Business And Economy Archive

REASON FOR THE POST

The issues below are hosted in this forum as it is not a feature that belongs to any specific profession. There is no forum for a change of this type and thus we are not represented by a 'correspondent' on these issues. I was incorrect with this information and hope that KStarfire won't hold a grudge. My hope is that the community discuss viable options that we could possibly take to the development team as ideas to improve the game - now this may or may not happen but its always good to get peoples views on this. Together and only together we can activley help together to improve the game.

THE ISSUES

Question 1) Have you ever spent hours having to move components manually one by one from a factory to a backpack back to a factory - taking account of server lag and accidentally double clicking and removing an item from a crate?

Question 2) Ever wanted to select a load of items and say sell each one at 14999 credits each?

Question 3) Ever wanted to simply select all expired auctions and relist them at the same price and descriptions? (Merchant Issue)

THE OPTIONS?

1.Allow easier moving of items by enabling any of the following:

a) Drag Box - Create a drag box facility to enable the user to click and drag a box over a number of items in his inventory, thus selecting all within - then allow people to 'drag' this grouped box into a factory or container (backpack etc.)

b) CTRL+Left Click - A common facility used by many programs these days is to hold down control and left click each item to select them all in a 'group'. These can then be 'dragged' into a factory or container.

c) SHIFT + Left Click - Select first item, shift+click on the last item and all in between are selected and allowed to be dragged.

2.Add a function to relist expired auctions:

a) Restock Failed (Merchant Issue) - Probably a highlighted issue on the merchant's forum this but it can't hurt to have on this too - Add button to restock item's at the same price with the same descriptions. (More info in appendix).

BENEFITS/FLAWS OF THE OPTIONS?

The purpose of this thread is to collate ideas on the issues above and find possible solutions that would not benefit everyone in the game's gameplay.

Benefits

a) Faster Stocking of Vendors - This will enable people to spend a little more time actually doing something other that mindless clicking - it may also inspire more people to activley trade in the game and not have empty vendors.

b) Manufacturing Process Better - Speaks for itself... what is the point of spending up to 7 hours moving components from factory to factory - its not fun - its a game - and should be fun.

c) Faster Inventory Management - Everyone hates having to organise their inventory - having the ability to move everything much faster will provide more enjoyment for people.

Flaws/Potential downsides

To be discussed

WHAT'S THE NEXT STAGE?

Everyone please add your comments and lets discuss this on this post.

The comments should be in tune with the above issues but any non-proffession specific ideas are most welcome and I'll add to the list!

With everyone working together I am confident we can come up with some superb ideas for the game.

Remember these are just my ideas - they might not be the best out there so YOUR comments are valuble to this - please add to the thread and i'll update the main post with your ideas!

Appendix X1. Spin-off Ideas

This little section is for ideas not necessarily in line with the original issues but are great ideas none the less. Wherever possible I will try and send these to the correspondents that they relate to. Where the ideas are not proffession specific I will clearly mark them as so:

Increase of factory storage (Not Profession Specific)

Yes totally agree with this one. Huge annoyance for me this not being able to make a full run (1000 units) in one factory as many many schematics use 120 crates of components which wont fit into the 100 item limit factories.

Pros:

Less lots used on factories to create the same stuff.

Less hassle having to split and potentially wasting components & resource.

Cons:

People might start placing loads of factories as simple storage dumps -

Possible solution 1: Only allow those materials in the inserted schematic to be placed in the input hopper of a factory.

A downside to this posted by the chef correspondent is "what happens to stuff in the input hopper when the schematic is changed? Do the "invalid" items get dumped into the character's inventory (leading to possible character overload), or do they remain (allowing people to work around the restriction by having 'junk' schematics used strictly for putting things into the input hopper)?"

Possible solution 2: Increase the crate sizes for products as well as components.

Change the Powerups Schematics (Artisan)

All of these schematics are very random into what they actually produce. Some will be max damage, others reduced mind etc - for something that sells so cheaply and is almost outweighed by the cost the schematics should be changed to help get the desired result within a couple of crafts rather than 10's of crafts. How? My suggestion is 'split' the schematics and create new ones like 'Melee Powerup - Mind Reduce' and 'Melee Powerup - Max Damage'. This will enable crafters not to have to spend, what could be, a long time crafting the same item over and over again to get the correct 'type' of powerup and then potentially get a bad roll on the experimentation.

Item Sheet Showing Contents of Houses

Interesting idea - would certainly help with keeping stocks and tabs on your proffessions. With the number of items logged in the house already, would this be feasible?

Final Note: Please do NOT /sign this post - it is no longer a petition and /signing is not going to help contribute anything - thanks

Thanks for reading.

Curry

Message Edited by Suarve on 02-22-2005 07:18 PM

Message Edited by Suarve on 02-22-2005 10:51 PM

---

DaCaptainMorgan wrote:

good ideas, get it in front of the correspondent

---

There is no correspondent - this is not proffesion specific - ..... although the vendor issue with restocking failed is merchant - i'll bring that up with him/her.

Its nice that people post to agree also but I don't want this post to turn out like the previous and be seen to be a petition as this is not its purpose

Thanks guys & gals

Curry

---

sciguyCO wrote:

Figured I'd stop by to comment on a post you had in your "Silence of the Lambs" thread. Yes,I know you renamed it, I just found the original title amusing.

---

Unfortunatley there is no clear 'correspondent' for this change thus no way to get it to the development team which was stated in my thread.

---

KStarfire is the "Star Wars" correspondant, and that position has generally also been a "catch all" spot, since the SW correspondant has historically made his/her home in the "Core Systems" forum. Also, while we have our areas of expertise/responsibility, we're not restricted to just that area (although we do try to keep from stepping on other correspondant's toes). I've included multi-selecting items in my list of Chef issues, for example, since chefs do tend to work with large factory runs including multiple subcomponents.

This discussion thread might actually work better in the "Core Systems" forum, since that's more the place for UI issues.

/moving on to actually discussing the post

With the addition of a "UI team", I'm hoping that multi-select is getting closer to being implemented. It's been something that's been asked for a lot, with a lot of your same arguments.

Regarding the "spin off" ideas:

Factory storage: The "factory as warehouse" issue is a big one. Your idea of only allowing ingredient for the currently loaded schematic is creative, but that might have some technical hurdles. For example, what happens to stuff in the input hopper when the schematic is changed? Do the "invalid" items get dumped into the character's inventory (leading to possible character overload), or do they remain (allowing people to work around the restriction by having 'junk' schematics used strictly for putting things into the input hopper)?

An easier solution (and one that has also been suggested a lot) might be simply to increase the crate size of components. Architects would be helped a lot by this, since one of their common components (Ore mining units) don't crate at all.

Generic Chef subcomponents: This is another thing I've brought to the devs in my list of chef issues. But in my personal opinion I think it is one of those things that makes things a bit too easy. Players like things to be simple, it makes their lives easier. But challenges aren't necessarily a bad thing. With just a bit of advance planning, "wastage" of components can definitely be minimized. And even if you do end up with a crate or two of dough left over, it's not really the end of the world. Food components have very short factory times, and can be made from cheap components, so if you do decide to just destroy them, it's no great loss. Personally, I use leftover components to hand-make single stacks for either personal use or to put up on the bazaar for advertising purposes.

---

Great stuff sciguyCO this is exactly what we are after. And most humble apoligies to KStarfire, I had no idea I still beleive there is some merit in hosting such a thread to capture a wanted list like many of the proffessions forums host.

As for the ideas with the issues - i'll add them to the main thread.

Again thanks for the comments.

Curry