Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Weekly Roundtable Discussion (Week Ending 3-29-04)
There are some oddities about Mounts. My Cu Pa will not obey a follow command. When I heal it, the HAM bars don't update, until I store it, and recall. This is probably known.
However, I noticed something interesting last night. I was shooting up some Mutant Rancors, when they started chasing me. I jumped onto my Cu Pa and tried to run away, but I was very hurt, and needed to heal myself. I jumped off and sent my cu pa to attack the rancor. I healed myself and killed off the rancor. When the fight ended, my Cu Pa, much to my surprise, followed me. As it approached, I tossed a heal at it, and it worked fine. When it got to me, I threw another heal, and this timethe bug reappered.
From the chat at Stratics....
"[17:49] [TH] Im happy to announce that in publish 8, shuttleport waits will all be 5 minutes and players will be able to travel from anyplanet to anyplanet. We are currently discussing the details of reducing the starport times."
I am in strong opposition to the second half of this statement.The five minute thing is fine, I guess, but taking away transit centers is wrong-headed, short-sighted and ruins the already fragile feel of "place" in the game.
Coronet starport has a feel of a bustling major hub of transit. By making it a center of trade and transport, I get the feel that perhaps (if I squint my eyes right), I am walking down the famed Treasure Row, filled with the wares of the galaxy, exotic aliens, and strange happenings. I know that if I want to travel the galaxy, I need to travel - go from place to place, taking time and effort. Allowing teleportation from Lok to Talus, while a great idea for the short-sighted who wish only to make things easier, takes away from the majesty of travel through a giant galaxy. Simply put, the drive toward lower risk, easier play, and convienience has driven away customer after customer that looks for a challenge. Now, shuttle time reduction -- it's hard to argue against that, but putting in that one thing should be your first step. Should you decide to make things even easier on the players, then the "Outer Rim is no longer Outer Rim" attitude can prevail.
I oppose this change ("able to travel from anyplanet [sic] to anyplanet [sic].") on the grounds of:
- Takes away from the Star Wars feeling of galactic scale and travel.
- Removes natural congregation places that are trading hubs.
- Removes the character of cities (even more) by taking away natural transit stops (Outer Rim is sparse, Core and Colonies are busy).
- While AFK macroers are bad (but required by your system of trade - another sore spot), having bustling trade centers are good. Transit choke points, that are continuity based, is better than how you gated successful player cities into being on popular POIs, ruining the feel of wilderness in places like the Krayt Graveyard...
As you continue to review this topic for Publish 8, you will likely see me revisit this idea in numerous threads. I tend to choose causes that are not championed by the average l33t d00d forum goer (like my current #1 - backpacks as storage and armoires not as storage), but this one is going to become a major issue with me.
Let the Core/Colonies Planets be what they are. Transit hubs. Trade hubs.
Let the Outer Rim be what is should be. Sparsely populated and hard to get to.
RbT
why do riflemen continue to get more and more weapons while the rest of us get squat??
are you playing up to the fact that most people have migrated to rifles simple because of the mind weaknes and in effect trying to keep the masses happy?
if so that's pretty lame.
Thunderheart wrote:
The challenge is knowing what house is not being used for what reason. There really is no way for us to know and the original design was meant to protect peoples houses if they werent going to be able to keep their account for a couple of months and for the time being we come down on the conservative side of leaving the houses for players to come back to.
It is something we think about with some frequency though.
I remember you putting stuff lost due to a bug out of the vendors into bags in our inventory ... these bags could pack an infinite amount of items - so many the inventory could get filled up so you couldn't buy a ticket offworld (or home) so you added a "one-time-warp" feature to the bag ...
Couldn't you do the same with all the stuff in a house that has been unattended for X weeks - so the house disapiears - Maintenance in the house goes to the bank account - items in house and vendor go to the ingfinity bag in inventory or bank account of player?
Of course I as a player would love to have this X amount of weeks bound to when last maintenance was paid (because some active friends manage the house of a long-time-unactive friend). But as a develepor I would do this afterX weeks of inaktivity of the owner (especially also to harvesters and factories) to get ride of all the multiple buildings many players created with multiple accounts and by that go around the 10 lost cap of one char.
Krayvex wrote:
What's the status on stomachs being emptied on cloning? Wasn't it supposed to be in the last publish?
No. The effects of food buffs are not cleared when you clone. They have to naturally time out.
Can you still target bases and damage them? What's going to happen to players who knowingly did this?
I don't know. I havent been on any Base Attacks in a few weeks. If something is wrong, please let Jester know. Probably nothing unless a CSR saw them do it.
Any thoughts on how to stop everyother pvp player from using a jawa rifle or stun baton?
No. Do you find this to be a problem?
How do you vote out a mayor who no longer plays when alot of the town no longer plays?
An incumbent mayor has to run against the absentee mayor and everyone has to vote for the new mayor.
Why don't poisons/diseases get the pvp damage reduction?
All combat questions will be in the combat balance. It is being discussed at a pretty high level at the moment and I dont know what the outcome is yet.
Do any players still use creature mounts?
Yes.
What happened to the Republic Blaster cert?
It is in the Novice Pistoleer Box
Why are the "crackdown's" a joke to anyone over novice level?
We beefed it up in Publish 7 and recieved a lot of positive feedback. We're looking at other ways to make it tougher, but its a tough balancing act. Thats why it happens slowly.
Where'd all the entertainers go?
To the cantina?
Who killed Jimmy Hoffa?
I tend to side with Jimmy "The Weasel" Fratianno. He stated in his book, "The Last Mafioso," that Hoffa wasn’t killed by the New Jersey Mob at all, but by the local Detroit Mafia bosses. He says that Tony "Tony Jack" Giacalone, a close friend of Hoffa set him up, and Tony Zerilli and Mike Polizi ordered him killed. I agree with that line of thought.
Thunderheart wrote:
How do you vote out a mayor who no longer plays when alot of the town no longer plays?An incumbent mayor has to run against the absentee mayor and everyone has to vote for the new mayor.
You missed the point of the question. IF the mayor is absentee *AND* some other player form the town are also absentee then there is NOTHING that the active players ca currently do about this situaton.
Thunderheart wrote:
Krayvex wrote:
What's the status on stomachs being emptied on cloning? Wasn't it supposed to be in the last publish?
No. The effects of food buffs are not cleared when you clone. They have to naturally time out.
How annoying as it may seem, this also discourages clonewars..wich is a good thing.
Any thoughts on how to stop everyother pvp player from using a jawa rifle or stun baton?
No. Do you find this to be a problem?
Stun damage isnt the problem.....the current way armor is, is the problem...its too strong
Do any players still use creature mounts?
Yes.
Anyone I know that still uses creatures got a bantha mount....theyre just darn cool
Why are the "crackdown's" a joke to anyone over novice level?
We beefed it up in Publish 7 and recieved a lot of positive feedback. We're looking at other ways to make it tougher, but its a tough balancing act. Thats why it happens slowly.
Current strengths of the crackdown might reflect a good way with the combat changes....but they are tooo far away Thunderheart. We'll need an interrim solution before publish 11? was it that combat changes were planned.
Where'd all the entertainers go?
To the cantina?
70% stopped hologrinding I suppose, those who stay true to that profession still are one...just a bit more difficult to find
Thunderheart wrote:
Why don't poisons/diseases get the pvp damage reduction?
All combat questions will be in the combat balance. It is being discussed at a pretty high level at the moment and I dont know what the outcome is yet.
Hey TH,
Now that JustG has let us know that the smuggler revamp will come in Publish 9 (Thank You! 
), when do you think that we will start seeing what ideas you all have planned for it? The DE and Chef plans were discussed with the community months ahead of implementation, so Im just curious if we are going to see some type of similar feedback.
Thanks!
Thunderheart wrote:
Krayvex wrote:What's the status on stomachs being emptied on cloning? Wasn't it supposed to be in the last publish?
No. The effects of food buffs are not cleared when you clone. They have to naturally time out.
This isn't right, is it? The buff effects do indeed go away, but the timer does not. It leads to PVP base raids that become quickly one-sided because the cloned participants are unable to go back into the fray unbuffed. Is this intended?