Politician Archive
Thread: focused discussion for 1/19 changes (I'm only reading this thread!)
Trean
Fri Jan 21, 2005 2:01 am
#53
Mainly, this will be a cop out for the devs. They will push Politician revamp to last because it doesn't cost people anything to get it so they shouldn't be complaining as much about it.
Yeah someone sniffed this one out way back when the 0 pt theory was first introduced, and now here it is, hey we don't know how to make your profession worthwhile nor do we want to expend the effort at the moment so lets just make this useless profession(a little exageration) worth nothing literally.
josslyn
Fri Jan 21, 2005 2:45 am
#54
I'm jumping in on this after having some time to cool down about the upcoming changes to both Structures and now the 0sp cost.
I said it months ago and i'll say it again.. if Politician is set to a 0sp profession you will get ppl just dropping random cities because they can. I've already encountered a few that have expressed interest in doing just that. Granted, many of these new cities that will be dropped will probably never get overa Rank 3 because of planet caps but do we really want more dead, ghosted cities littering our planets/servers? I know i sure don't. I've spent over 7 months getting Solace to what it currently is.. i take a HUGE amount of pride in the fact that we are one of the top Imperial Cities on my server. I am all for a reduction in sp but to totally remove the sp is a slap in the face to me. I've never once said that I was wasting my sp on Politician, because i simply do love what i do. Knowing that anyone can pick up Poli and use that as a "threat" against you is absurd and very saddening. I do suggest they rethink this change and at least set it to 15sp at Novice and 1sp per box thereafter. This way we are not getting a sudden explosion of Player Cities being dropped then left to die like so many already currently do.
As for the structure changes- bad, bad move. Cities simply do not have enough space as it is to work with once you get into the 100's of citizens. I've reserved the west side of my river to allow room for more growth when the time came... but with the current system i haven't had to worry about that too much as when an inactives house goes i'm able to set new citizens up in those areas. Now we're being told that these houses could take up to 6 months to "demolish" because of a supposed purge? I'm sorry, i don't buy into the purge idea as this was supposed to start back in October. They simply cater too much to those that have "retired" from Galaxies and to be quite frank i'm tired of it. There are very few things that i care about in this game.. but the Poli Prof. is one of those things. We get overlooked far too often and our voices aren't heard.
And then to top off all of these "wonderful" changes a player that was recently perma-banned from Galaxies has a GH up using up much needed space.. especially with these new changes coming i could use all the space i can get right now... CSR's will not even remove a permanently banned players structure and tell me to wait for it to decay?! Give me a break already... 
Chasity
Force Sensitive TKM
<DF>
Destinee
Solace City Mayor
<DF>
Wengel
Fri Jan 21, 2005 2:50 am
#55
I dumped ALL my politician skills to free up skillpts and move Politcian to an Alt... i was a Master Politician. And 1 week later i see that it's now supposed to be a zero skillpt thing. Great timing... 
About the houses/purge.
Architects will suffer from this. Badly! No harvesters/houses blows up because you "overlooked" the maintenance. This means less new houses/harvesters needed. And that will impact the Arch a lot.
Another thing is this Inactive Char purge thingy. They talked about it 4 months ago as well. And nothing happend. Most houses don't last 6 months anyway without someone adding maintenance to it. My Metropolis is more than a year old now. We have a lot of "dead" houses in the city that i'd like to get moved/removed. I'm having problems finding spots for new citizens due to these dead houses.
The zero skillpt for politician would also make more people able to make a "hostile" takeover. As written, worst case scenario would be a mayor who would just rip down all civic structures, and remove the city hall if he can see he's getting voted out.
By keeping skillpoint requirement on politician, you will ensure that those who wish to run a city will at least be serious, cause they use quite a lot of skillpts on it.
Most "l33t k1ds" will also stay away from it, because it will not be good for their "uber" pvp template.
NeillM
Fri Jan 21, 2005 3:58 am
#56
I assume that even though they have removed the skill points the initial AP requirement still exsists. Maybe there should be both a Potilitian XP and an AP requirement for each box? This would at least discourage people who were not serious about the profession from taking it, as a lot of people seem to find gaining AP a challenge.
DND_Cas
Fri Jan 21, 2005 4:45 am
#57
I think the 0 skillpoint change makes sense.
- From a combat pov you need skillpoints to make the game tactical and promote group play (I include entertainers here as they buff and heal BF).
- From a crafting pov you need skillpoints to promote interdepence between professions and to prevent monopolies.
I can't make the same arguement(s)for politicians unfortunately. I understand the effort politicianshave gone through and the sacrifices they have had to make in thier templates, and that they think other players should continue to make, to be a politician.
I do think they need to change the rulesslightly to stop players who have no real interest (other than short term power) from entering the mayorial race. For a brand new mayorally candidate possibly something like
- 1City Militia nomination or
- 40% of the city residencesponsoring them.
Once sponsored they can enter the race from then onas many times as they like.
As forcondemned houses I think Kaessa said it best.
- Let mayors poof houses at 0 condition
- Items inremoved houses go into a surplus bank box.
I can understand them notliking the ability for players to grief other playersbut Ican't see a decent arguement against Kaessa's suggestion really.
- Theyforgot not to fill up thier maintence not the mayor.
- You arn't giving the mayor more power than the system currently has
- Your saving the players items in a bank for the same period
- Most importantly...players that are leaving for six months at a time are currently "griefing"the rest of thier city, and especially the mayor of that city, out of space.
Baccarat
Fri Jan 21, 2005 5:07 am
#58
SP Issue: I'm 100% for it. This will get more people excited about mayorship, when it's less of a duty and more of a priviledge. Of course as a mayor I am excited about the positive boost to my template also.
Maintenance Issue: This is a tough one. I'm also scared about our town filling up with empty houses. I love the idea of being able to move houses that have been flagged for one month of inactivity, or one month of cancellation (probably more appropriate). I don't want anyone to not want to return. But the town has to stay fresh.
So many people will cheer at feeling secure about not losing items they worked so hard to get. I too worry about my houses vanishing suddenly by this mysterious "bug" that i keep hearing about.
I really like this bank account idea. Maybe when your account goes inactive for one month, your itemsare stored in the "virtual house". When you return, you can access the house from your bank fora period of one week, or maybe even one month. Losing the house itself is rarely the issue, the contents are what matter most in nearly all cases. I hope this is easy to code. :/
Message Edited by Baccarat on 01-21-2005 07:14 AM
Chavabegga
Fri Jan 21, 2005 5:26 am
#59
riotcontrol wrote:
Chavabegga wrote:
I support the no skill points. I am one of those guys who have wanted to play politician but have not wanted to spend all those skill pts on something of limited use.
Having contested elections allows for the chance for new life to be breathed into cities. People may start caring about their cities if there is a chance someone could replace their mayor. Thats always been a possibility but now people might actually try. Much more fun that way.
What if I am one of those guys who always wanted to play a Pistoleer/Swordsman/Armorsmith/Doctor/Politician/Smuggler? Should I really push for all those professions not to cost any skillpoints?
This change is bad. Politician is a serious profession. To have a successful city, you absolutely don't have to be a Master Politician. You can reduce the skillpoints needed to invest in this profession by choosing the skills your city really needs.
If you consider Politician to be an alt/mule profession, why are you even interested in having a Politician character then? Wouldn't it be better to find a proper player who is actually interested in the profession to be the mayor of your city and cooperate with him/her instead of pushing for such silly 'fixes'? What's in the next patch, nothing costs skillpoints, everything around you dies when you push the 'kill' button and all new players get a money printing machine?
First off, do you have to come off sounding like you are attacking me?
Second, All those professions you mentioned as a counter-argument give you in-game skills you can use everyday. Politician gives you in-game skills that you do not use everyday. A successful city mayor will be most effective based on their out-of-game skills of being able to talk to people and organize things so as to run a successful city. Politician skills give you the ability to place trainers, decorations, buildings, etc but its not those skills you will use everyday to grow and run your city. It is the ability of the player to recruit people to come to the city and encourage those who are in the city to stay.
Third, I never said once that politician was an alt/mule profession. You need a dedicated mayor to be a good city. But anyone can do the dedicated mayor part with or without the actual skills. People were using alt/mule characters to run the city because the politician profession was just not cost effective skill point wise. The opportunity cost of those skill points were to high. There are to many other skills in game that would be more beneficial to a players gaming experience. So people would have the alt play the "mayor" and then other people beside the actual "mayor" would do the duties of the mayor, such as recruiting and running the city.
Scoooter
Fri Jan 21, 2005 5:53 am
#60
Pappi wrote:
Scoooter wrote:
Pappi wrote:
update:
I was just on TC testing this, and currently politician sp stuff is bugged. I'll let you guys know when it gets fixed.
keep in mind that there will be a purge of "dead" houses after this new system is put in, so keep that in mind when you comment.
p.s.: I will not comment on anything that's posted outside of this thread (including the cities forum), and if you want your voices heard by the devs, POST HERE (once).
Message Edited by Pappi on 01-20-2005 02:37 PM
Pappi,
JustG himself said it is just "In Concept" and said "A few Months" I will have 20-30 dead citizens with nowhere to place new ones by then.
This needs to not go in until the purge is done
The purge is "vaporware" that is not even done with in concept. We have been around long enough to know how the dev priorities change. It is a dynamic environment by nature. We cannot count on the purge happeniong any time soon. We need this blocked until the purge is complete
Message Edited by Scoooter on 01-20-2005 10:25 PM
well, if I had it my way, we would've had the purge ages ago... but it's not our call. I can't do much if they decide one way or another, although I've already told a few devs about the reactions in this forum. I've also stressed the importance of a purge. now we just wait and see
Can you please stress how much work we have placed in our cities and what this will do to them in th 2+ month gap between the purge coming out and this going live?
They are simply catering to players who have left the game in hopes that they come back rather than the oner that are here and active. With no room to place new citizens for two months the cities will be slammed hard once the purge is here.
I think we all know what is going to happen is that the purge will coincide one month after the CU to entice people to come back. If that gets delayed so will the purge. The longer this is live before the purge the more gohost towns we will have. This cannot go live without the purge being placed in along with it.
I agree we needed the purge ages ago.
I do not know why but their TC dicussion threads have been filled with this and the threads in this forum has generated no response from the devs.
Message Edited by Scoooter on 01-21-2005 07:44 AM
riotcontrol
Fri Jan 21, 2005 6:04 am
#61
Chavabegga wrote:
First off, do you have to come off sounding like you are attacking me?
/shrug
I wasn't.
Some of your views, maybe.
Second, All those professions you mentioned as a counter-argument give you in-game skills you can use everyday. Politician gives you in-game skills that you do not use everyday. A successful city mayor will be most effective based on their out-of-game skills of being able to talk to people and organize things so as to run a successful city. Politician skills give you the ability to place trainers, decorations, buildings, etc but its not those skills you will use everyday to grow and run your city. It is the ability of the player to recruit people to come to the city and encourage those who are in the city to stay.
True. But, for the benefit of the Politician profession, it would be much better to push for a Politician revamp that gives you actual skills beyond what you have now, isn't it? There's a lot Politicians could do, but it surely won't be implemented if Politician is just a side-profession that doesn't even use skill points.
Third, I never said once that politician was an alt/mule profession. You need a dedicated mayor to be a good city. But anyone can do the dedicated mayor part with or without the actual skills. People were using alt/mule characters to run the city because the politician profession was just not cost effective skill point wise. The opportunity cost of those skill points were to high. There are to many other skills in game that would be more beneficial to a players gaming experience. So people would have the alt play the "mayor" and then other people beside the actual "mayor" would do the duties of the mayor, such as recruiting and running the city.
When I said 'you' I, of course, didn't mean you specifically but all those who do consider Politician not to be a profession but just a 'tool' that enables you to have a Player City.
Well, those people won. There's no more value in being a Politician - when you see someone with a Politician tag, it won't mean a single thing except that the person was at some point interested in placing a City Hall somewhere.
Anyway, to sum it up - Politician was an interesting profession that combined in-game skills with roleplaying and social/organisation skills of the player behind the character. There was a lot of potential to the profession and, in my opinion, it would be much better to add various skills you can use every day, not only to run your own Player City, but perhaps even to own and administrate city structures in NPC cities and run for various positions in both NPC and PC cities, not just the PC Mayor (Look at the effects of the Bestine elections, for example - what if you could run for an advisor to the Mayor or a similar position in a NPC city and make slight changes which would benefit you in some way, too?)
Nothing like this will ever happen now, since Politician isn't a real profession anymore.
CalArsou
Fri Jan 21, 2005 6:11 am
#62
Duexfuse wrote:I have been a mayor since cities first started. I only became mayor because no one else wanted it but we needed a place to live, so I took up the job. In general I like being a mayor as it lets me interact with alot of people.The cost vs reward for Polician is very low. It is a very passive profession. Once you have houses/structures/etc placed there isn't very much to do.So basically I have spent 77 skill points for nothing.Someone mentioned having an alt. Why do I have to spend $15 a month so that I can have a profession that I can't do much with.It's like Bounty Hunter. The costs were too high for what the profession did so SOE lowered them.And for city takeovers? I don't really see it happening. It takes 3 weeks for a voting cycle. The challenger has to declare that he/she is running within the first 2 weeks. That gives the current mayor 1 week buffer to get their votes in order.As for griefing your city, if someone really wanted to take over your city they would. The 15 points to get Novice Politician wouldn't stop them.And another thing, the skill point change doesn't make you a Master Politician right away. You still have to go through weeks and weeks of voting to get Master, thus being able to do more.I see this change as a good thing. It will let us play more of the game while being mayors.We get our cake and can eat it too.
That's true. Our current mayor was sort of tossed into the position (although I couldn't have done a better job then he has
) and has been forced to look at dropping his beloved Fencer for higher Politician skills. Now, he doesn't have to worry about that.Lowering the entry requirements is a good thing people! If you have great ideas, and a way with people, that should be what makes you a Politician, not the will to take a mass skill point hit or the ability to pay for another account. Lowering the requirements is a fine democratics principle, and now, it's applied here.
On the house maintence thing... well, I think it's a terrible idea for things to sit there, but until we see a verstion that's accurate (according to Pappi), I'll withold my comments. The ability to make condemned houses and other structures go poof is a great mayor ability, since the house would have been gone anyway
.
CalArsou
Fri Jan 21, 2005 6:22 am
#63
I know Pappi said once...
It's really a matter of precident for me. Pilot is based on your twich ability, you get certain things that help along the way, but to be a good Pilot, you have to know how to fly. Politician is the same way, it's your people and organizational skills that matter, you get skills along the way that help you out (i.e. placing facilities that your citizens will like), but in the end, it's how you organize and work with people.
Just think of a TIE Advanced Cert as Experimentation Center. Both will make my life easier, but if I don't know how to fly, or work with people, both in the end are useless (but look nice).
The Devs decided that beacuse Pilot was based on out-of-game ability, it cost no SP. Politician is based on out-of-game ability, it will now cost no SP.
Chavabegga wrote:
riotcontrol wrote:
Chavabegga wrote:
I support the no skill points. I am one of those guys who have wanted to play politician but have not wanted to spend all those skill pts on something of limited use.
Having contested elections allows for the chance for new life to be breathed into cities. People may start caring about their cities if there is a chance someone could replace their mayor. Thats always been a possibility but now people might actually try. Much more fun that way.
What if I am one of those guys who always wanted to play a Pistoleer/Swordsman/Armorsmith/Doctor/Politician/Smuggler? Should I really push for all those professions not to cost any skillpoints?
This change is bad. Politician is a serious profession. To have a successful city, you absolutely don't have to be a Master Politician. You can reduce the skillpoints needed to invest in this profession by choosing the skills your city really needs.
If you consider Politician to be an alt/mule profession, why are you even interested in having a Politician character then? Wouldn't it be better to find a proper player who is actually interested in the profession to be the mayor of your city and cooperate with him/her instead of pushing for such silly 'fixes'? What's in the next patch, nothing costs skillpoints, everything around you dies when you push the 'kill' button and all new players get a money printing machine?
First off, do you have to come off sounding like you are attacking me?
Second, All those professions you mentioned as a counter-argument give you in-game skills you can use everyday. Politician gives you in-game skills that you do not use everyday. A successful city mayor will be most effective based on their out-of-game skills of being able to talk to people and organize things so as to run a successful city. Politician skills give you the ability to place trainers, decorations, buildings, etc but its not those skills you will use everyday to grow and run your city. It is the ability of the player to recruit people to come to the city and encourage those who are in the city to stay.
Third, I never said once that politician was an alt/mule profession. You need a dedicated mayor to be a good city. But anyone can do the dedicated mayor part with or without the actual skills. People were using alt/mule characters to run the city because the politician profession was just not cost effective skill point wise. The opportunity cost of those skill points were to high. There are to many other skills in game that would be more beneficial to a players gaming experience. So people would have the alt play the "mayor" and then other people beside the actual "mayor" would do the duties of the mayor, such as recruiting and running the city.
It's really a matter of precident for me. Pilot is based on your twich ability, you get certain things that help along the way, but to be a good Pilot, you have to know how to fly. Politician is the same way, it's your people and organizational skills that matter, you get skills along the way that help you out (i.e. placing facilities that your citizens will like), but in the end, it's how you organize and work with people.
Just think of a TIE Advanced Cert as Experimentation Center. Both will make my life easier, but if I don't know how to fly, or work with people, both in the end are useless (but look nice).
The Devs decided that beacuse Pilot was based on out-of-game ability, it cost no SP. Politician is based on out-of-game ability, it will now cost no SP.
Scoooter
Fri Jan 21, 2005 6:32 am
#64
CalArsou wrote:
On the house maintence thing... well, I think it's a terrible idea for things to sit there, but until we see a verstion that's accurate (according to Pappi), I'll withold my comments. The ability to make condemned houses and other structures go poof is a great mayor ability, since the house would have been gone anyway
Well you cannot get more accurate than what the devs posted
1) When the ouse reaches 0 maintenence it will pull form the bank
2) When the bank is depleted it decays
3) End it decayes to 0 hiotpoints it is condemned but stays there. You cannot enter it
4) When you approach the structure with the money required to repair it in your bank then you can enter/use it
That is what is on TC
So Happy ghost citizens and enjoy driving through the never ending (always be there) static harvester farms
IolasMacLeod
Fri Jan 21, 2005 6:41 am
#65
josslyn wrote:
I'm jumping in on this after having some time to cool down about the upcoming changes to both Structures and now the 0sp cost.
I said it months ago and i'll say it again.. if Politician is set to a 0sp profession you will get ppl just dropping random cities because they can. I've already encountered a few that have expressed interest in doing just that. Granted, many of these new cities that will be dropped will probably never get overa Rank 3 because of planet caps but do we really want more dead, ghosted cities littering our planets/servers? I know i sure don't. I've spent over 7 months getting Solace to what it currently is.. i take a HUGE amount of pride in the fact that we are one of the top Imperial Cities on my server. I am all for a reduction in sp but to totally remove the sp is a slap in the face to me. I've never once said that I was wasting my sp on Politician, because i simply do love what i do. Knowing that anyone can pick up Poli and use that as a "threat" against you is absurd and very saddening. I do suggest they rethink this change and at least set it to 15sp at Novice and 1sp per box thereafter. This way we are not getting a sudden explosion of Player Cities being dropped then left to die like so many already currently do.
Chasity
Force Sensitive TKM
Destinee
Solace City Mayor
I have been a mayor longer than 99.9% of the mayors out there, since December 2003 when the increased the cap size of cities on Naboo. I have never been a Master Politician however that has never really effected my city.
As I stated earlier in this thread 0 SP is a great feature. You speak of it being bad because people will be placing a lot more cities? Hold on there sweetheart.... first of all.. what business is it of ours or anyone for that matter who drops a city? They pay for the game as well and they can do whatever they want. Secondly if you have a group of people who really want a city, trust me they will find a person to pick up politician even if someone has to go out and buy a new copy of the game.
A slap in the face.. despite your remarks i still fail to see how 0 SP will do that to you. I mean lets face it in the grand scheme of things....being a POLITICIAN... you placed a city hall and maybe 3 civic structures, levy some taxes once in a while, throw a trainer and mission term here and there,and control the militia and zoning. Thats all you do as a politician. Now as a MAYORI take great pride and enjoyment in planning out the city layout checking, the maintenance, monitoring vendor upkeeps... but anyone can do that and many people in my city help they do not need to be politicians to do that. The politician profession does give you enough to be worth SP. The time and effort that we as mayors put into the city is payment enough for the skill, we should not have to pay with skill points.
Again I must refer to your final line of explosion of cities on planets? Its none of our business who places cities... and you REALLY think that there will be this mass flock to politician? what will it be the new FOTM?
Its time to accept the 0 SP feature and begin planning for the future. I recommend you all visit this site and start thinking about your templates, i know i have 
http://swgcb.yogn.net/swg-cb.php