Politician Archive
Thread: Um....Baj? I'm not sure this is a good idea on TC...
Newton13 wrote:
we have one particular case that is a "live" player.. but he's very sporatic. Even with the 6 week (current number) grace period, we would have lost this guy.. since he'd suffered a system crash (and we had no way of knowing)..
..some people play daily.. but can't always be checking on their alts, especially if they're immersed in their main for a period of time.. so does this mean a player alt would poof if the player didn't budget his/her time between servers? I don't think this would be right...
Bajeezus wrote:
Beyond the point of perhaps protecting players from excess taxation in case of emergency time away from the game, does anyone want to argue that a metropolis with a significant number of very sporadic players isn't really a thriving, vital metropolis that should be able to compete for that city status with more energetic cities that haven't had a chance at that city level due to the cap?
Here's an idea, why don't they fix the database issues that cause them to have to have a cap, rather than creating new and inventive ways to punish those that have been playing a long timeto the benefitof the newer players.
The whole concept of city caps is retarded, because of just the problem you're talking about.. Cities that DON'T make it in the first 10 (or however many more there are in the outer planets) won't ever make it unless something catastrophic happens to one of the existing cities..
Creatinggame"features" of making these catastrophes isn't the solution, making the game actually work for everyone that is p(l)aying is a step in the right direction.
I would like to know more? Is the inactive player going to lose his house or just his citizenship. If the inactive citizen looses his house then I agree. But if he is just loosing citezenship then I disagree cause then you are only hurting the Mayor.
I am a mayor of a level 4 town. And this will prolly cause us to loose level 4. But I would personally have active city then a ghost town. It is much better in my opinion to have players that keep the city thiving and active then a city that is just a bunch of ghosts cause you wanted to be metropolis. I do agree that is should be a full month over the three weeks. Most people don't take breaks for longer than that. And if they are still paying for the account and are just not logging cause of all the bugs then they really don't need to be a part of the town anyhow.
Bajeezus wrote:
Well, they aren't suggesting that inactive characters be deleted, just that they be eliminated from a city's citizen count. There is the dowside that he will no longer count toward the city's population, but perhaps for a player who really has had an emergency that has prevented him from logging on, be that personal commitment, comp problems, etc, it could be a benefit, removing him from being taxed on his citizenship, which continues to be assessed while is he is offline, and his property, which is removed directly from his house's maintenance pool potentiallycausing his house to poof morerapidly than if he were removed as a citizen.
Well Baj, that is a good point. But in Vesania, amongst the group of friends that came together to build our city, we tend to look out for one another. Most of the homes have at least one other person admin so that, in just such an instance, a player would not lose their home and their belongings. We've had some citizens who have, due to RL issues, needed to take an extended leave from the game. We took care of their homes for them so that they'd be all set when they got back.
Real Life committments and obligations will always arise and, as they should, they take precedence over a game.
But one players obligation shouldn't penalize an entire city.
"If you are against this new rule, would you always be against any game system or rule that allowed for any kind of turnover of the top cities based on level of activity"
Depends what you call "level of activity". I'm flat out against anything having to do with hours played. The casual deserves to live in something else than a village.
People worked for a goal, if you change the rules on them when they have achieved that goal, it will be unacceptable. Take the shuttleport off my city and I don't know if many will go on playing, especially since we got screwed once by the cap on Naboo and had to move to another planet already. Fool me once...you know the saying.
Seniority of player creation could be a way to envision the thing, but I'd say no to anyhitng that would require people to log more than other people. You'd only get AFK people and overall worse server performance because of this at all hours of the day.
Basically, you add more conditions, you screw people that played by the rules.
It strikes me that they're solving the wrong problem, honestly.
The answer is not to force attrition in the higher level cities. If there's really a lot of ghost players/inactives then finances/sheer weight of effort should do that nicely.
The answer is to improve server performance to the point they can raise the caps. I realize that's a difficult thing to do, but the more I think on this the more I end upfeeling a little like I'm being punished for something I have no control over.
We've got several citizens that I haven't seen in a while. I'm not sure if that's my play schedule, theirs, or that they've decided to take a break from the game. I *think* we've still got enough to cover our level 4 status, but how would I tell?
Many of those who are taking a break for a few are people who haven't cancelled accounts, but have said that they're giving SOE a few months to work out the bugs and intend to come back then. That's not my fault. That's not Aventine's fault. Yet I feel like we're the ones who are losing out on it.
Another example: One of our citizens was recently called to active duty military service in a very volatile area of the world (three guesses...). He has no idea how long he'll be gone, and he's asked us as friends to keep his house up and everything in order for his return. I've even got a Life Day orb stored away for his return. This is neither a ghost citizen nor an exploit, just a very unfortunate RL experience. (I know this one is politically charged, but it's a scenario that could happen on many levels...system crash, summer break from college, etc.)
Player cities are on the verge of becoming too difficult for too little reward, honestly. We're a level 4 city not far outside of Moenia on Naboo, Kettemoor. We pay over 400k/week for the priviledges of having several banks which are very useful, mission terminals, trainers, and a shuttleport that I can't fly into from off planet, requiring a separate ticket after flying in to Moenia (or Theed, since there's no starport timer...) So I find that we're ultimately payinga lot of money for these things, the sense of achievement in building the city, and the hope that it will be more useful in time. I wonder whether putting further obstacles in that path without further benefit is fair or worthwhile. As it stands now, I refuse to spend more skill points in politician (4-4-2-1) until there's a useful reason to do so.
In summary, the goal doesn't need to be that we have some kind of churn on the higher level cities and it should definitely not be done in a way that punishes existing cities. It should be that we're able to increase the caps on the higher level cities, allowing new high level cities to evolve. Let's add to the value of present cities before we make them any harder to maintain, please?
Should other opinions prevail, at the very least I would request that we be given a week's warning before a citizen is removed, and that when they are removed their residence structure is deleted as well.
Thanks for reading.
-Charin of Aventine
Bajeezus wrote:
Well, they aren't suggesting that inactive characters be deleted, just that they be eliminated from a city's citizen count. There is the dowside that he will no longer count toward the city's population, but perhaps for a player who really has had an emergency that has prevented him from logging on, be that personal commitment, comp problems, etc, it could be a benefit, removing him from being taxed on his citizenship, which continues to be assessed while is he is offline, and his property, which is removed directly from his house's maintenance pool potentiallycausing his house to poof morerapidly than if he were removed as a citizen.
Beyond the point of perhaps protecting players from excess taxation in case of emergency time away from the game, does anyone want to argue that a metropolis with a significant number of very sporadic players isn't really a thriving, vital metropolis that should be able to compete for that city status with more energetic cities that haven't had a chance at that city level due to the cap?
So are you saying by the bolded statement that if they are removed from Citizenship they don't have to pay Income Taxand Property Tax? If an AWOL player isn't forced to pay property taxes also you are exactly right, it will prevent his/her house from going *poof* sooner..... Which in turn leaves an abandoned structure in the city even longer. This seems to extend the length of time an abandoned house will stay in a city thus creating more of a ghost town effect. This doesn't seem to me like the smartest move they are making, but I understand some of the reasoning behind it because it clears the decks of some cities that are currently metropolii and just holding on to it through server trades. Why should a Metropolis with 87 citizens with 30 on another server be allowed to remain a Metropolis. Shouldn't a more active city with more residents that missed the cap be allowed the shot at a Metropolis?
Its nice that this fix made it to Test since it figured so dominantly on our top 5. Which issue was it? One? Two? Oh I remember, it wasn't one of our issues.
I'm not a mayor, just an important citizen. Personally I feel this is a bad idea.
It doesn't stop the problem of cross server trades. If the two cities want to keep population, they'll work out a deal to not only make the characters, but log them in once every 2-3 weeks. If there is a minium play requirement, then they'll just start a macro before they go to bed/work.
Who this does punish is real cities, who actively recruited players on thier server, who moved in and then for whatever reason stopped playing. Now these cities will be forced to find more players to move into thier city just to meet the requirements to stay thier size. But again these new people will slowly drop out, as will more of the old ones. But thier houses will remain until the maintanence is expended. Eventually these real cities will run out of room, but thier slow losses will continue, until they no longer meet the requirements for thier city level, at which point they lose city radius. Then the city,which has most of its active citizenry on the outer ring of the city collapses down to a township or outpost. This could happen to a city which is by all appearances still very active. Lots of stocked vendors, lots of people wandering around the city, doing missions, hanging out at the cantina. Just unfortunately out of room.
How many people only put a week or so of maint in thier house? I don't know of any, my hall and my friends houses are generally paid off till dang near 2005. Should they leave these houses would remain there, empty and now useless, and there would be nothing myself, my mayor, or anybody could do to fill this void.
This may be a worse case scenerio, but its still within the realm of possibility.
If this must be done, then give the mayor the ability to condem a vacated house in his city. The house deed and contents would be transfered to the bank or inventory of the character to who the house belonged, much the same way lost vendor items were returned after the vendor bug was fixed. Maybe make it so the house can only be condemed 1-3 weeks after the citizen is removed from the city, to give them time to come back, should they have left on extended leave.
This way it places extra burden on those performing the cross server swaps, and allows the real cities to continue to grow and keep thier citizenry fresh.
I admit that we have several citizens who are products of a cross-server trade. I didn't like it when it was done, but I didn't organize it either. We now have enough citizens so that we can safely remove these people from the city and still retain our Rank IV status. However, I still don't agree with this and I think that the devs are using the easiest route to solve the problem, which will cause more harm than good.
The 3 week rule discriminates against casual players.
One of my city members is in the Army, and has gone away to fight/defend. He will be away for extended periods, but that doesn't mean he shoud be penalised for it. He pays his account and wants to come back to a thriving city.
It also causes planning woes for politicians, if residents are going to be automatically unregistered, the mayor needs a way to remove a structure.
Resident X, long time player has got bored and stops playing. As he is rich, his house has been topped up so it lasts many months/years (my house i think has 400+ days on it).
It would be unfair just to destory his stuff in case he comes back to the game, but is also unfair to allowredundant stuctures to remain in city structures.
Over time people quit, so therefore there is an eventual possibility that a city could become empty, as there would be no space to house anyone.
My solution to this is that the structure should be packageable, and the previous resident coul come and collect his items from an option on the city hall terminal (similar to the bank storage, but a 1 time retrieve all, single item like a locked container)
Please do NOT let the 3 weekrule go through. Create a workable solution.