Politician Archive
Thread: Cross-server citizen swap to get around the 10 person cap
the solution to this is simple though. Just eliminate the auto-incumbent vote for non-voters. It was a dumb rule anyway, intended, I believe, to boost politician xp.
Gatuu Tetsu of Lowca
"Oh, how judgmental, Jean. You don't know this person. You think an 80 person PA has more right to place a city than a 5 person team? You are a dirty elitist and I'm glad the Devs did what they did."
Oh, how judgmental, You don't know this person. You think an unemployed has more right to place a city than a guy having a job? You're a dirty no life and I'm not glad the devs did what they did.
slugeater wrote:
"Oh, how judgmental, Jean. You don't know this person. You think an 80 person PA has more right to place a city than a 5 person team? You are a dirty elitist and I'm glad the Devs did what they did."
Oh, how judgmental, You don't know this person. You think an unemployed has more right to place a city than a guy having a job? You're a dirty no life and I'm not glad the devs did what they did.
Well you were the last post, so I guess I will respond to you first. I have a job. I was at work on patch day and didn't get home till 4 hours after the patch went live (I believe Isaid that earlier in the thread). I figured I wouldn't get a city hall, but I built it anyway and tried it and got lucky... So I completely sympathize with my fellow working players who didn't get a city. I wish I designed the system, I assure you it would have been much more fair and just - and would have made many more happy than the current system. But sadly I am just a player too.
And on the "evidence post" I said earlier I have 20 real ahazi players lined up to be in my city - so my city is as entitled as anyone to grow to a level 2, correct?
As for my motivation, here is my thought process. I had 8 citizens for my outpost on Friday night and was happily decorating away the city hall... Then I got on these forums and saw that the cap was being raised! And they didn't say when, for all I knew it was effective on Saturday, and my hall would poof if I didn't get 2 more...
So first thing Saturday morning I made that post - before even logging on. I said it was good for people even if they already had 10 or 20 to get xp because I didn't know what the interest would be in my idea; I was trying to make it attractive to others.
I then got many many responses. More than I could handle - remeber I really only wanted to get over the 10 cap that day in case the city hall would otherwise poof. But I got more than that. And then people from around the outskirts of my town started logging on and joining the city. I didn't know ifthey would be on or not. So that is why I couldn't count on them to get over the 10.
So anyway suddenly we are at 20 citizens and several more still want to join but just haven't been on since Friday. This is very early Saturday morning still. And if you look at my second post - or maybe third you will see me say basically I don't need anyone else - at this point I am just going to help others. Which is what I am doing - I will spend all day today helping out people from whom I get nothing tangible in return. I do this not because I feel obligated, but becasue I really want to help...
See I think we start from different points. Many have labeled this an exploit. But it isn't - I am merely playing on multiple servers, which is allowed under the EULA. I am going to log on all these servers once a week, check out the towns and chat with the citizens, and of course, vote for the mayor - manually, I don't trust the auto-vote even if they don't nerf it.
I really think of this as doing my part to help others, you condemn it as unethical, an exploit etc. I actually feel morally justified - almost morally obligated to do this. You envision cities as for large groups, I envision them as the haven for the small community roleplayer type. I am happy there will be big cities for the big PAs, I just don't want that to be all there is, and I certainly don't want to be a part of one of those.
That is why I asked the question about the millionare with 50 accounts. I used the phrase as "a purely intellectual" matter and you took offense to this. I apologize if I poorly phrased that, I meant I was just curious and wanted to understand the value system and rationale of people who were so strongly opposed to what I was doing. I certainly did not and NEVER would patronize another's intelligence. You are obviously very intelligent, you have your view of what player cities should be, and I respect that. Obviously I have a differing view though.
The answer I got was that it was just as wrong for the millionare with 50 account to do what we are doing. But you see, clearly the millionare who pays for the 50 accounts has the right to do it - all those accounts would just be on the one server. So it is clear to me it is not the METHOD we are using that upsets you all, it is the effect - the outcome. You are upset/worried that a small number of"real people"gets a city. It seems most of you are motivated by concern your PA won't get a city hall at all OR have a city hall but won't get to grow to a level 2. You think only a large group should get a city - again that is a subjective view.
Anyway I wish my little town didn't affect anyone else. But I am not a dev - so I don't control the system. All I really wanted was an outpost. But then the devs raised the caps, which caused me to start recruiting heavily, and then it became apparent that many wanted to grow the city. And frankly another 50 meters will encompass the homes of many more people near my town that want to join - so it is for the best.
Anyway, we have our "real" 20 citizens in the village-to-be. So even by your view of right and wrong, we are entitled to our village....
I havn't played SWG for a long time now.A couple of days ago an friend called me and told me that player cities were going live any day now and thats pretty much why i started playing this game again. Reading postsand meeting players like Tro here is the main reason i quit playing the last time...
Anyway, the reason i posted this message was to inform all of you that are interested in joining a real city the me and a couple of friends are building a city on talus (Kettemoor server) and all mature andserious players are more than welcome to join us. so dont hesitate contacting Kerah (the major of Ancarim City), Lion or Barko.
Hey, I didn't say anyone wasn't entitled to his village. (Anyone being a community, that is). I took offense at the Dev's way of handling things because they just fouled up bad and I was on the wrong end of it. The devs saying "you can't have your city because you didn't login" is just abismally stupid.As stated elsewhere, first cities get all the goodies, next ones will have trouble keeping up anyway.
Restricting a feature is a bad thing, as it will always favor the people who can make the game their primary occupation in life. And then the devs eve, made a complimentary post rewarding the guys who can login 24:24, I'm utterly disgusted.
Raising of the caps will only result in more login races, especially since I trust the devs to raise the cap from 10 to 12 with a 2 hour notice. That cap thing screwed a lot of people who planned 50+ inhabitants cities, if only having them to relocate to another planet.
We had selected a spot very far away from any shuttleport and went to the pains of walking there everyday, thinking "It's worth it, we'll have a city there". All that work and painfor...nothing.
Back to the village thing, I was thinking everyone is entitled to it...if that doesn't screw the marge communities, which is the case right now. And it's not your fault, either, just poor implementation by the devs. They screwed up everyone but a few select groups. I have not logged in since Thrusday and I'm looking for a good reason to do it. Had I not foolishly paid for a yearly subscription I'd likely be out now.
TroThorns wrote:
As to the post prior to slugeaters, I can only assume you think I recruited from other servers to exclude real players on Ahazi? I assure you that is not that case. Anyone on Ahazi is welcome to join our little town - if they share the same view. We just want a peaceful little community, not a huge metropolis. I mean even if we get 85 people I wouldn't want a shuttle port for example (it is unnecessary really as we are near Keren) etc. I don't want the city or city militia to be a form of player griefing etc...
It's nice that you're only artificially bumping up your population for the first week.. but how about all those other people on all those other servers that you're helping circumvent the cap? You have real people lined up to take part in your city, what about the cities you've joined that will only have 5 real players? You can't be sure that those people aren't being exclusionary, or if they've even tried to find real people on their own server to join them.
But you are helping them avoid the future 10 REAL person minimum, you are helping them keep the mayor of their choice in office no matter what, and you are feeding their politician exp (votes) they didn't earn. Do you really think this is okay?
Ri'a
tro, let me look at afew things you say here.
1) if you are logging on and spending time on other servers and in towns thats one thing... but its not what was talked about originally... originally it was log on one time set your residence and never have to come back... by logging in and spending time with the people there you are making yourself an active resident of the community. but, here's the question: should you stop having time to log in to the other server would you remove your house? change your residence? if no then you are back where we started above. you said you felt almost morally justified to do this... how do your morals work when you stop playing on that server?
2) you took from my response about the millionaires that itwasn't the METHOD, it was the effect. let me correct you. it is BOTH the METHOD and the EFFECT. To use players who aren't actively playing on the server to fill a spot is going against the point of raising the cap. the point of raising the cap was so you had to have a reasonable number of players banding together to control a square km of land. To me, this group of players should all be active players. NOT 50 accounts owned by one person or ghost citizens that don't exist except in the form of a residential house.
3) based on what you have stated now, you no longer "need" these houses to maintain the minimum of 10. Have you gone in and removed the houses then? if your city has bumped over 20, don't you feel that you in fact should, from a moral standpoint to use your words, now allow those houses to go by the wayside or maybe you should contact the owners and have them go find another city to support? what have you done for the housing thats already set up?
Jayces wrote:
Even after reading all the arguments I still don't agree with it and it wasn't Raph Kostner's view of the game either. I dug up this old quote for you.
You CAN have a clique. Just in the form of a PA, not a town. And that's because towns control space. I can't let a small group control a large area of space and on top of that be completely invulnerable. It's just practicality speaking there.
.....
I want you to have your own areas of the map. I also cannot give small groups exclusive control over large areas of the map. My safety valve for such a thing has been democratic votes. Players are asking to be able to skip democratic votes in favor of dictatorship-style towns ("we get to decide who can join or stay"). That removes my safety valve. Which means I can't really let you control territory.
-Raph Koster
Creative Director
Having players from other servers in your city effectively gets round Raph's wishes for player cities, whether his view on this has changed or not remains to be seen (this quote was from the original boards last year).
I'm pulling out this information from an earlier post because I think it got lost in in the large number of posts here.
Now, can you really not understand that having a small # of people artificially control an area of land, and an oupost, is not what the game designers want?
If someone plops down a city hall 100m away from my existing houses and business and thenbrings in a bunch of fake citizens from other servers who will only vote for the predetermined person.. you can't see the problems that will cause? It totally undermines the democratic process. Those fake citizens from other servers won't care how high taxes are because they don't have a real stake in the town. They'll only care about the place they REALLY live in.
On of my harvesters on another planet is already being taxed by an outpost. I would be thoroughly ticked off to find out that it's only 2 people with 5 accounts and 5 fake citizens controlling that area.
I can see that some change will be made to preventthis.. and likely other things will get broken or made less convenient in the process. I can also see that after a couple months logging into multiple accounts on multiple servers would get tiresome.. I can only hope that it's sooner rather than later. And the people who are relying on fake citizens, may wind up having their city hall or other structures poof anyhow.
Ri'a
AnitaSWG wrote:
TroThorns wrote:
As to the post prior to slugeaters, I can only assume you think I recruited from other servers to exclude real players on Ahazi? I assure you that is not that case. Anyone on Ahazi is welcome to join our little town - if they share the same view. We just want a peaceful little community, not a huge metropolis. I mean even if we get 85 people I wouldn't want a shuttle port for example (it is unnecessary really as we are near Keren) etc. I don't want the city or city militia to be a form of player griefing etc...
It's nice that you're only artificially bumping up your population for the first week.. but how about all those other people on all those other servers that you're helping circumvent the cap? You have real people lined up to take part in your city, what about the cities you've joined that will only have 5 real players? You can't be sure that those people aren't being exclusionary, or if they've even tried to find real people on their own server to join them.
But you are helping them avoid the future 10 REAL person minimum, you are helping them keep the mayor of their choice in office no matter what, and you are feeding their politician exp (votes) they didn't earn. Do you really think this is okay?
Ri'a
Well first off, most of them are not on the starter planets, and those that have been have been in the middle of nowhere - i.e., half an hour plus runs for me hehe.
I don't know that they aren't being exclusionary. I am pretty sure that none of them were shooting for a 20 plus village, but you are right I am not sure. Although I can say that some of them don't have a city hall yet, so I am pretty sure they are only going to be an outpost.
But again, we have different views of this. I consider myself a "real" citizen of these cities. I will be visiting them every week. Many casual players don't log on every week... And many of these people built their cities relying on the 5 person minimum rule that went live. SOE suddenly and arbitrarily changed this. Which just shows total incompetence. Player cities were in testing for over a month, and they didn't feel the need to raise the minimum, but suddenly after two days on live they do? Reactionary coding/rule-making like that is completely irrational... Part of why I am doing this is a protest to that change.
And I really do think this is okay, and I know I am contractually entitled to do this. I know you disagree with me on that, but we will just have to agree to disagree I guess.
It is funny, I have been on many servers this weekend and seen many places I never knew existed, it has been alot of fun. I really do look forward to visiting all these cities every week and checking out their progress.
Also ironically/interestingly, a vast number of PAs and big cities that have messaged my new characters telling me that if I become a citizen of their city they will give me a house, money, weapons etc. for my becoming a member/citizen. Some have said I just need to vote for their mayor, some have remained silent on that issue...
These are big PAs often, just randomly spam messaging my new character. How is that any different that what we are doing? And actually some of those opposed to this in this thread are members of PAs that are doing this. Of course, maybe the individuals on this thread don't know their PAs are doing it. But you would be amazed how many messages I have gotten. Often it is 2-3 PAs on each server within minutes of my being born... On one server I had 6 people from the same PA send the same thing to me trying to get me to join their 60+ PA!
So I think many people are manipulating the number caps in many different ways.... I really hope all the cities I am a citizen of on all the servers I play on are open to others that share the same vision for those cities. And I really think they are to be completely honest with you. Everyone I have talked to and every city I have joined has been comprised of very nice and cool people. If you go visit these cities I think you will see that for yourself.
Ropock wrote:
tro, let me look at afew things you say here.
1) if you are logging on and spending time on other servers and in towns thats one thing... but its not what was talked about originally... originally it was log on one time set your residence and never have to come back... by logging in and spending time with the people there you are making yourself an active resident of the community. but, here's the question: should you stop having time to log in to the other server would you remove your house? change your residence? if no then you are back where we started above. you said you felt almost morally justified to do this... how do your morals work when you stop playing on that server?
2) you took from my response about the millionaires that itwasn't the METHOD, it was the effect. let me correct you. it is BOTH the METHOD and the EFFECT. To use players who aren't actively playing on the server to fill a spot is going against the point of raising the cap. the point of raising the cap was so you had to have a reasonable number of players banding together to control a square km of land. To me, this group of players should all be active players. NOT 50 accounts owned by one person or ghost citizens that don't exist except in the form of a residential house.
3) based on what you have stated now, you no longer "need" these houses to maintain the minimum of 10. Have you gone in and removed the houses then? if your city has bumped over 20, don't you feel that you in fact should, from a moral standpoint to use your words, now allow those houses to go by the wayside or maybe you should contact the owners and have them go find another city to support? what have you done for the housing thats already set up?
You are right, originally in my first post I thought my city was about to poof if I didn't add two citizens fast. So I just tried to convince anyone I could to help me shorterm to prevent that. I didn't know there would be so much interest in this idea, so I tried to make it sound as easy as possible for them.
And as for me, I honestly want to log on once a week to all these cities and just see how they are progressing and say hello and vote etc. Maybe I will even spend significant time on them trying out different professions, who knows.
And I can tell for you it is the method and effect that bother you. It is obvious from your earlier posts you have a very strong value system and view point on this, and I totally respect that. I just have a different value system I guess. I think it is wrong for SOE to change from 5 to 10 like this without warning, so I feel very justified about saving any 5 citizen outpost I can.
And as I said earlier, because our town is primarly water right now, many houses of citizens-to-be are outside the 150 radius and once we grow they will be in the city. Also, as I said, many of our citizens-to-be haven't been on for the past several days - we have many casual gamers. So I don't know when they will log on, but I know they want to be citizens. Trust me, it is really expensive to maintain the extra houses, and I am not some rich power gamer type - so I am all for having real citizens in my town! 
And I am no longer taking new citizens via this method. I haven't been since early yesterday morning. I am just helping others now, for nothing in return. I am spending my real time, often a very signficant amount of time, for nothing in return... And I am happy to do so, and again I feel very justified doing so.
AnitaSWG wrote:
Jayces wrote:
Even after reading all the arguments I still don't agree with it and it wasn't Raph Kostner's view of the game either. I dug up this old quote for you.
You CAN have a clique. Just in the form of a PA, not a town. And that's because towns control space. I can't let a small group control a large area of space and on top of that be completely invulnerable. It's just practicality speaking there.
.....
I want you to have your own areas of the map. I also cannot give small groups exclusive control over large areas of the map. My safety valve for such a thing has been democratic votes. Players are asking to be able to skip democratic votes in favor of dictatorship-style towns ("we get to decide who can join or stay"). That removes my safety valve. Which means I can't really let you control territory.
-Raph Koster
Creative Director
Having players from other servers in your city effectively gets round Raph's wishes for player cities, whether his view on this has changed or not remains to be seen (this quote was from the original boards last year).
I'm pulling out this information from an earlier post because I think it got lost in in the large number of posts here.
Now, can you really not understand that having a small # of people artificially control an area of land, and an oupost, is not what the game designers want?
If someone plops down a city hall 100m away from my existing houses and business and thenbrings in a bunch of fake citizens from other servers who will only vote for the predetermined person.. you can't see the problems that will cause? It totally undermines the democratic process. Those fake citizens from other servers won't care how high taxes are because they don't have a real stake in the town. They'll only care about the place they REALLY live in.
On of my harvesters on another planet is already being taxed by an outpost. I would be thoroughly ticked off to find out that it's only 2 people with 5 accounts and 5 fake citizens controlling that area.
I can see that some change will be made to preventthis.. and likely other things will get broken or made less convenient in the process. I can also see that after a couple months logging into multiple accounts on multiple servers would get tiresome.. I can only hope that it's sooner rather than later. And the people who are relying on fake citizens, may wind up having their city hall or other structures poof anyhow.
Ri'a
None of the cities I have joined are doing this, and in facta fewthat have messaged me are trying to fight this by building houses outside the initial 150 radius. They had their little community, and over night a huge group moved in and plopped down a city hall while they were at work... And in one case they are trying to tax them out of town and have said they will /ban grief them next week....
Most of the cities I have joined are in the middle of nowhere on Lok, Rori and Dantooine. They just want 10 members so their City Hall doesn't poof, and I am more than happy to help them with that...