Politician Archive

Let me try and beat them to the punch here before the people sieging our town start another "Jaspor cheats!!!" thread.

Is /cityban a legal command? Did the developers put it for the purpose of keeping troublemakers out of your town? Seems to me like this command was put in as part of the city system and is not an exploit and/or unintended feature. But this is what this group is crying about most recently in-game. So, being threatened with the remark "I'll get Plinka to tell you what you are doing is wrong!" I figured I'd try to head them off. Please understand, we are a reasonable and mature group. Once Plinka confirmed that /setprivacy was not intended for City Halls we lifted it. How else were we to know? It was in game, we tried it, it worked. Once it was confirmed as illegal, we stopped.

So now, what we did, call us frickin crazy, we used the /cityban command on people around our town who have been part of this hostile group admitting they want to take us over. Hey, guess what. It seems the /cityban command sometimes prevents people from getting into City Hall and voting. So now they are (yet again) accusing us of exploiting and cheating.

So, my question is this: If the Developers put a /cityban command into the game to allow us a little bit of control over who and who is not a part of the city, how is this a cheat or an exploit? We want to keep these people (obviously hostile) from getting benefits from our town since they are being destructive. This command allows that. Please, please, please, someone give me a reasonable explanation on how we are abusing the system and using an exploit? We are using /cityban on people who are griefing us (and please note, you cannot use it on citizens), and this command was PUT THERE AS PART OF THE CITY SYSTEM. Sorry for the shouting, but the argument against /cityprivacy was that it was not in the radial dial of the city hall admin terminal and was a "hidden" and unintended feature. /cityban is part of their manual as a way to defend our town, and we are using it.

If using /cityban is deemed illegal, then what's to stop them from deeming /survey illegal.

This is getting ridiculous when everything I do is deemed illegal. And the people screaming "cheat! cheater! illegal! exploit!" are a group of fairly intelligent and mature people who are still just pissed off because they didn't get a city placed. Every time we get a step up on them, they cry exploit.

So, Plinka, if you are reading this, can you please tell me how a command that made it into the game as a main feature of the whole Player City implementation could possibly be illegal and an exploit?

Cityban does not prevent players from entering city hall, town, or houses in town. It only prevents the use of civic buildings such as the shuttleport, bank, cloning center, etc. It doesn't keep people from voting. It does not work on citizens at all.

Citywarn does not prevent players from entering anything. It makes it possible to attack the player and run them out of town. It does work on citizens, but there has to be a militia member nearby to attack the person in question. It wears off quickly. It can be used to make it painful for a citizen to be in town, but they can still work to vote the mayor out and change the policy.

Thank you, Hypatian,

I suppose then we have nothing to worry about if they are complaining that some of their citizens cannot get into City Hall because we may have done a /cityban on them.

Yet you continue to use it knowing it's not working properly? Glad my names not Jaspor, because it's starting to be the slangword for exploiter.

It's not HIS fault if it's nopt "working as intended". /cityban is a legitimate command for city management, so if it has an unintended affect allong WITH the intended effect, he's no exploiter for using it for its intended effect.

~~Shabhaii, Mayor of Tombra, Naboo
www.cityoftombra.com
The REAL BT
(Snitter): There isn't any island, Rowf...
(Rowf): There is... there... can't you see it... Our island...just stay with me.. I'll get you there...

I thought /cityban would block the targeted character from the city hall and voting, after all, this is alsoa civic building, havn't heard anyone confirming it does not (actually trying it). The malitia and mayor need these commands for exactly the reason the poster has mentioned. /cityban should do exactly what the command says, and is probably exactly what the Devs intended. It would be interesting to see if a banned person could place a house and declare it and become a citizen. You should get a message "You are banned from this city, Citizenship Refused!" The mayor needs some sort of control to keep out hostile people, and this is a good tool to do so. Just because some knuckleheads want to take over a city and can't, and cry EXPLOIT!, just shows how they have no clue how this game is supposed to work.

Also, If the mayor enables the zoning rights function, the hostile people couldn't build, and therefore couldn't become citizens and vote....

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RukkaSilverstorm wrote:
Also, If the mayor enables the zoning rights function, the hostile people couldn't build, and therefore couldn't become citizens and vote....

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I agree with your previous post, Rukka, but the problem with this one is that these guys placed houses right outside our city border on day one, and once we expanded, they gained the right to become (unwelcome) citizens.

The Mayor only has zoning rights on the current city property, and once it expands, anybody right outside can become a citizen.

/cityban should block you from the city hall because its a civic building and you use it for civic things such as voting. Why don't you just destroy the city hall and you and all your friends move somewhere else so they don't take away all your hard work.

Maller Malice

Mayor of New Aldera

Yeah, this is a interesting situation all around. After looking at both sides, I would have to say now that if a group of people want to take over a city, it should be by a non-exploitive manner. With that said, when a mayor places a city he has to assume he will attract people, that is the point. When prospective, decent people want to join a city, the mayor should welcome them to the city with open arms. If after growth the new citizen population votes out the original mayor, then that's life, this is not a guild. However, when a group just wants to take-over the city because they want the land, or they are of opposite faction, the mayor should have a command to deter this.

Setting up houses outside the radius waiting for the next growth cycle is what sounds like an exploit to me. I say this because if you were joining a city the way it is supposed to work, you meet the mayor and other citizens andarrange a place for your house, you are granted zoningrights, then place your house and declare, boom! Citizen. The other method of camping outside the radius waiting for expansion bypasses the normal process and should be nerfed.

Now, if a group of people want to take over a city by hostile means, there should be an established fair way of attempting this, after all, I agree it is part of the Civil war. I would suggest some type of raid based option, like how you take down a Faction HQ. Similar rules could apply, 2 hour window to defend with malitia. If successful a coup would occur, and the mayor race would be open to all Polaticians. I am sure something could be set up along these lines.

/cityban is in the HOLOCRON as a LEGAL slash command. Therefor they can sit on thier whiny butts and make happy care-bear songs.

You are correct, it is a valid / command, BUT, it's NOT supposed to ban from city hall. it's only supposed to work on Shuttleports, cantinas, med centers, etc. It's already been brought up on TC to be fixed. Not a cry, whine or complain. Just a fact.

The exploit people mention is using /setPerm ban on city hall, which is not intended to work (you'll note that this command is not on the radial menus for city halls). Also note that /cityBan does not work on citizens, so even if it did block you from city hall, any citizen would be able to vote (although I'm not sure that /cityban is removed when someone becomes a citizen due to city growth.)

Anyway, any tactic that gives people a *chance* to vote the mayor out of office once they become a citizen is fair game. Set up covert detectors, warn people and attack with your militia, whatever. Any tactic that attempts to prevent people from becoming citizens is also fair game. Excessive use of zoning, blocking the next expansion area with your own houses, avoiding expansion until you know your compatriots will still have the majority, whatever.

Any tactic that prevents people from voting once they have become a citizen is right out--which means, basically, putting people on the city hall's ban list, or blocking the city hall voting terminal with another object.

So if you want to avoid a takeover, you need to either try to prevent the troublesome citizens from taking over by fighting with them, convincing them to see reason, or getting more votes on your side, or you need to prevent troublesome people from becoming citizens in the first place. An adequate "defense" is to do some of both. Make sure your group outnumbers the opposing group before you expand, and work to make it painful enough for the opposing group to stay in your city. You pay the price in that you can't get high level city services or more XP for the mayor if you have to be careful about expanding, and you pay another price in that a city in which citizens are routinely warned and run out of town isn't going to be high on the "Ooo! Ooo! I want to move there!" list for most people.

Anyway, just be sure to play within the rules for now, and feel free to object to the rules and try to get them changed. I for one am looking forward to the day that large cities are diverse enough for real politics to take place over who becomes mayor. And yes, even iron fist run-and-gun style politics will be fun. But blocking people from voting at all is not fun. And likewise, the older story about two friends who decided to run just for the heck of it in their city and had the mayor ban them from city hall afterwards is not fun.

It's unfortunate that many people see cities as property, when really a city is not an item but a process. Political battles are what politicians are meant to do, and player cities provide the focus for that. Perhaps this would've been more clear if city halls sprouted spontaneously when enough population gathers, instead of being a structure that has to be crafted. The real deal here is *convincing* groups of people to vote a certain way, not making it physically impossible to vote any other way.