Politician Archive
Thread: This week in politics: 8/30/04
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Erann
Thu Sep 02, 2004 10:11 am
#14
it's a great game if you stop dwelling on problems and spend time role playing the world of swg
Hvzeda
Thu Sep 02, 2004 11:20 am
#15
Avallach wrote:
The problem, Erann, is that so many of the problems are immersion breakers for me. I'd like nothing more than to be able to RP full time, but I feel like I spend half my time explaining interface bugs or fighting such things myself. I'd love to RP a mayor and have political factions vying for my attention and favor while trying to maintain my office. As things exist, though, my only RP as mayor would be, "So where did everyone go?" As long as there are game breaking bugs (cf my earlier comments on not being able to remove the city specialization) and the job of mayor continues to consist of trying to convince people to continue existing (playing) it will remain difficult if not impossible to RP enjoyably.
100% agree. Glad to know I'm not the only one in this boat.
I spend more time answer questions, explaining how things work or don't work in a city, reassuring that the city is there, etc, etc. I have to worry about maintaining 55 residents to keep the shuttleport. I have to reassure people that things will work out and don't jump the gun on proposed changes or publishes. I have to very very active in the city, meaning I working at helping to create events for the residents and bring visitors to the city. I have to constantly check up on the council to see how events are progressing and if one person has to drop out of the planning, guess who has to pick up the slack. I still have to find time in to hunt to work my way back up to master riflewoman. All of this work makes it very hard to much RP at all.
Erann
Thu Sep 02, 2004 3:46 pm
#16
Thats a disgrntled mayor talking!
Our PA is a group of multigame friends so when our population dips we go and spam mos eisily for newbs to train up... Some leave some stay, its like paving potholes over.. you can't fix the road that sony's job.. all we can do is have leaders train a string of newb and make them feel they're part of something bigger. When you give the newb's time they tend to rewaard with loyalty...
As you say... you're reaching out giving your residents false hopes in the faith the bug will goaway, but in reality most veterens come to the comclusion the bug will in fact never go away the unique problem will be quelled but new ones will surface it's a continual game of balencing based on who and what is being exploited now.
Another political move would be to suck it up and merge into another city or have them merge into yours. IT could work.. trust needs to come into play and there... is the death of many a guild it gets wacked when loyalty comes into play
I find this game is as fun as you let it be. you can't do everything at once and you just learn to cope witht he problems at hand... Sure the city doesn't display on the map but.. hey submit the problem and wait it out... It took me about a week and a half to get rid of the shuttle phantom ghosting and drop the new one. I'm not upset or disgruntled I'm in the tech service industry too. I put people on a take a number list all the time.
Umm here's phase that details my message more clearly out of the big book of life....
"God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I Cannot change…
Courage to change the things I can
And Wisdom to know the difference…"
Courage to change the things I can
And Wisdom to know the difference…"
EmperoressPalpatine
Fri Sep 03, 2004 12:39 am
#17
Stilla class 5 city on Naboo, Naritus. We are running out of building space with 120+ citizens and all seeming to want medium Naboos... Oh well we will manage.
We just switched over from 3 'shops' to a 'mall', using a cantina. It's rather nicely decorated, and different then the PA Halls people tend to use. I had to move the shuttleport to place the 'mall'. It's annoying that the shuttleport can go much higher on a hill then the Cantina.
Not much else going on. I have the maintance run to do this week/weekend. Alot of our crafters have moved their factorys outside of the city to save on our tax rate. I think the one long time dead house has finally vanished after over a year.
Anneke Rose (Princess of Sanctuary)
Glizzy
Fri Sep 03, 2004 12:45 am
#18
Wow my first week in politics!
What a week its been. A group of crafters onthe Corbantis serverhave very well established shops in a densely populated area just south of Theed. We live here, craft here and sell here. The area gets a ton of shopper traffic. as its just south of theed starport. (I'm sure this area is populated on most other servers but on ours it's extremely crowded)
About a month ago we came up with the idea of establishing a city in this area. The main motivation was two-fold. First,a name and location on theplanetarymap to aid in marketingour region would be a huge asset. Secondly, we wanted a research center to aid inour crafting.
So began the planning of our new merchant city. A group of us that started it hadfactories clustered in an area that was large enough for a city hall. So we relocated our factories and planned on dropping the city hall in that location.I also began to drop houses in vacant areas within 200m of this site. (seems that a lot of houses have been going 'poof' lately)We are all crafter/merchants of different GCW affiliation so it was decided that the city would be neutral and not tied to any specific Guild.
Last Thursday night, City of Industry was born. As soon as the Hall was dropped 55 emails came in about structures that were within city limits.. of these 55 structures, around 35 were houses. Unbeknownst to me, the really hard work that is the essence of the 'current state of politician' was just beginning.. For the past week I've been 'nagging' the current residents to declare residence and have been fairly successful in doing so. Most of the people love the idea, a few were unsure of our motives and1 person inparticular was really pissed that we didn't ask everyone that had houses there what there feelings were on a city before we dropped the hall. Which is understandable.
So we've pledged no sales taxes and have yet to enact zoning rights (this may change soon) We raised around 4 million during the city planning stage so as long as we have donations we will not needany resident nor income tax.
As of last night we have over 20 residents in our first week and the city is due to grow to level 2 tonight. It's been a challenging and very rewarding week for us. Not sure if we'll hit level 3 next week but we'll sure as hell try for it. Our biggest challengewill notbe finding people to declare, it'll be securing the land for housing, cantina, med center and cloning center. (when is this character purge scheduled?) We don't need a shuttleport (nor could we get one) do to our close proximity to Theed.
That's the First Update from City of Industry.
Avallach
Fri Sep 03, 2004 8:38 am
#19
I really don't mind bugs. They're inevitable, and that's fine. What I mind are ongoing, persistent, stupid bugs that, while they never should have happened, certainly should not be ongoing for months. A classic example of this is the Master Poli box. That's not an accidental typo in code; It's deliberate bad design, and it's immersion breaking.
The other thing I've objected to in my time as mayor (since cities launched basically) is that some of the design decisions that *have* been made have been either poorly thought out or have had the deliberate intent to force mayors to spam for warm bodies. An example here would be the six week inactivity timer. If I had wanted to spend playtime spamming in Mos Eisley, I'd have been a merchant. :-P
Finally,I don't think I'm adisgruntled mayor. I think I'm probably disgruntled because I never really got to be a mayor.
I've gotten to be a sprinter, rushing to get our city hall laid down before the city cap was reached in record time.
I've gotten to be a graphic artist, fighting with photoshop to get a decent city map created because there are no in game tools for doing so.
I've gotten to be a prophet, trying to predict whether the 1% increase in sales tax would be enough to cover the costs of a few new streetlights or not.
I've gotten to be a real estate agent, trying to get warm bodies to fill free houses in a given plot just to be sure we meet some arbitrary number of citizens to hold our achievements.
I've gotten to be a salesman, doing my utmost to convinceplayers to continue with SWG so that I don't have to put on my real estate hat as they leave.
I've gotten to be an ethicist, struggling withwhether it was better to engage in cross server tradingversus finding random people to replace the churn. (Ironically the few cross servers we did, with the understanding that the person was making an alt to actually play and participate, are still around. Most real citizens are not.)
You see, what I wanted to do was to be a mayor.
I wanted to engage in political debate with my opponent over whether the city beautification program was truly worthwhile. (I can't because no one wants my job.)
I wanted to decide which social and fiscal policies would best benefit the individual group of citizens which we have. (I can't because the choices are no brainers and the options so weak that few citizens actually care.)
Iwanted to develop a bustling financial center for Naboo. (There's no compelling reason to leave Coronet or Mos Eisley for shopping.)
I wanted to develop a hub for the arts of the galaxy. (We managed to have one play in city hall, which was crashed by a d00d. Did you know you can't ban even non-citizens from city hall?)
I wanted to build and lead a community of people working together to truly achieve something. (Most of the people left the game, and the hologrind destroyed our community building. Ever tried to lead a hunt full of people who are "Dancers this week"? It's the same as soloing, only with more apologies from those who can't come.)
In short, I'm disgruntled. SWG overall and player cities in particular has the design underpinnings to be one of the greatest MMORPGs ever. Yet time and again I see that potential squandered in silly design mistakes and ongoing bugs. Much progress is in the works, we're told, and I still *do* hold out a very great hope for the combat balance, GCW revamp and JTL. But when citizen after citizen fades away to nothingness, your community falls down around you, and there's nothing left you can do but to sit around and feel like the last rat off a sinking ship, you tend to get a bit disgruntled. When they introduce rules like the inactivity timer which seem solely oriented towards forcing mayors to slap warm bodies in buildings as quickly as possible with no thought to community building, and *especially* when they do so without consulting the politician community *at all* by just dropping it into the patch notes, you tend to get a bit disgruntled. When everything you've built collapses in the space of a week because you were one citizen short due to someone moving just before the ever changing hour of reckoning and the resulting contraction and collapse results in losing a vast multitude of citizens who no longer log in to move themselves, you get a bit disgruntled. So, yeah, I'm disgruntled.
I'm really not a negative person, and as I said above, I think there's much good to come, and I continue to hold out great hope, but some of the choices that have been made in the designing of player cities and other systems leave me wondering what the vision for the game is. I'm disgruntled because I care about SWG and it breaks my heart to see such potential squandered.
(Oh, and whoever 1-starred Erann, not cool. Disagree if you like, but don't bother with the stars. Just post why you disagree. Save your 1-stars for the "first"s. )
GTomlinson
Fri Sep 03, 2004 8:45 am
#20
It's election attempt week 4 in the City of Hellfire, Corellia, on the great galaxy of Lowca. It's still a major battle to outvote the inactive, moved away, and deleted characters that are still unwittingly voting for our previous defected mayor. 9/1 was his deadline to do anything for the city and we are now maintaining the treasury only through donations. Citizens are getting disgruntled and threatening to move away if the vote is unsuccessful this week. It's very difficult to be mayor without actually being mayor and I begrudgingly attempt it anyway.
Wish me luck...
LaurieNabierre
Fri Sep 03, 2004 9:49 am
#21
Nar Emiki, Corellia, Chilastra:
We are back on the cusp of metropolis with 83 citizens. Unfortunately, I think this number will be short-lived. We recently recruited another guild into the city, and they have hit upon some hard times. We are trying our best to give these new citizens a reason to stay in the city with their guild hall gone, and their leadership very busy with RL.
Some citizens have been leading Corvette runs for the citizens, and that seems to be a big morale booster. I am trying to come up with more ways to keep the city interesting, now that the fighters want to solo most of the time. One guild is planning a party since they have adopted a name change.
A leading citizen launched a player event from our website. It was a mixed media event and it got the city a lot of foot traffic and exposure, as the thread on the boards was picked up by Dev Tracker.
I am seeing more citizens who were "absentee" in the past few months trickle back in. Is it Publish 10? JTL? Character purge? I guess only time will tell.
Zola Gallorum, Mayor of Nar Emiki
We are back on the cusp of metropolis with 83 citizens. Unfortunately, I think this number will be short-lived. We recently recruited another guild into the city, and they have hit upon some hard times. We are trying our best to give these new citizens a reason to stay in the city with their guild hall gone, and their leadership very busy with RL.
Some citizens have been leading Corvette runs for the citizens, and that seems to be a big morale booster. I am trying to come up with more ways to keep the city interesting, now that the fighters want to solo most of the time. One guild is planning a party since they have adopted a name change.
A leading citizen launched a player event from our website. It was a mixed media event and it got the city a lot of foot traffic and exposure, as the thread on the boards was picked up by Dev Tracker.
I am seeing more citizens who were "absentee" in the past few months trickle back in. Is it Publish 10? JTL? Character purge? I guess only time will tell.
Zola Gallorum, Mayor of Nar Emiki
BT-Trajan
Thu Sep 09, 2004 7:36 am
#22
-- This week in Aurora --
September 9, 2004
General News:
Aurora is a greatRebelmetropolis on Naboo. Though the planet is overrun with Imperially aligned players, Aurora remains a sanctuary for Rebel players with over 90% of our community aligne towards the Rebel cause and the remaining ten percent choosing to neutrality. After several weeks of battleing to save the Rebel bases in Aurora, we have turned our attention to supporting our Rebel allies. Combat troops from Aurora are involved in the defense of other major Rebel cities, such as Mos Syn and Star League. More and more of Aurora is joiing the fight every night. This effort has been lead by the BOTD Military Activity Council, the E-Den Council and other leaders from Aurora.
The citizens of Aurora have many different fighting preferences. When asked about their choice of fighting style, forty-two percent of respondents reported that they preferred to fight using ranged combat tactics. This is atwenty-six percentdecrease from the 1st survey. Thirty-three percent of respondents choose to fight using melee tactics and twenty-five percent use a mix of ranged and melee.
One of the most challenging aspects of running a large community is getting the citizens to join events, raids and hunts sponsored by the city or the PA's from the city. Many players report that they dont get enough advanced notice of a planned event (47%) or that the event has too late of a starting time (37%). These two reasons alone account for the majority of people not joining in on the fun. In Aurora we have decided to work harder to notify our citizens of events, as well as plan them at various times where more people can join them and enjoy the entire event before it is their bed time. Finally Aurora has launched a city wesite and publishes a "This week in Aurora" email to all our citizens.
The full report can be found here:
http://www.rbectel.co.uk/html/swgaurora/downloads/surveyresults1.pdf
City Mall and Merchants:
Aurorais a zero sales tax city. This means lower prices on every item on the vendors in Aurora. Stop by and check out what the 30+ vendors are selling.
The Aurora mall offers high quality products, at low prices and is only a 1 minute ride from Moenia, or a quick shuttle trip through the Aurora Shuttle port.The vendors are restocked every few days and the city is seeing a steady stream of customers to our citizen's vendors. With such great vendors as Hadrian's Deeds and Furniture, Jor'Ran's Resources, Yabu's Droids, Yhaigs Clothing, a Omilossk's Medical Supplies,Ioan's Smuggler Suppliesand all the numerous miscellaneous vendors, Aurora is able to offer high quality goods and products at low prices. The mall is on the western edge of town. Stop by andget that item you have been looking for!
City Finances:
With the new tax structure in place the city is earning approximately 50,000 credits per day. The city continues to remove gardens every week prior to the maintenance cycle. This reduces the maintenance costs by 250k. It isunfortunate that taxes are not sufficient to support the city with all its gardens in place. We hope to get more gardens sponsored and the new city plan is designed with this in mind.
City Governance:
The city council is due to meet after the Labor Day holiday. The city re-development program has been launched. All citizens have been asked to work with the city council and its representatives to move their houses so that we can imporve the city's organization and provide better city services to our community.
For those friends that are thinking about moving to Aurora, check out our website at SWGAurora.com (note no WWW). You will find information the city's business initiatives, finances, the various PA's living in town and the charter that serves as the foundation for the community.
City Event Guide:
Finally, several guilds are continuing to run weekly hunts out of Aurora. BOTD and E-Den have standard hunting nights and all folks are welcome to join them.Check out the discussion groups at www.swgbotd.com and www.enforcers-guild.com for more information.
That is about all that is happening this weekin our great community.
Message Edited by BT-Trajan on 09-09-2004 10:38 AM
Message Edited by BT-Trajan on 09-09-2004 10:39 AM
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