Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion (Week Ending 2-16-04)
Ok, here are a few more things that I think could be useful.
First off, something for player cities. We need the rules of placement for houses and such to be laxed a little bit more. I live in a player city on Rori, and I totally don't understand why I can't place a house over a puddle or small ditch with water in it. Additionally, there are fallen logs and tree stumps where our city is that prevent us from placing houses. I think that there should be some sort of fix for this.
Second, I think player cities need to be able to have vehicle garages.
Third, I think that the bounty hunter profession could use a carbine that is unique to their chosen profession. Commandos get new weapons for every skill tree they have. Why can't bounty hunters have a unique carbine weapon for their carbine tree to complement the scatter pistol and llc?
i have two major ideas:
-
Apartments- this would allow players to rent apartments. the price of the apartment would depend on the size and location of the apartment. in each city there would be a message board that would show if there were any apartments. if you did not pay your rent on time you will get kicked out with all your items that you placed in your apartment in your inventory(even if it over loaded it). you could live in a 2 room complex on tatooine or a penthouse in Coronet (< have fun paying rent, heheh). you would have to pay city taxes. This is pretty much a money sink.
-
Stores- this would allow players to rent space and set up stores in cities. you could also hire other players to harvest resources for you or make things. players buying from these stores would have to pay sales tax.
-
Store chains- this would allow players to start store chains. they would first have to rent out a chain HQ (there would be specific areas in the cities were these would be, some may not have any) then the person who is renting the HQ in the buisness owner (he/she can transfer and grant all the permissions he/she has, though). the owner would then have to hire people to survey and collect resources for the store. those people would drop off the reasources that they collect at a resource drop box from there the resources would be tranfered to the HQ's resource tresury. The bussiness owner would also have to hire players to make stuff. They would have access to the HQ's resource treasury. they would not use normal crafting tools they would go to one of thebussiness's crafting stations that would be located in the HQthey would make things there and the items would go directly to the HQ's inventory(at any time the bussiness owneer can set up additional "manufacturing hubs" that would transfer all crafted items to the HQs inventory). The bussiness owner would have to give the resource collectors and crafters weekly salaries(that would be an ingame system). now other players can file for a retail liscence. If the bussiness owner approves the claim the player can set up a store that would be part of the chain(it would have a set name). The chain store owner would then order inventory from the HQ. the inventory would be sent as soon as possible and the store owner would sell the items he gets from the inventroy at whatever price he/she wants (though it would have to be higher then the price he/she bought it from the HQ at if he/she wanted to make a profit). if the Business (HQ) owner thinks that any retailers have their prices to high they can email them about it. if they refuse to lower their prices the bussiness owner can revoke their retail liscence and the store would be closed (with all of the stores inventory back in the HQ's inventory.
-
Corporations-this would be like chain stores with a few ajustments.they would be NPC owned. they would only make certaian items, those items would be exclusive to the corporation. The corporations would be Sorosuub(makers of the X-34 and many other landspeeders), Aratech Repulsor Company(makers of the 74-z military speeder bike[speeder bike]), and more for the Devs to add as they implement more vehicles. Corporations would work better if the devs implemented a few more speeder bikes for Aratech and landspeeders for Sorosuub (and mabye make some Mobquet speeder bikes and add the croporation for a little competition).the swoop would still be craftable by anyone.
The Holonet is comprised of almost everything, from Terminals and Information to Player Databases and the Email system.
Im going to go in depth on this:
The holonet not only acts as a basis for information, but also as an immersive hook. Instead of having a dozen different terminals, they are replaced by one, universal terminal (Holonet Terminal). The effects are twofold: People will not waste time searching a city for a bazaar terminal and it allows the Bounty Hunters and Slicers a new edge to their profession.
Now, in order to fully enact the Holonet, it is in the best interest to include a form of IDs. This allows the player to illegally change it (Name ect). Thus, known Faction Coverts could be detected at Terminals and people who have an active TEF could be alerted to the officials. The possibilites are endless for uses with the ID.
-Basic IDs- When you start a character, instead of just putting in your name at caracter creation you would also put in your birth planet, your parents names, your date of birth, your age,and your nickname(if any).With this new ID system, all actions (such as entering buildings, buying items, accepting missions) are recorded into a temporary log in your Character Database (Holonet file of your character).
-Basic Holonet- As you access the Holonet Terminal, your ID is scanned for any possible TEFs, Forgeries and Possible Crooks. Once cleared, an interface lights up and welcomes you to the holonet. A few options appear once you have succesfully logged on.
-Travel (Contains all information on Purchasing Tickets)
+Shuttleport (Purchase Shuttleport Tickets)
+Starport (Purchase Starport Tickets)
-Missions (Contains information on all public missions)
+Artisan (Artisan Missions)
+Explorer (Explorer Missions)
+Entertainer (Entertainer Missions)
+Standard (Standard Missions)
-Bank (Contains all functions that deal with banks)
+Withdraw (Withdraw Funds)
+Deposit (Deposit Funds)
+Transaction (Make a Transaction to another player)
-Bazaar (Contains all items on the Global and Regional Bazaar)
+Global Bazaar (Global Bazaar)
+Regional Bazaar (Regional Bazaar)
+Shops (Contains a listing of all PC Shops on the Planet)
-PA Database (Contains a list of all registered PAs)
+Search (Search for a certain PA)
+List (List all PAs)
+Register (Register your PA)
-Character Database (Contains all user profiles such as ID)
+Search (Search for certain Characters)
+List (List all public characters)
+Access my Database (Access your personal database)
-Direct Connect- (Connect to a specific Holonet Address, such as the Bounty Hunter Spynet)
-Travel Terminal- Joe walks up to the Holonet terminal and begins to access it. His ID is verified and the interface loads. He clicks on the Travel section and the map of his current location loads. He purchases a ticket to theed (and recalls it from a tab on the interface). He loads onto a starport and heads off to Theed.
-Missions-Joe clicks on the missions section and a list of Missions appears. He sorts through them and finds one he likes. He reviews the missions details and accepts. Upon completion, the Money is automatically transferred into his bank account. -Bank Joe clicks on the bank section and several options appear. He clicks on the deposit button and drops 3000 credits into his bank.
-Bazaar- Joe clicks on the bazaar section and he choose the Shops subsection. He looks for a PC chefs shop and notices that there is one there. He opens up the little browser and sees the chefs Ad, Waypoint and a bit of information about his shop. He grabs the waypoint and sets off to see the chef.
-News- weather and recent news. to get the real news you would have to hack into the empire's private sites
-PA Database- Joe clicks on the PA Database section and chooses to Search for a PA. He enters the name and all matching search results pop up. Unfortunately, the PA wasn't publically registered and did not show up on the search.
-Character Database- Joe clicks on the character database section and chooses to Search for a friend. He enters his name and all matching search results pop up. Unfortunately, his friend had choosen the private ID, he could not find any information on him.
-Slicing- to slice the holonet you would have to get a "deadman's box" and a hacking kit (craftable after slicing 4 and underworld 3). once you have all that you need and go to a holonet terminal you would have to play some sort of mini game to get onto the holonet in "hacker mode" from there you would have to navigate around to the private information you want and then press some sort of hotkey sequence to hack into the file. the more underworld and slicing skills you have, the better your chances of making a succesful slice.
http://www.swg-bibliothek.de/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26655&perpage=15&pagenumber=3
here are a couple changes i would like to see.
1) Vendors. ima dedicated crafter, today i went to tatoine, naboo, and cor made waypoints to resource vendors and 60% of them were either bieng used as storage *1 stack of steel for 9999999* i wasnted 20 min find this vendor listed to be holding valid sales. and finding tons of empty vendors. if a vendor is empty for 24 hours make it so it automaticly removes itself fromt he planetary map. this would make things alot easier.
2) Crated items- since their is a data base problem. why not consolidate. rather than to have power ups inc rates of 10, armor layers incrates of 100, segments in crates of 50. set everythign to the same crate limits, 50 / 100 / 500 we crafters can then split the crates up from there. or since we can do 1000unit runs on a single schematic. have the factory put it in 1 crate of 1000. and use the qty as a filler. like 1000 componets = 100% , 500 componets = 50% etc etc. this might reduce the item count derasticly.
3)if you choose to loose merchent skills and you choose to loose the artisan buisiness line. you should loose the ability to have a vendor.
4) to help reduce lag and usage on the data base. put the admin option on vendors. or have it allowed at master merchent. since there is so many crafters who want to sell but dont actualy want the merchent skills. you could set it so a master merchen can say admin 1 person to a vendor at tier 1, admin 4 at tier 4 and 5 people per vendor at master. for the credit pay out. you could use a simialar code used in the bazaar terminals. lots of folxs putting things up for sale but each still get their money.
5) add a assistant mayor possition to city halls so that in the event a mayor of a city is not seen for 1 day or 2 weeks the assistant mayor can take over the spot till the mayor comes back. and can also help out with political issues. mayors in real cities dont do anything alone. and in the sw movies the only person not discussing plans with anyone is the emperor =p .
6) i would like to see the disapearing swoop bike thing fixed. i lost my bike 4 times tonight after i got off it..
thank you .
I agree, for the sake of immersion and continuity, that Jedi should not have to sit on spawns killing meatlumps for days, and I hate people afk camping spawn spots. Afk combat annoys me intensely.. but anyway:
Why not introduce a Jedi skill that allows them to forage for force crystals, but it works like a force power, whereby they are TEF'd. How many people will sit afk with their precious Jedi who can be attacked at any time. Presumably it could work like surveying, bringing up a window like the survey tool window.. to survey they use their force power to sense the presence of force crystals. They can only then sample for them where there is >90%, and as soon as the crystal is harvested, the deposit shifts. Maybe with a higher density of deposits on Dathomir (to fit the continuity and to make surveying more difficult). It also prevents people being afk for hours, because the actual sampling might not take very long.. it's the surveying that's difficult, and while they're sampling they're TEF'd anyway.
Just a thought that builds on the various ideas submitted by others, and one which has probably been stated elsewhere anyway.
I have but 1 idea at the moment,,,a little thing it may be but it's something that's been missing since this game was released what... 7months, 8months ago
WHY DOES VALCYN SERVER STILL NOT APPEAR ON THE LAUNCHPAD SERVER STATUS WINDOW? DO WE SMELL? ARE WE THE GHOST SERVER VALCYN?, FOREVER LOST IN THE MORASS OF LOST SERVERS......OR IS IT TOO **edit** HARD FOR THE CONCEPT TO BE TAKEN ON BOARD?
As I said.....it's a little thing really....but it's one that bugs the crap outta me 
The Lunatic Fringer Writes:
The subject will not apparently go away even now. Yes, Jedi Players!! Ok, either you have them or you don't; your satisfied with how things were/will be very soon with how the slot was unlocked. So on and so forth.
However, and I think this fits better on the general open discussion here. It really doesn't make any since that the very thing the Jedi need are the crystals that only occour on rare drops from common thugs that regular players camp like mad now. This to me is just plain wrong. About as bad as the initial Holocron drops.
I do think the best alternative should be create crystal quality like someone else was saying. Get your crystals off of garbage like Meatlumps... the crystal is garbage. Kill a force sensitive... high quality crystal. However, no matter what is done, I don't think we're going to be able to prevent these absurd prices from throwing the server economies way off balance. Basically by making any *rare* drops in game... your encouraging these 1 million credit sells. The other solution is to furthermore make the Jedi characters even more elite and have the crystals be something only Jedi can find. A drop that happens only for a kill by that profession. Or a requestable item that only that profession can do.
I'm going to stray now to saying maybe the same limit enforced by general vendors in non player cities should extend to player placed vendors. this would help to drive down absurd costs. and eventually everyone would stop hording and maybe actually give something to a fellow gamer at a reasonable price. As is now, once players find out the rarity of a drop... all they see are the credit signs. This is taking away from gameplay drastically and deffinately isn't making the game for the casual gamer. I kill a stormtrooper, I can take his armor. I kill a sandtrooper, I can take his clothes. That seems more like the realistic Star Wars we're all wanting. And with hordes of the stuff out there then... it deffinately wouldn't drive up the influx of economy on the servers.
Hopefully these are legitimate gripes/concerns for more than just myself.
Sincerely,
The Lunatic Fringer
"A lunatic thinks outside of a box and lives in one..."--The Boss
Howdy, Mooncat - UK a relatively new player whose current residence is on Talus in the city of Freedom.
Being a new player i am still finding my feet but have now been regularily playing for about 2 months.
A couple of things Id like to see developed in the Star Wars Galaxy :
Aesthetic : Ive been travelling to various player cities some small some huge. But the same thing is apparent to me everytime I travel to a Player City.
The fact that there are no pavings of any description in any city. My understanding is that any new house placed has to be within the confines of an area of thenearest houses of that city. At the moment these buildings look exactly like what they are. Buildings dumped in the middle of an enviroment. My suggestion is that the flooring area between these buildings reflect that they are a City rather than randomly placed houses ! I dont know how easy or hard it would be to create a system for house placements that reflect thatspecific housesare part of a larger group of buildings. Given the terrain of some of these City placings (hilly, flat,) i understand that creating paving between structures would be hard. Might i suggest an alternative skin be used on flooring around the Player cities so that they no longer look like buildings placed randomly in a terrrain area. Simply put finding bushes and grass in a player city looks bad. If a group of players are developing their city then surely they would like to see their city look as smart as possible. If they are utilising fountains and other ornate features to enhance their cities then this is all spoilt by the flooring area in an around those cities ! A floor skin that smartens the area in player cities is what i would like to see developed. Lose the randomly placed bushes and grass and lets see something that is smarter.
The second thing :
Banking : SWG is a galaxy in itself, In the real world i can see a "bank statement" of transactions for a current period. Is it possible to have a limited list of bank transactions available ? So i can check what ive been spending my money on ? Even if its a facility at a banking terminal for me to request a bank statement ? Why not charge for such a statement ?
These are a few observations that a "Noob" has made but hopefully as I continue to play SWG i will get a better feel for what the GAME is and what can be devloped to improve the game play !