Politician Archive

Hello Bajeezus,

Hope this helps a bit, I was just thinking of all the comments i've seen on this forum since we started out and I thought you might like a list of what I know are the current issues, along with a couple of suggestions for adjustments. I hope others will add to it and get you off the ground more quickly. =)

Adjustments and Additions:
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1) Remove lamps from city decoration... or vastly increase the amount of decoration... or add a seperate decoration count for lights... i can light up my bazaar a couple of gardens and put one light infront of my city structures and i'm out... thats ridiculous for a city that spans almost a kilometer in all directions... the idea is to feel like we've moved into a city, ie. civilization... lighting streets is key in this...

2) Change the zoning rights command to: /grantzoningrights <person name> <duration> (allows removal of rights without being in the viscinity of the player thus blocking misuse, and allows dedicated allocation of power for however long they need it... not a predetermined arbitrary 24 hours...)

3) Remove zoning rights from militia - above command should supercede and militia aren't intended to be city planners... they're intended to be city defenders... it makes no sense to give them this authority automatically...

4) Allow mayoral option to resign - specifically allow an appoint replacement command instituted similar to militia... this would move mayoral votes to the replacement... similar to governments IRL... when the next election came along a contender would still be able to run against the new mayor...

5) Garages - open them up... we know you have them... =P... i'm traveling 40 minutes daily repairing the suckers cuz i live on Lok... thats just silly...

6) City specializations - haven't tested them all, but most are useless to most cities... you must be a specialized city to find most of them useful... i.e. a crafter city... or factional city... for the average city the cost is not worth the benefit... decreasing the cost would help... and maybe adding a few more... i can guarantee the vast majority of people are using, stronghold, improved job market, and industry specializations right now... the rest are wasted skills..

7) /citywarn - this is a tough one... i'd personally like to see it restored if possible... fixing the cloning center solved the griefing issue.. removing both crippled factional cities... on the other hand POI camping would still be a problem... not idea what do to about this... but it shouldn't be tossed out... a solution needs to be made we really need a way to deal with unwelcome visitors... and removing that power made the militia much less useful barring a stronghold city specialization...

8)A city chat would be very useful... i have a macro doing it now... but it requires me to log in daily to create and invite people to the room... my citizens can't chat till i log in... and we need it private cuz we're a factional city...

9) Add admin options to city hall... people have asked for this from the start... specifically to decorate it... =)

10) Add agents for BH missions... as has been mentioned the terminals are useless except for monitoring jedis without an npc to contact... i'd recommend they be implemented similarly to skill trainers...

11) Add recruit faction recruitersfor faction cities... implemented as above... we can place HQs true... but similar to number 10... faction terminals are less useful without the npcs they usually come with... i'd like to see this one in the Master Politician box...

Bug Fixes:
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1) 24 Hour leveling... nothing needs be said on this one... =P priority one... don't have it but i had the cloning center bug and i feel for all my fellow politicians on this one...

2) Master politician - fix what was promised... on top of that additional bonuses would be nice... one thing might be city maintenance discount similar to the merchant profession... and adding NPC additions as discussed above...

3) Gardens - fix target for /destroystructure... i tried to remove a garden and it took out my shuttleport... i tried removing another garden.. and it took out the garden down the street... normally this is just a large pain... but in our case we couldn't place the shuttleport anymore in the same spot... i think we're a rare case on this though... we had an HQ off to the side of the shuttleport and a tiny square footprint grew into the shuttleport area when it was lifted... =P

4) Gardens - make collidable... not being able to sit in a cafe area is kinda weird... =P

5) Dantooine meditation area - fix the deed.. exotics default to exotic 1 when redeeded... this means if you redeed your garden it will change into a different garden... and they're expensive to make so it'd be nice if they worked... =P

Future Considerations:
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1) Addition of Council Member assignment - similar to Militia - don't know the powers that should be associated... but it is a city hall after all... =P

2) Remove structure command... option to set a several week warning on a structure... this way we can remove a structure if someone quits the game and has way too much maintenance on their building... don't know if this can be done but it would help us out a lot... it should be blockable by a citizen if the citizen logs in before the warning time is up...

3) Having a range of titles is great... but i'd just prefer Mayor... maybe add it to the Master Politician box...

Thats all for now... hope that helps... =)

Thanks a lot, Shaedar, nice post.

I think the list you have here is something that most politicians would agree with, and from what I see, most concerns fall somewhere in this list.

I think somewhere along with your future considerations we have to look at ways of making the politician skills attractive enough to get and hold onto after the placement abilities they grant have been used, ongoing gameplay for the politician, as well as some way for non-mayor politicians to play the game. Your council idea is a good one, we would just need to fill out what the gameplay of a "councilman" would be.

Here's something to play around with, I have my own idea here, but to generate some discussion I'll hold back until you all have a chance to chime in: "Diplomat". Discuss.

That list does pretty much sum everything up that most politicians would like to see in the game. As you said Bajeezus, my main concern is keeping politicians interested in the class. I, for one, enjoy the politician class because I like to socialize and I like the duties that being a Mayor has.

The City Council idea is a pretty good one. My city has a city council because I didn't want it to be a dictatorship. I don't think a city council is needed to be implemented into the game, if it is that is good, but I donot see how it could work.

The idea of a diplomat is very intriguing. I know that right now I am involved with diplomacy with other cities on my planet. Diplomacy is a big part of being a politician and it is of course needed. But I still don't see how a diplomat could be implemented into the game. What could it skills be that you don't already have? I like to hear about this one as well, might be interesting.

Mythree main issues that I like to see resolved is

1) If a city wants to be a factional city it should have more options. Rebel and Imperialterminals is only a start to this. Of course Rebel and ImperialNPCs is needed, but maybe some other options. Maybe a code that makes purchases by Imperial players in a Rebel city aremore expensive and the extra expense goes into the city treasury? I do not believe that a factional city needs to grief players by placing turrets, faction scanners and mine fields near civic structures, but having nice, non-deadly options for cities that would like to be factional would be nice. This is my main concern and would add a lot of depth into player cities.

2) I like to see walls, gates and ground textures in player cities. I know this has been said many times but I do not believe it has been said in this topic. This would add a lot of character to the city and would actually make it seem like a city. For right now it only seems to be an outpost, no matter if it is a metropolis or not. I believe everyone would like to see this. This feature alone would make me quite happy with player cities.

3) My last issue is the ability to only take 50k out of the city treasury at a time. I understand why there is a safeguard, however it limits many mayors in buying the city buildings, gardens or other objects. Most gardens are over 50k and of course civic structures are too. If a Mayor is going to hold an event, he would only be able to pull 50k out? Decorating usually cost more and I have been known to use my own money because of this limit. I believe that the limit should be stripped. An email should still exist telling all citizens how much was taken out and why. I know that there will be some mayors that get angry and destroy the city hall and take all the money, but that is the city's fault. They should have chosen a better person for mayor. But this is just my opinion, it isn't a big deal really just be a nice issue to fix for Mayors that are in it for a long-haul and aren't millionaires.

Overall, I like player cities and I don't have many complaints. Roll-Overs are annoying but my city has enough money to withstand it. The devs have done a great job so far and I am satisfied with it.

Diplomat?????? what, another skill tree??? If your idea is another skill tree then I doubt anyone is going to waste skill points. Lets face it, Politician skill tree is a joke since they took out militia.....As many have stated in the past, a number of us are only leveling nowto exactly what we need and thats it...

Until there is actually a benefit to being a mayor besides the self-satification of helping folks and creating some fun stuff, there are not alot, if any, that wants politician now....People are trying to step down but cant find anyone to take over.There have been numerous posts on perhaps a politician mission terminal ect...

Happy Trails....

If Diplomat were to work, the entire Politician skill tree would need to be revisited. After all, what good is it to a non-Mayor to have the ability to place a small garden? The argument could be made that the future mayor would need those skills to be competative, but if the city is done, what good does it do them? Honestly, nothing more than it does for us.

Just from the term, I would see Diplomats as advisors and ambassadors within and between cities. It's still more of an RP job than anything, but what if there was actually a bonus to having them around? What if, say, the more Diplomats lived within your city, the more effective your city was?

Think of it this way:

1.) Scrap the Politician tree. It sucks. It's an XP hog and at least 1/3 of the boxes are useless to every one of us, because when and if we pick a specialization, we ignore the other ones. If you get stuck under the cap, you can't do half of the other things in the boxes on top of that.

2.) Move ALL percentage specializations to Master Politician. They are really only feasable for level 4 and 5 cities due to their cost anyways.

3.) Fill the other boxes with something useful, rather like the creature handler tree. If you get Military II, for example, you get "+2 to Militia Defense, -100 to Cloning Center Maintenance". In the decorations tree, put all the decorations in the first box (we can't use them unless the city grows anyways) and Make say, Decorating III "-100 for Small Gardens and Fountains Maintenance, +2 to Entertainer Healing".

4.) Here's the fun part: make those bonuses cumulative according to how many Politicians/Diplomats you have living in town. So if you have 3 Polis/Dips living in a town and all three of them have Military II, the town saves 300 a week on Cloning Center maintenance and gains +6 to militia defense (note, if say Military III gave you +3 to Militia defense, one Politician would not contribute 5 defense points, just the higher number).

This would encourage people to take the politician tree, give them a reason to keep it, give Mayors a reason to let other Politicians into town and thereby making elections more exciting (kick them out??? But they give us so many bonuses!), etc. Make winning an election still the best way to gain experience, but make other options as well. One thing that we mention often is we've got nothing to do between elections. Why not gain some XP for visiting other player cities? Not a huge amount, and only usable once every 24 hours to the same city, and thus fufilling the "Diplomat" idea. Or allow the Militia bonus to carry over to groups of hunting citizens from the resident if the Politician/Diplomat is in the group, thus encouraging them to participate in hunting parties? They could even gain a small Politician XP amount for every successful kill. Diplomacy missions could also be a way for us to make money, of course.

Just some thoughts.

~~Shabhaii, Mayor of Tombra, Naboo
www.cityoftombra.com
The REAL BT
(Still looking for a good quote to replace my Charlie one)