Politician Archive
Thread: 0 Skill Points to be a Politician?
**EDIT 2** Changed back to "0". 
Message Edited by LadyLeala on 01-20-2005 02:49 PM
-AoWL - Army of Wookie Liberation
LadyLeala wrote:
Do you think Politician would be more fun if it didn't cost any Skill Points?
I'd prefer to see some other cost to the office aside from the obvious skill points lost and the less obvious credit side. Maybe apprenticeship points instead?
The big preference though is for it be like the pilot profession and be a no SP loss based system, or at the very least a FS based system where each box only costs 1 point.
We are already going to be held back by the time taken to gain XP, skill point expenditure is just another ball and chain around our collective necks.
*wanders off thinking about all the neat things I could do with my "lost forever" 22 skill points.*
DaQuilla wrote:
LadyLeala wrote:
Do you think Politician would be more fun if it didn't cost any Skill Points?
How should this make being a politician more fun? All this would do is make you less and less politician ... it would bring you more and more twords excercising other profesions, and having fun with them ...
You can't make politician more fun by lowering the costs. You have to enhance the skill value to make it fun. You have to give politicians content. IMHO lessening the skillpoint requirements will only make the polician even more a side-kick that will then get even less attention (because it doesn't cost anything anyway - so why spend dev time on it?)
I'm not at all suggesting that the developers not pay attention to content. This game needs a lot of content in a lot of areas, to be sure. I guess the vision I had regarding politician was the idea of seeing more "politics" involved. As it stands, it is a rarity to see a city with someone running against the uncumbent mayor, except in cases where the mayor specifically wants out of office.
As for it becoming more of a "side-kick" profession, I truly don't think this is true. Take a look at the Pilot professions. These don't cost any skill points to advance in, yet they are something else that potentially "takes attention away" from your main template, aren't they?
I want to see Politicians actually practicing politics. Now before you take that statement the wrong way... I KNOW that there are some of you out there who DO practice politics in the game. You govern your city, right? But truly there are many many cities that have a mayor who is only "pasttiming" the position. It was a big craze when it first came out and cities were first being established.. but now we're established and running. I wanna see some competition out there! I wanna see intrigue and espionage and debates and ambassadors and... well, I suppose a bit of this ties into the GCW revamp. But I still very much like the idea of ANYONE being able to run for mayor, despite their template. I just think it would add a whole new level of "player-created content" in the game.
I don't mean to belittle ANY politicians out there. I know it's a lot of work managing a city.Hats off to youguys for dedicating your 77 skill points for the sake of appeasing a group of people who live in your city. And I'm not suggesting they should make it at all "easy" to become a mayor. But I think there would be more contest (and more "game") if more people had the opportunity to become mayors (namely, 0 skill points).
On the other hand.. I am not opposed to the idea of keeping the skill points just as they are, but enhancing the Politician proefession to such a degree that many many people WANT to be Politicians and run against the current mayors. It is possible that I am taking too shallow of a look at the scene. I've never played a Politician myself. Perhaps the profession needs more... reward? But in either case, I would love to see Player Cities in general get some nice attention because so much of this game has evolved into "ghost towns".
Anyway... just my thoughts on the subject. 
LadyLeala wrote:Do you think Politician would be more fun if it didn't cost any Skill Points?I know there are a TON of details that would need to be worked out-- many of which I'm sure I haven't thought of personally. But what if they took away the skill Point requirement for politicians? As it stands now, by observation, most (all?) of the Politicians who I know personally are ALT characters who do nothing but "maintain the city". They log in to place trainers, update taxes, etc etc. Further, the entire concept of Player Cities just doesn't seem to be a big "thrill" to people anymore. I'm not saying that nobody likes player cities... and I know there are plenty that are still happening areas. But I think it would add a lot more "flair" to player cities, and encourage growth and competition and all that stuff if they just simply took away the Skill Point requirement.I want to see some more political intrigue in this game, but not at the expense of my template which I love so much.
1. Many cities are just stores. In my opinion, that's bad, but there's not much more you, as a mayor, can do. There's no real chance to play politics, to add content into the cities that the citizens can take advantage of, or enjoy, or play, or whatever.
2. Politician is my main profession, and I have no second account. I am not Master Politician (yet), and I will never be unless I get some benefit in exchange of my skill points (becoming Master Politician does not add any type of ability or skill to you). I am Master Brawler and Master Swordman, so that I can protect the jedi living in the city, go hunting for fun or to get money for the city, play PvP, etc., but ruling the city is my main activity in the game. In fact, it's _the_ reason why I play SWG: roleplaying.
3. I would really appreciate that ton of improvements and fixes to come. And I would really appreciate the ability to really rule my city further than granting zoning rights and setting a few public structures.
P.S. It's just two months since I became the mayor. In that time, my city has added more than 20 citizens, and we are now level 4. I really like roleplaying, and being a mayor somehow forces people to interact with me, so I can get my bit of roleplaying :-)
bdwsrkob wrote:
I would not want to see 0 skill points involved, cuz that makes it easy for anyone to become a politician. Everyone could go pick up politician just cuz they could...then the would run in the election so that they can get the xp to level. No I don't see this getting really bad, but I do see it becoming a mess. Keep some skill points involved in the profession, I've heard 15 for novice, then 1 for each skill beyond that. Makes a total of 32 SPs instead of 77, still a commitment, but not one that screws up a whole character.
Mayor JoseCuervo - Kashyyykur, Rori - Corbantis
-AoWL - Army of Wookie Liberation
I agree, it should not be zero.
Less yes, but it should not be zero
Privateer21 wrote:
Zero skill points or politician would cause anarchy. And here's how I mean. I'm part of a large guild which has a guild only city. I'm sure you've all had people leave your guilds on less than friendly terms, and then refuse to move their house from the city. If politician is zero skill points, nothing would stop that malicious person from running for mayor, sweet talking some other disgruntled members into voting for them and possibly winning the election. As mayor now, that person could bring havok to your city, giving zoning to any opposing faction member to place whatever they want in the city, raising the income and property tax to any rate allowed, removing buildings, /cityban residents, etc etc. the list goes on.
Also there's the possibility of an evil person picking up zero point politician, grabbing a city hall and dropping it in the middle of those ever present unincorporated areas outside NPC cities. People would still have to delcare residence, but the possibility exists of some extreme abuse.
later
P
While your points are valid, they are not the end-all-be-all answer, either. You are assuming that "evil people" do not have the potential to simply spend points on Politician and accomplish all ofthe above. They can do exactly as you've described in the current system. And in some scenes, I'm sure they have! But you know what? THAT'S exactly what I'm talking about! That's politics! I'm sorry, but if you're a mayor, and someone usurps your authority-- that's your loss! You should have been working with your people first, before that person got to them. Or, having failed that, you should work extra hard to gain the trust of your citizens back and retake that position. That is politics, in a nutshell.
This is a community game. And in ANY communit, there will always be the occasional hijacker, dilletante, and jerk who attempts to undermine anything you may be creating. It might come about by something subtle like a 1 star on a post, or it might be more extreme such as usurping a populous. But as a community, it is our responsibility to ourselves and the rest of the community to work together in handling and ridding ourselves of these people. And making Politician a 0 point skill would not hinder this in any way. People would still be voting, and now there would actually be campaigning taking place.