Politician Archive
Thread: Of Lemons and Lemonade Saving /citywarn and making a better game.
The issue of /citywarn is a clearly "hot topic" for many people. For some of us, /citywarn represents the first real opportunity in this game to establish our own communities and police those communities. For others, its a tool of griefing and strife.
I strongly urge the developers to consider the possibility that this is a golden opportunity to do something bold and new to enhance this game and make it something more than it is. You see, fundamentally, /citywarn does something marvelous; it allows players to create their OWN content. To take this away is a crime, esp given all the complaints that there isnt enough content in the game.
I propose that with a few small changes, /citywarn could be used to create a GREAT gaming environment, without griefing. In short, here is what I hope to see.
1. No build zones for static POIs. This CAN be done. They did it with the Imperial Outpost on Lok, and needs to happen with other areas as well.
2. As seen in a recent dev post, you should NOT respawn at a player city cloning facility unless you have designated that cloning center. If you are banned, you should also go to an NPC city cloner.
3. Give /citywarn a much longer timer (1 hour?)
4. Make /citywarn a toggle like /cityban but make it permanent. Once the grace period is over, you are ALWAYS attackable in a city you have been warned in (unless they pardon you).
5. Allow smaller footprints for turrets and minefields and covert detectors in player cities, such that they can be placed near buildings and make these items placeable by the mayor, akin to other civic structures.
6. Allow for global warnings adnbannings based on faction, PAs, and arguable race.
7. Mark non-friendly cities in red on the planetary map.
OK, what does this do? It creates the vision that Holocron has had for this game since day one. Self-regulating online societies. Cities can easily become as exclusionary as they want, at a price. The price is that the more poeple you /citywarn the more enemies you have. A truly open neutral city would /warn no one, making it an safe place to be. A "tusken raider" village would ban everyone making it a highly hostile place. Turrets and minefields further add to this effect. In otherwords, if a city wants to privatize, let them, but they become attackable by all they exclude.
This:
1. Creates a pvp option for non-factioned players
2. Opens a huge range of RP and gaming options
3. Isnt griefable
4. Allows for players to truly shape their gaming world
You can have an imperial stronghold, a hutt hideout, a scientific outpost, whatever you can imagine. THIS is the potential I see for this system. I hope you all will share in this vision and encourage the devs not to lose this priceless opportunity.
Kade_Deveron wrote:
3. Give /citywarn a much longer timer (1 hour?)
4. Make /citywarn a toggle like /cityban but make it permanent. Once the grace period is over, you are ALWAYS attackable in a city you have been warned in (unless they pardon you).
6. Allow for global warnings adnbannings based on faction, PAs, and arguable race.
7. Mark non-friendly cities in red on the planetary map.
I like these ideas a lot! What I really wish (because I was killed last night by jerks) is that the /citywarn toggle would be at least long enough to hop the next shuttle. I'm not sure a whole hour is necessary. Too much garbage can be spewed in an hour.
People will argue that this IS griefable just because cities will be able to keep whole groups of people frombeing safe in that space. I agree with you that it's part of the game, and hostile areas are hostile areas. Last night I experienced this for the first time.
A bunch of us went hunting on Lok. On Bloodfin the city of Sion has a shuttleport very close to the volcano where we wanted to explore. We trveled to there ok, but when I split from the group and went to leave, I ran back into Sion, admired some of the work they had done on their city, and was going to do a little shopping. When I started noticing the residentscoming out, I saw that many were overt Imperials. I was a covert rebel, so Istarted getting nervous being alone in an imperial town. I curtailed my shopping and went immediately to the shuttleport and bought a ticket out. Right after buying the ticket (which had a ridiculous charge added on tofill the city coffers!), I was warned to leave the city. I said I was leaving, just bought my ticket. I was polite and let them know I was leaving.
They had different ideas how ever. As soon as was possible (several minutes before the shuttle got there), I was attackedfrom all sides. What these idiots were thinking using a flamethrower and rocket launcher on a Master Merchant, I'll never know. The point is that I was hastily dispatched.
Here's the question itcomes down to: Was that griefing? or was that playing the game?
I was in their city, they didn't want me there. Sure, they're jerks who have no concept of the long-term advantages of open commerce. But the galaxy is a harsh place, and if they get off on being the player equivalent of meatlump fools, can we really take that option away from them?
SunLao,
I would say that their actions were not griefing. They didn't want you in their city and were probably just as suspicious of you as you were nervous of them. It's unfortunate that you couldn't just leave by way of the shuttle right away, but a longer grace period for warning would allow a LOTof griefing tactics. If shuttles left right away, there would have been no problems, but unfortunately this isn't the case.
No, I don't think it was griefing either. Just framing the issue from one point of view.
What griefing can be done by people in the 10 minutes (max) it takes to catch a shuttle? I'm unclear on this.
With the exception of 3.1 (must agree that too garbage can happen in an hour) I'm loving your suggestions and heartily 5 Star your post, Khade!
SunLao,
While its a shame you were killed by such overwelming numbers of an obvioulsy hostile town, imagine the story you'd have to tell had you survived, running like hell and escaping with your life! My point is the situation sounded scary and tense.....almost like a scene from the films.
Hey imagine that.....content.....RPing opportunity. Wait a sec....who said that?
Well, nerf it by God!
My only disagreement is the one hour bit as well. I'll happily take 15 minutes though, so that negotiations can take place (or more proof for a CSR can be gathered) if it would give us everything else listed. He's completely right: THIS IS THE KIND OF CONTENT THIS GAME NEEDS DESPERATELY. This is what's going to make every server different from one another! It will make the planets interesting, cities interesting, grouping interesting ("Oh, I can't go there, they hate me") . . . and this IS the vision that Holocron gave us, that we've been looking forward to.
~~Shabhaii, Mayor of Tombra, Naboo
www.cityoftombra.com
The REAL BT
"The FS system only rewards the Veruca Salt's of the MMO world . . . not the Charlie's"
Very good ideas. Although I do have an issue with the 1hr time. 15 minutes is enough.
The devs need to come to grips with the fact most cities want to self govern. Why does it seem game developers never have a clue what thier hard core community members want and need.
We NEED self produced content. That is done through interaction, this is one of these interactions. For those that do grief, everyone will know.
It may not be a matter of them not having a clue of what we want....
It may sadly be a matter of them being unable/unwilling to put forth the extra work to fix the problem. Either they can't (shortstaffed), won't (burnt-out), or someone who drives a Lexus and has a trophy wife is stopping them. Maybe Trip Hawkins got hired by SOE, eh?
Just a thought.
Excellent post!
Love the ideas, 1 hour might be a bit long, but other than that, I agree whole heartedly. To bad we use the city ballot boxes for the Dev's to see how many people want to keep city warn vs those who dont....hmmm they prob could if they really wanted too...they do keep track of all other votes.....
Varnax Despin
Free Haven, Valcyn......Save the Cities