Architect Archive
Thread: Getting to know you and your profession
Spootnik
Fri Sep 10, 2004 2:48 pm
#27
How about instead of decay just have the maintenance cost payments go to the Architect that built it? Just a random suggestion, I have no experience as an Architect, and very limited in crafting in general. But it sounds logical enough to me?
LadyLeala
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:14 pm
#29
Hi Tiggs. I've got a few things that I'd love to see added to the Architect profession in the future:
1) MORE furniture (I see a lot of very nice furniture in the static buildings and cities... can we get some of those wonderful Style 3 trees? 
)
)2) More customization (color is what I'm referring to here)
3) Fix all the non-crateable items and make them crateable (namely, Ore Mining Units)
4) Up the stack size for resources from 100k to 200k or 500k. This would help immensely.
5) More "rare" items that are craftable by Architects. (Currently, the only Archi schematic I know of is the paintings from Bestine, which are very common and easy to obtain)
6) Fix/revamp on lot usage for various house sizes (2 lots for smalls with 150 item storage, 3 lots for mediums with 225 item storage, 4 lots for larges with 300 item storage, and 5 lots for PA halls with 375 item storage)
7) Structure factories should only use 1 lot like the other factories
Thanks for asking! Hope these suggestions help you get an idea what some of us would like to see.
Tenfo
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:15 pm
#30
Hi Tiggs,
Well I play 4 characters total and have mastered nearly every profession in the game so I have a wide perspective.
Biggest issues overall are balancing armor, buffs, HAM structure (we need that new special action bar like the Jedi Force bar plssss push CB) to make game more fun and so anyone and the next nOOb CAN'T solo everything in SWG.
Revamp of the entire loot system should be addressed. The loot in SWG is quite frankly apalling. We are sick of getting junk disks, unless nOOb weapons and NOTHING on high-end mobs that can take 30 mins to kill. There should be guaranteed loot on high-end content.
Current professions I play and issues:
Weaponsmith - lack of storage - We need a warehouse or something so we don't have to store comps in backpacks on our vendors at 9999999999 creds. I would also like more looted comps that are useful in weapons to add variety.
Chef - no complaints except that barrels are still broken.
TKM / Commando - I love it overall. No complaints except commando could use a special rifle beside the useless HAR. A heavy repeating blaster or something would be cool.
Jedi - well there are too many issues and discussions to post here. Refer to Jedi top 5 er 10 er 20 issues on Jedi board. lolz
/2cents
Message Edited by Tenfo on 09-10-2004 03:16 PM
Pootian
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:18 pm
#31
oh!! forgot something!! LIGHT SWITCHES!!! i would love to come home toa dark house, or be able to set the mood with out those pesky built in house lights spoiling it hehe.m
Flatfingers
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:30 pm
#32
Hi, Tiggs -- welcome.
I'm Flatfingers. You'll be seeing me in the Core Systems forum.
Boy, will you ever be seeing me in the Core Systems forum. 
Meanwhile, let's talk about the Architect profession. The #1 problem for Architects is the one that's been around since Day One: making houses is boring andhas a low return on investment.
It's a Good Thing that there are several sizes and styles of house to choose from. But other than the few combinations made available, there's zero room for artistic creatitivity (one of the innate personality traits of the real Architect). Furthermore, because once you've sold a houseit willlast forever (with maintenance), and because there's only three or four variations on that house on that planet, players have little to no reason to ever do any repeat business with an Architect. And those are serious Bad Things.
Fortunately, I have the answer for you: Modular Architecture. Instead of picking from a developer-defined house style, let Architect choose from a large selection of developer-defined "modules" that can be attached to each other to create a building plan, and let building plans be filled with resources to create actual house deeds.
This would allow Architects to indulge their creative abilities (and if you've seen some of the past entries in GarVa's Home Show, you've learned just how creative SWG players can be), and would also create a far more dynamic home resale market. That's better for consumers (who get lots more interesting choices better reflecting their tastes), and better for Architects (who get to do a lot more business).
Everybody wins!
For more specific details,please seemy initial thread on this subject: Modular Architecture: A Redesign Proposal, but you've got the idea now.
Thanks for your consideration of this ideaand the great ideas fromother folks in this forum.
--Flatfingers
Message Edited by Flatfingers on 09-10-2004 05:34 PM
LonelyGhost
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:45 pm
#33
Okay, on topic - a "real" decay system to promote a steady revenue stream, and more non-Civic building types. We need more variety of homes n this game. There are 3, count 'em 3! different home styles (and I lump the Corellian and Generic types together becuase they *are* the same thing). Virtually everyone I ask hates the Corellian and generic homes. Its partly why Talus is so devoid of life. Corellain only buildings. The Civic stuff is cool, but the personal homes suck!
Okay, now a little bit off-topic.....
Tiggs wrote:
Rurry wrote:
Hi Tiggs,
Please refer to the top 5 issue threads. The communities created them to help TH and the DEVS with our issues
But since you asked
Reposted from another thread: I am well aware of the sticky issues threads and the excel sheets that ThunderHeart has. The reason(s) I am doing this is 1. to get to know you, 2. get a better feel about your posting styles and 3. Gather fresh feedback from the community. If you feel like you are repeating yourself then please feel free to opt out of posting in this thread.
I dont know what sort of perspective you have of us as a group so far, but I thought if no one else has clue'd you in....
We get a lot of this request. And frankly, its frustrating after a year to be asked *yet again* whats important to us. Thats why we maintain a top 5 list. Countless hours have been *wasted* on reposting hundreds of threads on the SWG FOrums at the request of some Dev or another. Seriously, if you wanna know, read the stickies. If you wanna get to know us, read the sticky's, if you wanna chat with us, just participate in the on-going threads. There is absoloutley no need for you to ask us to regurgitate stuff we've been talking about for a year.
Now that this is out of my system, I hope you will appreciate the level of commitment and dedication many of use forum posters have to making this game better. But the single biggest issue we have had problems with is no communication. We are like a starving flower withering away as we float in a pot along a wide and refreshing river. The dirt we are in is bone dry, yet only inches away is a vast amount of cool, refreshing water. The excuse generally is "you'll try and hold us to things we say that will change". Yes, thats true. SOme of us *did* do that in the past. But all it takes is a nice new posting style...start every paragraph with the disclaimer "What you are reading *IS* going to change!! It is only here for you to read to give you something to read. It is a *FANTASY* and has no basis in reality! DO not believe what we say!"
This way no one can *ever* hold you to *anything* you say on *anything*. But at the same time, we can finally take a drink from the river, and our thirst can be quenched.
Pawlin
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:46 pm
#34
Short answer... The most pressing issue for our profession is: Long term viability of the profession.
Long details...
Initially we had a large growth period where everyone needed housing, furniture, harvesters and factories. that lasted us a while. Then after the initial growth spurt when the game started there were a few changes that caused renew demand for our products. Therer was the initial change to harvester experimentation that caused everyone to buy harvesters all over again. We had the player city introduction which gave us a bunch more schematics to make so people could build their new cities. Plus the hologrind drove demand for resources and thus our harvesters as well as caused people to move around from one profession to another and buy stuff like factories. Then there were the candles which, IMHO flopped pretty badly and still don't work right. We've also had the Bestine museum paintings that are pretty nice and which are an ongoing little boost to our sales.
But at this point the gamehas gone past thegrowth phase and we're all into sustaining. So the only business we really get is turnover due to new players or people changing professions or on a rare occasion someones house or harvesters will burn up cause they forgot or were unable to pay maintenance.The demand for our products is very low right now. Individual architects may see a pretty steady sales volume but its primarily because their competitors have left the business.
It is my assumption that the number of active architects has been dropping steadily for the past 8-9 months. This is supply reacting to low demand.
Why is this a problem? Well if archtiect goods have very little demand then there will be little to no incentive for architects to continue the profession. It is basically a death blow for a crafting profession if people don't want to buy our goods.
While we do know there is always some demand I don't think the intention of SOE is for the profession to only sustain 5-10 active architects per server. Seriously I think the realistic numbers are that low right now. And if there is not sufficient demand then there is no room for new archtiects to join the profession without cutting prices below our already desperately low margins.
Also, easy mastery of the profession and lack of differentiation between our products work together to keep prices down. The lack of differentiation in our products means people mostly compete by undercuting one another. And cause its easy to master we have had a lot of competition. This is a problem for the profession because it can be that much harder to make a profit because we end up with very low margins.
So if you combine the lack of demand with the very low profits we havea pretty bleak picture for architect profession.
There are various ways that you could possibly help fix this. Any of the following would help: Some form of limited decay for harvesters. Giving us GCW deeds that can be destroyed. Furniture and house color pallete kits that need to be refreshed like vehicle customization kits. Or just new and interesting schematics like a new house design style or two and a new batch of furniture. GCW deeds are my personal preference for a long term fix since its beneficial to everyone and unpainful to implement like decay on existing deeds would be.
If the profession is going to survive in any healthy way we need either periodic increases in demand with new stuff or a long term fix to the demand for our goods.
LonelyGhost
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:57 pm
#35
Jeez, talk about ignoring the elephant in your living room...I realized I overlooked the single most pressing issue for ALL crafters!
STORAGE SPACE!!
We *need* more storage. We need the artificial cpas removed and SOE to give up trying to make us fit into some pre-determined non-packrat style of play. We shoudl be able to keep that useless Corsec Badge instead of being *forced* to delete it because it was a choice between that and a stack of resources. Sentimentality has a place in SWG too.
Elyssa
Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:01 pm
#36
I'd have to agree with that.
Even lifting the 250 item hard cap would go a long way.
Making it a nice even 100 items per lot would go even farther! 
mtnsurfer
Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:11 pm
#37
It would be nice to experiment on factory creation time. Meaning:Currently it takes like 87 secs to make one item in the factory, maybe there is a way to allow an architect to experiment on the production rate of a factory. That would be very usefull for the professions that require many different factory runs to make an item.
GoCanes
Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:28 pm
#38
I was an architect when the game first went live, but sadly dropped it a few months ago due to a number of reasons:
1) Not enough skill points to be Master Architect, Master Merchant, and a viable combat profession to get involved in the GCW...
2) Brick wall - This is what I call it when I can sale houses, harvestors, etc... to a certain point and then all sales come to a near complete stop due to saturation... 
3) Lack of repeat sales items... Need for house or harvestor repair kits is through the roof...
ElBlufer
Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:39 pm
#39
I think that the most pressing issue for me is that OMU's dont stack.