Politician Archive
Thread: On City Takeovers, Correspondant please respond
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Achilles467
Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:30 am
#1
Works like this:
- Milita membertricked into giving someone zoning rights
- That person then drops as many houses as he can within the time frame
- Houses are transfered to other players making them citizens of the city
- They vote in their own mayor
Exploit?
Sure its mean and dirty but I don't see this as abusing code or exploiting.
RazaelDemron
Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:33 am
#2
I don't see it as exploit either. But, when the entire intent behind it is to deed the city halls and structures so that you can sell them then it's downright immoral.
As far as exploit or abuse of code it's obviously an abuse of the interaction between zoning rights and transferstructure. Whether that's an exploit or not I will say is a semantical arguement. Some people say exploits and abuses of code require an actual flaw in the code itself. This is a flaw in the overall design where two seperately developed (but related) parts of it meet.
Message Edited by RazaelDemron on 07-13-2004 06:36 AM
Fneegan
Tue Jul 13, 2004 7:02 am
#3
MAYORS open your eyes and be aware of the problem. Make it a rule for you and ALL militia that:
+once you give zoning to an individual to also remove it immediately from the individual once the house is placed
+ occasionally, check the voting terminal to see if someone is running
First off - yes it is an exploit. There's a wholeBACKDOOR issue that needs to be CLOSED with having multiple characters/ multiple servers and having multiple accounts and these cross server lexchanges............
Maybe some things can be added to help incumbent mayors such as:
+ a city can only permit 5 cits per night by /grantzoning
+every time a vote status changes - a mayor should get email notifications such has, "Lunna is running and currently has 5/55 votes."
If you want to become mayor, become mayor. Just overtaking a city for the sake of upsetting a city and citizens and also gaining possession of whatever is in City Hall is just plain down right mean and dirty and if there's ways they GET AROUND DOING it maybe there should be MORE WAYS TO COMBAT AGAINST IT.
Laeren
Tue Jul 13, 2004 8:09 am
#4
I'm not Pappi, but here's how I see it:
This is a "dirty trick" but not a game exploit. Dirty Tricks are allowed, cuz they are well within the rules, use regular game mechanics, and don't use any bugs or known cheats.
How do you guard against Dirty Tricks? Unfortunately, it means you keep your permissions very close to the vest. If a new citizen wants to place a house, make sure that that citizen ONLY places what they told you they were going to place. If you can, watch them actually place it, or place it FOR them and then transfer to them.
You can only guard yourself against Dirty Tricks by being cautious. But, if you are cautious and careful, Dirty Tricks don't happen cuz they aren't bugs or cheats. The Politician profession was designed to be competitive in its own way. This means that if someone manages to gain enough votes to take over your city, that's pretty much how it goes.
Fneegan
Tue Jul 13, 2004 10:04 am
#5
Laeren wrote: - This is a "dirty trick" but not a game exploit
- if someone manages to gain enough votes to take over your city, that's pretty much how it goes
It's pretty funny to hear a back door is a dirty trick - seems more of an exploit and anoversighton SOE. One that should get fixed before the game is TOTALLY ruined by cross server lotdummping ofharvesters and houses.
Imagine, you can't have 2 characters on the same server, butyou can havefriends from other serversor multiple accounts as ways to get around it. That's seems like an exploit to me.....can you imagine the gameif youONLY had one character on 1 server and you couldn't lot swap between servers ?
Chances are, there would be a lot fewer of these dirty tricks.
It's pretty ironic to hear of mayors having difficulty resigning and voting in new mayors but you say "that's how it goes" when for a City Takeover.
Laeren
Tue Jul 13, 2004 10:49 am
#6
Fneegan wrote:
Laeren wrote: - This is a "dirty trick" but not a game exploit
- if someone manages to gain enough votes to take over your city, that's pretty much how it goes
It's pretty funny to hear a back door is a dirty trick - seems more of an exploit and anoversighton SOE. One that should get fixed before the game is TOTALLY ruined by cross server lotdummping ofharvesters and houses.
Imagine, you can't have 2 characters on the same server, butyou can havefriends from other serversor multiple accounts as ways to get around it. That's seems like an exploit to me.....can you imagine the gameif youONLY had one character on 1 server and you couldn't lot swap between servers ?
Chances are, there would be a lot fewer of these dirty tricks.
It's pretty ironic to hear of mayors having difficulty resigning and voting in new mayors but you say "that's how it goes" when for a City Takeover.
What I meant was this:
1. Voting a current mayor out of office is a legitimate game mechanic. They designed it so that if one person manages to get more votes than the current mayor, the city changes mayors. A city is not "owned" by that mayor in any real sense, the mayor just happens to be the person who got the most votes during the last election period. Whether this is because they were the *only* candidate or because they happened to get more votes, the fact is being voted out of office is fully intended by the devs in the Player City mechanics.
2. If more people move into a city and vote for the challenging mayor, this is also a legitimate tactic. If a mayor could simply control his/her population to vote for him/her, there would be no need to have the entire election process, and each player city would just be a tract of land owned by a single individual dictator. And that was something the Devs did not want. So, they put in the election system. And that means that every election period the mayor is at risk to lose "his/her" city.
3. If your militia/mayor foolishly gave zoning to someone, and did not monitor the placement of structures with that permission, then it's your militia/mayor's fault for giving zoning to someone that could not be trusted. If that person somehow "fooled" you into basically giving them free permission to place houses, harvesters, etc. in your city, then they fooled you in an RPG, and that's legit too, since it's an RPG. Again, no exploit, no bug, no coding problems. They simply outfoxed you.
Be mad? Sure! Call it an exploit/bug? No way.
4. You say you want to nerf /transferstructure, calling it a 'back door' exploit. But...how would you make the game judge what is a "legit" /transferstructure and what is not? You can't. Therefore anyone can /transferstructure to anyone else, and a mayor certainly cannot have any rights to alter that aspect.
5. When recruiting people to live in a city, do you grill them and make it a condition of them moving in that they vote for you as mayor? I certainly hope not. That's nowhere near the spirit of Player Cities and the election process. So, in the situation where a citizen "recruits" a whole bunch of people, gets them all moved in, and then they vote against you, where would you make changes to this idea? Where would you draw the line between trying to "guarantee" your own mayorship, and trying to stop people from coming into the city?
Bottom line is that you should make sure you are guarding your city, and guarding it well. Being Dirty Tricked is a fact of the game, and sometimes you get clobbered by it. Sure it sucks, sure you can be mad. But at the end, why would you call it an exploit? What was really exploited? Your naivete?
Barco
Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:42 am
#7
Couldn't this be solved by giving Mayor's a /removeCitizen or /banStructure command? It would also solve the problem of Faction Alligned cities having a citizen switch to an opposing faction.
Laeren
Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:47 am
#8
Barco wrote:
Couldn't this be solved by giving Mayor's a /removeCitizen or /banStructure command? It would also solve the problem of Faction Alligned cities having a citizen switch to an opposing faction.
Then a mayor facing a legitimate election turnover could simply /removecitizen those he suspects aren't voting for him, thus guaranteeing him the election. What would be the point of an election then?
Barco
Wed Jul 14, 2004 12:52 am
#9
I think your putting too much stock in the elections...
But seriously, as it is, once a person's in your city, there's NOTHING you can do to get them out. What if they decide to place thier house in your main street, and then leave the game forever (happened to me). There's no assurance that the 'six week' poof will even happen, and unless they DELETE their character, that house will be there until the maintenance runs out. To solve the 'democracy' issue, why not have a simple extension of the voting box to allow citizens to vote certain 'Powers' to the mayor? You could have issues on the ballot to vote on, in addition to mayor.
Fneegan
Wed Jul 14, 2004 6:54 am
#10
Laeren wrote:
What I meant was this:
1. Voting a current mayor out of office is a legitimate game mechanic. They designed it so that if one person manages to get more votes than the current mayor, the city changes mayors. A city is not "owned" by that mayor in any real sense, the mayor just happens to be the person who got the most votes during the last election period. Whether this is because they were the *only* candidate or because they happened to get more votes, the fact is being voted out of office is fully intended by the devs in the Player City mechanics.
Although I agree, a city is typically owned by it's citizens and mayor who HAVE lived their and HAVE contributed to the cost of their city over a given period. Sure, if someone from among the citizens wants to run for mayor - that's a little more legit than having 30 cross server lot swappers lay down houses overnight and overtake a city. I think - there's a little difference here.
2. If more people move into a city and vote for the challenging mayor, this is also a legitimate tactic. If a mayor could simply control his/her population to vote for him/her, there would be no need to have the entire election process, and each player city would just be a tract of land owned by a single individual dictator. And that was something the Devs did not want. So, they put in the election system. And that means that every election period the mayor is at risk to lose "his/her" city.
Because a mayor is in power does in NO WAY mean that the mayor is controlling a city, it's votesor is a dictator. The election process is made for voting in a new mayor. You don't take half of a city or state into another one simply to overtake it.
3. If your militia/mayor foolishly gave zoning to someone, and did not monitor the placement of structures with that permission, then it's your militia/mayor's fault for giving zoning to someone that could not be trusted. If that person somehow "fooled" you into basically giving them free permission to place houses, harvesters, etc. in your city, then they fooled you in an RPG, and that's legit too, since it's an RPG. Again, no exploit, no bug, no coding problems. They simply outfoxed you.
Here's your defence - blame it on foolish militia
Weall know (I hope) about /grantzoning to give and to revoke. Sure, we have to be MORE careful now that city takeovers seems to be the new FUN for some players/PA's - but why is it 24HRS and not just 1 single structure. The exploit is - using all of these together in favor to overtake a city.
Be mad? Sure! Call it an exploit/bug? No way.
4. You say you want to nerf /transferstructure, calling it a 'back door' exploit. But...how would you make the game judge what is a "legit" /transferstructure and what is not? You can't. Therefore anyone can /transferstructure to anyone else, and a mayor certainly cannot have any rights to alter that aspect.
Again, it's not just the AVERAGE/granzoning (for 24hrs) or the /transferstructure or a single player having one account that's the problem. Really, with the system trade - we really don't need the /transferstructure command.
5. When recruiting people to live in a city, do you grill them and make it a condition of them moving in that they vote for you as mayor? I certainly hope not. That's nowhere near the spirit of Player Cities and the election process. So, in the situation where a citizen "recruits" a whole bunch of people, gets them all moved in, and then they vote against you, where would you make changes to this idea? Where would you draw the line between trying to "guarantee" your own mayorship, and trying to stop people from coming into the city?
This is a pretty funny statement. Why you would recruit someone and not ask for their vote is beyond me. I also like the wording you chose to select 'grill'
Bottom line is that you should make sure you are guarding your city, and guarding it well. Being Dirty Tricked is a fact of the game, and sometimes you get clobbered by it. Sure it sucks, sure you can be mad. But at the end, why would you call it an exploit? What was really exploited? Your naivete?
Sure, there will always besome that say some things AREN'T an exploit but I'm sure -a whole lot of players will say different. But, having to cross server trades and multiple accounts to increase ones advantages or the majority of players - that's the root of many problems. This game certainly would be different andsome wouldn't be so loud if they only had one character on one server.
I'm sure - you know very well what is an exploit and a backdoor.
I'm hopful that these abuses as well as others WILL BE fixed over time.
vortexala
Wed Jul 14, 2004 4:53 pm
#11
It is not a 'back-door' nor an exploit. It's the game mechanics at work, doing exactly what they're supposed to do.
The /transferstructure command can be used by a Mayor who is laying out the city, they place the house so that it's aligned and then transfer it to the new citizen. It can also be used to simply 'sell' a home(furnished) to someone else. Or to let someone else 'hold' your factory as you attempt to drop a few harvesters on some rare spawn.
Simply because some people are easily fooled into granting zoning rights doesn't mean that there are exploits at work or that a useful command should be removed...
StumanKadir
Wed Jul 14, 2004 9:40 pm
#12
I agree - some folks seem quite happy to cry exploit at anything they arent happy with.
If the militia gives someone zoning rights and then runs off without staying around for the building to be dropped, thats more an issue with lazy militia than lazy coding. If a person cannot drop a house then and there, they should not have the rights given to them, even if it means losing a potential resident.
I have had that many times when a potential resident has said "oh, I left my house back on xxx, I'll just go and get it". To which I normally respond, "surething", hit my /grantzoningrights hotkey and tell them to call me when they are ready. If you have zoning turned on, leaving someone with rights is tantamount to saying "here, build whatever you like wherever you like".
Best way to manage it, either have militia that you can trust to follow your requests, or as Mayor, keep a couple of lots free and do it yourself and have no militia.
Getting bolted horses back in the stables is never an easy task.
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