Development Cycle Archive

In your effort to improve community relations, can you please explain why you continue to unflict poorly tested and far-reaching changes to the game to us without so much as a discussion and/or testing no Test Center? The change regarding TEFs and player structures is just such an example.

Can you open a development topic on this? Please see the thread already started here:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=785155

ID realy like to understand what happened to the Bloodfin server as of last night.

During a medium size faction battle the entire situation Imps and Rebels were halted in frozen graphic stasis as well as reverse warping i dont know a whole lot about pvp but last night ruined it for me and im already exploring my options elsewhere as far as mmorpgs go im very unsatisfyed with this "unfinished product" that we are paying "Finished Product" fees for.

I think as a Paying customer I deserve a response to this thread from someone on the SOE staff

and im sure others who feel like me would love to see a honest legal response to this as well/

please.... fix.... our.... chairs.

Here's an sugestion to make us DE's very happy and our proffesion actually worth while.

And this will improv the commuity no more sulcky DE's and happy peopel whit droids that actually work.

Al these sugestions are non combat one's so this will suit you guys sins you nerfed the probots and stuff.

Hop you like these sugestions and actually do something whit my belowed proffesion because if nothing happends soon many DE's will surrender their proffesion and becoming CH ore something instead! And Driods is a big parts of starwars and i think it's really bad that you dev's don't pay any attention to fixing this proffesion!

Instead, I offer the following suggestions for making the existing droids more FUN to use and more USEFUL overall:

Coute:

1.) Mouse Droids -- Currently decent for storage and that's about it. The mousedroid bomb idea is a REALLY bad idea. I'd say a better solution is to make mouse droids more useful in terms of the GCW. This would require fixing the base issue, but the current TEF/house thing may help there. I'd like to see mouse droids used as remote cameras or spy units. You could use these when preparing to assault a base. A competent Droid Engineer would be able to craft a Spy module which would let the mouse droid get past the bases defense and report back on the status of the base (what kind of defenses, troops, etc. are present). You could also make a counterspy module which would allow defensive mouse droids (mousetrap droids?) to catch incoming spy droids. Mouse droids could also act as remote alarm units that could warn you when someone crosses a particular perimeter or is within scanner range.

2.) Probe Droids -- leave the blaster function, but give them very light/weak armor and a self-destruct mechanism. Probe droids could be used similarly to scout out areas while not exposing the owner to any kind of significant harm. Less concealable than a mouse droid, but able to defend itself. Same goes for the sentry function. It could warn you, but also defend itself and act as a picket for bases or PA halls.

3.) R-series droids -- give them different levels of functionality, but allow them to become MUCH more interactive with the environment than they currently are. When vehicles and spaceships are implemented, allow astromechs to repair ships if they carry a specific type of repair unit. This unit could be consumed over time, or could be less effective than human interaction by the vehicle crafting profession. Also give them the ability to interface with computer terminals. Smugglers could use droids to help with slicing weapons, armor, and terminals. Other players could use R-series droids to help take over or better automate a base's defense systems (perhaps, if programmed with a tactical interface module). Data storage could be useful as well. R-series droids should also be able to scan for hostile creatures and report back with more useful data, similar to the extended information that scout players see (maybe for humanoids, it could tell you what kind of weapon they're wielding and that sort of thing).

4.) Power droids -- You can keep droid batteries, or you can buy a power droid. The power droid would degrade over time (unless you maintained it with the help of a repair droid -- more on that later), but could provide your droid stable with an otherwise inexhaustable supply of power. Let's be honest. How many people ACTUALLY sell droid batteries anyway?

5.) Medical droids -- Allow them to heal people or control specific structures (IE: bacta tanks) that players could craft in their own hospitals. Bacta tanks could be something you give to artisans or architects. Operating tables, bacta tanks, etc. could all play an integral role in the upcoming player cities. Rather than the usual medical center, where people simply stand around, you could allow people to open their own healing buildings which could run automated, similar to how factories run currently (for purposes of XP, I mean). Any player who used your bacta tank or whatever would pay an access fee, be healed quickly, and this would result in a gain of XP for the player. Of course, hands-on experience pays off better XP-wise, but this could help boost the medical players' economic abilities. Concordantly, by requiring that medical droids (the current one is good, I'd throw in the FX7 as well) be employed along with the bacta tanks, you create interdependency among professions and give DE's useful equipment to sell to the public.

6.) Repair droids -- Similar to medical droids, you could permit repair droids to operate automated repair facilities for DEs. Of course, a DE should be able to repair a droid up to full health (I support MAINTENANCE decay, in that if you don't repair your droid it will decay over time, but I do NOT support that decay even AFTER you get your droid fixed up-- hell, R2-D2 was functioning for, what, 50 something years?) and gain DE experience for doing so. But when they're not online, you could visit the DE's shop, talk to his repair droid, and get your own droids repaired up to full functionality. Maybe even throw on a new coat of paint. Repair droids could also run customization stations, or customization could be an additional feature of the repair station. Anyway, this offers more functionality. Higher level DEs could craft these for lower level DE's to use when they're away from the shop.

7.) Treadwells -- I'd make treadwells the "jack of all trades/master of none" droid as far as the following functions go: they'd be able to perform limited repair for you, they'd be able to do limited maintenance for you, they'd be able to interface with computers for you in a limited way, they'd even be able to perform limited patrol duties for you, but they wouldn't do it as well as any of the other droids out there that are built for the specific task. Alternatively, you could make treadwells the new mobile crafting stations, a function that no other droid would be able to perform at quite the same level (other droids could do crafting, but could hold fewer crafting modules maybe -- those are details to be ironed out).

8.) Binary Load Lifters -- I think these guys should be the workhorses of the droid line. MAJOR storage capacity (since we can't implement that they haul boxes around). They could act as walking warehouses for you. Not too bright, but a strong back and plenty of storage. No fighting capabilites, though. What would these guys be useful for? Well, especially when the space expansion comes out, how the heck are people supposed to get things on and off their ships in mass quantities? Load lifters, my friend. Load lifters. You could also use these to operate automatically when you're not around, in order to maintain your factories, harvesters, and the like. Provided you keep the droid within a particular radius of the facility in question, the droid could stand as sentry for you, depositing power and credits into your harvesters and removing resources when the harvester fills up. Or, you could set waypoints so that the droid patrols between a power generator and a harvester/factory. When your factory is full, the droid could remove the crates for you if you're not online.

9.) Protocol droids -- This will require a major overhaul of languages, but personally, I think that's entirely necessary. I get sick and tired of everyone talking the same in this game. Where's the gibberish? Where are the subtitles? I never hear anyone say "Ooota goota, Solo? Som pichale. Mi paratraski chi-sa. Jabba wa ninchi koch-pa..." Instead it's just the same old stuff I always see. Wookiees speak perfect english, Rodians speak perfect english, EVERYONE speaks perfect english. It's boring. Enter the language nerf. That's right. I said it. Language nerf. Everyone is given the choice of two or three languages that they can learn in addition to their native tongue. After that, you need a protocol droid to translate, or a friend who understands the language. This might help make Undeworld I in smuggling a little more useful (FYI it gives you the ability to understand all languages), though frankly, I'd drop that from the skill line anyway. Anyway, so you'd need to have a protocol droid to do translation for you. Additionally, I'd have protocol droids be programmed in DROID languages, which no player (except maybe DEs) could speak. You'd need a protocol droid to program your binary load-lifters at least to perform the higher end functions like maintenance while you're offline.

10.) DZ-270 (or whatever) tracking droids -- I honestly don't know much about these things, so I don't really know what they're used for. I'd make them capable of traking people down for bounty hunting purposes, naturally, or possibly use them to deliver goods from one person to another. IE: I send craftsman X a request for a gun. He crafts the gun, places it in his tracker droid, and then says "Go find Solo4114." The droid takes off, finds me, and delivers the gun or message or whatever you stored in it. R-units and probe droids could have similar functionality, but on a more limited basis (IE: "R2, go find Obi-Wan and tell him topick up bread on his way back from work.") The more sophisticated the unit, the faster it can get to the player. But I figure that tracking is tracking, and why not let them be delivery units as well?

11.) Miscellaneous Customizations -- Well, obviously, Droid customization needs an overhaul. Pre-patch droids don't customize properly, which is a pain. But, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Painting your droid is a minor thing. I'd want to see personality chips come back in a big way. I've never figured out why the devs couldn't implement something like a personality chip for non-verbal droids (IE: R-units). Simple messages like "Bleeps indignantly" or "Chirps obediently" would make droids infinitely more interesting than they are now. Also, PLEASE let people name their droids with alphanumeric names. Droids should not be named Sparky, or Chip or whatever. Droids should be R5-X2, BL-24, etc. If people want to name 'em Bollocks or Blue Max or whatever, that's fine too, but give us the option to call a droid whatever we want.

12.) Droid calling abilities -- Give people the ability to call and have out multiple droids. Don't treat them like pets. Maybe DEs can call more droids than anyone else, or maybe not. Personally I don't think that's necessary. Droids are not pets, nor should they be treated as such. Droids are independent, highly sophisticated mobile computers with extended functionality. They're 100% obedient, they don't need to be *PLAY*ed with, and they can operate independently of player interaction for greater periods of time. This is the real value of droids. Remember why they exist: automated labor functions. A droid is fundamentally created and designed to perform tasks FOR you, especially laboring functions that you'd rather not perform yourself. To me, it's VERY starwarsy to walk by someone's house or estate and see that they're not signed on, but ten droids are wandering around performing various tasks ranging from basic sentry work, healing, repairing, maintaining, etc. Think about the Lars homestead in Ep. IV. There were tons of droids just trucking around doing their own thing. If no one talked to them for days, they'd probably still be doing their own thing, assuming that they didn't break down or something. That's my ultimate vision.

This is an excellent suggestion! But above all else and perhaps the simplest request; Get the "mood Droid" color of the day bug fixed on r-series units!

Demarco

the state of the game? flat broke about covers it.

you have a game where the ere creatures running around giving the best exp but hitting us armored fools (we are paying you for this tripe) for over 1k a pop, we cant stand up to them toe to toe, we cant out run them (they tend to shoot back) so what are we supposed to do? get 20 members in a group all taking beatings for 2 seconds then IF someone manages to survive the fight and kill it,.... everyone tries to loot it as fast as they can? what the heck is good with that? we need those pet tanks, be they faction or tamed from the wild.

while i do agree that 1 guy with 3 or 4 at once is a tad over kills... 1 isnt and even that is being taken away from most of us. the CH nerf is going to change the point spread so those that can now use certain pets wont after its done. its not going to change a **edit** thing. just how its done and they know it.

bottom line is there are far larger problems in this game and they are ignored over the nerfs some novice marksman and story book readers are crying about.... shrug. glad this doesnt have my name in the credits. i would be ashamed.

What items are logged? And, if it isn't already, extend it to include items in a container/structure!

Is it just personal inventory and bank that are considered "safe" ? Are even those considered "safe" (ie, items that vanish from them have actually been reimbursed) ?

i've had friends have their houses vanish (at least three that i can list offhand), and Customer Service could only replace the house, but not any of the items, that were in it. (yes, it was definitely gone and not just due to server restarting and buildings being slow to repop. which brings up another issue in terms of planting buildings on top of other buildings...like a recent heavy harvester that was INSIDE a house for a few days...and another one that was wedged between a factory and a house where it SHOULDN'T have been able to exist...but i digress)

TheITEMS/content are way more important than the actual building. (ie, rare resources, raw materials, mementos)

I'd like to think that CS could get into the database and find out what contents were there and what was missing.

Other instances where the logging seems to be lacking, contents not recorded, and reimbursements not forthcoming:

1. trades with items inside of containers

2. /tip

3. houses and factories disappearing.

4. oh yeah, and how about vendors eating items? although i think this one got fixed?

Again, it's the ITEMS and CONTENT of the building/container that are what players spend their time and effort on, it'd be nice if those things were reimbursable!

If that's the case, why even bother having houses that can vanish without a trace, leaving you nothing to show for weeks of building up resources and materials and goods to put together something really really nice only to have it all disappear and be told, oh, gee, sorry about that, but there's nothing we can do about it?

Crafters can lose their entire resource base they've spent long hours and credits to gather and obtain. It's bad enough trying to stay on top of rare resources on all the different worlds, but to have this happen on top of it all and be told gee, sorry you're out millions in lost sales and weeks of gameplay, but tough luck?!

Unlike combat xp that doesn't depend on the contents of a factory, crafters are very vulnerable to this bug. Since crafting is a good portion of SWG, well, I'd hope that the database was as robust for maintaining the things that make a crafter (ie, materials), as it is for remembering how muchcarbine xp amarksmanhas.

[holocron mentioning legit deletions of houses due to maintenance pool]

How about making houses and factories start to smoke when they start decaying? Some sort of visual feedback would be nice. Maybe a bright blinking red light over the structure maintenance panel...

THE FOOD/SPICE /BUFF/STATS BUG IS STILL HERE FROM THE LAST PATCH, WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO FIX THIS?????

take the mounts out...its like fkin zoo wars...its a bit ridiculous you keep helping the CH's and armormsiths, weaponsmiths with mounts and decay

how about making the game a little fun...hell i cant even play it now because i cant log in and no one will answer my post in the tech support

Well, my tamer is completely broken after vanishing and being able to walk thourgh land! Relogged and every attempt to tame a baby Murra results in "You can't tame that". So with nothing better to do, I figured I'd come make some constructive suggestions or possitive comments on the boards.

I'd like to say the stability of the game has been great, but its still Beta and any critic of the gameatthis early stagewould simply be unfair.

I'd like to say support has been great but again, we're in Beta and the folks doing it now are just filling in until the real support staff get hired. I would suggest though that when they do FINALLY answer a request, they try to focus on what was asked rather then the question they have imagined. It helps speed things along when one actually answers the question that was asked. I do find it interesting that they delete their bad answers from the CSR thread and add "Go to the website with your question" type answers. Keeps the thread all nice and tidy.

I must say, the performance on my Pentium 3.4 Gig, 1Meg ram, Radion 9700 machine has improved emmensly with your tweeks as have my reflexes. Now the Agressive mobs don't even appear on radar until I'm smack in the middle of the mob. This has really improved the "Action" feel of the game. And after the game store guy said I couldn't find a game to push this machine to it's limits.. sheesh shows what those clerks know.

The bug fixes have been wonderful! All the fonts and little colour highlights on the inventory items look really pretty. If they can get around to fixing the bugs from the fixes to the bugs, from the other fixes to the bugs and the other ones, that would be wonderful.

It's really nice to see that you finally decided to turn on a the FS slot for a few of the folks so we can test them. We finally know that its there. I'm anxious to be a part of this beta program for just this reason and can't wait to begin documenting the Jedi component of the game so that the production community will have some knowledge of how to become Jedi's, especially those who play solo. There's nothing worse then misrepresenting a product and I want to do my very best to make sure that our user community will never have that interpretation.

Balance of play is really comming along. As a representative of the Solo players world I find the challenge level pretty good. I've been fighting Mobs at the Jedi Caves hoping for one of those Holo things and it is really a great challenge. With pererverance, I know I'll make it past the mouth of the cave. I can't wait to see what the interior looks like.

The client stability has been really great too. I'm usually given to playing games far too late and not getting enough rest but this has not been a problem with all the recent fixes. Way to go guys. Looks like I'm not the only one getting my "Z"s now.

Community management has been great too. Nowhere else have I seen such dedication to squelching nah sayers and reminding everyone how to give constructive critisism by the operators. It's just like trainig a dog, isn't it.its not aboutthe positive things they do, just keep beating them till they get it right. And lets face it, once your in prodcution mode and everything is running as i should, you won' have that problem to deal with. Good on ya. Besides who are they to distort our delusions. hehe

I really like the content, its the best yet. I've never been able to grind so much as I can in this game and I hear that I'll get to do tons and tons more when I find a Holo! I mean really, who wants to go fight the forces of evil anyway when you can grind.

Yup, I think you guys are well on your way to a great success! What!?.. What's going on?!

Oh my, My character crashed and I must have loaded into a previously saved state from the Beta days.. Geeze.. sorry guys.

Before mounts and player cities were added, how about adding some content to the game. There is nothing for a neutralcharacter. There still aren't any missions for medics, all other starting professions have missions. To make a living as a Master Doctor I have to sell buffs, stims and charge for healing. Do you know how many curse words I hear a day when I ask for payment to heal? Meds aren't cheap to make, and advanced stim-b's requires resources from at least 4 different planets, plus factory costs, and I get cussed out for selling these any higher than the cost of resources. I'm not asking to nerf anybody, or take anything away from the game, I want things added to the game.

why does /bug always seem to break every time a big patch comes out?

right now you can only submit one /bug, because it thinks it's a csr ticket, but you can't edit it like a csr ticket or access it from the holocron.