Artisan Archive

Oh, one addendum to my previous post. Try the search again with AFK MACRO SAMPLING still with Holocron as the author and guess how many returns you get.........................0. That's right folks a big fat whopping NOTHING. So there are no posts from Holocron addressing the issue of AFK MACRO SAMPLING. What's that mean? Well it means that so far AFK MACRO SAMPLING isn't a problem.

OK, i've read your linked posts and guess what......All I see is one mentioning that Holo states AFK macro sampling is wrong. He does not state it is an exploit nor does he indicate it is a bannable offense. He DOES indicate that SOE is working on a way to make AFK macro sampling less appealing. Until SOE removes the ability entirely no one will be banned for it. Oh, I did an advanced search exactly as I said above those posts didn't show up. They still don't. Hmm must be something wrong with my understanding of computers. Maybe I'm still stuck thinking of programming my TRS-80 or my TI99/4A. Hmm, 20+ years of computer and 10+ years of online experience I guess doesn't copunt for anything these days.

Oh, wrong and exploit are two completely different words.

here is the simple truth buddy.

we make your items, how we get the resources isnt up to you.

its up to us.

i quote fight club when I say "do not f*ck with us"

seriously I sampled about 800 units of chemical using a macro while watching a movie while still sitting at my computer to keep it from going afk.

im only at engineering and quite frankly I dont even get the ability to create harvesting and all the efficiently until engineering III which means I have to harvest everything by hand for yet another wonderful level.

Ill be making powerups in bestine for people to buy with all the minerals and chems im digging up but seriously, when you cant even move from the spot you are hervesting from, whats the fun in watching the screen?

as far as red mobs. well, I killed a buncha jawas early on so it seems that i can mine near those tuskens a little more freely, though, i was still 70m away, he didnt move nor did I, just kept doing my thing.

but yeah, go ahead and kill macro sampling, watch what happens to supply and demand. watch as the gap between novice and master artisian widens from a lake to an ocean.

you dont think they did it? who made your armor? why dont you ask them how they got to that skil level.

stared at the screen for 3 hours getting resources?

maybe. but I pitty the person who thinks thats what makes SWG fun.

blah on you and blah on your post, YOU GET ONE STAR *stab*

I feel sorry for any new artisans if they go and lower this anymore to be honest, but if they do, it will just jack prices of items up. Less supply of items to buy due to lack of resources would increase demand and would force us to jack prices up. If this is the demented logic behind killing sampling for resources, so be it. It's already sick how low stuff is selling for in some of the artisan professions.

If there was a solution to it, it'd be this: Make harvesters take in a bigger supply than macro sampling and end matience costs to harvesters and replace it with Artisan repair tools and resources. As of it now, I can sample better than my harvesters. What am I exploting? Its in the game. I don't sell my resources. I use them to grind up my levels so I can make better stuff to sell at lower prices. And they already nerfed sampling. And if they continue to nerf it, novice artisans cannot run efficently. And then there will be less Artisans attracted to the professions. And it is already dangerous in the wilderness without needing it. I have to run through aggro mobs of mountain squills, Akhira Champions and Luitenents in Tatooine. Nevermind I was sampling one time AT my computer and I was killed by tusken raiders in two shots. That's why people sample in town. I support macro sampling because it helps to drive down the price of resources and let artisans get up their respective trees sufficently. I hate sering outrageous prices for resources at the bazzar or being shouted in town. If this brings it down, I am all for it.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=56715&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

Here's one of them, there are others.

Try the advanced search next time.

Bianca Minola

Bogoa, childrenmay act like children, but so will adults. Personally, I find the comment "teens and young adults will take every unfair advantage possible to make toon life easier even if it's means costing the community as a whole" to be the most insulting and ignorant sounding statement ever.

In the entire span of my life, currently in it's 'young adult' stage, I have found no magical age where people start being nicer. If you really agree with Null, and would like to aid in his argument, I think you'd do a better job not saying anything at all.

And there's this:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=51378&highlight=harvester#M51378

Bianca Minola

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with AFK Sampling. In those Holocron posts, he mentions that AFK Sampling is not what they intended - they would rather you use harvesters. If the Devs REALLY didn't want us to AFK Sample, they'd remove the /sample command, or immediately cancel the /sample when your AFK flag gets set, or something like that.

They are trying to make AFK Sampling less productive, to encourage the use of harvestors. Nothing more. AFK Sampling is not cheating.

Get off the horse.

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Alacrity wrote:

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with AFK Sampling. In those Holocron posts, he mentions that AFK Sampling is not what they intended - they would rather you use harvesters. If the Devs REALLY didn't want us to AFK Sample, they'd remove the /sample command, or immediately cancel the /sample when your AFK flag gets set, or something like that.

They are trying to make AFK Sampling less productive, to encourage the use of harvestors. Nothing more. AFK Sampling is not cheating.

Get off the horse.

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Sure there is. It is against the EULA to use macros that allow unattended operation. It can lose you your account.

They designed in Harvesters, Factories and a host of other features specifically to eliminate the need to stay connected to the servers when you aren't playing - it costs them money when you do.

Bushwa

Sure it's cheating - or it's doing negative things to the system that sampling wasn't originally intended to do, if ya want the politically correct version. AFK sampling gets around the system-installed 'gates' for the AFK gain of resources. You can macro simple camps with just a little bit of effort in the scout skills and have zero danger from wandering reds. Harvestors cost money to 'gain resources'. Those who don't afk sample have to pay to retrieve those resources that were gained while we were AFK. The AFK macro sampler doesn't - he has basically zero costs and zero risk. Just because it hasn't been nerfed yet doesn't mean it's not cheating. Just means it's further down the priority list....

You want to kill afk sampling? About the only way you are going to do that is to drastically reduce the qty of resources you can pull in. It would take a total revamp of the surveying tree to do this without killing of almost all new crafters. Since everyone has an opinion, this would be mine:

1) A sample is intended to be a small quantity of an item. Change it so when you sample successfully you don't get any resources. Instead you get the item properties you sampled.

2) When you survey, show the percentage of every mineral in the area. (Stay with me here...)

3) Add a track option so you can choose an item and it will create a waypoint to the highest concentration of a single resource. (Much like the current survey button.)

4) Increase the xp for performing any of these three actions.

Now paired with this would have to be a revamp of the harvesters as well or nobody would ever be able to afford to craft besides the already established ones.

1) Bottom out the maintenance fees on harvesters.

2) Add either a harvest highest resource option or a harvest queue. If you look, most of the areas with a very high concentration of one resource also have a few others that are relatively high in the same spot. This would let a player setup a harvester, pay maintenance for a period of time and not have to worry about it running idle if there is a sudden resource change.

3) Remove the additional cost for moving a harvester. It was free to set it up, why does it cost so much to tear it down? Either that or add a tool that dismantles structures to the architect side of the house.

This system would make it viable to be a proffessional surveyor. You could still earn experience in surveying by running a harvester. Lets say about 50% of what you would get by tracking down sources for various minerals. After all, why not get experience doing what your job is?

A couple things things that I would love to see implemented regardless would be certifications on the harvesters like you see on the survey tools. Maybe at level 1 only able to run a small harvester on a single resource. At level 2 add the queuing ability. Things like that.

The other thing would be an email notification for when a harvester stops running. Factories do it for completed runs, why not a harvester?

A player compiled datapad for resources. If you get a sample of say Abe, let the characteristics get saved in your resource datapad. Right now I know I end up throwing most of it into excel and sorting it out for various crafted items, but it seems silly that your master surveyor can't remember simple data about a resource he has seen. Ask a oil driller in RL and they can tell you quite a bit about what they pull out of the ground.

As far as I see it there are quite a few benefits to this method. Engineers and Architects will have a market for their harvesters. You will reduce the total number of items floating around in the banks and in backpacks. You won't get every class out there just training a few points to harvest resources they don't need just to sell on the bazaar at insanely low prices. Trust me its not like they need that extra 100 credits.

And before I get flamed for increasing prices realize this. Players will pay what an item is listed at. If you need proof, list a banner ad in the bazaar. I made a non experimented cdef pistol to market my merchant shop. Listed it at 3k. It was bought within an hour. This has happened more times than I can count. The honest truth is players right now (besides the struggling crafters or MALE entertainers) have more money than they can spend. Just buy maxing out Pistol Specialist I can take out 2 missions for 1500-1700 credits a piece solo in about 15 minutes. Most of my mission cash right now goes towards supporting harvesters and buying resources so I can honestly say I spend half my time broke.

Any comments?

Wellby, Novice CH, Novice Tailor, Flurry

The part of the EULA that forbids "macros or other programs which would allow unattended game play" refers to 3rd party macro utilities (like AutoIt), not the in-game macro ability.

AFK Macro Sampling has been around since Beta, and the Devs have always knows about it. The only thing that seems to have surprised them is that so many folks chose that method instead of using Harvesters. In response, they make changes to make AFK Macro Sampling less lucrative, and (presumably) Havesters more attractive. Ifthey REALLY wanted to stop AFK Macroing in its tracks,all they need to do is cancel the action after a certain period of inactivity (forcing your character to sit down would do it), orlimit the /pause duration to 10 seconds, or any of a host of simple changes. The fact that they haven't, and that the Devs have not stated it is cheating, means it is acceptable.

Believe what you like.... but ask yourself this: How many people have you seen obviously AFK Macro Sampling? How many of those people have been kicked out of the game? If it is obvious cheating, then why aren't they getting the boot?