Give small cities a couple more plots

[Thwarn]

It really is ridiculous how small the small city is. While i have no issue with the upkeep of the cities giving a couple more plots to the small city would allow ligitimate small guilds to have a little more varity and buffs with out the expense of being forced to buy a huge city and never use the space of it.

[Aiken]

I think a much better option would be to add a Medium sized plot imo.

[Psikie]

I dont think the small plots were meant for anything more than pure farming sites. Not really for buffs. But even starting with small plot might be a nice option to have an "upgrade to large plot" feature so smaller orgs could work toward it without sacrificing current plot and starting over from scratch.

[Genele]

The small city was made for organizations that don't care about city bonuses, only having the ability to do alien raids, placing various social buildings and pushing costs to an absolute minimum.

A typical farm organization and perhaps some RP organizations would chose this option. Any other organization should buy the large city.

[Liwa]

This is a really good suggestion, I will bring it up with the team tomorrow and we will discuss it.

The small city was made for organizations that don't care about city bonuses, only having the ability to do alien raids, placing various social buildings and pushing costs to an absolute minimum.

A typical farm organization and perhaps some RP organizations would chose this option. Any other organization should buy the large city.

Perhaps a newer/smaller org would like the option of saving 10M in base rent and save some more rent by planting a small HQ ... not counting the 250M difference in city plot price?

I suspect that is why Ilaliya thought it was a good idea to consider the suggestion to offer an upgrade option down the road, maybe trade-in the small plot for a large one and only pay the incremental difference in plot price ...

Kinnik

Edit: I guess Ilaliya removed his post while I was composing mine ...

[MajorOutage]

I think a much better option would be to add a Medium sized plot imo.

This.

[Liwa]

I think a much better option would be to add a Medium sized plot imo.

The small city was made for organizations that don't care about city bonuses, only having the ability to do alien raids, placing various social buildings and pushing costs to an absolute minimum.

A typical farm organization and perhaps some RP organizations would chose this option. Any other organization should buy the large city.

Perhaps consideration could be given to a slightly larger plot in the sense of one or two more spots to build on, but still have the sizes of the buildable spots limit the plot to only fit a small HQ. As it is there are not even any of the real small Wampa/Hot Dog stand sized spots.

Whether these modifications were to the current small city plot or to a third shuttle destination that held a slightly bigger plot that still only holds a small HQ would be up to FC and programming limitations of course.

Kinnik

[Liwa]

The small city was made for organizations that don't care about city bonuses, only having the ability to do alien raids, placing various social buildings and pushing costs to an absolute minimum.

A typical farm organization and perhaps some RP organizations would chose this option. Any other organization should buy the large city.

Perhaps another consideration for small cities ...

- Add One more 2x2 buildable spot, perhaps the dark blue block that is almost big enough near the CC but not buildable atm.

- Add two or three of the half-size / smaller than 1x1 / wampa-sized plots the large cities have. These could be near the CC as well in the smaller blue blocks ...

- Re-size either the Sidewalk Cafe or the Sky-bar or both to be 2x2 buildings instead of 2x3. They are social only bldgs anyways ...

This would allow farming cities to have a spot for a Mining Ops for those all too necessary nano-skills.

It would allow a RP org the option of a social building, either the Park, or the re-sized Cafe or Sky-bar. The small spot would allow a wampa to their favorite bar or a Hot-dog stand.

Just a thought ...

Kinnik

[Jihnna]

I believe one of the things AO-designers/developers/whatever fail to see here is the fact that most of the players who have been on testserver and checked out the new plots, just LOVE the surrounding playfield-design of the small plot, and not so much the large plot....

I know this isn't much related to the costs of either the big or the small plot, but everyone I've talked to has uttered this opinion.

Something to take into consideration as well as costs maybe ?

[Liwa]

I was just in a small city on TL doing a raid and realized the spot I suggested for the 2nd 2x2 plot is taken up by the "Canary" restuarant/bar.

Perhaps the 2nd 2x2 plot could go on the sand/beach down by the dock and campfire? Unless it needs to be contiguous to the other parts of the city ... in which case I guess the other side of the CC from the Canary would have to be made big enough, or the Canary placed by the dock, or?

The smaller dk blue spots I mentioned are empty atm.

Kinnik

Suggestions from my prior post ...

- Add One more 2x2 buildable spot, perhaps the dark blue block that is almost big enough near the CC but not buildable atm.

- Add two or three of the half-size / smaller than 1x1 / wampa-sized plots the large cities have. These could be near the CC as well in the smaller blue blocks ...

- Re-size either the Sidewalk Cafe or the Sky-bar or both to be 2x2 buildings instead of 2x3. They are social only bldgs anyways ...

[Lheann]

The small city was made for organizations that don't care about city bonuses, only having the ability to do alien raids, placing various social buildings and pushing costs to an absolute minimum.

A typical farm organization and perhaps some RP organizations would chose this option. Any other organization should buy the large city.

What org does not care about city bonuses? Please I want to meet those players. Even farmers care about buffs.

I rank the large city plot as the ugliest new play field design since AO was released. It comes off as a rushed solution. Yes even uglier than the 3 Craters slums. At least those where not all concrete and had the character of the old outdoor cities. The old iCities were very pretty compared to the mess that is the large plot.

I will characterize this continued content development of the A/B model or just A model for options as the biggest threat to AO. As a dev team the practice of creating 1 new something which is the only choice or 2 new somethings where one is so superior to the other that there is no real choice is just stupid. But is sure becoming the norm.

So in short small cities are for bot farms and the rest of us just need to live with the only option being shoved down our throats. I so love how the dev team gives in to the demands of the few and screws over the many.

[Aiken]

What org does not care about city bonuses? Please I want to meet those players. Even farmers care about buffs./SNIP

Hi, I'm Aiken, I'm pleased to meet you.

I don't need city bonuses on my farm toon, in any of my cities.

Please don't assume you speak for everyone when you post People are often wrong when they make general assumptions.

[Utopian]

Wow. A wise old expression comes to mind....

POT meet KETTLE

[Liwa]

*snip*
I rank the large city plot as the ugliest new play field design since AO was released. It comes off as a rushed solution. Yes even uglier than the 3 Craters slums. At least those where not all concrete and had the character of the old outdoor cities. The old iCities were very pretty compared to the mess that is the large plot.

*snip

So in short small cities are for bot farms and the rest of us just need to live with the only option being shoved down our throats. I so love how the dev team gives in to the demands of the few and screws over the many.

Genele did mention in the known issues thread ...

Testlive 18.6.0.0-18.6.0.4 Known Issues
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The new city plots will also get an extra polish with the next test-live update.

So perhaps there are already plans to "fix-up" the large city ...

Kinnik

[Lheann]

Hi, I'm Aiken, I'm pleased to meet you.

I don't need city bonuses on my farm toon, in any of my cities.

Please don't assume you speak for everyone when you post People are often wrong when they make general assumptions.

You sir are the only person I have met that has ever stated that. Nice to meet you. I know a few bot farmers and there old farm cities were setup so they did not need to org hop or have a buff toon to make up the difference. If you look back at when iCities came into the game making sure they could take a large HQ was part of discussion because the bonuses were stated as being so needed.

I don't assume to speak for everyone. I asked who these don't care about buff folks are as this is a game about twinkling and every point matters. You answered the question. The rest was my opinion.

Really tired of the FC attitude of you will play this way or else. Given recent events I would not risk pissing off my player base if I could. The cities are sure fire way to piss us off. Gasoline meet fire.

Basically given recent events at FC I want to get the best we can now because my money is on AO getting bug fixes only for along time.

As for the polish on the large plot that is great. I look forward to seeing what they do.

[Mastablasta]

Things are broken the way they are. Things should be fixed. Org hopping, one man farm orgs etc., bleh.

[Cratertina]

I would rather see 95% updates make it to the live server, than wait for 5 more months for final 5%. So stop complaining guys and start encouraging devs to publish the stuff.

Same for rebalance, stop making it perfect, make it live!

[Belph]

I would rather see 95% updates make it to the live server, than wait for 5 more months for final 5%. So stop complaining guys and start encouraging devs to publish the stuff.

Same for rebalance, stop making it perfect, make it live!

Log onto test and find out why you're wrong

[Liwa]

I was just in a small city on TL doing a raid and realized the spot I suggested for the 2nd 2x2 plot is taken up by the "Canary" restuarant/bar.

Perhaps the 2nd 2x2 plot could go on the sand/beach down by the dock and campfire? Unless it needs to be contiguous to the other parts of the city ... in which case I guess the other side of the CC from the Canary would have to be made big enough, or the Canary placed by the dock, or?

The smaller dk blue spots I mentioned are empty atm.

Kinnik

Suggestions from my prior post ...

- Add One more 2x2 buildable spot, perhaps the dark blue block that is almost big enough near the CC but not buildable atm.

- Add two or three of the half-size / smaller than 1x1 / wampa-sized plots the large cities have. These could be near the CC as well in the smaller blue blocks ...

- Re-size either the Sidewalk Cafe or the Sky-bar or both to be 2x2 buildings instead of 2x3. They are social only bldgs anyways ...

As of today's patch to TL ...

- No additional 10x10 building spots were added.

- Four additional blocks that were not buildable before are now, however, they are just enough smaller than a 5x5 (sauna or gridhouse) block so that only social buildings fit.

This does mean though that there is now room for Wampas, HD Stand, tables, trees, etc. near the CC and at opposite side from the CC without using up plots needed for ECM, Gridhouse, etc.

- Neither the Cafe nor the Skybar were re-sized.

Also, with this patch the small city has the small tree sized spots at the corners that are now buildable the same as the large city.

Kinnik

p.s. It appears that the lake with sharks is now gone ... and no more walking on the bottom of the remaining lake area, just swimming.