Politician Archive
Thread: Politician Round Table Discussion, Week of 6.17.2005 Issues and Ideas
This week's featured threads:
Message Edited by Khristen on 06-22-2005 08:29 PM
Please please please fix sales tax.
Give mayors better methods of funding the city (events?)
Give cities the ability to fully participate in the GCW. I run the #1Imperialstronghold on Starsider but the only thing that shows it is a faction base on a hill.
Other than the major flaws centered on the lack of skills in the master poli box and the perennially broken taxes -- my main issue with Politician is the poor community managementtools available to us. We need to have better communication options with our citizens. This might include:
- ABulliten Board outside City Hall -- similar to the news terminal in starports
- Acity-wide chat channel
- Acity website similar to the websites available to EQ2 guilds, only focusing on the Player communities
- I would like to have an auto-generated "Welcome to the community" email sent out everytime someone moves into a city and declares residency.
- I would like to have an auto-generated "Sorry to see you leave" email sent out everytime someone un-declares their residency from the community.
- I would like to have the ability to advertise my community's vendors to the larger community of my server though a server wide email which we could send maybe once each month. Yes, I know it is spam...but I already send one to the citizens of my community and both the citizens and the merchantes enjoy receiving it.
- The ability to place a MOTD in a city-wide chat channel.
- More effective tools with which to audit and manage our city's financial situation. This is a major time-suck. I would like to see better income and expenditure reporting capabilities as well as new methods for income generation. I hate to say it yet again -- but please repair the darned taxes!!!
- Also, I would like to havethe ability for Master Poli's to place venues, actors, droids and other such items which, as of now, we can only buy from NPC vendors in the NPC cities.
- Player city specific rewards for having been in existance for a certain period of time. For example, a new city gets an "Establish on this date" statue. A city that is 1 year old gets a special garden. A two year old city gets a triumphal arch -- etc etc....
That should be enough "ideas" to get some conversation going. As far as I am concerned Politician and Players cities currently work, though they could most certainly work better. They have a feeling of being only half complete.
My primary concern and gripe with PC's is creating an urban, or even rural environment that is your own.You live on Corellia like myself Khris, you know what I"m talking about. While the land is beautiful and one of teh best worlds, in my opinion, the architecture sucks. Nubian cities seem like they have skyscrapers lurching up in comparison to our own yet we are the world that has Coronet, the capital of the sector and pinnacle of trade due to the hyperspace trade routes. We are the urban jungle, why do we have 2 buildngs that are representative of this? City hall and a cantina. Nothing else looks like a skyscraper for us and in truth for anyone else.
I realize that pavement will not happen (although I feel that it could work if implemented in a similar way as gardens are) nor terraforming, however I do feel that we should be able to get player city specific homes that appear like city houses. I want to haveChicago not Braodacre. Issues with community development and skills to help that out are great but communities work around issues they may have. A means to be able to sustain the city (not talking about just fixing our broken taxes but other ideas to generate revenue) are great but we can provide if need be we have been for a year and a half now. Give me a city that is a true city and one that I can look upon and feel the title of metropolis.
Beyond that I'd love to see a few new garden types and a boatload of new statues (especially player species related ones) to help make my city even more unique then one 2 towns over. The location helps but even beyond that having it look special because of what I have put into it would be nice.
Non aesthetic concerns:
We need a reason to live in a player city. The community aspect is inticing to some but how about a reason beyond that. A reason to have more condensed towns in the middle of nowhere instead of Coronet-II (even though I can't complain much, my new city is on the island 1k to the west of it) or have the game promote urban sprawl more than new urban centers. Perhaps less cost for homes inside a city, unless taxes even that part out, a more normal occurance of 'live events' here than in the wilderness
Militia need more powers even if they are just token gestures such as /city ignore preventing spammers or emote jackasses, my idea for splitting up the impact of /cityban in a new /citywarn so you can keep the money shuttling into malls but not get clone camped in your own cloners etc. They also need a terminal (possibly in a new buliding, Militia HQ that I brought up in Lucious's thread, allowed to rank 2-3) to designate powers. As it stands your anti-clone camper can also be his own urban planner...this can wind up with bad results. Splitting up the abilities and 'ranks' like a PA hall can with its members is a must.
Let us drop recruiters! With bases working how they do now the only reason to drop a PvE base is to hope that it'll not blow up soon enough to declare overtness. This is only temporary and far from practical. PvP bases do have meaning and can't be used as a recruiter station so the primary concern of letting us drop them at will has been removed. We have 'rebel' and 'imperial' cities that exist in every single aspect; there are also mixed cities that could use both and are just as obviously an amalgamation of faction. Let us finally truly become a rebel stronghold, imperial stronghold, or play both sides against the middle.
Cabinet, that way dictator RP cities can work just fine and democratic ones work like the good 'ol US of A's republic. If they chose to change the name however I prefer to RP peers who I gather suggestions from and be able to have a 'fightin ring' of minute men I can employ rather thandrill outany semblance of teeth the city has but give us a nice peticure to calm us down.
And like it or not, unless the devs remove all weapons and combat skills from the game and replace it with comfy pillows we are going to have to protect our cities. It is a simple fact of the internet, and human nature in general, that when anonymity is granted tosome persons completely they feel the need to act like a*ssholes. That isn't to say we should be able to gun down anybody on our propr'tya however it does mean that we should be able to have some control over it and some means of inflicting negatives to people who violate our trust and rules. Otherwise why is it Sony feels compelled to hire Garva and Co. if everybody is trustworthy and pure?
We've had plenty of non-combat ideas for militia to improve their impact on the town adn the experience of the town in general. The /cityignore one was my favorite wherein people couldn't use spatial or emotes when within the city. How does this hurt them? They can still /tell, use chat channels, group up and chat in there it just means we don't have to worry about spammers parading in front of our malls etc.
However I've been privy to 'special' boards to have contact with the devs and see how they implement our thoughts into their own so I'm not holding my breath and feel sorry for you to have such a wealth of options that won't be commented on.
I love the idea of /cityignore as well as extending the influence of /cityban to all structures inside city limits that the banned person isn't on admin for. I also agree that we need some way of enforcing the "laws" of our city, even if those laws are player created. The real problem is how to implement a system that would allow for that and not be abused by those of...questionable character. The non-combat options are probably the best avenues to explore even if they are more limiting. I'd love to be able to blast people away for various transgressions against my city, but I understand that it's not always the fair route.
Player Cities may not be on the immediate radar for "revamp", but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be possible to slip in smaller things that would benefit us. That's personally the angle I'd like to take right now, and I think it has a much higher chance of success than "We want a revamp!" since there are honestly professions in much worse shape than we are.
Here is what I would like to see.
1. Faction perks for cities, other than bases.
2. Perhaps a bonus to the top 1-3? cities on a given planet, and maybe even a special one for the #1 city on the server. This being dictated by size perhaps.
3. The ability for politicians to place NPCs in the city to add flavor. Right now many of us use empty vendors (since merchants get 12 and dont always use them) to add flavor to some buildings. Myself and others also place trainers in different areas.
4. The ability to change the type of banner on a PA Hall, including faction banners. When you have a large city with several PA Halls in it, having Imp banners on them would add soo much.
5. Make it so those stupid event perks can be placed in buildings, close to buildings, on top of buildings. Right now you have to be XX away, and sometimes that doesnt quite cut it.
6. Give the top 1 or 2 cities on a planet their own starport.
Stormtrooper Detachment OmegaMessage Edited by KhoevenNalarDre on 06-17-2005 11:44 PM
They *want* to create factional strongholds, but it will not be exclusively to Player Cities (probably more the way that regular faction bases are right now). Right now there is much more content for those who choose to be involved in the GCW than there is for those that aren't. Strongholds and GCW bases are meant to be blown up, but Player Cities are meant to be lasting structures.
As I've said before, there's nothing ruling out future GCW content for Player Cities and citizens that want that kind of thing. It's just ground that has to be tread carefully so we don't go back to the days where GCWcontent wasn't completely opt-in. I'm all for more GCW content overall, but I don't want to see it become something that could be forced on other players.
Something else to keep in mind is that the only way to add things like factional NPCs and turrets would be through faction points. They're not going to add in those kinds of features without them being attackable and in order for it to be balanced it has to be purchased through faction points.
Message Edited by Khristen on 06-17-2005 11:12 PM
I have no problem buying stuff from a recruiter.
Khristen wrote:
They *want* to create factional strongholds, but it will not be exclusively to Player Cities (probably more the way that regular faction bases are right now). Right now there is much more content for those who choose to be involved in the GCW than there is for those that aren't. Strongholds and GCW bases are meant to be blown up, but Player Cities are meant to be lasting structures.
As I've said before, there's nothing ruling out future GCW content for Player Cities and citizens that want that kind of thing. It's just ground that has to be tread carefully so we don't go back to the days where GCWcontent wasn't completely opt-in. I'm all for more GCW content overall, but I don't want to see it become something that could be forced on other players.
Something else to keep in mind is that the only way to add things like factional NPCs and turrets would be through faction points. They're not going to add in those kinds of features without them being attackable and in order for it to be balanced it has to be purchased through faction points.
Message Edited by Khristen on 06-17-2005 11:12 PM
And when you have Imperial or rebel flags and soldiers patrolling every major NPC city, you are already forcing the GCW on people. And you always have the option to not go to a particular player city.
DarkHelmet-TIO wrote: (snip)
Give cities the ability to fully participate in the GCW. I run the #1Imperialstronghold on Starsider but the only thing that shows it is a faction base on a hill.
HMMurdock2K wrote:
I like whats been said, but please make the broken taxes number 1!
Some great suggestions, PsychoticChipmunk. And, yes, the Corellian architecture drives me nuts!
I'd love to see more purpose for the militia than /cityban and /grantzoningrights. I had asked the question at Fan Fest and was basically told that they don't want us to *have* to protect our cities. I can understand that to some degree, but the militia itself could be a great tool if utilized effectively. Even if they weren't "militia" (as in defenders of the city), the actual organization could be renamed if needed and create a support team for the mayor. There have been suggestions of a City Council...perhaps the militia could be incorporated into that idea and expand from there.