Politician Archive
Thread: City Maintenance is Arbitrary and subject to the whims of the Devs.
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storme
Mon Apr 19, 2004 9:42 am
#1
Founding a city is both challenging and expensive. I realized this when I started Caritas. It hasn't been easy but I have formed very strong ties with a few individuals that I might not have ever met and that has made it well worth it. She has seen her ups and downs and I have submitted my share of noob CS Tickets and my share of legite CS Tickets. What I am about to relate is a turning point. I am not sure where it will turn to but nonetheless it will turn.
I recently have had problems reconciling the maintenance costs for the city. For this particular occasion (read: 5 Customer Service Tickets and 7 weeks) our city was being overcharged for structures by 50000 credits.
Now unlike most of you who can drop a million or 40 in the treasury and not worry about it I wanted to make Caritas independent of contributions (as the city mechanics suggested it should be) and have her pay for herself with the taxes. I figured at 100 citizens I would be able to survive with Shuttle Fee at 100, Property Tax 20%, and Income Tax at 1500. I would have gathered approximately 350k in taxes. With no specializations and just 16 lights, 2 small gardens, 2 banks, 3 terminals, 15 trainers, cloning, garage, and city hall our maintenance costs were 330000+. The specializations could of been paid for by interested parties. It would have worked.
However, during the last, and I do mean last, live /tells with a CSR I was informed that the city maintenance was arbitrary and subject to the whims of the Devs. Therefore, I realized there was never going to be anyway to fully reconcile the city taxes or make plans for the future. This inability to use the game mechanics to predict the expenses isabsurd and based upon the response to this posts it may prove to be the straw.
The humerous thing about this was the fact that I quoted the Knowledge Base for prices last night in my reply to a customer service ticket and this morning I performed the exact same keyword search and the article had been removed. Itdoesnot suprise methat this articlehad beenremoved. Imagine if everyone that read this realized that the dev's wordis subject to changeand the knowledge base can not be trusted to give accurate details? =)
I have a screenshot of the conversation but I do not have anywhere to post it on the web. If you are interested in the screenshot I can email it to you. It may cropped for file size reduction but other than that it will not be modified. However, the only juicy thing in it is the CSR is admitting to the devs increasing the city maintenance fees without making any formal announcement.
Is this happening to everyone's city or is it just mine? Is there anything in EULA that says that the devs can not favor one city/group over another? Is there anyway that this post will remain on the forums? Do you think this is wrong? Am I just ill-informed, whining, moaning, and groaning or is there something here that says SWG is not the place for me?
I am not sure whether or not you will reach me in game so I will keep my eye out here.
Phadreus Stillwater, First Citizen of Caritas.Dantooine.Bloodfin
or
storme
Mon Apr 19, 2004 1:13 pm
#2
Thank you for your reply.
I have checked, rechecked, verified, crossed my i's and dotted those t's. That's how I deduced we were paying 50000 more than we should have been.
The moral of the story is this. I discovered, based upon the information provided here and last night, with the help of the knowledge base the prices for the maintenance costs of city building and decorations. However, as of this morning the information in the knowledge base was removed to be "changed/corrected." I was then told that those numbers were wrong.
Instead of paying 25k for my shuttle port I was informed the number had been increased to 75k. Instead of paying 10k for my small gardens the number was now 20k for each garden. At that point I was exasparated and decided to jet before I got upset.
The explanantion that I got before I left was the Devs were increasing the maintenance fees for the building structures and my information was incorrect. By looking at other cities, well off cities that contain the largest guilds on Bloodfin, were still be assessed the original pricing structure. The increase in maintenance is not being applied uniformly.
Why? Why are the devs doing this to our city?
Phadreus
Hvzeda
Mon Apr 19, 2004 1:15 pm
#3
Same thing with me. Our city is being overcharge 60k per week. I computed that number 4 times and walked over the town counted every single decoration, trainer, terminal, and civic structure, recorded their waypoints and then did had a few citizens walk all over the town and send me tells on what they found and double checked with my list. Submitted a /bug and a CSR ticket and so far nothing has been done. I quite honestly, Idon't think we will see any fix in thissince player cities have a zero priority.
storme
Mon Apr 19, 2004 1:17 pm
#4
And furthermore, why have I been told to take this to the forums? Are any of you CSRs? Are any of you Devs?
What's the point?
Somebody please help me out here and let me know that I am not going insane. =)
Phadreus
storme
Mon Apr 19, 2004 1:35 pm
#5
And furthermore furthermore,
What have the devs done to the jedi system, is it arbitrary too? Do the devs just give whoever they feel is deserving, the slot?Oh I am sure they havecovered their arses legallyand they got my money. So why am I here?
I depend upon the rules to determine my gameplay. If I had known before I bought the game that the rules were going to be ignored then I never would have bought it. When you have no rules everything is as it was in high school for some and as it will be for others and still as it is for some; a popularity contest.
It would be interesting to see if the uber rich and uber powerful players were from the same places the devs were.
Oh I am fully aware that the game rules have to evolve but to punish some and uplift others is wrong.
Establish the rules and step back don't change from no tackle football to tackle footballin the middle of a play. Everyone has heard of the grandfather clause...and there is a reason that it exists. In a structured society you can not change the rules in mid-stream.
And I do hope the devs have someone that is an expert at micro-economies making the decisions on pricing fees. It seems to me if you want to suck money from a server you increase the ticket fees. If you want nothing but Player Associations leave it at that get rid of Player Cities all together. I have no interest being in a guild where you have no clue who your mates are. I have no interest being in a city where I have no clue who is in it. Why force everyone to be uber rich or uber powerful?
Jaspor
Tue Apr 20, 2004 12:03 am
#6
Well, I don't think the Devs intentionally charge some cities more than others.
Quite simply, taxes are bugged.
Our city has been having issues with taxes NOT being added to the City Treasury for months now.
Specifically, the weekly Income Tax from citizens (which at 2000 x 70 should give us 140,000 credits a week income) is not being added to the Treasury. And the Sales Tax does not consistently get collected either.
And there is also the issue where some City Structures that are placed and then removed become "ghosted" and their cost is never removed from maintenance. We're being changed for extra NPC trainers than we actually have, because when I removed some, their cost was never deducted from the total city maintenance.
This is likely the situation you are facing.
Keep a day-by-day (or as often as you can, if you can't log in every day) total of your city maintenance, and do a little math. Are you seeing the Income Tax go in there when it's collected? Any sales tax being added?
Once you have some hard numbers, present those to the CSRs, and tell them to verify them against the logs for the city. Yes, logs exist. Yes, CSRs can check them. If one CSR refuses, ask to speak to another one, or open another ticket until you get one who helps.
Good luck!
Starwarsmatrix
Tue Apr 20, 2004 4:30 am
#7
Here is a suggestion to reduce your weekly city maint fee:
just before your city updates take down the cloner, shuttleport, and gardens. When the city updates reset these structures. If you want to go to the extra hassle, you can also take down your decorations and skill trainers as well. This tactic will save you 100K to 175K per wk. In a month, this would 500K to 600K in credits saved. This is a very simple thing to do to save credits if your city is getting by on a tight budget. I have done this as mayor of my city and it works great. It is alot of extra work but it will definately save you alot of credits.
Ryza Shyaka
just before your city updates take down the cloner, shuttleport, and gardens. When the city updates reset these structures. If you want to go to the extra hassle, you can also take down your decorations and skill trainers as well. This tactic will save you 100K to 175K per wk. In a month, this would 500K to 600K in credits saved. This is a very simple thing to do to save credits if your city is getting by on a tight budget. I have done this as mayor of my city and it works great. It is alot of extra work but it will definately save you alot of credits.
Ryza Shyaka
Phadreus
Tue Apr 20, 2004 6:36 am
#8
Wouldn't that be considered an exploit? I don't think that the CSRs and the DEVs are too happy with me at the moment, I might want to give them a reason.
But, thanks for the suggestion!
Phad
Phadreus
Tue Apr 20, 2004 6:39 am
#9
Will you do me a favor and recalculate your expenses with the added change of 75k for the shuttleport? It would help immensely. Also could you leave me the name of your cities server?
It would be interesting to see if the CSR was correct in saying the DEVs are arbitrarily applying maintenance costs to cities on different servers and cities on the same servers. If you are on Bloodfin no need to respond because I am probably at your city terminal doing the calculations myself =)
Phad
AllaraOfKettemoor
Tue Apr 20, 2004 9:18 am
#10
I'm not sure I quite that the CSR you spoke to knew what they were talking about. I don't think the dev team has time to go to each city and secretly and randomly raise rates of maintenance on a whim.
Right now New Hope, Naboo on Kettemoorexpends the expected 728k per week (and it does add up for us). However, we are having none of the taxes and fees collected deposited into our treasury. Where they go? I don't know. Perhaps they are disappearing into some unscrupulous Imperial tax collector's pockets (may the force help him if the Emperor catches him).
And it all started the same week they patched in the fix that cities who lost metropolis status could regain it. Prior to that we were making a profit on taxes and fees....enough so that we were seriously considering lowering our tax rates (we're talking a couple of extra 100k per week profit). And then that fix went in, we regained metropolisand suddenly we're seeing our treasury drop.
Phadreus
Tue Apr 20, 2004 2:21 pm
#11
What's your citizen count and tax structure? I want to know how I can manage to make 800k+ per week. This would solve so many problems.
I have reread the above comment and I mislead everyone. I would like to see what everyone is being charged for shuttleports. The dev didn't say cities on the same server but rather each server is paying different costs based upon the arbitrary whims of developers. Hence, some servers are being punished and others are not.
Thank you,
Phad
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