Development Cycle Archive

I haven't read all pages so far, but by just reading the first page I've noticed people are already starting off on the wrong foot. The title of the post wasn't "Path to the Jedi" it's "Path of the Jedi", meaning the quests are for Force Sensitive characters, not those seeking the FSCS.

Please come up with ideas that Jedi can do to gain levels, experience, items, titles, etc... Keep in mind that Jedi don't get apprentice points (am I wrong?), so instead of turning in 620 app. pts. to a trainer, they may have to pass a "test" in order to advance.

If this has been pointed out, I apologize, but please understand the request is for ideas that can be used for and by Jedis, not tailors, dancers, bounty hunters, scouts, doctors, or architects.

My thoughts:

A jedi is a combat class, with minor abilities in other areas. Yet, a jedi is also a thinking class, you must be strong of mind, spirit, emotion, as well as body.

Bah you're right DarthClaimoreI was so excited about the idea developers would listen what we have to say about how to become a jedi... going back to patience mode.

Wow, there are a lot of posts on this topic. Not a big surprise, really. Anyway, I've been playing SWG since day 1 (well, day 2 actually...) and I am one of the more casual players who is interested in playing a Jedi character in addition to my main.

I began the path of the holocrons after the holiday holos were distributed (because I was a crafter/explorer and was therefore not strong enough in combat to get holos on my own and not rich enough to buy them) but stopped following that path because there was little chance of completing the task before the changes went it.

I'm sure these points have been made before in this thread, but I would like to list them together in one place as points made from a long-time casual player...

1) The quest should be long and quite involved. Involved quests are fun, though the quests would have to be made keeping the rest of these points in mind.

2) It should NOT involve random rare spawns or random rare loot. Though these are ways of making the quest harder and take more time, it does not make the quest available to everyone, and though the time frame of the game says Jedi are rare, this is a game. Is has been stated in the past that everyone, casual and hardcore, would have an equal shot at playing a Jedi.

3) A player should be able to complete the entire quest solo. Though this is a social game, gathering a group to help you takes time some do not have.

4) There should be no time limits involved in completing any part of the quest. If a series of events takes several hours to complete, it may have to be done over several days by players with less time online in one session. On the other hand, there could be limits on how much progress you can achieve. One quest per day. Finish a quest and the next becomes available 3 days later, etc. Ex: Finish a quest and the NPC says he must research what you've discovered. Three days later, mail arrives telling you to meet the NPC again for the next step.

5) The quests should not require the changing of your character. Time was spent building your character and it should not be torn down to complete the quests.This part is difficult. A crafter wouldn't be able to kill tougher things and a combat character wouldn't be able to create anything. Provisions would have to be made to make the quest one that could be completed by everyone no matter their profession.

6) They should not involve your character acting like a Jedi or seeking his own Force Sensitivity. This is not the Jedi character, so he should not be acting like one. I like the ideas offered earlier that the main character would be researching a Jedi and therefore "discover" the player's Jedi character, thus opening the slot.

7) Over all, make it FUN!

I'm sure there's more I could think up, but these are the main points.

As a summary, make the quest long and take a lot of time, but make it fun and available to everyone. Frustrations included in the path to purposely be frustrating are not fun. Sure, everyonecouldeventually open their FSCS with this method, but not everyone would and not everyone who did would play their Jedi characer, certainly not 100% of the time and everyone's not on at the same time, so to all appearances, Jedi will still be rare.

Thanks for reading.

Renn Jeret
Smuggler
Radiant

actually darth if you read the thread by the dev (thunder)it is all aspects of jedi not only opening it but also progessing in the prof of jedi

Quest-based for your mix of professions is the way I would proceed. It'll take longer to develop probably, but in the end it will get rid of the profession changing. Please for the love of god do not require a change of multiple professions for the FSCS.

"You must unlearn what you have learned"

One of the things that I always liked about the Holocron system, despite all of the grinding it brought about, was the idea that you had to truly sacrafic everything that you were to become a Jedi. Yoda made it clear to Luke in the swamp, the path of the Jedi meant the end of everything else in his life. He never was a starfighter pilot again. He didn't fly in the huge fleets, he didn't get to enjoy zipping around in the greatest fighters... he was a Jedi.

The same is seen when you look across the prior movies. You never see Anakin fixing ships or working on speeders. He's a Jedi and learning what that means (and, given what happens, presumably failing at it). In the expanded universe, it's what prevents Leia from ever adopting that. She was too busy being a politician and a leader to go down that path.

As such, anyone hoping to become a Jedi should have to sacrafice what they do. It shouldn't be a random profession that they grind, and it shouldn't be as simple as Mastering a profession and then dropping it. They should find something, experience it, then give up the skills over time, in conjunction with other quests. Until they are willing to give up something, they will not get what they seek.

"Uncertain is the Future"

More than anything else, I want to see these quests as something dynamic and different, along the lines of what was promised when the game was still in development. I don't want a quest of get A, give to B... that just makes a mess of multi-questing junk exactly like EQ. The quests should reflect the playstyle and the attitude of the person trying to unlock a Jedi. If someone's main character is pretty set in their ways of "blow something up, then ask questions, then blow it up again, and if there's ashes you've done it right," they should not be able to follow that path to unlock a goody-two-shoes Jedi Padawan that's going to heal and protect.

Instead of using the traditional deliver, destroy, escourt, why not branch out and making something unique in the weapons. Utilize the holocrons in having knowledge of the Jedi. Give them bits and pieces of a story, some piece of lore, that a Jedi in hiding is willing to risk taking on a pupil for. For instance, maybe there are 10 holocrons out there that tell the story of the great Jedi, Thunderheart, from a mellinia past, who saved the inhabitants of Forumis 1 from the great flame beast. His stories, and the tactics and disciplines he used in his defense were assembled in the great Jedi Archives. Shortly before the rise of the empire, a Jedi Scholor took that information and used holocrons to store that data. Each holocron holds a piece of that story, and there are many stories to be told, so it could be very hard to get the right ones.

So the inspired young Jedi hopeful gets in their speeder and travels to the Cantina to talk to a smuggler who remembers meeting a pirate once who had a holocron but traded it to a slaver in exchange for his sister who owed some Spice money. So you find the smuggler, then find the pirate, then find the slaver, to find out the slaver was killed by CorSec troopers whose leader took the holocron and gave it to his little girl. His little girl loves the keepsake, but would trade it all for the most beautiful doll in the galaxy. She gives an idea of the things she's looking for in a doll, and the Jedi hopeful sets out to find a tailor. The PC tailor laughs, saying first you'd have to find a design for the doll. Some thugs outside Moenia had just knocked over a toy company convoy that had such a thing.

So you go beat up thugs for a few days and finally found one who had a schematic for the most pristine doll. But you needed beautiful so you keep going. Eventually, someone tells you they have one, and they will sell it for a modest some. After almost choking at their idea of "modest," you get your perfect doll schematic. You take it to the tailor, he gets it, and sees that you need these ingredients. So you go out searching. Some of them must be made by crafters, so you look for the best. Some of them are earned in service, so you serve your little butt off. Some of them are made in protecting the innocent, so you start looking for that lady in distress. Eventually, you get the most beautiful doll in the world, and return to the little girl, and she happily trades you the holocron for the doll.

And you just got the first piece of the story. Or it could have been a piece of the puzzle for the story of Someguy the Jedi, who didn't do much but did commit it all to holocrons. But that may be forsomeone else. Since the story is important, not the holocron itself, you can examine what you need. Hunting down your story is the tough part. Sometimes you may be lucky, sometimes not. Then you have to find who happened to have your luck.

To keep it from getting too insane, tie the stories for say 20 hopefuls together, so they may get theirs, they may get each others. After awhile, the stories may pop up somewhere else, and that story may fade. But I want there to be a lot more purpose and challenge in it than there is now.

Some requests PLEASE:

No randomn spawns PLEASE

No "This thing spawns once a month" PLEASE

Just give us a good quality LONG quest to unlock our slots. Please tell us where to begin the quest so we all know where to go. No-one wants to wander around Lok all day looking for a quest.

Give us something fun. The episode 3 story quest was the best set of quests in this whole game. They weren't the best ever, but they were really fun.

I'm actually a fan of the points system. Having some point scale to have to reach a certain number in order to open your slot. Make the epic quest give you a whole bunch of points, and little things like location badges and traveling, doing quests, interacting in the game gives you a smaller amount of points. This way, everything you do does or doesn't contribute to your unlocking of the FS slot.

Also, as much as I hate the game, the Everquest Epic Weapon quests are a good solution as well. They take a long time, but they're do-able.

Please, whatever you do, if you want to make all of us SWG people happy and continue playing for a long time, tell us what the heck we have to do. The mystery is stupid and not cool. We all just want to have fun, and wandering around aimlessly, not knowing what we're supposed to be doing is not fun.