Chef Archive
Thread: 19 Questions part III: Revenge of the cookie dough
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sciguyCO
Wed May 26, 2004 6:07 pm
#1
Ok, TH is back on track with his 19 questions. Group #2 (the combat classes) will be answered next week, which puts us back in his sights for the week of June 9th.
So, what do you want to know?
For previously suggested questions (and some of the answers we've recieved) check the "Questions for Devs" sticky thread here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=chef&message.id=36596
Sometime in the middle of next week, I'll narrow down to what appear to be the top 5 or so questions, and we can determine which one to submit.
Dsabre
Thu May 27, 2004 3:32 am
#4
they are indeed...its in a thread in their profession forum...still on the first page
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=weaponsmith&message.id=46523
you'll have to read through a few pages to get to the parts about drink containers tho...but yes they at least were griping about the whole serial numbers don't matter on casks for a bit...one of them even stated that the chefs that were doing this were just as bad as the ws's that used the serialess geo cubes...granted thats only 1...but still, it isn't the only thread on the WS board about this particular problem...and the less informed will react very badly to anyone requesting anything like what got several ws's banned.
as for asking for an eta on new schematics...that'll get the standard "after publish x" reply...but if you add in the parts about how the promised we would be getting the lost schematics back...(mandolorian wine is completely new so doesn't fall under this category) then add in that the "lost schematics" already have art...and the fact that there are a number of good suggestions that they could just pick a few from...probably wouldn't take more than 2 days to get 5 or 6 schematics ready for TC use...
coming from a MUD type background...the idea for something is 10x harder to come up with than the actual code. if the idea is good, and not game breaking...and everything you need for it already exists...it typically takes only as long as it would for a programmer to type in the new code. the chef community has come up with a number of good ideas...all the devs have to do is pick a few and assign some number values (some of the ideas even provide these).
either that or maybe ask about the status of "we will consider tweaking the foods after they hit live" bit that was released to the chef community via SirVimes...who also stated that the devs had "lowballed" most of the foods/drinks so that any changes would be seen as improvements...not nerfs...several publishes (if you want to count mini publishes as well...umm thats actually a lot of publishes) later and the underpowered foods/drinks...are still underpowered and useless. if the devs can't tell by sales metrics which foods/drinks are utterly useless..perhaps submitting a list of such foods/drinks would help.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=weaponsmith&message.id=46523
you'll have to read through a few pages to get to the parts about drink containers tho...but yes they at least were griping about the whole serial numbers don't matter on casks for a bit...one of them even stated that the chefs that were doing this were just as bad as the ws's that used the serialess geo cubes...granted thats only 1...but still, it isn't the only thread on the WS board about this particular problem...and the less informed will react very badly to anyone requesting anything like what got several ws's banned.
as for asking for an eta on new schematics...that'll get the standard "after publish x" reply...but if you add in the parts about how the promised we would be getting the lost schematics back...(mandolorian wine is completely new so doesn't fall under this category) then add in that the "lost schematics" already have art...and the fact that there are a number of good suggestions that they could just pick a few from...probably wouldn't take more than 2 days to get 5 or 6 schematics ready for TC use...
coming from a MUD type background...the idea for something is 10x harder to come up with than the actual code. if the idea is good, and not game breaking...and everything you need for it already exists...it typically takes only as long as it would for a programmer to type in the new code. the chef community has come up with a number of good ideas...all the devs have to do is pick a few and assign some number values (some of the ideas even provide these).
either that or maybe ask about the status of "we will consider tweaking the foods after they hit live" bit that was released to the chef community via SirVimes...who also stated that the devs had "lowballed" most of the foods/drinks so that any changes would be seen as improvements...not nerfs...several publishes (if you want to count mini publishes as well...umm thats actually a lot of publishes) later and the underpowered foods/drinks...are still underpowered and useless. if the devs can't tell by sales metrics which foods/drinks are utterly useless..perhaps submitting a list of such foods/drinks would help.
Groid
Thu May 27, 2004 9:29 am
#5
Ive been a master chef forever, since before mounts, before bikes, before heavy harvesters exceeding extraction rate of 7. In this time I have seen many changes, most good, some not as good. My question is a simple one.
Is the necessity of serial numbers on all components really needed? Why must I be limited on some factory runs simply due to the quantity of a component I can make? I enjoy the fact that I can make drink containers, and just use them as needed. I would like to be able to do that with alchohol, butter, dough, etc, etc.
Mokianna
bria server
Dsabre
Thu May 27, 2004 12:08 pm
#6
in all honesty, I would simply have to go with the new schematics request/demand type of question.
reasons for this being:
1) architects got shot down sharply and harshly when asking about larger stack sizes, and larges crate sizes on subcomponents.
2) the ws's are in a huge fight over serialess geo loot...particularly regarding scythes, and while this does not directly relate to chefs, they have voiced some disgust over drink containers not mattering what the serial is, but serialess cube use is a bannable offense. not that this is a bad thing to pursue...just not as the next question...
3) any major type of change request was met with the "wait till the combat rebalance" or "wait till the GCW publish"
4) the devs owe us these new schematics...1 in the past 2 publishes is trivial especially given the insane difficulty/lag of the DWB atm.
5) questions about new items have been pushed aside due to "art restrictions". as many people who still have the old items which are no longer makeable can attest to...they have art to go with them...and in many cases its art that isn't even used by current food/drink.
sure we have lots more useful schematics...but mostly it comes down to a similar situation...a few items in heavy demand with the rest being more or less special order, or things you only need to make a 1/2 run of every couple of weeks or months.
we could ask for experimentation back for subcomps...but will likely get the "wait till after the combat revamp" or "wait till after the GCW revamp" type of response. with so many questions simply being shot down with "working as intended" or "wait till later" type of responses...it may not even matter what is asked.
making a new schematic...or a bunch of new ones based on ideas suggested in one of the stickies wouldn't take very long...its very likely that mandolorian wine comes directly from one of those suggestions...exact clone of BoH but for the regen stats...and it probably was slipped in "last minute" as TC wasn't the first server to report it...nor was it listed as a reward along with the other schematics when the death watch info was first released.
hmmm long rant going on...but the only other question I can think of would be this:
"every other profession has had a heads up when they were receiving a new schematic, or bug fix. the sole exception for this has been the chef profession. for those that remember how the first few major chef bugs were fixed/ignored/handled, and most recently with the addition of a new schematic from the death watch bunker. chefs also received less direct developer interaction than any other profession during our revemp, and while some of that may be due to the exemplary work of the former correspondent SirVimes, it nonetheless does not set a good precedent as he was not allowed to reveal much of anything. what if any is the reason for this utter lack of communication/information flow regarding new chef content or bug fixes."
reasons for this being:
1) architects got shot down sharply and harshly when asking about larger stack sizes, and larges crate sizes on subcomponents.
2) the ws's are in a huge fight over serialess geo loot...particularly regarding scythes, and while this does not directly relate to chefs, they have voiced some disgust over drink containers not mattering what the serial is, but serialess cube use is a bannable offense. not that this is a bad thing to pursue...just not as the next question...
3) any major type of change request was met with the "wait till the combat rebalance" or "wait till the GCW publish"
4) the devs owe us these new schematics...1 in the past 2 publishes is trivial especially given the insane difficulty/lag of the DWB atm.
5) questions about new items have been pushed aside due to "art restrictions". as many people who still have the old items which are no longer makeable can attest to...they have art to go with them...and in many cases its art that isn't even used by current food/drink.
sure we have lots more useful schematics...but mostly it comes down to a similar situation...a few items in heavy demand with the rest being more or less special order, or things you only need to make a 1/2 run of every couple of weeks or months.
we could ask for experimentation back for subcomps...but will likely get the "wait till after the combat revamp" or "wait till after the GCW revamp" type of response. with so many questions simply being shot down with "working as intended" or "wait till later" type of responses...it may not even matter what is asked.
making a new schematic...or a bunch of new ones based on ideas suggested in one of the stickies wouldn't take very long...its very likely that mandolorian wine comes directly from one of those suggestions...exact clone of BoH but for the regen stats...and it probably was slipped in "last minute" as TC wasn't the first server to report it...nor was it listed as a reward along with the other schematics when the death watch info was first released.
hmmm long rant going on...but the only other question I can think of would be this:
"every other profession has had a heads up when they were receiving a new schematic, or bug fix. the sole exception for this has been the chef profession. for those that remember how the first few major chef bugs were fixed/ignored/handled, and most recently with the addition of a new schematic from the death watch bunker. chefs also received less direct developer interaction than any other profession during our revemp, and while some of that may be due to the exemplary work of the former correspondent SirVimes, it nonetheless does not set a good precedent as he was not allowed to reveal much of anything. what if any is the reason for this utter lack of communication/information flow regarding new chef content or bug fixes."
sciguyCO
Thu May 27, 2004 12:43 pm
#7
Good points, Dsabre. Plus, I like the look of your question.
Ok, a couple guidelines for question suggestions:
1) Any request for new stuff is 99% likely to get the answer "A possibility after the GCW revamp/Combat Balance/Jump to Lightspeed" (basically look at the answer the Dancers got in the last batch). Not because our food is dependent on those systems, but because those areas are where the majority of the development time is being spent.
2) Questions on timeline for bug fixes are probably 75% likely to get the same answer as #1. However, the question can be posed simply to emphasize the importance of the bug (above and beyond the top issues list).
3) Any question where the answer would be some hard number currently hidden by the system (how much a +10 port actually helps your experimentation odds, the inner workings of the crafting system) won't get answered with hard numbers.
Those don't mean that we can't ask something that "breaks" one of those rules, I'm just trying to set some expectations about the answers we'd be likely to get back.
[hijack]
Are weaponsmiths really comparing serialless geo components with glasses and casks? I'd think the difference between a looted component intended for rare, uber items and a system that is basically a copy of the architect's ability to use "similar" wall modules would be pretty self-evident. We put in a component with a serial number, the schematic has the serial "blanked out", allowing any serial number to work for that component slot. They start with an unserialed component (pretty obviously a bug, since serials are getting stamped on after a server reset) allowing them to bypass schematic limits. Can any architects (current or past) verify if the handling of containers in schematics is the same as how wall modules are handled?
Ok, a couple guidelines for question suggestions:
1) Any request for new stuff is 99% likely to get the answer "A possibility after the GCW revamp/Combat Balance/Jump to Lightspeed" (basically look at the answer the Dancers got in the last batch). Not because our food is dependent on those systems, but because those areas are where the majority of the development time is being spent.
2) Questions on timeline for bug fixes are probably 75% likely to get the same answer as #1. However, the question can be posed simply to emphasize the importance of the bug (above and beyond the top issues list).
3) Any question where the answer would be some hard number currently hidden by the system (how much a +10 port actually helps your experimentation odds, the inner workings of the crafting system) won't get answered with hard numbers.
Those don't mean that we can't ask something that "breaks" one of those rules, I'm just trying to set some expectations about the answers we'd be likely to get back.
[hijack]
Are weaponsmiths really comparing serialless geo components with glasses and casks? I'd think the difference between a looted component intended for rare, uber items and a system that is basically a copy of the architect's ability to use "similar" wall modules would be pretty self-evident. We put in a component with a serial number, the schematic has the serial "blanked out", allowing any serial number to work for that component slot. They start with an unserialed component (pretty obviously a bug, since serials are getting stamped on after a server reset) allowing them to bypass schematic limits. Can any architects (current or past) verify if the handling of containers in schematics is the same as how wall modules are handled?
Although looking through that thread, I guess only a "red name" will do...
/sigh
svin
Thu May 27, 2004 1:08 pm
#8
I agree fully. I hate it that I can't use any dough (that is not experimented on anyways)
CJadefire
Thu May 27, 2004 9:49 pm
#9
Agreed, and sorry to wander OT - it's a no-brainer that unexperimentable components should not have serial numbers. I consider dough et al. to be the aberrations, not the casks. I sincerely hope they don't intend to make crafting and factories less fun than it already is... I can't fathom why weaponsmiths would be complaining about this, and I wouldn't even remotely consider it an exploit.
Ankor
Thu May 27, 2004 10:51 pm
#10
I rather see the previously-threatened collective revolt of the crafting classes than a Chef-specific question.
I'd like to see TH give an honest and detailed answer why we can't see subcomponent crates sizes moved up to 100 (or higher) and why we can't have non-serialed subcomponents (like Casks are).
When this question was asked by the Archys this round TH evaded it, made the seemingly contradictory statements "that is not going to change" and "The team will be meeting to see what is possible", and spent most of his "answer" on a non-sequitor about how 1000 count factory runs came about. He even went so far as to suggest the game would be better off with the 100 count limit, and I can't imagine any greater proof that the Devs are completely out of touch than the suggestion that the game would be better off if we were unable to make more than one full crate of Brandy at a time. Can you imagine?
I'd like to see TH give an honest and detailed answer why we can't see subcomponent crates sizes moved up to 100 (or higher) and why we can't have non-serialed subcomponents (like Casks are).
When this question was asked by the Archys this round TH evaded it, made the seemingly contradictory statements "that is not going to change" and "The team will be meeting to see what is possible", and spent most of his "answer" on a non-sequitor about how 1000 count factory runs came about. He even went so far as to suggest the game would be better off with the 100 count limit, and I can't imagine any greater proof that the Devs are completely out of touch than the suggestion that the game would be better off if we were unable to make more than one full crate of Brandy at a time. Can you imagine?
CJadefire
Fri May 28, 2004 9:14 am
#11
The problem with the 'questions', like Dsabre and Ankor hinted at, is that there's little point to them, and the devs know it, that's why they let us ask. 95% of the questions we want answers to, we already know they'll blow off, ignore, or be vague or flat out incorrect about, we all admit it! There's just almost nothing we want -answered- and a zillion things we want -fixed- or at least ETAs for fixes, so what's the point. And the cask/serial-numbers thing? I'm afraid if you ask it, they'll take the 2 minutes it would take to fix the stomach decay bug or barrel bug, and use it to instead break cask serials. Gah!
Dsabre
Fri May 28, 2004 11:48 am
#12
CJadefire wrote:
The problem with the 'questions', like Dsabre and Ankor hinted at, is that there's little point to them, and the devs know it, that's why they let us ask. 95% of the questions we want answers to, we already know they'll blow off, ignore, or be vague or flat out incorrect about, we all admit it! There's just almost nothing we want -answered- and a zillion things we want -fixed- or at least ETAs for fixes, so what's the point. And the cask/serial-numbers thing? I'm afraid if you ask it, they'll take the 2 minutes it would take to fix the stomach decay bug or barrel bug, and use it to instead break cask serials. Gah!
which is why you don't want to ask about "can you fix this" or "can we have this"...that'll just get the same run around answers everyone has been getting.
personally I feel that making the devs explain why something is...is the only type of question that should be asked for now. look at our answer (quite detailed and helpful) as opposed to the dancer, armorsmith, entertainer, etc. answers...either the short and brief "wait till later" answer, or the long run around "wait till later" answer...either way it means not till after JTL (even tho they've said that JTL had a seperate dev team and that it wouldn't take devs away from the core game...big surprise that this is entirely untrue by they're own admission..."The developer who developed the city system is on the JTL team"...politician answer)
they've already shown that any other type of question gets the "wait till later...stop bothering us" type of answer...with the exception of the tailor necklace bug...but hey that one was supposed to have been fixed 7 or 8 publishes ago.
simply put...don't ask them if we can have new stuff, or have stuff fixed...ask them to explain something they did. maybe thats what they intended the 19 questions to be for...but if so...they're more naive than almost anyone else I've ever known. theres sooooooooo many bugs, or problems with the way some things are working that given the chance...hardly anyone is going to take that chance to ask "why did you do this" as opposed to "can this be fixed", or "can we have this".
SaarK5
Sat May 29, 2004 9:08 am
#13
I think asking about new schematics would be nice. We were told in the revamp that there were more in the pipeline, we should ask how many are already designed and awaiting implementation. With all the love WS and AS have been getting, we should also stress that there are other professions wanting to have more products to sell to their customers.
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