Politician Archive

Hello fellow Mayors,

I'd like to catch your attention on the overall challenge of being a Mayor in a Player City, and what are the tools we have to compete with NPC Cities.

NPC Cities got :

Bazaars (this should come to us sooner or later i heard), this is a main point, anybody can sell or buy from it, no need to get Artisan skills, people from all the galaxy can see products from your city and if they buy they will visit the town to retrieve. I really think they should allow Bazaar placement, and maybe in the meantime allow a Merchant to really "share" his vendors.

Starports, there s no way actually for a player to avoid these, and therefore, it s amajor issue. Let's hope that will come soon with the Space extension maybe.

Garages, the add of vehicles and the fact Garages are missing from Player cities structures add another issue to the list. Everybody owns a vehicle, and therefore they need to have it repaired.

Militians ? regular militicians in cities tags with the Citizen faction, which means harming a citizen will put you on the aggro list of these npc cops. Althought Militians does not add really to the NPC cities beside being decorative.

What do we have, Player Cities ?

The spot we choosed for our City, proximity of POI, beautiful beaches ? The facts are there s only a few attractive POI on every planet. Which could raise another discussion on how the planets are balanced in regards to character and cities developpement. (Tatooine seems to get the whole stuff Krayt, Adv medical comp. ressources, Chef ressources, Jabba, Bestine/Anchorhead,etc.)

The urban plan... It's not an easy task, we don t have the tools for that, but it s a point for Player cities.

Events, now that is the major issue. What makes the difference with an NPC City is your devotion to pull events involving citizens and add to the content. The only drawback is that you pay for it, you invest time and money to build it up. And mostly, who needs to be a citizen to get into it ? And if you re making it Citizens only, how can that be attractive for your city expansion.

Merchant tents actually serves only the Tent owner, or grief him some lots if he s willing to add people to Admin list. I don't think it s a majorissue tho, that may be in the spirit of the Merchant profession to rent the tents or something like that.

More to comes...

... So now, don t wonder why there s still so many people around NPC cities, hunting through the houses killing the lairs popping between 2 harvesters field. Even with the lag, the constant spam, places like Bestine, Theedand Coronet are crowded.

Player cities start getting some visitors when they pop a Shuttleport, 3 or 4 weeks after their birth. And then you have to invest more and more time to build up the city life.

I'm just wondering what is the real reward from all this ? I really mean it. Around 75 citizens in Arham, 150 structures, i don t even know who is a citizen unless i m checking the list in the city hall. Let alone a 50 structures from the city, i still got 25 with unknown owners.

How can i build up a Urban plan if i don t have the names of my citizens, the owners of the buildings in my City Radius ? Now let appart the guy who just placed a House onthe Islandbeach and don't even care about asking me if that wasn t rude for the other 75 citizens to place where they were forbid to.

I'm not really ranting, i just want some feedback on how to deal with that. And how fair the profession and Cities are.

Politician just kill any opportunity for me to build the template i wanted for my char, and i keep investing more and more time in it, just to fill the gaps that should come naturally with the profession.

I'm not to the point of letting Arkham Crumble to dust or just destroy the City Hall. But i don't see how someone would like to invest time and skill points just for the pleasure of others, without any returns.

Fact is, no citizenwants to run the race against me. Cause they know what kind of burden is that profession.

Would have been easier if i was a crafter, but hey, they should have placed the profession in that tree so.

"I'm not to the point of letting Arkham Crumble to dust or just destroy the City Hall. But i don't see how someone would like to invest time and skill points just for the pleasure of others, without any returns."

The return is if you enjoy doing things to organize your community. If you don't, you're probably not going to have fun as a mayor, and therefore won't be a great mayor. You could be a decent mayor, or even a good mayor, but if you don't see a return in the intangible enjoyment of working with mayors of other cities and your own citizens to plan events, etc. then you'll most likely not see a return at all from being a mayor.

I don't see how someone would be a mayor without wanting to invest time and skills for the pleasure of others. Why did you take the job if you don't get enjoyment from that?

Perhaps I'm just too altruistic.

As for the rest of your ideas, I largely agree. We need bazzars and I heard that player garages were coming within 2 months. Other issues would be the lack of SpyNet Ops, and the lack of pavement (pavement is apparently also coming).

How does a player city compete with NPC cities? Ours has a basic gear vendor with all the stuff a new player or profession-switcher would need to get started. Every item (except for PME sized extractors) is 10 cr, the extractors are 50cr.

We try to keep our vendors stocked and easy-to-find. We run an ad each Friday on our server board.

We have harder to find skill trainers.

We have a beautifully decorated city.

We also have some of the bestcitizens inthe Galaxy

That's how we hope to compete.

Quote me again on that again, yes i m not a content provider, even if i did helped people settle in my city, even if i did passed hours and hours providing the "How to become a citizen" speech, if i spent times explaining over and over the BASICS of the game mechanics such as how to use a mission terminal, how to place a house, how to vote, how to donate, even had to explain an artisan how to experiment, how to place furnitures in a house, what is the politician profession, what is X profession, how to .....and so and so.

Even if i've been insulted for bugs/crash i don't even knew about , i m even helping out other cities around on coronet when i can. NO i decline the Customer Service role that profession, i decline to be a Game Content provider. Having fun in the game helping others or not isn t my point.

Politician isn t balanced that way, and you can tell me that i m a selfish one, Arkham is the first city on Coronet FarStar, and the biggest so far. One mayor since the beginning and it s me, a few tried and they didn t get more than their own vote. And, every single day since the city hall has been placed i ve been working for it.

Having people saying "Thanks Mayor, you did a good job" is cool, but that has nothing to do with game mechanics, and that s my point.

Now think about it, Entertainers buff not working, one of them comes to the board and complains :

Hey i m supposed to buff his mind and that doesn t work !

The kind of answer you suggest is :

Come on man you re supposed to have fun entertainning, just change profession !

See ? game mechanics ? game play ? 2 different things.

Let me add again, i didn t say we couldn t compete, we also have nice citizens, nice decorations, facilities, etc.... Advanced Trainers and such, but that has been said to be the basic of the Player city.

Let s just keep it to the overall view, not you being an awesome Mayor with the best citizens in the best city.

Just help me out supporting player cities and show up what's missing to make the city something autonomous and appealing. (in game terms, no subjective things like my Twilek skin/model Mayor is naked and welcoming.)

Right now, i hear by rewards, tools that enhance and help your Politician profession. Not only as a Mayor, but as a Politician.

Access Broadcast medias (even at a cost), in-game tools to allow Politicians to post their plans, defends their view and openly discuss the current Mayor plan.

As for the mayor, i want tools to see who is a citizen and who is not, who owns what building in the city radius, a mean to switch in Overview of the city and check the grind to see where you can place what.

I want a command to delegate some function to trustworthy people, for exemple, i d like to nomitate a Militia Leader with a command to add a militian or remove him. I want to be able to designate another Politician to delegate some functions, such as city decoration placement or zonerights.

I want utility decorations such as Sign, walls and board terminals.

Rewards in game mechanics. Means filling the profession with tools to help out accomplish your task.

More ideas, like having a command at Master to allow the city zone radius to switch Full PvP (like in battelfield). Some cities would certainly like the idea, not sure Arkham would fit, but if i had a PvP event to build that would be fun.

Now, more for the profession would be to allow us to provide real content to the Mission Terminals. Maybe building our own missions, generating loots for a fee from the city Treasure. Allow us to put Bounty on people banned from the city.

And no, i certainly doesn t means to offense you forconstructive critics, but having fun roleplaying and helping people is something you can do with any other profession. And i hope you know believe and understand my point.

You do invest 77 skill points in a profession, and even if i agree that it s not one who requires bonus to Experimentation and Weapon certs, you still need to fill the gap between 1 day of activity/week and then do-it-yourself nosy urban planning and diplomatic move. Other type of content does not comes with the politician package. One of my citizen could do the current event job as well.

Ah, well given that, yeah I agree.

We need more in-game tools to manage and beautify our cities.

I think we also need some way to keep our higher-end combat types and hunters closer to home. Certainly, the missions available on starter planets just won't do it. Duelling contests, etc. are all great, but we could really use some mechanics for it. Once they re-introduce /citywarn, I guess we'll get something like that, but Iam looking for a point to stick around beyond militia duties.

Well, I'm glad to hear that you're involved as a mayor and do help people. What I'm saying is that it is it's own reward.

I certainly don't think I'm the best at my job nor was I trying to say that. Yes, I bragged up our city, because I personally love it very much.

What is it that you expect from the game mechanics that won't make you a content provider?

Seriously.

All of your ideas are perhaps "coded in" or a "game mechanic," but they're not a reward the way seem to envision one.

Granted, I'm just trying to gather this from your posts.

If you can't take constructive criticism or a view different than your own, well, too bad. You posted a thread. I provided feedback.

You still haven't given an idea that is a "game mechanic" that also seems to function as a tangible reward, at least as you present your desire for personal gain or reward.

I agree that your ideas would make the administration of a city easier, which is why I said I liked them in the first place. Insofar as you desirea reward, it makes me wonder what it is you want that would sufficiently validate your apparently considerable efforts as a mayor.

And as far as not being able to have the template you want....I had to drop scout and medic just to keep the other skills I need either for self-defense or for city things (like higher merchant skills so I can host vendors for some of our citizens). It seems that if you want to be a politician, then that should become part of the template.

Right, so perhaps you could pony up some clarification.