Politician Archive
Thread: On March 24th, All Existing Cities Will Begin to Die of Cancer.
I've been thinking about this problem since Pub 6 first went to Test Center, and more since the first timeouts started appearing.
The answer is a Non-Citizens Tax Rate.
We cannot give Mayors the right to take away other players' houses - that's too much power. But we could and should allow Mayors to tax the structures of noncitizens at a different (presumably higher) rate than what enrolled Citizens pay.
This is perfectly logical from a 'realism' standpoint since noncitizens use city services without paying income tax. It's like Out of State fees at college.
With a Non-Citizens Tax Rate, the Mayor could 'fight cancer' by setting very high taxes on noncitizens' structures. So an inactive player's house would swiftly chew through the maintenance pool and begin to decay. I don't know whether tax rate affects decay rate (maybe it should), but at the outside you'd have the inactive house around for a month. Starting in four weeks you'd free up 6-7 house lots per week.
This is the simplest and most logical change I can think of that (a) has a fighting chance at actually being implemented and (b) could really address the problem.
I can see that you are even abit more emotional than I on this topic. I think it would be grand if your city had an opportunity to succeed. I do not, however, believe that anhealthy existing city should have to step aside to give you that chance.
JodoKai wrote:
So becasue someone started playing a politian later than you, they don't deserve the same chance to have a city?
You missed my point. This is not about who DESERVES to have a city. But since you brought it up, what gives YOU the right to have a city over me? Why should MY proven, popular, healthy, genuine city have to die to make room for yours? And once your city is able to grow, what makes you think you will not suffer the same fate? Do you have some way to prevent people from quiting the game? Do you know some exploit that will allow you to remove houses after the ex-citizens have moved on to another game?
People are padding thier numbers with people from other servers. Get 50 people from another server to put up houses in your town and give you admin so you can add maintenace to it and you have a city you didn't really earn or deserve to have.
I specifically stated that we have NO cross-server citizens. All 141 of our citizens aregenuine, real players. Right now, we are a bustling, healthy city with a waiting list of potential citizens.
You are using a lot of numbers, where are you getting them from, I'd like to check them.
You are welcome to create a character on Flurry and step off every square inch of Mos Onarok to verify the "buildable terrain" numbers. As for the turn over rate, that is based on a 4 month average of the number of "Lost Citizen" mails. You'll have to take my word on that one. One inconsistiency I DID notice was the 114 buildable lots vs the 141 citizens... it should read 141 buildable lots. Sorry for that error.
It all boils down to learn how to entice people into staying in your town and you won't have a problem. If you can't, someone who can will take your spot (I'm using the word 'you' in the generic sense not directed at anyone in particular).
getting people to stay in our town is not an issue. If they continue to play, they stay in our town. The few people that do pull up their houses and leave the city for various reasons are quickly replaced. It is getting people to contiue paying SOE that is the trouble. Turnover is a fact of life in MMPORPGs. No matter how good the game is. It is the houses of people who quit the game, or go off to war (can't blame either group)that will eventually choke out all cities, even yours. Many player sink weeks, months, and even years of maint into their houses, just so they don't have to worry about it poofing. At present, those houses will remain as long as there is maint. Even if the player cancels their account. What is more fair? Giving the mayors the power to deleted/move the house and items of a canceld account? Or letting the houses of canceled players choke the cities of current, paying customers?
Message Edited by jemelby on 03-20-2004 07:37 AM
Karquile wrote:
I've been thinking about this problem since Pub 6 first went to Test Center, and more since the first timeouts started appearing.
The answer is a Non-Citizens Tax Rate.
We cannot give Mayors the right to take away other players' houses - that's too much power. But we could and should allow Mayors to tax the structures of noncitizens at a different (presumably higher) rate than what enrolled Citizens pay.
This is perfectly logical from a 'realism' standpoint since noncitizens use city services without paying income tax. It's like Out of State fees at college.
With a Non-Citizens Tax Rate, the Mayor could 'fight cancer' by setting very high taxes on noncitizens' structures. So an inactive player's house would swiftly chew through the maintenance pool and begin to decay. I don't know whether tax rate affects decay rate (maybe it should), but at the outside you'd have the inactive house around for a month. Starting in four weeks you'd free up 6-7 house lots per week.
This is the simplest and most logical change I can think of that (a) has a fighting chance at actually being implemented and (b) could really address the problem.
A very elegant recommendation... Bajeezus? Note that please?
I would add that a mayor should also have the ability to monitor the status and dispositionof any structure inside the city limits. Not actually have admin, mind you, but to have the ability to see who DOES have admin. Someone may continue to pay maint and use the house for storage even after the ex-citizen has quit or moved on. Another approach to this may be the ability to set the non-citizen tax at 500% or higher, thus making the house 'to expensive to bother with' to most everyone.
I have often suggested a Mayor-only/civicstatus command that shows a subset of /structurestatus - owner, maint pool and damage only.
jemelby wrote:
I would add that a mayor should also have the ability to monitor the status and dispositionof any structure inside the city limits. Not actually have admin, mind you, but to have the ability to see who DOES have admin. Someone may continue to pay maint and use the house for storage even after the ex-citizen has quit or moved on. Another approach to this may be the ability to set the non-citizen tax at 500% or higher, thus making the house 'to expensive to bother with' to most everyone.
Let us not forget the other major problem, that being the dual citizenship bug. I am now realizing the full scope of that problem. Untold numbers of people on my citizen report, some even with militia flags, have actually moved out of the city long ago without a word, and if SOE was to fix that bug without adequate warning, there is no telling how many citizens we might lose overnight.
As it stands, the best cities in the galaxy actually have no way to know what their situation actually is... until it's too late.
If my city dies through no fault of our own, due to Dantooine lag and broken mayor tools, I will have no more reason to play this game.
Active subscribers have been suffering for the sake of the inactive zombies for far too long. We need to place the onus squarely on the inactives and not those struggling to continue playing.
Structure owners need an /evict command to issue 2 weeks notice to rotting empty vendors left behind by thoughtless bastards, and mayors need a /condemn command to combat derelict non-citizen housing clogging extremely limited city build radius. Period.
arsheba wrote:
Structure owners need an /evict command to issue 2 weeks notice to rotting empty vendors left behind by thoughtless bastards, and mayors need a /condemn command to combat derelict non-citizen housing clogging extremely limited city build radius. Period.
The only way you could ever do the second one of these is if you had an "escrow area" where the inactive player's house deed and house contents would be deposited after removal.
SOE will never countenance erasing the possessions of a player whose account is paid in good standing. Period.
SOE will never countenance erasing the possessions of a player whose account is paid in good standing. Period.
They won't? They do it all the time. If you let your maintenance expire on a structure, it poofs. Cause and Effect. Action or Inaction = Consequences. How is this different from accepting certain responsibility in exchange for enjoying the benefits of living in a larger community, such as a Player City?
If I want to join a player city and benefit from commercial traffic or close proximity to trainers, mission terminals, shopping, etc etc... I must make a conscious decision to accept those benefits in exchange for a certain level of responsibility not to damage that community. I see nothing unreasonable about this.
What IS unreasonable is asking structure owners and elected officials to be held hostage by inactive players.
When it comes to YOUR HOUSE, YOU should be the one who controls that property. Where is SOE's concern for the property and possessions of ACTIVE players? Making them suffer for the action or inaction of INACTIVE players makes no sense, and only ends up making more players quit out of frustration and impotence.