Politician Archive
Thread: On March 24th, All Existing Cities Will Begin to Die of Cancer.
I know people that have stopped playing for weeks at a time, and have put over 2 years maintenance into their houses.
If they never come back, thats a housing spot removed from use forever.
When you try to plan a city so that it isnt just 200 small houses squeezed as close together as humanly possible, you are severely limited on space, especially when you have water and hills etc in the area.
Luckily, at least 10 of the houses owned by dead accounts will decay in the next week or so, but if a number of large/medium house owners drop out of the game, then that's a real problem.
This is a major issue for Mayors, and we have absolutely no control over it.
So little thought was put into this profession, it's laughable :/
I felt compelled to throw my two credits in:
I'm the mayor of a second generation (ie December founded ) city, and I agree with the residency removal for inactive accounts. This simply because inactive players not removed from a city artificially boosts a player city's residency no less then cross server arrangements (which I loath).
I am all in favor of market diected city growth: those cities that can intice an active community base will thrive and survive, those that can not will decay- regurdless if they are guild exclusive, faction based, or multi guild and neutral. I have seen first generation founding mayors all but quit recruitment, and fall back on cross server lot deals to boost thier population. This is an easy short term fix. But whoa the expense!These empty ghost towns are an abomination, stifeling newer cities from developement. And turnover in a goast city would be horrible.
Politicians and cities simply need to adapt to the new residential decay system and go out to the streets and entice newbies to reside in their community. Back to square one. With the luster of "Star Wars: Galaxies" wearing off as the hard core gamer migrates to other games.. newbies will be a hot market,and unfortunatly I feel cross server arrangements will become the norm (I will refrain from this as LONG as possible- I so hate the idea!).
As for my community, we were all set to found our city in November but missed the deadline as all Naboo cities were taken up on my server within 15 minutes. We lost over 40 of our 90 member community- most quit the game as they were all hyped up about the player cities and the loss of a city due to a previously unknown city limit was the straw that broke their camel's back. Others went to other player cities fortunate to found that first month. Through out the first month, we few that remained waited and observed. We lost 20 more due to quiting the game. So the remaining 20 of us had to start from scratch by December. And.. within 3 months we surpassed all but three player cities to become the thrid largest city on Naboo, with residencyover 100. Because of the residency decay fatal we lost 15 inactive players from the city registry and their houses remain. I expected this and was surprised it wasnt more. In addition to the regular4 to6 residecy trun over rate I have to take into account the inactive rate as well.I have recruited almost daily for months to bulster our ranks.
One of our cities primary focus is recruitment. If each resident were simply empowered to recruit our message gets out and we have publicity. Our events team plans events in our city to make it an alternate place to Theed for people to go. Also.. there is a core group orf us that actually do not like to leave our community- we love it that much. We founded within 2000 meters of two other cities we were sure would surpass us to metropolis.. and worried that we would never get the chance to be one.. but for the past month now we have surpassed them and kept growing. I groom replacements for myself from our active community as eventaully I will want to concentrate on other things.
My only advice to long established mayors is: residency decay should be expected.. plan on it. Residency is a fluid matter, not a skill point. Once you reach a certin residencypoint you have to actively work to maintain it.My only beef is not knowing in advance which inactive characters are going to be next. The end result is the same though: I have to recruit for thir replacement.. my recruitment will be both newbies and dedicated Star Wars fans that will be here a while.
Good luck to all player cities in reaching your goals: but especially post November founded cities. I do wish all of you the best.
Theseus Starfire
Royal Academy of Arts guild chairman
Lord Mayor of Athena Beach, Naboo, Sunrunner
Message Edited by Laeren on 03-22-2004 09:34 AM
Karquile wrote:
I would be in favor of removing players' stuff from the game and putting it into some kind of "possessions bag" in the case of CANCELLED accounts. I understand that Sony wants to leave the door open for people to rejoin the game even after a cancellation; the goodies bag would be enough.
This should be done automaticallyunder game control, however, not by the Mayor. Mayors should absolutely never have the power to remove another player's stuff.
Over and Over I see you fervently lobby against any kind of player controled "remove" capabilty. I would love to have that kind of capability. It would give me a real sense of purpose. Of course, I would use the power for good. Some, perhaps many, would not. In the end, you are correct. Our only hope of resolution on this is some SOE controled function that would remove stagnant houses. I have to re-interate my all to oft heard mantra:
The only thing that concernes me about he 6-week rule is the eventual and inevitable "city full of non-citizen" syndrome. I fear thateventually I will not have any realestate to place houses for replacement citizens.
I polled a few mid to high level players this weekend. It seems that many many players sink up to 2 years of maint in their homes. Even with a non-citizen structure tax, it would take months and months to wear that down. Even the newbs are sinking months worth of maint into structures. Many have a basic understanding that if they want their stuff to be there after a 2-3 month break, the need to do this. While the non-citizen tax is a step in the right direction, I am not sure it is the final solution. I think the SOE controled holding bin is the way to go.
I'm lobbying so fervently because many Mayors don't seem to have thought the problem through as thoroughly as you have - they just want a bulldozer. It would be griefed, SOE knows it, we're not getting it. So rather than nothing get done, I'm trying to be a voice in the wilderness for some alternatives. I think we've had some good interchanges the past few days & maybe TEH DEVZ will take notice. 
Another reason I like the Non-Citizen Tax Rate is that simply knowing about it in advance gives citizens an extra incentive not to time out. That three months of maintenance might swiftly turn into two weeks if you don't log back in! And as I said before, if you have some mammothly paid-up structure, heck, at least take the money! If someone's going to clog up my city, let them pay for the privilege.
And again, give us /civicstatus on the house sign, and a proper "Dear Inactive Citizen:" game-generated email explaining what happened and what the player has to do to fix it. You have your one worry about the 6 week rule, I have a different one: people may log in after 7 weeks and not realize they need to redeclare.
JediKozel wrote:
...cause that 6 week removal thing DOES NOT WORK.
It worked on my city. Had 70 citizens, received 13 emails of inactivity. Currently have 57 citizens.
Kerico wrote:
JediKozel wrote:
...cause that 6 week removal thing DOES NOT WORK.
It worked on my city. Had 70 citizens, received 13 emails of inactivity. Currently have 57 citizens.
aha! That's starting to get interesting! What server and planet are you on? When was the City Hall placed (City founded?)
Im the mayor if a 39 resident town on Dantoine Bloodfin. My count for cross server home owners is three. They are relatives of our home owner who came to my town to give my guild storage houses. My town currently houses two guilds. When the six week rule hits I will lose somewhere around ten residents. Is this because of server trades? No. This is because they got bored with the game and left. But now Im going to have to redo my town as a level 2 city. Thats fine I can deal with it. I just think that the real people complaining are the ones who cant put towns on the three core planets.
One day 1 of player cities i had a town on Naboo. One hour from server up i place my city hall, limit reached. My reaction? I went to Dantoine and established my city there. I found a place dropped my hall and had my guild move their homes there. Did i come on here and complain i couldnt plant a town on Naboo? NO. I worked around it. I highly doubt the 50 town limits for Dantoine, Rori and Talus have been reached. And with publish 8's shuttle changes, all starports go to all starport, there will no longer be a core three. But thanks to the loudest voices winning with the devs. A lot of us who werent cheating for our towns will be made to suffer. I can advertise for newhome owners all i want. But they will grow bored and leave as well. And this will just keep continuing in an endless cycle.
I felt that player cities were one of the last true role playing aspects of this game. And i have enjoyed being mayor. But now its going to be work worrying about what im allowed to have and making sure i continue to rate at least a level 2 town.
So im guessing tomorrow there will be a level 3 opening on Bloodfin/Dantoine. If your towns been waiting to upgrade, and i highly doubt any our, you have your chance.
Mayor Chauffeur Chaudder
Ruatha Hold Township Dantoine
I can verify it works too.. we lost 14, all guildies who have left the game =(