Architect Archive
Thread: On Test Center: Lights do actually burn out now...like they are suppose to :)
I am actually not happy with this bug fix at all. I'll try to explain what bothers me about it.
Yes it is a bug. Lamps and candles were designed with decay in mind. They last a certain amount of time and then die. They actually do do this, the bug is that if you don't pick them up their light source remains intact. Great, that definitely does not sound like it's working correctly. Of course this bug has existed for well over a year. It has essentially stopped being a bug and has entered the realm of 'undocumented feature'. The player base got used to the way it was working and adapted their style of play accordingly. By this I mean mostly interior decorators adapted. They saw the potential to use lamps and candles in extremely complex and creative ways. I have seen many amazing examples of chandeliers and lighting displays that must have taken many hours and tons of effort to create. Now a year and a half later they decide to fix a bug that will render all this work useless. Not to mention future interior design projects involving candles or lamps will be affected as well. How on earth is somebody going to spend all that time and the customer spend a substantial ammount of credits on something that will only last for about 30 days?
I honestly wish the developers would look before they leap sometimes. They should see beyond the bug and analyze how the community has adapted to deal with a long standing issue. This analysis should take into consideration whether or not fixing the bug will benefit the players in the long run. I think it will not. It will stifle creativity in decorating because nobody will want to have to replace the 25 candles in their awesome chandelier every 30 days...not to mention it would be almost impossible to get it to look like the original work once you remove the burnt out candle and then try to place the new one exactly the way it was before.
For those people that see this as a form of renewable income... well come on, we all know how lucrative those vehicle customization kits are. I mean everybody uses them right? Seriously, how many regular players will spend the time and credits to replace all the burnt out lamps and candles in their houses every 30 days or so? Not many, especially since all they need to do to shed some light on things is hit ctrl + L.
I wouldn't have a problem at all with them fixing the decay bug if they implemented a way to replenish the lamp or candle without the hassle of picking up the old one, dropping the new one and then spending time maneuvering it around to get it into approximately the same position it was before. All they would need to do is set up an interface for the candle likeyou havewhen you put a battery in your droid. The interface exists, the code to make it work exists, all they need to do is transfer it over to the world of lamps and candles.
Believe me, I'm not complaining that they are fixing long standing architect bugs...on the contrary, I'm thrilled we are getting attention. I just want them to fix things in a way that makes sense and does not cause more problems in the long run. Sometimes blindly fixing a bug is not always the right thing to do.
On the plus side I see the market for torches making a comeback since those never ever burn out.
not enough time, I made some candles and lights, but they won't burn out for days (they were 8days which was as low as I could get without hitting a critical fail on experiment, and after the 4th or 5th cycle of experimenting I gave up and just used the assembly roll).
Elyssa wrote:
Has anybody tested to see if newly crafted lights will burn out?
It's always possible that the burnout was caused by some sort of database copy glitch.
[PM to Tiggs] is there any possibility of a radial menu option to replace extinguished candles? As it is, I can't spend the time to replace my chandeliers, so I will not be buying any more candles. This hurts architects even more
Tiggs: Bionic we are looking into several options
Hopefully this happens, because I would hate to have to purchase from my favorite architect less as a result of so much time spent every two weeks replacing my chandeliers.
Reksha wrote:
My chandelier in my mall is burned out, and the place is so dark now. I will wait a few weeks (Maybe months) to see if we get the radial menu option, and then if not will be tearingn it down. It adds almost 100 items to the item count in the mall.
Chalk it up to that technology depression due to the empire's restrictions I guess. You know, the same one that made later model droids worse than pre-empire ones? Sidious is in your light fixtures. He's watching.
Well I'm an architect and I dont like the patch at all 
I do some interior decoration and I'm not redoing all of the damn chandeliers ever again.
The radial option to replace lights should have been implemented at the same time as this patch. As usual poor planning by the devs.