to advance and just get the weekly "Screw you!" mail
2) master box
3) city get s a percentage of the mission payouts and also of money the trainer charge for their training
4) factional city decorations
5) message board in the city hall where citizens can post mesages
hon, there's nothing wrong with the city cap itself, rather the server's not updating them correctly. you can ask them to implement char purging and let these (well deserved) cities have their rank, but raising city cap isn't an option.
also, anything factional would probably be covered in the GCW revamp, which *should* happen before the poli one if ours happen.
with fix city caps i didnt necessarily mean to raise them. GM or TH (not sure anymore) mentionend a long time ago that they are going to change the city advancement system.
The character purging would help a lot but will never happen, and without inactivity rule and unlimited cross server citizen supply nothing will change ever in the current system.
And in case the miracle happens that a city fall like we had on our planet, the servers screwed it up and didn t update the cap count.
ok replace factional deco with deco (general& faction)
snash0902
Tue Nov 23, 2004 6:02 am
#21
1) Go back to 100xp per citizen with weekly xp gain, rather than 300xp per vote with xp every 3 weeks. Its hard enough getting people to declare residents than getting them to vote as well! 
2) Cityban should apply to the city borders instead of just the structures, i.e. when the message would appear "you have entered xxxx" the person banned should not be able to go into the city. Sounds extreme, but some people do tend to ruin things for everyone else in a city.
3) Mayor should have the Character title "Mayor of xxxx", which would be a nice addition and better than just a complete politician tree title or Master Politician.
4) All buildings that fall into a city border should automatically become a declare residents and the occupant becomes a citizen. Then that person can remove themselves should they so wish if they dont want to pay the taxes.
5) Not really aissue, but placing another Shuttleport or having a second specialization would be nice :-)
Thats it, the first 4 being the things I really would love to see done if possible. As it would be nice to have more control over the city and the goings on in and around it.
KibbsSydi
Tue Nov 23, 2004 7:07 am
#22
Like your ideas man, just adding my feelers too
BlackEdge wrote:
#1. Give politicians ability to create their own type of missions (with various rewards attached to it) for the city. Maybe a pvp tournament, rescue mission, treasure hunting, assasination, assist and destroy, escort, even big city type events like getting attacked by mokks (on dantooine), or a horde of mad ravenous tortons trampling through the city. Whether an npc or a terminal.
Love this Idea... Even have a Proposal of my own at this Link http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Politician&message.id=42525
#2. Give politicians the ability to actually become a mayor in the npc city. This would Make the npc cities habitable (IE apartments and such) that can be controlled by the politican and can even give the npc cities a specific perk (and make cities like bestine worthwhile for the imperial npcs by giving them bonus from the stronghold skill).
Love this idea, and if you cant do apartments right away allow people to become a part of the city thru the current zoning rights like player cities, allowing them to build just outside the already laid NPC cities.
#3. Remove skill points for politician
Not sure I agree here fully, would much rather see them get more abilities and keep it a skill.
#4. Please put the old system back in where the current mayor automatically gets the vote and automatically run, but leave the resign feature in. I don't understand why the new system was implemented. Majority of the politicians just wanted the ability to resign, so not sure why the other part was implemented cause it'll seem more like work for the players or they'll forget.
I agree here as well, atleast give them the automatic unless another mayor registers to go against them.
#5. Change maintenance cost to 3 weeks.
No Real Thoughts here.
Anyways just some things off the top of my head that will really improve
CoretDenvin
Tue Nov 23, 2004 11:04 am
#23
My top 5:
1. More Civic Structures (Mayors House, a mall, a better theatre)
2. Make Master Politician Mean Something
3. More sources of income (Trainers, sales tax, etc)
4. Decorations (more of them, "free" streetlamps, street signs would be amazing)
5. Mayor of ... title
TxRoadDawg
Tue Nov 23, 2004 1:18 pm
#24
1. voting experience: Since i havent seen this mentioned anywhere including patch notes, ALL abstained votes by actual abstain or not voting regardless should be awarded to the winner of theelection when calculating the experience, the 3 week wait on xp is harsh enough to leveling, only getting credit if a citizen actually votes for you could double or even triple the the time it takes to level politician if a mayor cant get people to actually remember to vote for him. in the rl its rare we get even 50% voting why think it would be any different here
2. /citywarn /cityban: give the militia SOME way to deal with the idiots disrupting the city, that goes for spammers, pets, faction terminal camping tef griefers, bh's parked outside jedi houses, and all the other garbage idiots do. maybe post an OFFICIAL set of rules under when using warn is justified vs griefing and warn/suspend/ban the ones that abuse it, not make us wait 6-8 hours for a csr to FINANLLY
show up to deal with things
show up to deal with things3. skill points & abilities: either remove the sp for politician or give us more to make the sp spent actually worth more than a profession badge, maybe tie extra decorations or trainers or a boost to the specializations to mastering politician, even cheaper city expenses would be nice. master merchant got a hugh boost for items storage for mastering, why cant master politicians be able to bring a bonus to their cities also
4. structures: Starports for player ships, ID tents, taller lights that would cover a LARGER area, city only porch lights that wouldnt count against city decorations, signs like roadsigns we could customize for announcements, city info or even vendor advetising merchants could rent for city revenue to advertise without spamming. Id love to be able to drop a few signs saying "Welcome to Sweet Water vendor/emote spam=perm cityban/harrassment report" myelf
5 city management/planning: id love a financial breakdown myself of income atleast, if not income/expenses. be nice to know where/how much fees can be cut or raised to meet a budget, not just have to guess and hope your close. Letting a mayor purchase civic structures for a town with treasury funds directly would be nice also, otherwise why let a treasury become bloated with 2 years of maintanence when you can only withdrawl 50k a day from it. the ability to see who owns who structure inside town and if thy are declared resident or not would also be nice. a sign saying "toms house" i can guess who owns it, a sign saying "Twilecks House of Illicit Pleasure" im clueless about. Mayors should get to know atleast who owns ahouse/factory/harv in the city
Message Edited by TxRoadDawg on 11-23-2004 03:23 AM
darklightr1
Tue Nov 23, 2004 3:21 pm
#25
DaQuilla, Good Post and Ideas:
My Top 5 would be:
1: Better Skill point usage, something at master level.
2. More Decorations and Buildings ie: Warehouse, Malls, Casino, theater like in NPC citys,
3: Finacial reports, be able to tax certain structures differently
4: Shipwright Trainers, Factional Trainers or Coordinators
5: Wishlist item: STarship Terminal (not Spaceport just terminal)
Many other things i am sure i am forgetting, but anything to make people want to be around citys is a plus. And yes 0-1-2-0 Politican is all thats needed once you place all you need, i am sitting at that for about 4 months now.
Sighryn
Tue Nov 23, 2004 3:38 pm
#26
1) Finance! Comperhensive list of revenue, fix sales tax, give city a cut of cloning, insurence... -any- services provided by the city.
2) /cityban activates at city border. Does not apply to residents.
3) Reduce or eliminate skill points for skills.
4) GameMaster(TM) terminals {Tip o' th' hat to Sidious Inoxi of Starsider}
5) City hall bulletin board. A -uniform- place to post city rules, so people will not have the excuse "You expected me to read a <whatever> in the <whatever>? Why would anyone do that?".