Development Cycle Archive

OH another thing camoflagu would be kewl too. I'm not just talking about some bs mask scent but camo that really works thats not just for looks. cause that would maek it really interesting when energy starts flying in a faction battle also what about having overt static citys (bestine anchor head) become capturable that would be really interesting then that could relate into the whole civil war thing that there trying to make bigger and better

OOO one more thing dont mean to flood the message board but be able to cuff someone like on a new hope when luke trys the handcuffs on chewy that could be really helpfull

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WolfwoodCross wrote:

We have Quests and we have Missions. Let me introduce you to my idea - the Saga.

Once the combat revamp and GCW revamp take place, and we have a quality multiplayer war/economy going (I have faith), it's time to introduce new content.

The idea of the Saga comes from the idea that even in a MMORPG, sometimes solo-play is simply fun. A Saga would be a single player quest with a deep and immersive storyline, that has the player hopping from planet to planet to complete objectives to further the story.

Since the Galaxy and Graphics Engine already exist, DEVs can now focus on adding various and colorful characters to the Universe for the sake of Story. Sagas will have players jumping from planet to planet, exploring dungeons and vast wilderness, and fighting fierce adversaries, all for a purpose. These Sagas would offer hours of quality story-based gameplay, and give further reason for players to explore the Galaxy. Content such as this would make Star Wars Galaxies the Star Wars game to end all Star Wars games - an updateable MMORPG with Sagas offering the content of full-fledged Single-Player RPGs, a full fledged multi-player War, immersive social interactivity, and more!

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Possibly the most constructive post ever to grace the boards. Devs, look, you're in deep trouble. Everyone with half a brain realizes that SWG is not a very good game. Sure, the game looks great. But there's nothing worth doing in the game. There is no purpose. There is no epic Star Wars feel to the game. New "dungeons" (please choose a better word, this isn't EQ), new content, and new locations are great. But Star Wars is not a static universe.

The game, as it stands now, is what it should have been coming out of Beta. Whether you want to admit it or not, SWG is essentially still in Beta. And it irks me that I've been paying for a Beta version of a game for nine months (fortunately, my account runs out in 29 days).

The player base is offering more suggestions than the Devs themselves, ergo the Devs have no vision for how they want this game to go. Some seriously lacking aspects of this game:

1. Stability-this game is riddled with bugs, glitches, and CTD flashpoints. Most MMO's are essentially bug-free nine months post-launch.

2. Immersion-this game has failed to highlight the aspects that make Star Wars so powerful. Big name NPCs are always in the same place, NPC's generally stand around, cities are erratic and not nearly as big as they should be, POIs such as the "Hidden" Rebel Base on Corellia and Rebel Outpost on Rori are available for all PCs to venture to or see, Imperial presence and power is not nearly enough to discourage Overt Rebel activity, worlds such as Endor and Dathomir and Yavin are available for travel (and they shouldn't be during this era--only Imperials, albeit high-ranking Imperials should be able to visit these worlds), there are no saga or quest-based stories, and there's a severe lack of random battles.

3. Depth-this game has failed to bring into play the vastness of the Star Wars Galaxy. The very notion that only a dozen or so pistols exist is blasphemy in the highest order. There should easily be over a thousand pistols. The same applies for other weapons. Top that off with the fact that general equipment seems to be completely devoid. Where are the comlinks, code cylinders, electrobinoculars, macrobinoculars, glow rods, power packs, breath masks, and med pacs? That combined with the general lack of established Star Wars sites is also blasphemy. Where are the casinos, night clubs, tap cafes, police stations, Imperial garrisons, information centers, banks (the ones in the game now are dumb....and dumb is the only word that describes them), urban shops, swoop tracks, shock-ball stadiums (especially on Corellia and Talus!), corporate office towers (anyone for Kuat Drive Yards, Corellian Engineering Corporation, BlasTech, Sienar Fleet Systems, and Industrial Automaton), and of course universities (particularly on Naboo, Corellia, and Talus).

There's some really basic things that need to occur for this game to be playable for any extended length of time:

1. Increase Character Advacement Difficulty (adding additional skill lines to every profession and more skill points for every player is essential for this--I would recommend ditching the skill-based system altogether in favor of a level-system, but that'd be too easy, eh?)

2. Increase Weapons, Equipment, and Armor (adding thousands of weapons, gear, and armoris a must if this game is to survive. Check out the D20 and D6 RPG for loads of official material spanning the enire Star Wars saga. I can list off a hundred weapons right now that this game doesn't have in it.)

3. Give Functionality to Droids (Star Wars isn't limited to a dozen droids. As I stated above, check out the D20 and D6 RPGs for thousands of fully functional and useful droids. Species and profession based droids is an easy addition to the game.)

4. Nuke the Player Cities (look, player cities are ruining the game. While, initially I was in favor of them, there are far too many of them. In turn, they've decreased the scope of the planets they're on and have caused all major cities to become ghost towns. I'm in favor of limiting a certain number of player cities per planet and per server).

Examples of above ideas:

Added Weapons: Species Based

-Zhaboka (Iridonian Double-Bladed Fighting Pike): Native weapon of the Zabraks, and perfect for Pikeman of the Zabrak species. Source, pg. 195 (Ultimate Alien Anthology)

I have an Idea that might be interesting.

Have factional characters be able to show rank. It could be put along the lines of the (HELPER), (LFG), ect.....

Only show it on Overt characters and have it be disabled during covert. This way when in a factional fight we can have some sort of rank structure. Or just for grins about it.

Johro Klpor

The ability to have greater interaction with NPC's would be great. Why are we always limited to fighting and receiving training? So much time is invested into the game mechanics of combat that it seems all other types of interaction are forbidden. The recent addition of harrasment by NPC's has been cool, but let's not stop there.

For example, why not be able to heal NPC's? During the escort missions for the rebel theme park our NPC gets hurt all the time. Healing? Is that so bad? Also, it would be much more worthwhile for medics to hang out in the med center if they had random NPC customers come in. They could walk in and have different temperments, nice, impatient, etc.

Another interaction is image design. How about a mission terminal to find an NPC and ID on them? The NPC would spawn just for the mission and de-pop after it's complete like lairs.

Players can be creature handlers and get exp off animals. Squad leaders should get exp off humaniods. The SL could become a drill sergeant at a rebel/imperial/Michigan militia base and train the NPC's. SL should have followers too, but I think that is a discussion for another board.

I guess what I am really getting at is the approach toward who gets exp off NPC interaction and who does not seems very traditional. It seems it starts from combat alone and then works in small little streams from there, without much consideration for new approaches. I could be missing the big picture, but most professions are so easy to solo, while a few are very difficult to do alone (like ID and SL). The disadvantage for them is seems very high.

Thanks.

* Socket Management - Ability to add/remove SEA's and Armor
Attachments. This is so people can take their SEA's with
them when armor is fully worn out or have decided to wear
a different style of clothing or armor.

* All armor with fully customizable protection.
This is so people can express themselves by making their
character look the way they want. Make all armor have the
ability to have any special protection through layers (but
only one special) and base stats may increased via experimentation.
If someone wants Mabari with 80% Kinetic and 50% Base it will
actually be possible. It will be impossible to know what a person's
protections are prior to engaging in PvP just by looking at what
they're wearing.

* Introduce new armor types with several variations on existing armor.
Don't make all new armor "quest only" items ala RIS and Mandalorian.
An armorsmith's quest for a lifetime useable schematic which requires
no "special" resources other than normally harvestable kind would be
fine.

* Imperial Base with Lambda Shuttle a selectable faction perk for
placement.

* Reinforced Imperial Stormtrooper Armor Schematic faction perk
instead of purchasable pieces (fully customizable stats ala composite)

* Manufacturable walls for player cities. Player cities in general
look very "spread out" and bland. Mainly because there is no enclosure
anywhere. Placeable walkways or semi paved areas might alleviate this.

* Walled personal houses ala random spawn on Tatooine. Just modifying the
Tat PA Hall would be enough, but there needs to be more variation on houses
externally.

* Ability to place unuseable structures that you would see at Lars Homestead, Darklighter residence, and the slave quarters from Bestine.
This is to customize your personal homestead or allow more variation
in player cities.

* Be more lenient about placing houses and harvesters.
If there are ditches that will be rubbing the side of your house let
them be filled in. Allow landscape to reform according to wear you place
your house.

* Lower the cost of faction perks. Split the costs in half across the board.

* Have a wider selection of ranged weapons. More Carbines, Pistols, and
Rifles. Different types of LLC's would be nice. Don't make a bunch of
quest schematics. Add these to the armorsmith template.

* We know dual-wield is coming for pistoleer, but also added it to the
"Bounty Hunter Pistols IV" box.

* A placeable "shop". Not just a merchant tent. LCD screens,
lit signs, etc. Might have a showroom inside.

* 1 new mount and 1 new vehicle per publish.
The black speeder Darth Maul used in episode I would be a good start.

* The creation of a "mega dungeon", underground caverns which are so huge
you kind of get freaked knowing you are so far away from safety and open ground.
So huge and so many different paths that people will actually need to map it on paper. Think the underworld in Ultima V or the Underdark in AD&D. Place it on a least-used planet like Yavin or Endor.

* Don't steer the game to group-only involvement. There are a lot of solo players out
there (by choice or by lifestyle). Some things (like the corellian corvette and geonosian
dungeon) cannot be solo'd. The idea that the corvette is created on demand is great, but it should also be created based on your party size, and party strength. If you decide to solo it it will be possible as it is tailored to your skills and weapons.

*humanoid npc's should not have 150k+ ham ala nightsisters and the new tuskens.
They should hit hard and fast to compensate. Let's keep things somewhat realistic
and have normal humanoid ham. Anything worth solo'ing is impossible to solo.

* kill the harvesting group notifications (it's not looting, it's harvesting).

* More character races. Walk into Mos Eisley cantina and there's a ton of aliens
that would be great to play and add diversity to the landscape.

* Raise the limit on items you can have in your house. Some of us like to decorate and collect things. If it requires the maintenance costs to go up then so be it.

* Make relevent furniture containers (i.e. chests, armoires, etc). They should be allowed
to be opened and hold as many items as a bank box.

* Lower the maintenance costs of speeders. It's way too expensive. Divide by 10 and it would be spot on.

* To stop AFK looters (i.e. Borgle Batcaves), make it so that when double clicking the crate you get an image of a code etched into the box and a keypad. You then have to press the keypad numbers to open the crate. Also, this will allow EACH person to get a looting right for their own "instance" of a crate. One crate can be looted by 5 people and each get their random loot.

* Decrease the lot requirement for each and every factional base.

* Jedi bounty loot: "The lightsaber of blahblahblah" (obviously unuseable)

* PvP Loot: "The ear of blahblahblah"

Also, I'd like to see the stance of a player holding a carbine/rifle to be adjusted.
Currently (at least on a human) the characters head looks upwards.
When a pistol is equipped they look forward (which looks way better IMO).

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Niamb wrote:

Get Rid of Non-consensual PvP.

I started the game intending to be a neutral, but found the game was designed so that I had to declare to be able to take part in the story arcs and the faction aligned dungeons. It is enough I was forced to declare a faction to partake much of the content of the game. I should not be fored into PvP against my will. Please take non-consentual PvP out of the game and that includes getting a TEF for inadvertently healing someone who was overt or has a TEF. Going overt or getting a TEF is not something one should not be able to do accidentally.

We put a lot of effort into planning and staging our guild events and I am tired of having them ruined due to poor game design.

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I agree 100%.