CUEmu - Thread Posts

Azildin

Sat Apr 24, 2004 2:34 pm

For Player Cities, since the city pays a hire fee and weekly maintinance fee for Trainers, I feel that any money people pay to the Trainer for a skill should go to the City, not to the Trainer and hence oblivion. It seems redundant that both the City pays for the trainers salary and then the trainer gets a bonus from doing its job from players.

If the trainers are going to keep the skill fee's, then the city shouldn't have to pay to hire and maintain them through salary. Solution: 3k credits to hire. 1k credits to maintain (salary) which is as it is now.. credits earned from players to learn a skill go to the City Treasury.

NitzerEbb

Sat Apr 24, 2004 5:37 pm

#171

Ok, this is another Master Bounty Hunter venting,

The profession needs some help,,, that goes without saying. I'm just going to list out a couple of ideas I have and I will have to see where this gets me.

1. Player bounties: Have this go live, we create our own economy, allow us to police ourselves. To help avoid greifing have the player posting the bounty pay it in full. Also have different levels of bounties. Say for 10,000 you can post a bounty but it won't show on the terminals nor can the bounty be tracked. Instead have a special Tef come up that only Bounty Hunters can see. Let the player know there's a price on their head and to look out for bounty hunters but they're not being actively tracked. In order for this to work well the TEF cannot be removed by logging on and off. Have the TEF only be removed once the player dies by any means or the person posting the bounty removes it. If someone who posts a bounty later decides to remove it then only give that person part of their money back. The rest being costs for posting the bounty in the first place.

2. Get rid of carbines and the LLC. In their place give the bounty hunter rifles and a flamethrower. For a BH rifle have it do stun damage(so it can bypass armor, BH's should know how to do that) and at the higher levels have the rifle inflict a mind poison. Mind damage is the only damage that can't be healed with a stim so that's the pool Bh's should be targeting anyway. Most of our specials would work better for mind damage rather than action or health

3. I like the idea of special armor for Bounty Hunters, We have lousy defenses, let us have armor that protects us from the people we are hunting.

4. Some special "toys" for the Bounty Hunter. Primarily a tether rope to stun and bind our targets as well as a rocketpack. For the rocketpack to keep BH's from flying around everywhere first have it work similarly to burst run.It massively increases the speed at which the Bounty Hunter can move for a short while. Keep the vertical movement static, lift the Bounty Hunter a little off the ground (like 1 meter) since they would be using a rocketpack but keep it there, Don't let the player move up and down on their own. For the tetherrope have it keep the bounty from being able to attack for 10 seconds or so. Their defences will still work as usual but they can't attack.

5. Make the Bounty Hunter more accurate! For a test I dueled a guildmember(a master fencer) and had him stand still at a range of 30m, I fired all specials for my Carbine as well as my Pistol and I hit him 3 times. I just don't see how that can be right.

That's it, I can only hope one of the Devs reads this and takes a few of my ideas to concept at least. I really hope they do as I do know this profession, I am a Master Bounty Hunter with the max Investigation xp of 60000. But recently I've gotten tired of loosing practically every PVP fight I get involved in.

Thank you for your time.

Antithasys

Sun Apr 25, 2004 3:08 am

#172

This is my first "In-Concept" post, so forgive me if I post this in the wrong place. That being said, I think the game needs some new additions.

Concept

The basic ideal of my proposed changes center around the crafting and merchant professions. There are problems with each profession that I won't go into here, but there needs to be a basic redesign of how players interact with each other and the economy. Right now the way the game is setup there are to many time sinks involved and not enough player interaction with each other. I propose some big changes to make being a crafter more fun, and more interactive with the player community.

Problem

To be a successful crafter you have to first manage your resources. To do this effectively you have to log in everyday and check the current spawn of resources with yesterdays to see if anything new has spawned, and if so you have to sample to see if it is of the type you need. If you do not check everyday, there is no way to know how long any particular resource has been on planet. We used to have to travel to each planet and repeat this, but the new droid units will help here some. Ok, so it’s time to move your harvesters. This process can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 5 hours, depending on how lucky you are at finding a spot and whether or not you have to travel to a different planet. If you are lucky you will not have to return to your harvester until you have to move them again. However, this is rarely the case, as most people don’t have the money, power, or extra resources to avoid more harvester runs. Most people visit their harvesters three times before a move. Now that you have managed your resources, you then have to make your schematics and start your factory runs for sub components. You can then make your final factory run for your final product. After all this you can then place your 10-100 items you made on your vendor. Now if you’re a good crafter, as most of us try to be, your vendor is most likely emptied within 1-2 days. You then have to repeat. This is fine for people who play everyday, five hours a day, and seven days a week. If you miss just a few days, your whole resource management can be messed up or your vendor is completely empty. Most of the time you are doing all of this you are by yourself, either at your crafting station, harvester, factory, or somewhere in between. I have come to think that a successful crafter is lonelier then a Jedi. To top it off, you only have 10 lots to collect resources, make factory runs, and have a store to sell your goods, leading most crafters to have more then one account, if just for the extra lot space.

Solution

To solve this obvious lean to the power gamer with multiple accounts, and make it more fun and interactive to be a crafter, I suggest some radical solutions.

1. Add Player Corporations

2. Add Player to Player Contracts

3. Add a Resource Collector Profession

I will explain each one and how my suggestions on how they would work.

Player Corporations

This is a must. Player Corporations would add a lot of content and interaction with the player community just in of itself. The basic idea has already been proposed on my forums, but here is the general idea.

A Master Merchant purchases a Corporate Headquarters structure from a Master Architect (similar in size to a guild hall, but with more rooms). Once placed it acts similar to a guild hall, but with significant differences. The Master Merchant then becomes the President of the Corporation. He can then hire additional players, by way of player contracts (see below), to fulfill roles within his corporation. For instance, he/she mite go out and hire a master of each crafting profession to build his goods, then hire a few Master Resource Collectors(see below) to collect the corporations resources, and finally hire other Master Merchants or just merchants so sell his goods. Or, if the corporation is going to specialize, he/she can just hire armorsmiths, or weaponsmiths, etc. The basic principle of how all this would work is as follows:

A player can be hired by only one corporation at any given time. The actual process of hiring is done thru a player contract (see below). This contract would be for a set time and a set amount of money. For example, a novice crafter mite get $30,000 a week, for 4 weeks. Once hired the player is then an employee of the corporation and has to craft in the corporate headquarters or a corporate store. All the items the player crafters at automatically deposited into the corporate inventory. This goes for factory runs. The output hopper for a corporation would not exist; items would go into the corporation’s inventory. The corporate inventory is a key aspect of the corporation. I believe a simple approach to this would lead to possible griefing. The correct way to handle it is to make sub sections, like factory parts, or final products, or schematics, or resources, etc. And then to set permissions on these sections, like add, remove, delete, etc. The interface could be very similar to the current bazaar. A corporate employee could then draw from this inventory to make or sell products.

I mentioned a corporate store earlier. This is also an important aspect to the corporation. A corporate store is basically a vendor of the corporation placed outside the corporate headquarters. The merchant of the vendor would have a player contract with the corporation to sell the corporations goods. The merchant would stock his vendor by way of the final products sub section of the corporation’s inventory. He would purchase these items, and then resell them for a profit. This would not be instantaneous. The time delay of the products arrival and cost of shipping would be calculated by the distance to the corporate headquarters, and even an additional charge and time delay if located on a different planet. The merchant could also make the trip themself and save the expense.

Benefits

The interaction between the player community and the reduction of the major time sinks for the crafter will, overall, make crafting more fun, make products and vendors more reliable, and allow players to concentrate their playing time on what they really want to do, by not having to manage all aspects of a business.

Player Contacts

This is part of the overall corporation addition above. The basic idea here is to have about 25-50 different type of contract templates to use. An example of one mite be, I will hire you to collect X amount of metal, or hide, for X amount of credits, or X amount of credits per item. Another example could be, a corporation employee contract to build armor, or collect resources, or sell goods, or for the sale of faction points. There are a number of simple, yet flexible templates that could be created to make player interaction more fun, and professions, like ranger, more viable.

To comply with non corporate contracts you could add drop down to the secure trade window as to whether or not the trade is subject to a contract, if so the contract terms are then used for the trade.

All contracts would have time limits and set dollar amounts. No open ended contracts. Only corporate contracts have severe limitations and are exclusive.

If this is done right, then there is great potential for player interaction.

Resource Collector Profession

This has been kicked around a lot. I believe it should be considered. This profession would be above the Survey profession in the Artisan profession. The four skill trees could be:

Novice Resource Collector – Adds 1 Lot*, Increase survey 120m, Reduce harvester maintenance by 1%.

Lot Management1 – Adds 1 Lot*

Lot Management2 – Adds 2 Lots*

Lot Management3 – Adds 2 Lots*

Lot Management4 – Adds 2 Lots*

Improved Survey1 – Increase survey range 120m

Improved Survey2 – Increase survey range 120m

Improved Survey3 – Increase survey range 120m

Improved Survey4 – Increase survey range 120m

Harvester Management1 – Reduce harvester maintenance by 4%

Harvester Management2 – Reduce harvester maintenance by 5%

Harvester Management3 – Reduce harvester maintenance by 5%

Harvester Management4 – Reduce harvester maintenance by 5%

Resource Collection1 – Increase harvester production by 0.10

Resource Collection2 – Increase harvester production by 0.10

Resource Collection3 – Increase harvester production by 0.10

Resource Collection4 – Increase harvester production by 0.10

Master Resource Collector – Adds 2 Lots*, Increases survey range 80m, Reduce harvester maintenance by 5%, Increase harvester production by 0.10, and if possible provide a new special: Global Survey – This special could only be used once a day, and would provide a overall hot/cold map of the planet and the concentration of that resource, with a waypoint to an approximate location of the best spot. You would then have to run to that spot on the map and resurvey for an exact location.

This profession would help crafters in a big way. Not only would it reduce the need to have multiple accounts, it would add a whole new dynamic to the player economy.

Summary

Well that is my two bits on what I think is wrong with the crafting professions and the player economy and how it could be fixed. There are a lot more details to this. This is just a summary or example of what could be done. Take it apart, add to it, comment on it. Let me know what you think.

-Antithasys
Delivery Vendor @ 2977, -5379 (Naboo)

ClollinLightningsun

Sun Apr 25, 2004 8:59 am

#173

Idea: how about instead oflessening shuttle wait times, you just remove them?

There are no wait times for the subway in City of Heroes, and I feel this works very well.

Anyway, what's the reason for wait times? Besides immersion, they're just a waste of time.

Yes, sometimes they give u a chance to do something else while waiting, but sometimes you need to get somewhere urgently, and these wait times are annoying.

Please consider this. Thanks!

-Clollin Lightningsun, Social Events Manager, New Dawn Corporation, Bloodfin

Calimerion

Sun Apr 25, 2004 10:19 am

#174

180 Degree Turn Key

What I really want this post to be about is the "180 Degree" option. I have seen that from over at Lineage 2 and I must say, that I really started liking that feature.

What does it ?

You assign the 180 Degree Turn key to a button (like the middle mouse wheel for example) and if clicking it, then your view (not the characters) changes to your back (and you keep on running). Clicking the key again, then your view is back to normal then.

So when running away from monsters, that is really handy to be being able to quickly check what is going on behind you. Also it eases the general optical lack every 3D game has a little.

I am aware that this might conflict some with the SWG movement system, like that with mouse movement that you normally then would also move the opposite direction. So that would have to be tweaked for that feature then by devs (or you just stick to using it when being on autorun).

Thats it,
Cali(merion)

Calimerion

Sun Apr 25, 2004 10:21 am

#175

Industrial City Sounds - An Athmosphere Killer and Stress Producer

After having paused some little while and comming back, I do now realize what has been one of the most annoying things for me personally.

1. Loading Time
2. Industrial City Sounds

Not much to say about the first item, but that is just something personal which I don't like that much. You know, I mostly stick with short play sessions, regardless of the game - I am a casual gamer, or just checking whats going one and log for a short time therefore.

Up to my knowledge none of the existing games do take that long for logging in, not even the modern ones. I am aware that this may have technical
reasons, it sure does, but nevertheless I do not have to like it still, right ? :-) - perhaps upgrading to even more memory might do the trick (currently 768).

Anyway. Thats just some minor thing. The very most anoying and athmosphere killing issue in my mind is: The Sound - especially in cities.

You know, instead of having nice melodies mostly - music is kind of rare anyway - you get presented with industrial sounds in cities. Like the noise from the planes, the star and shuttleport buzzing and hummling and so no.

In terms of athmosphere I do judge that as being the most annoying killer. To my it compares like going to the airfield rollfields or inside a big fabric hall in your leisure time - Noise is a reall killer - In reall life too - I do realize that this all may have to do with the "Starwarshis feeling" - but honestly, I could not care less regading that factor in general.

I hate city industrial sounds - as well as shuttle port sounds - that much, that I turn of the sound always. ALWAYS :-)

Not going to write more, suppose no one cares or thinks like me on that topic anyways :-)

Have fun,
Cali

Ps. Beside that - there is little I unlike regarding SWG and I think it is the greates Mog from the current available ones and I am playing and enjoying it - but no product can be perfect for everyone in all aspects :-)

Calimerion

Sun Apr 25, 2004 10:55 am

#176

Off Line Chat Tool

Hello forum,

I think an offline chat tool - connecting your character to the ingame chat servers - might come in handy community wise.

Has anyone ever seen any comment regarding that one ? I know it has been mentioned at the forums sometimes at least.

That way you could connect to the ingame chat, without having to load the game. With a game chat client only so to say. So you can keep in touch with your mates by accessing your clan channel for example.

You know, like it has been (is ?) over at AO, or like the UO Automap channel.

I always liked that, keeping in touch with your friends, also with those that don't actively play at the moment perhaps, but just being able to stay tuned.

Cheers,
Cali(merion)

Calimerion

Sun Apr 25, 2004 10:57 am

#177

Guild Members Off- Online

I want to be albe to see, which members of my guild (PA) are online.

Cali(merion)

AzuraTrikach

Sun Apr 25, 2004 3:40 pm

#178

Hi

I just wanted to add my ideas to the game. I have not read all threads, I might suggest something that has already been written.

1) I agree, It is silly to have to wait for a shuttle in the game. The game should be fun - not boring. There is enough waiting time IRL.

2) Please make faction points usefull. Rank does not really matter in the game. Why have rank? The stuff we can buy for faction points is useless (especially the imp. armor), please make it worth the while.

3) AT-ST (and perhaps pets) should auto-store, when the owner has been killed (or perhaps even incapped).

4) Why are there almost no sounds from stormtroopers? Please add more audio in the game. "Move along" is not enough. It should be fairly easy to add sound.

5) Please write a story for swg. It was more fun playing the game during "The Cries of Alderaan" even though you could have speeded up the acts a bit. 3 months between each act is too much, when we can take the act missions in a day or two.All your current development efforts are on fixing bugs (there are quite a few of them) and adding new dungeons.I do not want dungeons, I want the game to have a story. Come on!!

6) Why is Bestine the focus of alldevelopment activity on Tatooine? All the other cities (except Anchorhead) on Tatooine are deserted. Please spread out your development focus to the rest of the planet. I do not know if it is like that on other planets.

That is all for now.

_____________

Azura Tri'kach
Elder Jedi
Second Lieutenant in the Imperial Army

Secondary characters:

Azuri Tri'kach - Elder Chef (Trader Domestic Goods)
Azira Tri'kach - Smuggler

Oebri

Sun Apr 25, 2004 4:19 pm

#179

Is there a feature in development to allow players to move their characters from one server to another?

Sitrom's Loot Vendor! -1352 -5623 Corellia. Just 1km from Coronet on Pimp Island.

BapHessa

Sun Apr 25, 2004 7:35 pm

#180

I am a master dancer, but this recomendation is for All entertiners. I am dispointed becouse now that there are player cities all over many planets, and with them player cantinas, there is no incentive or *need* for players to visit them. Our primary clintel are the Combat type who require healing of there Battle Fatige or Mind pool "Buffs" before engaging in combat. Most of these combat types go to Lok, Dathmir, and Dantooine for the tougher missions that bring them more money and XP. The problem now is that at the starport supporting outposts on these planets have both mission terminals and cantina's or taverns. All combat players *need* to do is hop off the shuttle, walk over to the cantina, get there mind buffs from a dancer and action and health buffs from a doc, and grab a mission and go. When they finnish the mission they come back and "rince and repeat". There is no need for them to go to a player city to get healed in a player cantina or take missions from a player city's mission terminals.

My recomendation, therefor is the following:

1. Take away the cantina's and the mission terminals from the outposts on the "adventure" planets such as Lok and Dantooine.

This will force a need for Combat players to find a PLAYER city for (ENTERTAINER)healing and to recieve their missions. This will Boost the ecomomy and cause there to be an actual purpose for player cities and player CANTINAS.

2. Have ENTERTAINER mission terminals and/or QUESTS direct the musician or dancer to a PLAYER CANTINA.

I understand this will require a NPC at the cantina, but what would it hurt to have a NPC patrion come with every PLAYER CANTINA when it is built. This would also add to the mission becouse there would be a chance to have a real live audiance in addition to the NPC being performed for as part of the mission.

I think these two ideas, in combination would make the entertainer missions, quests, and profession as a whole a lot more enjoyable and rewarding. I also believe it would help ad to the interdependent nature for which the game was disighned.

fermun

Sun Apr 25, 2004 8:32 pm

#181

fermun wrote:

I would like to see a more of a supply-and-demand effect with the mission terminals. Currently, only a few cities are populated well, and those just have tons of people in them.I think that it would be nice to spread the population out through the galaxy, maybe if the terminals could keep track of the missions that were accepted there, and as more missions were accepted frequently the payout could drop on a sliding scale to about half the original prices. This would discourage people from only hanging out at the more populated cities. Additionally, it would give the game more realism... with the 5,000,000 people that seem to hang out in some of the more popular places, adventurers are a dime a dozen.

In the cities that are fairly abandoned, the prices for missions could then go up on a sliding scale to about 1.5 times as much. This would encourage people to get to some of the cities that are harder to reach. Additionally, it gives the game more realism because when you can't find anyone to get a job done that NEEDs to be done, you would need to raise the pay.

Hopefully this would reduce some of the congestion in the popular cities and improve the condition of some of the "ghost towns".

I've done some additional thinking and I've considered a few ways to include other classes other than combat classes in my ideas to even out the population.

The problem is condensed medics and entertainers in certain areas. Why not have certain buildings employ a set number of players. For instance, a cantina can employ a number of entertainers who would be required to play at that cantina for a specified time per week to maintain their employee status. A token hourly wage should be paid to them and while it doesn't need to be large, it will create an additional incentive to play at their location of employment. The new entertainer quest is about to be release and perhaps it will take care of this problem to some degree. However, why stop at entertainers? Medics could perhaps be employed at hospitals. We could even employ chefs to act as bartenders and cooks at the local cantinas. After all, this is star wars GALAXIES, not star wars Theed and Coronet.

Voren

Sun Apr 25, 2004 8:39 pm

#182

A new market place area in every major city so it can reduce lag when you come out of the star port. Have the market place have small tents that players can buy and set up at, drop some of their wares inorder to sell them, etc. but DO NOT let players be able to drop NPCs to sell goods, it ruins the communitive atmosphere. Being able to haggle for prices is what markets are all about. Also, have it so they get the deed for the tent (as in tents I mean a small thing that most of the trainers stand under) and can place anything down under it and within a meter around. Have it like a structure (like buildings, where you get the deed and place the tent, but have the zones for placing against walls in this specified zone for a market place) and you can automatically replace the strcture because it doesnt require maintenance. With this, also release decorative rugs and decorative things for the then, like things that hang off the front of the tent. Play around and expand the idea, I think it is great....

There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the force.
-jedi code.

Development Cycle Archive

Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion (Week Ending 4-26-04)