Architect Archive
Thread: State of the Architect Part 2
In Part 2 of my State of the Architect address, I will point out areas in pre-existing furniture that needs to be fixed, and also plausible additions to the current Furniture.
The first and foremost problem with Furniture sales is the desirability. Almost 95% of pre-existing Furniture serves no functional purpose except for looks. Because of either broken features or features missing all together, it severely hampers the potentialsales for the Crafter.
I have put together is a list of things that are in need of re-evaluation to bring out the full potential in pre-existing furniture.
----
Sitting in general - Whenever you sit on something, you're perched on the very edge of the seat and you're sitting extremely rigid and not comfortable looking at all.
Reclining Chair - An option needs to be added that allows you to actually recline. This may take a lot of effort to accomplish, as a new graphic or skeleton would be required to make the chair recline.
Futon - When I first started working on Furniture, I told people that I could get them a bed soon, thinking that the Futon would be a bed. It was infact a couch and it couldn't fold out into a bed. A radial option should be added to unfold it into the bed position.
Bed Size - In real world terms, the Small Bed would be a single sized mattress. When you think of the term "small" and "large" you fully expect the "large" to be at least twice, if not three times bigger then a "small". However the Large Bed is only 1 1/2 times bigger then the Small bed, in real world terms it would be smaller then a double sized matress. The Large Bed should be at least the size of a King or Queen mattress.
Bed Sleeping - The inability to lay flat on the bed is a large turn off for most buyers. The only option that is available is sit. However the Large Bed is bugged and not flagged as a chair so you're unable to even sit on it. I'm suggesting a sleeping position that players could select from the radial menu, complete with multicolored Z's that would float from the person sleeping. Sleeping could be for novelty purposes, or boost your regen rate.
Chests/Cabinets/Bookshelves/Armoires/Toolchest - We get about 2 versions of each of the mentioned items, and none of them can be used as a container. These items should be flagged as containers with about 10-20 slots. Yes, you can store items by simply dropping them on the floor of your house, but many people would rather prefer to store them inside a chest or cabinet. Leaving things on the floor of your house can clutter up the area and use up space that you may have reserved for furniture. Also with dropping items you run the risk of getting the stacking bug and not being able to pick up your items again.
Plants - Throughout your entire career as an architect you are only able to construct three types of plants, and you get these plants at Novice Architect. More plant life needs to be added to the furniture list, three will simply not do. I see a large variety of potted plants throughout the cityscape, the art and models are in, it shouldn't be difficult to add schematics for them.
Lights - Many of the houses are very dark. Right now the only light source available is the torch. Many do not prefer the torch because it makes a large amount of smoke. Who would want smoke in their house? Many would prefer to have the torches placed on their patio or front walkway. We only get 4 types of lamps, even though they don't work, you get all 4 of them at furniture II. The lamps should be dispersed evenly throughout the Furniture Tree instead of getting them in a lump sum. More lighting options need to be available.
Data Terminal - I've not been able to make one yet (factory problems), however from what I have heard from people that own them, Data Terminals do not serve any purpose except for novelty. For now, I would like to suggest having Data Terminals act as a Remote Device for accessing your Harvesters permissions list.
----
In this section I will talk about additions that are not that far fetched, and could be easily made into reality and would raise the bar a notch or two.
First off, the Furniture skill tree needs to be totally re-balanced to be more in-line with other crafting classes such as Tailor or Image Designer. The amount of schematics that we receive as we progress up the tree begins to dramatically decreases after Furniture II. Here is how it breaks down.
Furniture I - 13 schematics
Furniture II - 17 schematics
Furniture III - 6 schematics
Furniture IV - 7 schematics
All other Crafting Classes have an even distribution of items that they can create as they progress up their respective trees. Furniture III should have at least 21 schematics and Furniture IV should have at least 25 schematics. We need more exp for each tier but we get less schematic rewards? Even following that pattern, I strongly feel that the amount of furniture schematics we receive through-out our career is not sufficient enough for a game of this class or size. It would be like crewing an Imperial Star Destroyer with a hundred people when it could easily garrison thousands.
However if we were to receive an increase of schematics for the Furniture Tree, to make it sufficient, we would be getting, ideally, 30 schematics for each Tier. For the amount of exp needed, it simply would not be fair for the other classes. Unfortunately this means more work. Because the only way that the Furniture schematic gain vs exp would be balanced is if, they create an entirely new class, Interior Designer, much like that of the Tailor and Image Designer class. We could have 1000 Furniture schematics and it still wouldn't be enough to sate the demand for new types of Furniture. Take The Sims for example, it has over 5 expansions. I sincerely hope that the SWG Team recognizes the need for the Interior Designer as a separate profession. The inclusion of this class would open up the game to a whole different genre of consumers, the people who play Sims games. If the Interior Designer class was made, with say 320 total schematics, (breaks down to 80 schematics per tree, or 20 per tier) and they introduced new schematics every month either through Quests, Faction or just extra schematics, then we could easily see an influx of thousands of Sims players. I know many of you may be thinking that I should just play The Sims if I love it so much and leave you SWG players alone, but the simple fact that SWG is 100x better game play then The Sims is obvious. The Sims and The Sims Online is boring, you have all the furniture options but none of the player interaction. SWG can bring the best of both worlds together. Again this would not only appeal to current players, but potential new customers.
Also I would like to discuss the inclusion of Planetary Themed Furniture. We have Planet specific housing, why not furniture? I am sure many of us would love to own a set of furniture that would be native to their homeworlds. Most of the art and models are already there, just pull some furniture from each planet, redesign it a little bit and make it player craftable.
There also needs to be more cross-profession interaction. Many crafting classes rely on Architects for items. Armorsmithes, Weaponsmithes and Tailors are helpless without a Factory. Many Crafting classes would be helpless without a house to sell their wares from, or without the provision of high powered extractors. But there is no class that an Architect must rely on to do what they do.
In Part 3 of my State of the Architect, I will go over the possible additions that would go above and beyond the current system, and would bring the level of Furniture up twenty notches. Ideas that would not only benefit Furniture makers, but other professions as well, like Tailors, Armorsmiths and Smugglers.
But I'm straying from the topic. Let's continue to the list of do-ables.
----
Plants - There is a dire need for more plant schematics. We only get three types of plants, and we gain them at Novice Architect. Introducing at least three types of plant per tier would be suitable, and perhaps one type of plant per tier that are planetary specific. We need to breathe more color and nature into our inanimate houses.
Lights - There is also a dire need for lights. Most houses are dark and shadowy, making it difficult to see objects you wish to display, such as your furniture. Two more light sources per tier should be added, also again, planet specific lights would be greatly welcomed.
Beds - A medium sized bed should be introduced, or, change the Large Bed to a Medium Bed, and make a new Large Bed that is actually large-sized.
Tables - More tables are needed, of differing variety. There are only a total of five different tables currently available, we get two of them at Furniture I and the other three at Furniture IV.
Smaller crafting stations - We should be able to craft smaller versions of the crafting stations, an Advanced Model, that you get at maybe say...Furniture IV or Master Architect. Many of the the crafting stations are extremely bulky and an eye-sore, such as the Weapons station or the Food station, they're not suitable for indoors.
Furniture in general - At least two new schematics for each type of pre-existing furniture.
Adding of Planetary Themed Furniture - At least two kinds of each type of furniture that is themed to a planet. The furniture could only be placed on that correlating planet, unless, a smuggler slices the permissions for the furniture to allow it to be placed on another planet. This would give some off-world players bragging rights to their "imported" furniture, and give more slicing work to Smugglers.
-----
Regretably the list of do-ables is a lot shorter then I would like. A lot of the improvements that are needed to make Furniture more viable will require more work and would be further down the road. A lot of what I had originally perceived as plausible additions was removed from this list and moved to Part 3 of my address.
Part 3 will be released in a day or two and will exclusively deal with the future. I look forward to sharing my ideas, hopes and dreams of the Furniture class with the rest of you.
Mitsudo
Ahazi, Naboo, Keren
Takenoko - SWGCraft.com
Can we make this sticky?
Very good post and very well thought out.
I totally agree with everything Zarcath stated. All suggestions in State 1 and 2 are good ones and the ones which can be implemented, should be.
Numinous Dal
I really really wish Devs would post a big shakedown of what they know, and whats coming up.. Tired of the relative silence.
-C9-
I agree with this fellow architects assessments, however I would add one thing to this discussion.
We're only three weeks into release.
The developers told us (in beta) that they would be adding new schematics for different installations, furniture, etc. but I hope they just dont' dump all of these onto us at once. Slow implementation is key to getting users to upgrade.
I agree and think furniture needs to be reworked. I've got another thread going on how the hide costs of most furniture seems too high and needs to be "normalized" across the board so an ottoman doesn't take as many hides as a small bed (and various such issues).
Although having hundreds of pieces of furniture would be cool, I'd rather they spend their immediate future working on thigns like mounts and vehicles. It might be useful to further divide the furniture issues into "Really quick fixes" and "somewhat harder stuff":
Really quick fixes (do ASAP please):
Even out the distribution: Move some stuff up the tree so that higher levels have at least the same number of items as the lower ones. It's silly to get 17 items at level 2 and half as many next level up.
Move the Assembly bonus into the Construction branch: As much as it makes sense for knowing how to build fine-detail stuff contributing to my skill at making larger things, it sucks having one branch dedicated strictly to getting tiny gains in experimentation. I think other professions like DE are set up this way.
Normalize the hide requirements on furniture: Futons need no hides? Ottoman needs as many as a bed? A couch takes more hides than I get from a faamba?
somewhat harder stuff (do afterwe can buy a mount):
Add in some new stuff
Fix the lights so they actually light up
Refine the placement system to allow either free movement, or at least a finer grain of detail on the grid.
All the other great suggestions listed in this thread that I don't feel like retyping 
its a big dissappointment that the DEV added furniture that has no use and is mostly with the "Sitting on Air' bug and some of them have a clear feature but sadly like most ofthe DE Droids they have no appearent function and are intirly usless except for looks. I am just mad that they could of release the game alittle later and finish with development and beta testing but they just wanted to make some bling bling $$$
hopefully these are fixed soon