Politician Archive
Thread: The life of a politician.
6PM Login
6.30 PM
Finished reading the mail, answered those that needed answering. Chacking of the treasury.
7.00 PM
Writing of a mass email to citizens explainign this and that option, some campaigning for next week.
7.30 PM
Ok, now what?
The point is, Politician should grant something else than just setting the taxes and putting buildings. Putting buildings can be nice and designing a city too, but after a time it will be done, and all you'll have left is adjusting the taxes. Politician atm is designed as a purely PvP profession, in that you compete against other players eclusively. An unelected politician is a waste of skill points. Politicians sooner or later will need some PvE content, for many reasons.
- Once you're a Master, maybe you'll want to let someone else be the Mayor of your city so he can enjoy the decision-making too.
- If the only people that take the politics skill tree are those guaranteed a win, we'll have 20 politicians per server. And trust me, elections will be all but open. People want to remain in control of a city they paid for.
- Politician is a sedentary profession. People will ask first and foremost that you are to be available. Just look at how people want a Dev answer NOW. The devs are like the forum Mayors.
- Politician is a significant amount of skill points. People will be barred from other professions by mastering it. It should provide some benefit, and seeing the city money scheme atm, it doesn't look like they'll make any money out of it.
So, when the homework is done, what can the politician do? They need missions. They need missions where their diplomat skills will be used by NPCs to settle a dispute. Heck, it could even have impact on the server life. Politicians choosing this side over another in a conflict could have so and so faction diminished in power, another faction become stronger (talking about NPC factions here). Politician is about power and ruling. The politician's choices could impact the server life greatly. And guess what? Make the missions result public, so people can vote for people that favor the same factions as they do. Good idea to make the politician something else than a city accountant, and will allow masters to be unseated.
Possible bonuses?
Favored NPC factions, supported by the Mayor, now drop more and better equipment, and also are stronger (better fed) and more numerous. Things of that kind, that would make people WANT a mayor who does missions and not only is an acountant bot.
You could even have rebel and imp mayors give GCW bonuses through their political influence at the Imperial court or the Rebel military commanders.
The basis for these missions would be simple:
- Go to planet X, converse with so and so NPC
- Go toplanet Y, converse with so and so NPC
- Go to planet Z, meet with NPC judging the dispute, bribe/convince him to support the side you want.
NPCs shouldn't be too hard to reach, as the politician is a city type, but the missions could take time because of the travel involved.
Though, of course, I would favor a much more realistic and thrilling life for an ingame politician, I see it a bit different.
For me somebody who spends the Skillpoints for this profession would mostly be somebody who really cares for his citizens. The job I'd have for him would rather be managing events, collecting the citizens thoughts, trying to advertise the city and get more customers to buy in his city to get more tax income ... I mean we're talking about mayors od rel. small cities here, not about powerhungry senetors. The idea behind player cities is to give the player base a platform to bring thier community to life, not to support a real small minority of politicians to be with cool content everybody else is screaming for since months.
Also, you said yourself, citizens will demand the mayor be available for them and thier need at all time. No sense in sending him on missions far away from his citizens. I hope politicians will want to be people that want to help thier community by spending ingame and outgame time organizing and managing the city for the interest of thier fellow players.
All very good ideas. Lets hope the Devs are paying attention.
-Allastair Rommell
High Commander, <IC>
rahzael wrote:
it would be nice if they added a diplomacy tree o negotiation tree, allowing mayors to sign treaties with other player cites, reducing shuttlecost between the two, dropping the sales taxes, having automated transfers of resources between the 2 cities as part of the treaties.it would add sense that u r real part of something bigger and u play a vital role not only of domestic city policies, but also intercity policies.
Forgive me for asking the obvious question...
Perhaps the role of the mayor should be to do some of this stuff "for real"?
As in negotiate trade and resource agreements? Have players deliver goods across the dangerous planet...etc.
It seems that the type of player drawn to playing a politician would not need all the "mechanical aids" to forge these types of arrangements. Granted, some tools might be a nice touch, but part of being a good politician will be having the real world soft skills needed to do the job.
Thunderheart wrote:
Sluggy,
you know me. We've been eye to eye on politics since day one.
I see you asking for NPC stuff, but really, any content like that is going to get old, fast.
Isn't the activity of real player politics more fulfilling?
You may not see eye to eye with him, but he has very good points. 77? points to become a profession of tax management? It seems that the player cities need to be a bit more elaborate. I plan to do politician myself for my PA and the city that we have started, I will be damned to see joe smo come in and try to over run my town that I have put my blood and money into. And btw... 50K a week for a City hall? Come on... We are not all Weaponsmith and Armorsmiths, we don't have millions of credits lying around collecting dust.
Kaide
Thunder,
I think there's way to meld npc politics and real player politics, but things have to be added to make this profession more meaningful. Here's a couple ideas off the top of my head:
Politicians and player cities accrue political points. These points come from various sources and can be uses to get different things.
For example, sources include the following:
- A small % of any vendor transaction within a city accrues to the polotical war chest of the the city (this is in exchange for sales taxes being a sink...political points are a function of tax receipts).
- Mayors may convert an amount of city treasury money each month into political points...say 1000 credits per point achieved with a max of 500 political points in any month.
- NPCs like Jabba have enemies (Valarian). Mayors can enter a single contract per month to align themselves wtih a NPC group, and earn the equivalent of a large scale explorer mission on another NPC group. In exchange for killing 1000 Valarians, the city will earn 1000 political points.
- City mayors may delegate political points to one another at a ratio that is analagous to /delegatefactionpoints, but are capped at the amount that can be delegated per month. This promotes the backdoor/consensus dealing that is inherent to politics.
Now what might you use it for:
- NPC faction. Let's presume faction becomes somewhat tied to your city. For every kill you make (not GCW faction) 2% of the faction adjustment you make per kill also accrues to the city you belong to. Once per week, citizens of a city find their factions revert 20% towards the factions of their city as a whole. What you've done here is create a feedback loop of consequence....If one of your neigbors hates Jawas, expect that to eventually effect you if you can't get her ethnic cleansing spree to stop. So, where do political points come in? Say a mayor can expend 2 political points to purchase 1 NPC faction point for the city....it's a blood money payment or other political deal. The mayor can use politcal capital to curry favor wtih Nym for its residents. Further give the city factions some sense of mean reversion. That once a month let's say city factions should be 90% of what they were before. In other words, all NPCs in the game have a slow version of alzheimers on the positive and negative side.
- Some NPC groups like Jantas have loot (blood). Mayors can expend political points (and some serious cash) to grease the wheels and purchase loot drops for the craftsman in their cities. This would not only provide a lucrative money sink for the economy but also limit the camping of spots to get items (because we know they will be camp anyway). The cost here can be set to keep them from becomingcommonplace (as if Kryat tissues weren't fiarly common now anyway).
- Mayors may expend political points on planet wide or galaxy wide items. For instance a 'badge' of Best City may be voted on among mayors...where additional votes may be purchased with political points. Mayors then try to curry favor with other city mayors to get their city elected. The winning city then receives either a city FP bonus simlar to /gcw, a placeable monument within the city that decays at the end of the next month (next vote) or something most players really want...reduced shuttle times. Imagine winning city though this or other competition was able to have immediate shuttle access to the city from another place on the planet (not both ways or it becomes grand central station).
In my mind, the role of politican isn't really alive until the politican has a way to help its players interact wtih the world or compete wtih other cities.
If nothing else, given the pending money sink we have here, it is obvious to many of the players that political struggles within a city will be somewhat rare. Someone will open a second account to do it or something similar and there will be consensus votes to help thepolitican get more exp and increase the city size. After the politican and city is maxxed, little will happen until that player wants to leave, when hopefully advance notice will be given to create a new mayor and have superflous consensus voting to level that politican up to replace the first.
Politics will really take off in SWG when cities compete against one another, or when the politican can expend political capital and city coffers to get thigns the players want (loot like Janta blood and feed mechanisms).
Jacore
Actually steveBO currently city halls are 100k and an upkeep for a city like qaville on test currently is hitting 1 million creds per week for a very disoganized looking city. So yes you will need many crafters helping to pay for your city.
This is exactly why I won't be joining any cities ... and if I'm forced to, its just one more reason to be out of here. I've seen the writing on the wall for Player Cities since Beta.
Yet again, the Dev's show they have no concept that the game is supposed to be FUN, not DEFEATING.
Marcalus wrote:
rahzael wrote:
it would be nice if they added a diplomacy tree o negotiation tree, allowing mayors to sign treaties with other player cites, reducing shuttlecost between the two, dropping the sales taxes, having automated transfers of resources between the 2 cities as part of the treaties.it would add sense that u r real part of something bigger and u play a vital role not only of domestic city policies, but also intercity policies.
Forgive me for asking the obvious question...
Perhaps the role of the mayor should be to do some of this stuff "for real"?
As in negotiate trade and resource agreements? Have players deliver goods across the dangerous planet...etc.
It seems that the type of player drawn to playing a politician would not need all the "mechanical aids" to forge these types of arrangements. Granted, some tools might be a nice touch, but part of being a good politician will be having the real world soft skills needed to do the job.
i didnt mean it all to be automated. i meant simply give us the tools to do such things, like in the radial menu u can see a trade window, and u can trade resources or add offers such as lowering shuttleport cost etc. my idea is reminiscent of "civilization" where u can put different offers on the table in the negotiation window. obviously all this would be down through shrewd skillful negotiations. but without the tools, it would be impossible to enforce any treaties.
TH, I agree these NPC things could grow old very fast, but, you've gotta give unelected politicians something to do.
There are the PA guys like me, who planned for politics since the beginning, and are pretty much guaranteed to get their mayoral seat. Heck, when I joined my PA, there were seven of us, we're now more than 60 ingame, not counting dual accounts, and I pretty made it clear I was going to be the Mayor, even though we had a democratic designation process. Do you want politics to only be open to the few that get sponsored by a large PA?
The people who will get into politics are those who know they'll get elected. Spending 500 APP points will be deterrent enough for most people, especially with the jedi-change-your-profession-every-day syndrome. Think for a moment that a player has to master politician to get his Jedi slot. Good luck...
I proposed something because it grants people who are unelected something to do besides commerce and bashing mobs. I don't need ingame skills to talk to people and do my politicking. But some people will find soon enough mayoral seats are all but open. Ergo, the mayoral profession is reserved to an elite in the big PAs high circles.
/vote sluggy
Politician was one of the biggest draws bringing me to this game. I didn't want to be a politician -- I wanted to support one. I want charismatic and power figures to follow and lead cities and planets within the game. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying that Sluggy ispowerful (or charismatic, even)..
I think there are some small and easy additions to the game that would make Politician much more attractive to players. Politicial = political power = the ability to change the world.
What if Master Politicians could become mayors (or assistant mayors) of some of the Dev towns?
What if the top Master Politician from each planet could rule the planetary council... and have some effect on the planetary economy (or faction payoffs for each planet)?
What if there was a galactic council of each server that had better access to the Devs?
What if city politicians could place bounties on players? A good way to partially bring bounties into the game. Misuse could be tracked much easier...
What if planetary politicians could hire starship captains to change the inter-planetary trade-routs?
What if galactic council politicans could meet with the Emperor and receive special quests... "Bring me the light sabers of 5 Jedi Knights." "Show me 10 imperial command hats." "I am coming to Naboo tomorrow night. Have 100 of my subjects on hand to welcome me."
I think Sluggy's on to something... and a little creativity and Roleplaying by Pex and his team could go a long way!