Politician Archive
Thread: Spending our attention capital: Top-Five submission to the devs.
Alright folks, here we go, the final step in our week-long process. The good thing we have done with all of this activity is that we have earned the attention of the devs. If I had slapped something together on day one and sent it in, I'm not sure we would have earned the attention of the devs the way we have by getting all of you to participate in a politician-community-wide effort to build a consensus around this top-five and our suggested solutions. We are going to have a brief window here of developer attention and we need to focus that attention exactly where we want it to be most effective.
Here's where we stand on each of the five issues:
#1. The discussion continues. Check the thread for my most recent post, my response to HiroBlack's concern over putting our eggs into the "message of the day" basket. He's right in some ways, but that discussion needs to come to a conclusion before we are able to come together behind one unified message to the devs regarding our #1 issue, a BIG issue it is, and one that we are going to need to massage quite a big to get it into consumable form for easy dev digestion.
#2. We are in good shape here, with a list of what reports we want, and a solution to the email-versus-terminal interface issue in which we ask for BOTH! 
-and then an option to turn off the email if we don't want it.
#3. The discussion over /warn continues. Tiberian_Death made a suggestion worth looking at, Miltia (including neutral players) may /warn overt faction members. Take a look at my last post in that thread and lets get to a conclusion there.
#4. Garages. This was a very popular issue, and I would be very hesitant to change the rules after more than a week and remove a popular choice (don't forget that I will be in ongoing contact with TH and the devs on the other issues, they don't fall off the map just because they dont make the top-five).Perhaps since I thought it was so close to resolution, I neglected to open up new discussion on it. Yes, it may be close to implementation as it is, but we have room still to make our opinions know. Let's keep it in the top #4 to keep the pressure on for ASAP implementation, but lets add our opinion on garage ownership: is it a city facility like the shuttleport or is it a player-owned facility like cantina and medical facility? If player owned, who can place it? Seems like Master Artisan, same players who build vehicles. That way, when a more comprehensive vehicle system is implemented along perhaps with a vehicle engineer profession, they can own and customize their own garages, which I know they really want to do.
#5. Resignation. I think we're there already.
Let's continue the threads of discussion on issues #1, and #3, focus on the coming to a conclusion there. Let's get some discussion going on private versus city ownership of garages and make sure we are all together on that issue. We aren't going to get to submit this to Thunderheart today. I've made him aware of the process we are going through here this week, and he is excited to see so much energy and creativity going on in this community. I've let him know that after all of this effort, this community will be very expectant of a thoughtful set of responses from the devs on our issues. But, as I've quoted him before, "forum posting is quick, and game development is slow." So lets take our time here and get the very most leverage out of our little bit of "attention capital" that we will have earned by the end of this.
I won't be around much the rest of the day today, Friday, I have a completely full schedule going all the way until 10pm tonight. But I did want to put some punctuation on a great effort from you all this week. I am amazed at the enthusiasm and creativity you are putting into improving your profession. I've said it this before, but this profession should be the core of SWG, and going into the future, the long-term player retention of this game rests squarely on how well its little communities in the Star Wars galaxy can be built, and we, the Politicians, are the ones that build them.
On #1 I would focus on
1. Fixing the skills we get at master politician.
2. Finding some way to increase the cost/benefit of having politician waste our skill points.
On #3 I think using our attention capital on it is a waste. They are going to be city owned and be a money sink like cloning centers. To make them player owned makes no sense. They are in PC cities and the way they function in cities will be copied to NPC cities. Cantina and Hospital still work as houses too. Who would want a garage that you can't store things in? There is not artisan ability to repair vehicles. Artisans would have to be recoded with new skills..... Not worth it.
Something I would like to see, since I am a politician/architect. Give us some city only housing types. Give us rowhouses/brownstones. Something more verticle and the ability to place them closer together. I don't want to make walls of houses like some have with naboo houses. But I do want a way to make cities look more unique, instead of a collection of existing structures. Give us structures that go more verticle and have smaller footprints so we can continue to grow population since we aren't getting any more land. Also, I would love a house type called shops. I know we have merchant tents but I think they suck, and most people don't have the merchant points to use them. Have the shop be a house with a unique window. Have art for weapons, armor, food, clothes, architect, resources. That way people just walking by could look at the window and see what it was. Allow these to only be placed in cities. Don't tie it to merchant skills. If need be only allow a weapons shop to be placed by a master weaponsmith, and so on.
Mkappus wrote:
On #1 I would focus on
1. Fixing the skills we get at master politician.
2. Finding some way to increase the cost/benefit of having politician waste our skill points.
I couldn't agree more.
Mkappus wrote:
Something I would like to see, since I am a politician/architect. Give us some city only housing types. Give us rowhouses/brownstones. Something more verticle and the ability to place them closer together. I don't want to make walls of houses like some have with naboo houses. But I do want a way to make cities look more unique, instead of a collection of existing structures. Give us structures that go more verticle and have smaller footprints so we can continue to grow population since we aren't getting any more land. Also, I would love a house type called shops. I know we have merchant tents but I think they suck, and most people don't have the merchant points to use them. Have the shop be a house with a unique window. Have art for weapons, armor, food, clothes, architect, resources. That way people just walking by could look at the window and see what it was. Allow these to only be placed in cities. Don't tie it to merchant skills. If need be only allow a weapons shop to be placed by a master weaponsmith, and so on.
More city-only structures would be a bonus and help make cities unique. Itoo would like to see a shop type structure available for placement only in cities - I'm not too keen on the vendor tents either (too large a footprint and requirement just to have it, plus it's a waste of lots without storage abilities). Rather than tying the shop to placement by a master profession,have itjust Business 3 or Novice Merchant as it would possibly limit vendor malls. Window displays are an interesting idea but I don't think it possible without largely reworking the way housing is done. You can't currently place items on the outside of structures and objects don't even load unless you enter them. This goes back to database, loading and lag issues. Interesting idea though.
My thoughts on the #1 issue have been updated to reflect the considerations posed by our correspondant. We may be ready to move forward on that one but for the fact so many good new ideas keep rolling in (even here in this forum from Goliath and others). Perhaps a deadline should be set on submissions for new ideas to this release.
As to the rest I know I am personally either on board with them or willing to accept them as they stand (I would prefer to see Garages substitued, but I conceed that getting the point driven home with the devs on it might be desirable).
What next? It appears to be nearly ready for submission barring being written in a concise form for easy digestion by the devs.
- Acroyear
Agreed.
HiroBlack wrote:
What next? It appears to be nearly ready for submission barring being written in a concise form for easy digestion by the devs.
#2, #4, and #5 seem well discussed and agreed upon.
I think #1 has a lot of very exciting ideas with, as HiroBlack points out, still more coming in. At this point we should massage the ideas out into anice and simplelisting of "wants" (MOTD, CityChat, more and cheaper decorations, etc...)vs. "needs" (SpyNet ops, BE trainer, etc...).
#3 is still very much in debate but from the suggestions posted I'm ready to go along with or accept anyreasonable solution that allows a city to rule and defend itself again.
On #1:
- Say a general "Make a Politician worth the 77 Skillpoints - also for non mayors"
- Balance the specialisations or make them really worth something (increase buffs insteade of shortening heal time, give money increase to both players and city to equal parts ...)
- Give back something to the masterskill
- Think about all the wonderful ideas
On #3:
To bring back /citywarn and remove it's possibility at a radius around critical POIs would be easiest solution to please the side of the militia and to prevent griefing of "privat POIs" ... it would still leave neturals open to attack .. but only in player cities they don't have to visit ... and this was planed for a long long long time
On Garages:
I still don't see the advantage of discussing about it and putting it in our Top 5 list after it was clearly stated by TH they would be included by january or feubuary ... thus they are very far down the road of development ... and changes like the ones you want us to discuss herearen't going to happen. I mean be realistic ... why should a garage be a player building? What could anybody do with it? It doesn't have a room for storage ... and the money you pay will go out of the game. .. it's a money sink .. that's what it was included for since the game released and they were still working on making vehicles drive right ... it isn't going to change ... face it ...
Thanks guys. I really needed some time todayfor real lifestuff and am typing this right now while I should be getting ready to go to a dinner meeting, but I did want to check on the forum (ugh, forum addiction! ), and since we had some issues that merited further discussion, figured I'd just update you all and give all of us, as well as myself the extra weekend days to hammer this out.
You are right, at some point discussion ends, a final proposal is written and we commit to stand behind whatever it is we come up with.
Bajeezus,
I think you are doing an excellent job. Now I would run with what your gut tells you. It will be nearly impossible to ever get a consensus, and as others said new ideas are always coming up. Anything you put forward to the devs will be an improvement. With the hard work and open ear you have I trust you to but out what you think is best.
Just to clarify on my idea of shops. The windows wouldn't really be windows. Have a large static graphical display for the type of shop. Put a picture of a few guns for a weaponsmith, some furniture for an architect, some food for a chef. Don't make it customizable, but just make it blatantly apparent what the shop is without people having to read. Sort of the old sign boards from the old days. I think have these static windows would help to make these look significantly different from houses, and not just have a small specialized sign hanging over them.
Coming up on time to get a final version written up and posted here for you all to look at before sending it on to TH. I had an all-morning meeting that I just got back from, and I'll be working on getting that posted as soon as I get back from lunch. I'm a PST poster, so you East Coast folks will usually be a few hours ahead of me in the mornings.
I'm looking at trying to get a really succinct statement on each of our top-five issues hammered out, something a dev would be able to read and absorb in less than five minutes in between other items on his agenda. Look for it later this afternoon.