The scenario you describe can be role-played just fine without any change in the game mechanics. You can have your group fights already, you can role-play the city ruling.
Enforcing that in the way described is something very different and I see that very critical to allow cities be subject to player-rule:
That would make cities just another outpost in terms of gameplay and force PvP onto everyone - not cool.
Additionally, it would not add to the game in terms of existing PvP gameplay: the fights would simply be exactly the same - with the only difference being the name of the fight. Worst of all: player-owned and access-controlled cities would deprive many players of basic game content for the sake of few wanna-be kings and queens. If your argument is roleplay, the whole PvP over the city is not needed.
It's easy to go to war when only the others can loose. Let's approach it the other way around: those who want to fight have to put some of their assets on jeopardy and offer the other players some incentive to attack them. Allow interested players to build-up their outpost. It will give them additional storage, flats and trade opportunities. But they will have to be able to defend it:
The additional storages and flats can be built for lots of mats and dappers. Subsequently they can be used by the owners for additional storage and point-of-sale.
Other players can now opt to either do the now-known OP fight for take-over as we see it now. Player-owned buildings would get a fixed chance to become destroyed when the OP changes ownership.
A new option of OP raid is introduced. It has not such high requirement as an OP take-over. But when successful, it gives the attacker the chance to loot some of the stuff stored in the buildings of that OP - but the OP ownership doesn't change.
Enforcing that in the way described is something very different and I see that very critical to allow cities be subject to player-rule:
That would make cities just another outpost in terms of gameplay and force PvP onto everyone - not cool.
Additionally, it would not add to the game in terms of existing PvP gameplay: the fights would simply be exactly the same - with the only difference being the name of the fight. Worst of all: player-owned and access-controlled cities would deprive many players of basic game content for the sake of few wanna-be kings and queens. If your argument is roleplay, the whole PvP over the city is not needed.
It's easy to go to war when only the others can loose. Let's approach it the other way around: those who want to fight have to put some of their assets on jeopardy and offer the other players some incentive to attack them. Allow interested players to build-up their outpost. It will give them additional storage, flats and trade opportunities. But they will have to be able to defend it:
The additional storages and flats can be built for lots of mats and dappers. Subsequently they can be used by the owners for additional storage and point-of-sale.
Other players can now opt to either do the now-known OP fight for take-over as we see it now. Player-owned buildings would get a fixed chance to become destroyed when the OP changes ownership.
A new option of OP raid is introduced. It has not such high requirement as an OP take-over. But when successful, it gives the attacker the chance to loot some of the stuff stored in the buildings of that OP - but the OP ownership doesn't change.
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