CUEmu - Thread Posts

Bajeezus

Tue Mar 30, 2004 10:50 am

The Galactic Civil War re-vamp is coming up, andin response tothe thread you all did on ways to get cities involved in the GCW, Thunderheart loved it and asked me to create a polished proposal for him to give the devs in April. Along with a quick summary of the ideas, I also posted an unedited list of your ideas, cut and pasted directly from the thread, to the correspondent's forum. Jest3r, the GCW correspondent, replied to each and every suggestion, and offered to help work on our polished proposal with us, which means we get the combined voices of two groups of players, both politicians as well as players of the GCW, supporting whatever we come up with to present to the devs.

In general, Jest3r was very supportive of a larger role for cities in the GCW, and agreed that bringing in cities is a great way to help add a cooperative, strategic layer to GCW play. The concepts that he disagreed with all shared one trait, which was that they infringed on features that had previously been exclusive to faction HQs. His belief is that if you give cities some of the important features of faction HQs, such as faction recruiters, then you take away some of the very few good reasons that players have for building faction bases at all, which are too few to begin with. He supports many of the ideas that you had, those which did not overlap with HQ features.

Over the next week or two, I'd like to give you all the opportunity to identify which faction city features you all value most highly, and then try to organize them into a coherent system which will give cities the best mix of features to bring them into the heart of the GCW.

Next post: Jest3r's responses to your ideas...

Bajeezus

Tue Mar 30, 2004 10:52 am

#2

Here are your ideas and concepts, all in white, followed by Jest3r's responses, in yellow and orange.

1. Ability to restrict service by faction, particularly shuttleport and clone center.
Agreed

2. Ability to have some static defense of the city (NPC guards or turrets or something)
Agreed to patrol city limits, as long as they are "hired" and upkeep is paid, more upkeep more troops

3. Faction recruiters. Sure there are alternatives, but this seems to be the no brainer way to get a city in the GCW that certainly has existing code.
Disagree, Faction recruiters are all that is left that make Faction bases unique, getting recruiters into town and people have zero reason to place bases.

- "Declared" cities offer some sort of faction benefit in the general area. Reduced base maintenance? Smaller faction point loss for dying while defending the city?
Agreed

- Garrisons. Give overt defenders of rank the ability to check soldiers out of a city garrison. Soldiers can't

leave the city limits or be out for more than a certain period of time. This would be a possible solution for the ease of raiding a city with few defenders present at the time the raid is brought. As a result ...
Interesting....

- Faction perks of city can be nullified for a period of time if the city is "pacified"/"liberated" by the opposing faction. City hall terminals?
A Must Have!

- Some sort of "scoring" system. There doesn't need to be any real perks or penalties - people won't want their side to be losing ground on a given planet, that will provide significant motivation by itself.
Agreed, though I would prefer if a City is "Liberated" it would merely be reset to Neutral factional alignment, and that it could not go back to factionally aligned until the next voting cyce. This provides a minor system of zones of control. We try to keep our city Rebel each week, the Imperials try to shut us down. FUrthermore If larger planet wide zones of control get added in at a later date it would be necessary to be able to "liberate" a player city back to neutral standing if the surrounding land has also been liberated.

1) "Background Check" (somewhere in the Faction tree) Maybe as a city specialization called "Intelligence Network"?
People are tired of flying into a City walls of turrets and mines unprepared when say they are simply trying to Do a BH mission. Factionally declared cities should be clearly labeled on the map.

Militia run a 'Background Check' on a person to discern their faction??
Player gets informed that a 'background check' is being run on them and their faction will be exposed in 2-3 minutes unless they leave town.
Smugglers get avoidance check?
Not necessarily turned overt but maybe TEF'd?

This could be a problem like Cityban many covert mebers are simply shopping, until they resolve the issue of city radius overlapping static content which is meant to be accessed by anyone I still worrk over the aspects which allow a TEF or a /Citywarn type system. The Few purposefully try to grief the many and while not as wide spread, the choice to PvP is supposed to be with the covert player, this places the choice to get the covert player a TEF in the hands of the attacker.

2) Faction Recruiter? Place an Imperial Draft Office or Rebel Informant in the back of the Cantina?

Disagree. See reasoning above concerning faction bases

3) Stronghold Specialization give bonus to overt members of a specific faction? (so you don't have to put everyone in militia)
Agree, also granting Zoning rights and city militia need to be separated, My city wants many militia however we have absolutely strict zoning rules and would prefer tighter control.

- What about decreasing chances of a crackdown? Imp cities would be able to convince their superiors that their citizens are law abiding whereas the Rebs I guess were able to bribe or fast-talk an officer.

Well first they need to Increase the crackdown effect on player cities if declared so it is readily noticeable, ie NPC assaults on Rebel strong holds or rebel commando raids in places of Imperial power, Then you can have the strong hold setting reduce that.

- Of course, of it works one way, why not another? Increase the chances of a crackdown in a neighboring declared player city.

I am loathe to have one player cities setting, effect an neighboring city. I may have a military minded city, the surrounding cities may be peaceful imperial crafting towns. Players would abuse this to purposefully "crack down" on neighboring crafting areas, and there is no option for a crafter city to offset this.

- Missions from faction terminals located in a city could give player cities as potential targets assuming of course there is a large group. In the target city a temporary structure would appear that would be the target of the attacking force, if they are able to defend it for x hours then the defenders get fps. More or less capture the flag.
Have the crest appear next to a cities name on the map if it is declared (maybe even the gardens )

I like this Idea very much, if you declare your city, it can show up as a high level mission on the mission terminals to liberate it. This would be a perfect avenue to have people of those higher Mission diffculties which in effect are no different then lower ones. Mission difficult would be based on NPC presence and defenses of the city at that time, Goal is to break into city hall and hack the terminal to reset city to Neutral.

CIty hall doors should not allow enemy Overts inside unless they take out town defenders and slice the doors open, you must be overt to slice the terminal.

Allow for reduced maintenance costs for faction items within a city radius sort of like a reverse property tax. Either have cityhall pay x% to the bases and turrets and such per week (noted as factional cost in the terminal) or just lowering the maintenance rates

agreed

If possible decrease the footprints of some factional items in a city to promote minefields, scanners, and bases there.

agreed

also, I haven't heard of a documented case of a crackdown ship going into a player city but then I haven't seen a probe droid at all yet. However if the city is a declared imperial one make it immune to crackdown-esque things and if it is a rebel declared city have it attract the ships and such a bit more frequently.

Crack down scan frequency needs to be increased greatly.

Allow for higher level missions coming off of the faction mission terminal then if it was a neutral town. After all an imperial outpost will attract larger rebel hit teams and vice versa in comparison to a neutral.

Agreed, you COULD return those missing missions from beta. WHere you would have to fight your way into a walled base that had 2 large tower tirrets guarding the entrance, inside were close 2 20 NPCs of varying strength and you had to kill an Imperial Inquisitor at the bottom of the base 4 floors down (exact same set up of those beta mission bases is our det HQs.) Those were some of the most FUN missions in the game, still wondering why they got removed prior to release.

And last but not least by any length...banners. Have banners appear at the 2 spire things by the city hall, hanging off the city hall, in the cloner, and by the shuttleport.

Agreed, have a bit of Factional Pride.

-I would like to see Overt Faction Politicians able to accept donations of faction points as reduced rates as their "Martial Policy" skill advances. At Master Politician, perhaps donations could be accepted at 100% value so that the citizens of a city could really band together to build faction facilities rather than having to rely on enormous contributions of the most hardcore players.

You should Pay your weekly maint of donated FP to the city hall to pay for those NPC patrols and such, perhaps a citizen FP tax... We need greater FP sinks and to increase the value of FP.

This idea I took from Starwars: Rebellion.

When you played as the Imperials there was a bounus called the "seat of power" when you had the emperor seated in Corasent. When you seated in your city during an attack you could provide ceritan bounus, such as a defence bonus to all factioned persons in your city or extra NPC support in your city. Perhaps something as extreem as Dish turrents spawning in the radius of your city when your are in your city.

I wouyld just like to see Faction Recruiters. Our Imperial Base keeps getting destroyed and my Members have to travel to far and therefore they don't hang out at the city as much. This is a big issue i think should of been added along with Imp Faction Terminals.

Highly disagree, the ONLY reason Players place bases, if for the recruiter. Declaring cities, adding city defenses and troops, AND removing the recruiter... turns the city into a huge factional base and reduces the usefulness of faction bases to ZERO. once you do that we will never see faction bases placed again. As a Matter of fact TO declare your city you should be required to have a Base within city limits. We must maintain the largest draw to place bases which is the faction recruiter.

So I too think this is a big issue, however just the opposite from you, if you put faction recruiters as a city perk you kill the last usefulness of faction bases, rendering those perks worthless.

Mayors with the Warmaster rank should be able to control a limited amount of factional troops for town defense.

Bajeezus

Tue Mar 30, 2004 10:55 am

#3

I think that rather than argue with Jest3r's points or debating the things that he doesn't agree with, we can make great progress by starting with the things that both the politicians and the GCW fans both want. Take a look at the list and think of things that will work well together, things that make use of existing features and code from other parts of the game, things that will make cities work in the factions the way you want them to. Later, after everyone has had a chanceto discuss this list, we'll try to work that list into a polished proposal.

jemelby

Tue Mar 30, 2004 12:32 pm

#4

This will perhaps sound a bit masocistic, but how about something to encourge mayors to be a bit more "martial?" If it is the intent of a town to be militaristic, then the mayor should be required (I'm groping for words here) to have a bit of faction himself. I, for example, have attained the maximum faction rank, AND am a Master Politician. What kind of cross-over benefit could I realize from this?

Iunderstand that this is all rather difficult to picture, given the significant SP hit politicians take. My hidden agenda here is to give a little more functionality to (and reason for) Master Politicians.

My thoughts keep coming back to some sort of faction recruiter-ish function. This makes sense to me, give that a Mayor is pretty much a recruiter for his city. It is not too much of a "continuity" stretch to give him a little bit of pull in terms of faction activiites. I know, I know. Jester pretty much beat down every hint at city based recruiters, and I have to agree with his assesment of the usefullness of bases. Based on what he said, though. Why not do away with bases all together? Since they are pretty much pointess, and 90% of the interaction between bases and players is destroyer-target based. It seems the only reason bases exist is to provide targets for the opposing faction, and to provide a recruiter for its owner.

J'Vee
Mos Onarok, Tatooine - Flurry

Chibi-Bar

Tue Mar 30, 2004 2:04 pm

#5

the reason I would want the recruiter is this...

lets say your base is underattack or taken over... now you can't get to the recruit and declare...

with a faction recruiter (that can't be killed) in say.. a city hall.. then we can declare and send in an insertion team to take back the base..

The HQ base itself won't be a "ghost town" and have to be defended since they will keep "allow" the city to remain faction..

unless....... as long we are within the city limit of a Faction city.. we can declare... then I wouldn't need a recruiter

Sasheria Windsong

Master Artisian and Master Architect
Drop off Vendor Cynthia: -4752 -4341
Architect Shop Vendor Sasha:-4756 -4341
Citizen of Blood Gulch, Dantooine

ThorsAnvil

Tue Mar 30, 2004 2:04 pm

#6

One point I would like to post about the CGW and city's is simply this.

Some people MINE the fronts of Shops and what not, I want to be rebel, (or imp if I was so inclined) and I like to shop,

I need to be able to know if the vendor is in a IMP / REB town.

Maybe color code the Starport Reb or imp, and flag the vendor as Reb or IMB.

I rather give the money to Reb's

Understand JEDI EXP (exp based on normalized kills)

Master Elite Prof 3,891,000 exp / 4200 exp = 926 Rancors for Master Elite anything
Master LightSaber 15,280,000 exp / 1000 exp = 15280 Rancors for Master LS

Chibi-Bar

Tue Mar 30, 2004 2:07 pm

#7

of course personally we are "restructering" our town to be a "two seperate" entity... we have our shopping district where anyone can shop... and "waring" district where our bases and defenses lies

our cloning center, shuttle, cantina, and med center are close to the center of town where our shops are... orginally (before the turret fixes) we had two faction bases way west of town..

I know that New Hope sells to anyone AS LONG The imperals are COVERT

right? hehe

Sasheria Windsong

Master Artisian and Master Architect
Drop off Vendor Cynthia: -4752 -4341
Architect Shop Vendor Sasha:-4756 -4341
Citizen of Blood Gulch, Dantooine

Thunderheart

Tue Mar 30, 2004 2:07 pm

#8

ThorsAnvil wrote:

One point I would like to post about the CGW and city's is simply this.

Some people MINE the fronts of Shops and what not, I want to be rebel, (or imp if I was so inclined) and I like to shop,

I need to be able to know if the vendor is in a IMP / REB town.

Maybe color code the Starport Reb or imp, and flag the vendor as Reb or IMB.

I rather give the money to Reb's

I was just thinking the same thing while reading Sergia's plea to change mines and minefields...

Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl
Community Relations Manager

Saabotage

Tue Mar 30, 2004 2:07 pm

#9

Yes we need to be able to make tunnells underground, frankly I am a rebel and would love to be able to build a base underground with nothing more then an opening up top. I would like to be able to design the tunnell and all. I even think it should cost money but hey. digging cost money.

Maybe being able to declare cities isnt a bad idea either.

Maybe making it so the npcs at a base once knocked down get up again.

Also i would like to see a 1 minute time from going overt again once ive died and come from the cloner.

br>I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending to much Liberty then to those attending too small a degree of it. Thomas Jefferson 1791
Smugglie = Smuggler + Lie
Liberty Or Death

MrFile

Tue Mar 30, 2004 2:09 pm

#10

Those are some really neat ideas

[D L E ] Z O N E. D O N O T C R O S S

Chibi-Bar

Tue Mar 30, 2004 2:12 pm

#11

hehe.. also with only declare.. you would still need recruiters to buy stuff.. so they can remain unique to factional bases

Sasheria Windsong

Master Artisian and Master Architect
Drop off Vendor Cynthia: -4752 -4341
Architect Shop Vendor Sasha:-4756 -4341
Citizen of Blood Gulch, Dantooine

fatgit

Tue Mar 30, 2004 2:31 pm

#12

This is part GCW/Part City based, but bases are currently very fragile.

I would like to see more integration in to the town, such as factional alligned installations that are part of the city, such as turrets, troop patrols (all at a cost to the city etc).

In addition, PvP on many servers is being ruined by bases going down too fast, I propose that instead of being destructable, a base in a City becomes captureable.
If the enemy capture the base in your city, it gives your residents some goal, to retake the base, and the enemy can make life hell for the residents, such as extra rebel troops spawning.

Cities should be able to align themselves factionally, and defend the city as a whole, not just the bases.
When we get attacked, we find half the attacking forces camp outside our cloning center. Placing minefields and turrets around the city uses up a lot of space and lots.
I would like to see factional cities allotted a number of defence lots.

There could be factional schematics that can only be crafted in a factionally aligned town aswell.

Not a great list, but Im trying to post something while my connection is stable for a few mins :/

Cafa

Tue Mar 30, 2004 2:56 pm

#13

On the chance this is read.

A player put down a mine in the middle of combat one time when things were screwey and they just never got sorted out again. The Mayor at the time (Viktor - SiN CiTY Dantooine Tempest) never worried about it as it kept rebels at bay from that area.

Well times change, Viktor went off to the middle east in RL and his game wife Pammiesue took the role of mayor (very well I might add). In the meantime we are pretty sure that the person that planted the mine deleted that character and rerolled --- or --- another character planted it that is not playing any more and the darn mine is perpetual forever, in a player city where we wanted to put a decoration.

CSRs told the mayor that they will not move player placed items. If the item in question NEVER has to pay maintenance again, such as in the case of a mine, this policy makes no logical sense.

TH, is there a way someone could contact our mayor, Pammiesue, and remove this mine? Obviously, mines are not simply "placed" player structures as they never require maintenance again and cannot be destroyed (tried many many rebels playing "blow up the rebel" game on it and it's just not going away.

Your, or the appropriate attention, is appreciated.

- Strength In Numbers - Loyal Subjects of the Empire
Asia Brothers Industries - Asia Hall SiN CiTY, Dantooine (Offers Vendor at -4703 -1404)
A player bodyguard can't protect you either, something agroes you, you are dead. The
only difference between a pet and the person, is you pay the person to stand there
and watch you die. -- Straker Atrella

Politician Archive

Thread: Proposal to the devs for city involvement in the GCW