Politician Archive

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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.

The CURB is supposed to include fixes towards some of the long neglected professions. I'm not involved in it so I can only guess and speculate what it would or would not include but somewhere through the CURB and GCW update there will be enhancements to many professions. Most notable are the Smuggler and Squad Leader revamps which have long been talked about and unfortunately delayed.

Developers established objectives and priorities. They want to fix long neglected professions which includes the Politician while considering their objectives. An objective is to revitalize NPC Cities which compete with Player Cities for use. Thus fixes to the Politician would be a low priority and would ultimately conflict with a long term objective. Therefore, the developers decided to strip the skill points from the Politician rather than making it a viable profession.

The biggest flaw in this logic is the assumption that the Politician must remain totally restricted to Player Cities and that fixes for Major Cities would have to be done to the exclusion of Player Cities. Ultimately making it a freebie profession is a brilliant gesture that makes a bunch of people happy in the short term and releases them from any future obligation to the profession.

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.

No, it doesn't as detailed above. Real revamps and improvements will be had by other professions while the Politicians only enhancement will be the fact it is free.

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.

Yes, the politician is mostly planning and diplomacy but that is because there is no active skills to go above and beyond this. You describe lots of things that Politicians can do but without the skill box they can't be done. At least skill boxes still cost experience.

Summary and important part for skimmers to read!

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.

Wow! We will?! As much as I hope your right I don't share your optimism. We'll be lucky to get the financial report that could have been coded within 1 hour. Apart from that all new features will go into NPC Cities to enhance them which will drawcommerce away from us and make our rediculously poorfiscal situtation worse. Factional cities may see some manner or revival but Neutral Cities will suffer.

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Message Edited by Fidgiter on 02-08-2005 06:47 AM

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vonbloodworth wrote:

No one liked my post a?

=(

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If I wanted to live 1k fromCoronet my city would be there. NPC cities are crap, the only nice thing about them is that the buildings bend with the road, it has bridges, walls, true gardens, and starports.If my only option was reign over one of them or live 5k away from the closest shuttleport then my swoop would be breaking down a lot more often.

I can't compete withNPC's right now because they have those abilities but my landscape, location, and urban plan is much more to my liking then any NPC ones. This is why they are getting facelifts afterall. If I could drop homes every 15 degrees and put up fences etc. then I could call it the Jewel of Corellia. Right now it's just aprecious stone.

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Fidgiter wrote:

Well, I'm not going into the Rainbow on this (but it's fun) so I'm just going to hit one a few statements. Overall I think we understand where the other is comming from on this issue with a bit of a disagreement about the long term prospects for our "Profession".

You mention the Architect a few times in this. I've been an Architect since week one of the game so I know the issues well. Overall they have gone backwards but I've picked up a few clues about what may or may not happen for them in the future. If I was to take a wild guess I would suspect they may have a role in base construction down the road. If they do not they should.

Yeah, they will get some pro's in the GCW revamp according to teh devs. They want to involve all professions into the GCW to increase it's influence and interest. Player Cities will be given some handouts with it as well according to Jester and Pappi a few months back when they where brainstorming for ideas. And I mention architect because I'm an Int Decorator. Friends with more then a few of them and have they got stories

I agree that the Politician "Profession" was made free because the developers had us so far down in the list of priorities that it would be a virtual forever before we got anything. We'll never get active abilities and never a role outside of Player Cities. We were a low priority before and now that anyone can become a politician without even spending apprentice points that fate is guarenteed.

Well not that the list is long but that it's involved. We are feasibly 3 major publishes from getting hit. However those 3 publishes involve the entire combat system (half the game, technically 2/3rds since crafters need combatants) the entire galactic civil war (main story behind the game) and a couple of professions that have been on the back burner for so long they have more threads of great ideas to enhance their profession then this forum has threads. We may be high priority, who knows, but those 3 things are game deciding functions. They aren't even on the same scale as anything else.

Maybe our cities will get a decoration or maybe a new structure. Maybe we'll get financial stability and not be a glorified money sink. Maybe we'll get financial reports or information about who donates money to the city. Maybe we'll get bulletin boards for ingame communication between residents. There are so many things that could happen but I doubt will because Player Cities, like the Politician, are a priority so low that other competing priorities will take precidence.

But the thing is, what are those other competing priorities? That's why I made this thread. You are right and I do agree with all of you that this is just a temp fix appeasement publish they handed us. But they didn't avoid fixing us because creature handlers are getting a new fluffy zanzibub pet and it needs dev time. They are putting us on the back burner to re-create 2 of the cornerstones of this game. Nothing can compete with them for time and resources. Expecting to do so would be ludicrous so of course we are a lower priority. However that doesn't mean we have been written off completely. And that's what I keep trying to get at....eventually.

I sincerely hope you are right and I am wrong but every instinct I have screams that we missed the boat and it will sail off into the sunset with us holding the bill.

I hope I am too.

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