Politician Archive
Thread: Question for the corr. about being greifed by a city
This city was laid out in an area where there were multiple buildings from various characters without any consideration to anyone who was there beforehand.I personally had a med. naboo and 3 factories set up in this area.
At first there were no taxes so i figured ok they are not bothering me so i do not need to bother them,in fact i figured with my well established vendors there i was actually helping their city grow.
Next the taxes are set to ridiculous levels,i asked the mayor to revoke his taxes(particually the sales tax as it is still bugged),the response i received was that they have claimed this land for their guild and they were deliberatly raising taxes to force everyone else to leave.
Upon writing a CSR about this i was told that this is perfectly legal in-game and i can do nothing except move,as my 3 factories were placed by people who are no longer active i cannot do that.
This seems to me like a form of greifing,if i can be (forced) to move why cant another person do this in another area also highly populated by player characters not in a city?I feel that people who were in an area before a city was established should be exempt from taxes like this.Just because i am one person angry over this does not make my complaint any less valid.
I would like to see some action taken on this rather than the inaction that is taken on the part of SOE most of the time.
if they don't have zoning enabled, you can ask people you know to place houses in the city, then someone can run against the mayor, take over, and take down the city hall. this will require some work, but it's the only way for you to "take care" of the problem without moving.
if they have an income tax and you don't want to pay, you can revoking your citizenship (option in the terminal in the left room of the city hall); however, if you're not a citizen of the city you're subjected to /cityban, which can be reversed by declaring residence in the city again.
as far as I remember, the sales tax bugs so that the extra money goes to the merchant, so you can always lower your prices accordingly.
) but a few tests showed that the money didn't always go to the merchant, sometimes it went to the abyss. If he's taxing your home to force you out this means he's taxing everyone's home including his guildies. Since you can't take more than 50k from the treasurey per week he has to afford their taxes out of his own pocket or convince them to bite the bullet until he can force your hand. This likely would mean some wiggle room you could push with the citizens. Send out a citywide (except for the mayor and militia) expressing your plight and concern. The way your vendors are helping with traffic and how you don't mind the city but only mind the taxes. Appeal to them and you might put some pressure on the guild to nock it off or possibly make a run on mayorship.
As Pappi and the others said, there is no restriction on where a city can be built beyond the no-build zones. Player Cities absorb structures that fall into their radius automatically.
One quick question about the sales tax...are you actually seeing it show up on your vendor items? What sales tax is supposed to do is take the amount that the merchant lists and item for and add the sales tax into it; the new amount shows when viewing items for sale. For example, something listed for 100 credits in a city with a 10% sales tax will show as being sold for 110. This only applies to newly listed items.
The last time I tested out the sales tax system, it didn't even try to add the percentage in and money was exchanged as if there was no sales tax enabled. If this is still the case, whatever sales tax they enable will not affect you at all.
As was also stated above, you can avoid income tax by revoking your citizenship although property tax will still apply. As far as the /cityban being able to be applied, it also would not affect you beyond the use of city services and could be countered by declaring residence (and revoking again, should you choose to).
Mayors who try to tax others out of their city can only keep it up for so long unless they have millions of credits to throw away each week. Without the ability to withdraw large sums from the city treasury, tax reimbursement comes from their pockets. It's not something many Mayors keep up for very long once they realize that.
If they are hostile towards you and use foul or insulting language, you can file a harassment ticket against them. If they try to prevent people from visiting your shop, it is also grounds for a harassment ticket. The best thing to do in those cases is to turn it over into CSR hands and not stoop to their level.
Hope this helps some!
Message Edited by Khristen on 08-15-2005 10:53 AM
Sighryn wrote:
When last I checked (about two months ago) sales tax went to the merchant, not the city.
if the money went to the city it wouldn't be broken now would it?
Khristen wrote:
As Pappi and the others said, there is no restriction on where a city can be built beyond the no-build zones. Player Cities absorb structures that fall into their radius automatically.
One quick question about the sales tax...are you actually seeing it show up on your vendor items? What sales tax is supposed to do is take the amount that the merchant lists and item for and add the sales tax into it; the new amount shows when viewing items for sale. For example, something listed for 100 credits in a city with a 10% sales tax will show as being sold for 110. This only applies to newly listed items.
The last time I tested out the sales tax system, it didn't even try to add the percentage in and money was exchanged as if there was no sales tax enabled. If this is still the case, whatever sales tax they enable will not affect you at all.
As was also stated above, you can avoid income tax by revoking your citizenship although property tax will still apply. As far as the /cityban being able to be applied, it also would not affect you beyond the use of city services and could be countered by declaring residence (and revoking again, should you choose to).
Mayors who try to tax others out of their city can only keep it up for so long unless they have millions of credits to throw away each week. Without the ability to withdraw large sums from the city treasury, tax reimbursement comes from their pockets. It's not something many Mayors keep up for very long once they realize that.
If they are hostile towards you and use foul or insulting language, you can file a harassment ticket against them. If they try to prevent people from visiting your shop, it is also grounds for a harassment ticket. The best thing to do in those cases is to turn it over into CSR hands and not stoop to their level.
Hope this helps some!
Message Edited by Khristen on 08-15-2005 10:53 AM
Yes sadly the sales tax is showing up.It is especially painful to my resources vendor as i sell in 100k lots.
As for the income tax i dropped residence quickly to avoid that however i still pay property tax and sales tax.I have gone from approxamitly 20 sales a day to about 2.My customers see the price and just arent interested.
No i cannot place any houses as zoning rights are restricted and i feel even if i could somehow wrangle control of the city and destroy it within a day a CSR would come along and replace it and id probably get a ban for my troubles.
At the very least i thank you all for your sympathy as i feel glad to know that not everyone approves of this kind of behavior.
The only other question i have is what is to stop this from happening in a highly populated area?Outside coronet there are hundreds of houses but im sure someone could find room to set up a city hall and 10 small houses.Then they up the taxes and ruin everyone around there.It does seem like this could be a problem,and it worries me becuuse i do have a few houses with vendors set up in other locations and i dont want to go through this again.
L0llirot is right, if the city is close to growing you can ask other to place houses in the edge of the city and become citizens when the city grows, then take over the city. it's also valid politics.
get a group a nice group something that will out number the currect citizenship of that city have them place house just outside the current border if they have zoning enabled then next city expansion comes around those houses will be now part of the city and have ur friends vote for u so if the mayery has 20 people get 25 people keep tabs of their citizenships but before city cycle is up get about 15% high the population outside of their borders then once the borders expand and eat those houses in have those people vote u in automatic take over and this is completly legal.
then u can lower taxes u wind upw with a free city or u can destroy the townhall but i would keep it for a couple keeps keep adding citizens that is loyal to u so u can always out vote the mayer he will be mad of this and will try to get his guildies to try to vote for him
voting cycle is every 3 weeks and city cycle is every week u will know if ur houses get in the city it will e mail the house owners especialy since he has taxes it will e mail them letting them know their subject to the taxes but the income tax is only 2k a week max so no biggie there
this type of action i never condone to but i seen an imperial guild take over a rebel city this way i am imperial myself but i am friends with the old mayer of this city that is rebel and i use to visit his city all the time one day i came to his city and saw no houses outside his borders then a 3 days later i seen a row of 40 houses outside his border then city cycle happens 4 days after that and expansion happen and those houses was part of the city and then 2 weeks later my mayer friend was voted out of the city so my friend filed a ticket and csr told him that was a legal action that guild did and nothing can be done about it.
but in that case it was uncalled for and considered rude.
and in ur case what that city is doing to u is rude and uncalled for i believe in live and let live and he should just except the fact he took over ur land and at least he could of done was leave u alone and not bother with the taxes thing.
so if ur on the bria server i can help u i know people that does this sort of thing i can have them take over the city for u it will take a month tho to do so and do not worry about citybans once their house is there it means nothing
Just to let everyone know, the sales tax does go to the city. I have tested this myself, and the tax does go into the city hall.
I would consider what this mayour is doing is griefing but admitting to taxing players to get them to move.
Yes, it's rude, yes it's griefing by SOE's standereds, when anything ruins anothers Game enjoyment. I'm sorry you have to go through this.
I had someone place a house extremely close to my city and when he asked if he was going to be forced to move or he was going to be taxed when my city expanded, I told him no. He donated 100k to our city hall out of respect and Honour.
I wish you were on Sunrunner, I would invite you to move near us.
I hope something is done about this, and you find some peace again.
Good luck.
