Politician Archive

1. Is the 6-week device intented to put the presure on cities loaded with "imaginary" citizens such as cross-server-citizens?


2. Is it intended as a doomsday device for all cities, thus keeping the landscape fresh with new cities?


3. Are the Developers aware that this device will likey destroy healthy cities with 'waiting lists' of eligible citizens?


4. Are the developers aware that the effects of this device will not be reversible? Unlike a balance change, or a stat change, the very existence of player cities, and the intrestsofhundreds of thousands of subscribers is at stake. Even if you change the rule, or modify it down the road, you will not be able to restore the potencial damage.


5. Do the developers intend to address the "derilict house" issue? Is this intended as part of the device, or do the developers consider this an inconsequensial side-effect of the device.

Once again, I am not neccessarily inviting the community at large to debate these issues here. This is being done presently in several other threads. I would encourage everyone, including the SOE Staff, to review these threads to gain a clear understanding of what is at stake.

On a more subjective personal note, I welcome the challenge of the 6-week rule. I have a vibrant, helathy city. But the rule, in conjunction with derilict houses, deprives me of the ability to add new citizens. Our city caters to new players. This is a high risk group, since many leave the game after their free month is up. And many take Thunderhearts adviceand dump as much money into maintenace as they can before they leave. The end result being a city that is full (literally) of houses that do not contribute to the total number of citizens. The only part of the 6-week device I have an issue with is the resulting derilict houses.

I agree on several points. I do not agree on others.

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Karquile wrote:

I'm sure you'd be happier in a rebuttal-free atmosphere, but we do not necessarily all want the same "Reassurance" that you're asking for.

While WAS hoping to leave this post as a flag for the SOE Staff, I suppose they can just as well read the rest fo this thread to get a general idea of where folks stand.

1. Mayors should be careful whom they recruit for their cities, for exactly this reason. If you're so desperate for rank and shuttleports and stuff that you press-gang anyone who walks by, you're going to end up with lost citizens because they weren't really committed to your city in the first place.

To a point, yes. For the most part, people come to our city and ASK to join. Since we are a independent city that is not controled by a guild, we tend to be fairly liberal with who we accept as citizens. We have a fairly high turnover rate, but there is always a replacement when we loose a citizen. We don't expect anyone to be "committed" to our city any more than a real city would expect real people to be committed. It is a city to live in, not an ideal or crusade.

2. Mayors of cities where everybodyis a happy organized group starting out, should take the extra trouble to get some kind of off-game email or IM address for every citizen, for exactly this reason. You can easily make this a condition of citizenship, assuming you were smart and turned zoning on of course. It should remain a condition of citizenship for all newcomers. And where people are expanded in or transfer structures, you should simply ask for it. Even when/if a player gets tired of the game and stops logging in, if you have another ways to reach them, they will almost always be willing to log in one more time and redeed their house for you etc.

This tactic would work great for a private or guild city. It would not be practical for a large free or open city. It would requirea full time clerk with no life outside of SWG to manage. If your goal is an inviting and dynamic city, as opposed to an enclave or private encampment, you can't be too oppressive or heavy handed. Folks should be able to move in and move out, just like they would a real city. Once again, you and I have some what different goals for what apear to be completly different cities.

3. The reason for the 6 week timeout was plain enough - to prevent ghost cities from clogging the rank caps. Why you would need extrareassurance on that point is hard to understand.

I am all for the 6-week rule. And I am all for dealing with the ghost cities, 100%. But our's is NOT a ghost city. Our shuttle has over 400 departures and arrivals on saturday (as verified by having nothing but the shuttle fees for money coming in for a while). We are a 'hopping' metropolis.

4. Citizenship and structure ownership are different things. They are not going to give us a bulldozer, we should not be asking for a bulldozer, and I will fight like the dickens if I get wind that they are even thinking of giving us a bulldozer. IT WOULD BE GRIEFED. Your house is your house. Cities come and go. Some control freak mayor's urge to spell out "MOM" with Tat Smalls should not take precedence over the player's right to his house and possessions.

Mayors need better control of their cities. The idea of a bulldozer, while intriguing, is a bit extreme. Something more moderate is neccessary. Some thing that can be aborted if a situation changes. Something that is to cities what the B52 Bombers were to the cold war. A very threatening, global nuclear delivery system that took some time to get to it's target, and that could be recalled. Thus giving the diplimats a last ditch chance to work things out. In the case of cities, there would have to be time for the structure in question to be honestlysaved.

5. Nevertheless there are problems with the current system, and you should be signing on to get them fixed instead of begging for "reassurance" and waving off the other Mayors.

No Comment. Low Blow.

A. Inactive citizens presently get no Email or other notification that they have been dropped, or any explanation of what they should do to get re-added. It's true that the Mayor can do this by hand, but not every Mayor is going to have the technical accuracy to say what the Devs should be saying for them. The game should send out an email to each lost citizen informing them that they timed out, and how to get back in.

Agree, no further comment neccessary.

B. Mayors need a /civicstatus command that shows them a subset of /structurestatus without requiring them to have interior access. It should show owner, maint pool, and/or damage level. And it should hang from the house sign rather than the structure terminal, so you can do it without entering.

Agree, no further comment neccessary.

C. Cities need a Non-Citizen Property Tax Rate so that noncitizens can pay their fair share for city services, and so that derelict structures can (if necessary) be "aged out" at an accelerated rate.

Agree. But tell me, isn't a non-citizen tax to speed up decay sort of likea really slow bulldozer? I am all for a slow bulldozer. Much safer and controlablethan a cruise missile.

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I truely appreciate your point of view. But it is from a tightly controled guild/private city point of view. I am managing an open city that welcomes new citizensm, and focuses on helping them along as much as possible. My only concern with the 6-week rule is non-citizen, derilict houses that will "steal" my cities realestate. These houses contribute nothing to me, our city, or the active citizens. This is the equivilent of urban decay. And as mayor, I want the ability to deal with it in a rational, non-exploitable, responsible manner.

Karquile;

It would seem that our cities are not so different. Just to clarify: When I say we have a liberal citizen acceptance policy, it is not to say we welcome anyone to come and plant a PA hall right next to the shuttle port. Infact, quite the opposite. I, as the mayor, have personally placed every structure in the city, and used the /transferstructure command to give it to the new citizen. Even before the City Hall was placed, the eventuall location of every house and municipal building was designated, and confirmed as "buildable."

While we welcome pretty much anyone to become a citizen, we are also a very carefully laid out city. And since we have a high turnover rate, I make good use of a thrid party map to keep track of who owns what structure. When I get the mail announcing "lost citizen", I confirm that the house is gone, and update the map. I then get out my waiting list and find a new citizen. Usually with-in 24 hours.

The ONLY thing that concerns me about the 6-week rule is getting the "lost citizen" mail, and not being able to replace that citizen because of lack of real-estate. That is all that concerns me.

Our location was not chosen for maximum realestate. The rules of the game at that time did not require it. We had room for all the municipal structures, and 140-150 citizens in a variety of medium and small tatooine houses.

I agree. We need a way to remove derelict cities from our cities. My own city - Baishi on Dantooine - is in good shape for the moment; we only lost 11/93 citizens and we have considerable space left for construction - but derelict houses will eventually choke every city in the game. Turnover is a fact of life.

The game does have the underlying mechanics to fix this problem: Mayors need a command to condemn an abandoned structure. I suggest that the deed for the condemned structure and the house's contents be put into a pack in the player's backpack. This would leave the player temporarily over-capacity on storage, but this has been done before, e.g. when items were recovered from vendors after having been deleted by a bug.

This is pretty important. Cities are a great part of the game. Keeping them viable over time is critical.

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jemelby wrote:

The ONLY thing that concerns me about the 6-week rule is getting the "lost citizen" mail, and not being able to replace that citizen because of lack of real-estate. That is all that concerns me.

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this concerns me as well as it is happening to my city. I think the simplist fix however has been overlooked. I think that when a citizen is removed because they are inactive to the server, then that house should be deeded and placed in a "inbox" in city hall. That citizen can then return to city hall and retrieve it when/ if they log. Only that citizen can, and it only remains say 2 months or how ever long the devs deem apropreate. But that way they are not grieved and neither are we. In our city, we chose a challenging landscape because it was also a better place then an all flat area. But with that already low buildable land, and all thse derilict houses, well.... soon were gunna be sol. PLUS players i saw one day before update.... they were counted as inactive and kicked.... **edit** is that! obviously they all reinstated that hour (cept the one that hasn't been on) but still i mean a system like this that is so critical to citys to have bugs like that and then no way for us to help control it is crazy..... lets get on it devs!