Bio Engineer Archive

What IS a Lammergeier (lăm ' ər-gī ' ər)?

Gypaetus barbatus, known commonly as the "Bearded Vulture" or "Ossifrage," is an Old World vulture found only in mountainous regions and distributed across southern Europe, northern Africa, and across Asia. it is the largest bird of prey in most of its range, with a wingspan of nine feet (2.8m). in flight, it has long, tapered wings suggestive of a falcon, and a long, wedge-shaped tail.

fun facts:
"According to legend, the Greek playwright Aeschylus was killed when a tortoise was dropped on his bald head by a Lammergeier which mistook it for a stone."
"The Lammergeier is part of the Coat of Arms of Transylvania and represents Transylvania in the Coat of Arms of Romania."

so… what's a lammergeier in SWG?

I started the game in July '03, foolish and naïve. after months on Bloodfin, I made the move to Test Center, where I've been playing fulltime for over a year and a half. the approach of my two year SWG anniversary finds me still foolish, and the changes to the game with the onset of the CU give us all a new set of challenges.

as your new Bio Engineer Correspondent, you can expect to see me tweaking the stickies, asking for feedback on some of the CU changes, poking around in the forums of professions who touch BioE: combat medics, chefs, creature handlers, doctors, rangers, scouts, and tailors to name the most relevant… and perhaps most importantly, testing changes to the profession as they come.

what you WON'T always see is dev feedback. I encourage you all to ask questions, and I will do my best to make sure those questions get to the devs when appropriate. once a question has been asked, however, we can't do much more than wait. it isn't always fun, but those are the rules of the player/correspondent/dev interaction system, and I will be adhering to them.

I'm open to suggestions and comments, and I'll be keeping a close eye on the threads in this forum and others.

Message Edited by lammergeier on 05-23-2005 07:32 PM

Congrats and welcome.

FAQ: where is our correspondent?

right here, watching the forums and playing the game.

specifically: I work, with very few exceptions, thurs-sun. my work day is generally noon-midnight. I live in Virginia, so I'm on Eastern time (daylight savings right now).

expect to see more of me mon-wed than on weekends. I generally hit the forums before work, briefly, and after work... usually until 5am or so.

ingame? I've mostly been on the 'fin because of the problems on TC. as you're all aware, CL = effectiveness... and my tempest BioE (a spare toon with only mMedic/doc 4000/CM 4000/BioE 4414/marks 0004/scout 0040... I kept DNA skills open due to respec points, and to accurately test the problems with effective sampling for xp) is still CLsub40.

want to find me? my ingame names are in my sig, complete with server. I check the forums. I check my PM's.

this weekend is graduation time for Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University... which means I'll be very busy at work. very busy.

use the stickies. keep the feedback coming. be patient. we'll make this profession work, or incap trying.

Q: what happened this weekend?

A: ow.

graduation in town meant I worked a lot more than usual.

short version:

I worked on wednesday. I worked on thursday. thursday was awful, and the late customer who is always a problem showed up, making the day run later. I worked friday, and the day started early and ended late. I worked saturday, and the late customer from thursday came back to keep us all there later. after seventeen hours of work, I went to the 'decompression party'. I defused the 'light things on fire' phase of the party by dousing matches in kerosene and saved the house from arson. I went on to try to break up the skirmishes with some wrassling. during this exercise, I found myself between a friend of mine and the ground. gravity was working as intended, and I've got a bad rib or few to remember it by. I went back to work on sunday.

it only hurts when I breathe.

fortunately, I got plenty of sleep sunday/monday to make up for the time at work. I'm fully operational, and I've been ingame, on the forums, and posting to the devs.

I'm looking forward to the TC updates tomorrow. I'm still watching this forum, and waiting for dev response. they've got a lot to work on right now, and BioE is just one segment of the code they're addressing. I'll keep our issues current, and keep the devs aware of our issues.

and now... I head to sleep.

during the beta, I heard rumors of a DNA sampling SEA. I was never able to confirm this. I'm still keeping an eye out for BioE SEA's, however: ALL BioE crafting is now MED CRAFTING, and SEA's for this have existed (and continue to be found) for a long time.

got off work early, giving me early access to the new patch notes.

TC was down. TC came up. I logged on to TC to test the changes, and CTD'd. then my ISP (adelphia) started acting up. then I CTD'd on TC.

back to work tomorrow (today), then back to TC to try to test again.

...and there goes TC.

note that TC suffered from some pretty severe problems following the CU:

loss of the server for a month for the CU

no veteran item claims (current)
all vendor items lost (current)
no RotW or associated content (for a week)
chat/tell/mail server down (for most of a week)
code six versions behind Live
no bonus xp
no "combat upgrade" plaques
late respec for noncombatants

and more recently...

all vendors/bazaar completely shut down (market not available)
respec cut off prematurely
shutdown of TC, replacement with TC-Bria


I encourage you all to head over to TC-Bria and test the new changes. I don't know that I'll be spending much time there, myself... "blue frogs" can't provide one of the most important testing tools: a community. I'm more than a little tired of spending time and effort on nonpersistant servers.

grinding to novice BioE right now... there are problems with local stability (client CTD's) near the frogs.

you Bria people have some really bizarre ideas about resource and item values on the bazaar.

I'll be updating this thread as I can, and I'll be moving it on and off the sticky list as it is updated.

when there isn't anything to say, it'll drop. when there IS news, either personal announcements or otherwise, it'll float.

servers are down.

a new publish is upon us.

memorial day weekend is rapidly approaching.

to the first item: keep your chins up. the devs are working on restoring the servers.

the second?: I've gathered what information I could concerning the changes to the profession (specifically cloning and DNA) and stickied the post.

the third: I work, as noted above, thurs-sunday. the holiday requires me to work monday as well. in exchange, I'll be off on thursday next week. whether or not you've noticed, I spend about five hours after work on the forums (and, when I can, ingame). I also spend a few hours BEFORE work on the forums.

I'm still on the job. my most productive time will always be on my days off work, but I'm still doing everything I can... WHEN I can... to keep this forum, and the game overall, running. my own contributions will never fix anything on their own... I'm not a dev, and their job isn't one I envy.

good luck to us all. there's a lot of material to read and understand with the CU and p17 changes, even if the servers aren't online right now.