Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion (Week Ending 2-16-04)
Thunderheart wrote:Vehicles have to autostore, or this happens. [linked to picture of dozens of speeders littering a popular area]
True... but autostore doesn't have to be quite so strict to stop those parking lot situations. I admit, I've not been out on my vehicles much lately... been too busy in my player city, keeping my vendors running for my consignment clients, and taking posession of a Cantina, etc. I imagine it no longer autostores while your riding it, at least.
There is a solution which ought to be fairly simple... add a property to generated vehicles which contains a time/date value. When a vehicle is generated, that time/date is set to the time/date it was generated, and is reset to the current time each time the vehicle is dismounted. Then, when the cleaner function is run (which autostores vehicles) it would check not only to make sure the vehicle is not currently mounted, but that the difference between that new property and the current time is less than a certain amount (15 minutes ought to be good)... then if the vehicle has been dismounted 5 minutes ago and the cleaner function runs (and the player is still battling a lair of whatevers), the vehicle doesn't autostore. However, if it really is an abandoned vehicle, the next time the cleaner function runs (given it's less frequent than every 10 minutes) the difference in time would be greater than 15 minutes, and it would autostore.
Thank you,
Lazarus Long
From what I've seen so far:
1. Probes will track a Jedi to a planet
2. Trackers will track a Jedi to their current location
3. There appears to be no limit on the number of BH that can take a mission for a certain Jedi
4. Missions do not expire on Jedi death
5. Jedi don't know how visibility works and the visibility system seems way to happy to put Jedi on the terminals for any reason
It seems like you're creating a scenario where hunting and killing Jedi is going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Are there any plans to balance any of this so that:
1. Jedi still have a chance to hide
2. They're not over-griefed
3. They don't end up with every single BH in the galaxy converging on them at the same time
There needs to be some semblance of game-play here... not listed = dead, guaranteed.
-- A6
Regarding the Jedi crystals (crystals that can be used to craft lightsabers): I would suggest this become a solo Jedi quest, similar to Luke entering the Cave on Dagobah. If you read Scholastic's Jedi Quest series, Anakin must venture into a cave alone to attune himself to the Force and identify the crystal that will be used in crafting his saber. He ends up being attacked by MOBs that almost kill him. I would think code similar to that used for the Treasure Map and code that bans players from a particular building could be used to make it so only the Jedi with the mission can venture forward to a dynamic spot to obtain a crystal. Implement a time limit to mitigate hoarding (or you have to use the crystal you just obtained before getting another crystal mission). No Trade / No Drop.
Would it be possible to have a terminal for special LOOT missions (or revise the current mission terminals) -- where the player pays a SIGNIFICANT bounty in order to obtain a more dangerous mission with a HIGHER probability (but not 100% guaranteed) that "uber loot" can be obtained. HOWEVER, make it so that the person that obtained the mission must be the person to loot the corpse in order to obtain the higher percentage. If another person loots the corpse, only the regular percentage ratio for loot will occur.
Would it be possible for Smugglers to work with Architects to create a "Safe Room" for homes/PAs, so that public homes/PAs have some private areas that only Admins can enter? Similar to the "special" cargo holds in the Millenium Falcon where Han and Luke hid.
Can Imperials/Rebels have a way to identify the closest recruiter to them? This allows those of us in the field to link up with our faction and get our latest marching orders (it only makes sense that a high level officer would be in constant contact with Command and receive orders from the Powers that Be).
Magandang Cuyapenia
Sunrunner
Player Cantinas are HORRIBLE!
Because nobody uses them! (Ok, few exceptions noted owing to extreme efforts of some club owners But, they don’t need to be ghost towns with a few simple tweaks they could be a lot of fun.
a- Why are they silent? Why can’t a club have piped in music when there are no musicians present? Gee, you could even have a jukebox option where players could pay one or two credits to have the star wars song of their choice played.
b- Why isn’t there club dancers/musicians in this game? There should be a way to pay any entertainer player a set rate of money (like 1,000 credits and hour) to perform in my club. It should be set up to where automatic payments can take place while I am off line.
c-Why isn’t there an option to have droid performers. They could heal battle fatigue at a slower rate than player entertainers, but if these NPC’s could be “hired” then when injured people came in my club they could have their BF healed even if there were no player entertainers in the club.
d- Why can’t club owners list missions to be accomplished on the entertainer mission terminals? If I could give an entertainer a mission to come to my club (I’d pay for it when I “bought” the mission on the terminal) then I’d also have entertainers coming to my club.
e- If there are entertainers present in my club why can’t I have the ability to have a cover charge for people to come into the club?
f- People want to buy stuff when in a club, why can’t there be an automatic ability to have a vendor setup in a club? The club owner would have to stock it, but they ought to get a vendor with the club.
Player clubs don’t have to be ghost towns maybe if they’d do some minor tweaking they’d be a lot more useful?
Intro / Disclaimer:
There have been so many posts on this forum that I haven't had time or the patience to read them all, so please forgive me if any of the following have been posted already. I've tried my best to think of ways to keep my ideas fair, balanced, and reasonable. And remember, these are just raw, relatively unrefined ideas that, if considered for development by the powers that be, would still need a lot of work to refine, so please keep flaming to a minimum.
1) Dual Weapons:
I know I'm not alone in thinking this is a great idea that is long over-due. Basically, players should have the ability to equip two single-handed weapons at the same time. Like dual pistols, swords, and especially light sabers! (Not the one light saber with two blades, but two individual single-bladed light sabers) I mean, come on, it just makes sense!
It would be extremely easy to adopt a dual weapon equip system based on the one found in the Lucas Arts game "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic". In essence, if you have two weapons equipped, your attack speed and damage are increased, while accuracy goes down the tubes until you get high enough skill in the ability to use two weapons.
An example of how this might work could be a person who wants to use two pistols at the same time. In order for them to remove the accuracy penalty, they must earn enough experience with pistols to get special pistol abilities 4 or bounty pistol 4, or dirty fighting 4. When they master smuggler, pistoleer, bh, or whatever profession that allows for dual 1 handed weapons, they might get +1 or +2 to dual weapon fighting but only for whatever weapon that profession allows them to use. In other words, a fencer could not use dual pistols and a pistoleer or bounty hunter could not use two swords, at least not very well. This would be very easy to add to the jedi and fencer professions as well.
The only difficulty that I for see from this idea are the character animations in the game, but I think that this should be added to the game either in a monthly update, or included in the upcoming space expansion pack. Hey, if you include it in the expansion, then it would give people yet another reason to buy it!
2) Special Weapon/Armor repair abilities for weapon/armor smiths
I don't know about anyone else, but I get totally driven up a wall when I purchase a 99.8% repair tool, and have it eat 3 pieces of my very expensive armor or some of my best weapons! I think that master level weapon smiths and master level armor smiths should have the ability to be able to repair armor 100% of the time. I mean, come on, if they are a master smith, then they should be able to. Please note, I'm NOT talking about restoring the armor to 100% of its original condition, I'm only talking about the ability to repair the armor without it being destroyed at least until the max condition is lowered to a certain point that the weapons or armor being repaired are no longer worth repairing. This could be accomplished by adding a special repair tool that only master smiths can make and only they can use.
3) More creature mounts and faster vehicles.
Ok, I know this isn't going to sit well with some people, but please, just hear me out. First off, the number of the different species that can be trained as mounts is fairly limited. Everyday, I see some creature that just begs to be included as a mount. For example, there is a white horse like creature on Naboo, I can't think of the name right now, but it is fairly common. And I think that we should get to see some of the nightsister and singing mountain clan npcs riding on mounted rancors (like they're supposed to). Obviously, the mounted rancors will be an NPC thing only, but it would be much more authentic to the Star Wars universe to have them.
As for vehicles, they are way too slow compared to what you can tell from the movies. It's as if the landspeeder should be going the speed of the current speederbike, and the speederbike should be going as fast as the current swoop, and the swoop should be going as fast as the one seen in Episode 2. However, I do realize that this might rub some people the wrong way. Therefore, I think that we should just get a temporary speed boost option to the vehicles, like gallop for mounts and the burst run for people. And, if you really wanted to get crazy, you could make the speed boost option an add-on pack that can be sold by master artisans as an "after market" power-up item.
4) Give us the ability to place stuff on top of a table or shelf in our homes without having to use the "staircase trick".
5) Give us the ability to resize the length of the name fields in the bazaar, or at least shrink the box that holds the "premium item" dot next to it. That box is way to big just for one little star thingy, and it makes it difficult to find the item you're looking for.
I'll probably think of more stuff later on, but that’s it for right now.
Her'es my suggestion:
Unique Random Quests.
How about rare random non-repeating quests of high difficulty that can be given to players that sends them on quests that reward some cool rareities -- This allows for continuing the player-crafting economy goodness, but throws some interesting and sought after rareities that can not be crafted by players, People like getting rare items that are "worth something." I think you have the right idea when you made R.I.S. Armor, but its availiable to anyone willing to work their a$$ for it. Maybe make like a couple sets of clone trooper armor (Antiques in this time) that can be worn, or a special powerful firearm. (Like Nym's Carbine), but more RARE. Random Unique Quests are cool IMHO. But, dont flood the galaxies with them.
Thanks for listening,
Kraven (DC)
Bloodfin
These are my suggestions:
I would like to be able to have more than faction pet out at a time.Perhaps, this can come with higher rank.
I would like to be able to put a bounty on another player.
I would like to see more rewarding missions. Currently, the payback seems fairly low.
I think that houses should have more design options; floorplans, and exernal appearances.
I want to be able to buy factional banners to hang in my house. Maybe even a factional flag to hang on, or in front of, my house.
I would like to be able to have a factional pet stand guard at my house, even if I'm logged off.
I would also like to have my faction rank displayed, at least when I am overt. Maybe, it can display by your name when you are overt; and, perhapsalways displayed in the bio.
Once you acheive a high rank, you should have faction pets assigned to you automatically, with no faction cost. Have you ever seen a high ranking Imperial officer completely alone. I wouldn't really feel like a Surface Marshal, or a General, without at least 1 or 2 Imperial guards.
I hope these at least get considered.
This is important to me alot, I know it may seem trivial, but I feel it could add alot of possibilities and depth to homes and such. Because no matter what, eventually, you can only arrange furniture so much.
Wall paper and Carpeting!
Wallpaper and carpeting could be deeply customizable, carpeting made by tailors, and wallpaper made by architects. They would have a large selection of colors or patterns, and would work like deeds. You would use the deed in the room you wanted to use the wallpaper or carpet in, and it would cover it for you. This could add alot more uniqueness to the houses, which all, in the end, look very much alike.
/Elevate Furniture Up/down
We SERIOUSLY NEED a elevate furniture button. I hate having to rely on using stairs to move desk lamps and other things to the level they should be at. it would be so much easier to punch in a command and have it elevate off the ground.
Furniture color customization
Furniture seems to bland at times, why not some more color options?