Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion (Week Ending 3-29-04)
Thanks
IndySWG wrote:
IndySWG wrote:
TH ...
You said that soon star ports will go from any planet to any planet. I would offer that this may not be a good idea for the following reasons:
1) Suddenly there would be no "remote" planets. Remote planets are an important part of both RP and Strategy (not to mention comerce)
2) With the Space Expansion - I was hoping that one reason to seek out a smuggler in mos eisley would be to get a non-stop flight to Planet X while avoiding any...imperial entanglements. It would be awesome to start increasing scans AT STAR PORTS (only after the space expansion), and keep the star ports limited runs... giving a very nifty REASON to have a smuggler friend with a ship. "Need to get your Jedi off of Tatooine to Dantooine un-noticed... better find a smuggler - other wise, you'll have to go thru 3 star ports, take 3 times as long, and risk gettin scanned")
Is this change a done deal? I think this should be more fully polled in the community. Sure there is a "squeeky wheel" about shuttle wait times...but most of us want things to be more "star warsy" and this both goes against that and misses an opportunity to add a really cool star-wars aspect to "the galaxy".
Maybe I'm not in the 'most of us' , but I wanta good game experience and I'd sacrifice star warsiness to get it.
Bear in mind that there are times I want to play for an hour or so. 20 minute shuttle waits kill the experience.
This is a collection of ideas, discussions, and brainstorming from myself, and the people on the forums at www.swgcenter.com . All 13 of these ideas, relate to the game in general. Economics, PvP, Combat, GCW and most profession specific ideas have been purposely left out. These ideas, to the best of my and other people's knowledge are also believed to be totally within the current scope of the game's source code (thus, no wild ideas that, while may sound great, would require a re-write of half the game), and careful consideration was made to this.
So, without further comment, I proudly present the result of many man-hours of thought and discussion as:
Joe Player’s Top 13 things that need to be fixed / implemented in SWG (in no particular order).
1) Fix the clothing/armor attachment system. Currently there are attachments dropping for skills that apparently no longer exist (grenade experimentation, repair... grenades use weapon experimentation) or aren’t relevant (clothing experimentation... tailors don’t experiment). The attachment system is overly complex and messy. "Like attachments" should stack. Attachments with multiple skills should give all skills, not just the highest ranking skill. If game limiting control is needed, general skill-caps such as the +125 defense caps or +25 crafting experiment caps work much better and are much simpler than the current system.
2) Fix the vendor system. Vendors should be functionally easy to use. Sort by column should sort across all pages, not just the first one. Columns should be able to be resized. Changing pages in the bazaar should not have items from previous pages repeated. Downloading ALL the pages at once for a category may take longer, but I think most players would prefer it if it makes browsing faster. If it takes too long, they can always hit “cancel” and narrow down the category. Vendors should be able to be moved after they are dropped and before they are initialized (they can currently, only be rotated... before AND after initialization, and cannot be picked back up, even if uninitialized. With this data, what's the point of initialization in the first place?) Artisan terminal vendors should have their several month old initialization bug fixed! Vendors should be able to be dropped and re-picked back up if they are un-initialized. Vendors should be able to be “uninitialized”, thus loosing all items on them, but allowing them to be picked up and moved to new locations. Vendors should have a “Reset to Default Clothing” option (otherwise, how do I remove that ugly bandolier/gloves/hat/etc I dragged onto my vendor w/o having to delete and re-make a new vendor?!) Image Designers should have the ability to modify the appearance of vendors. Vendors should be able to be renamed. The overhead map should have vendor names declared in bubbles with leader lines pointing to where they are, to prevent the illegible vendor name stackup problem. These bubbles would be sensitive to each other, and while the leader lines may cross and overlap, the names are legible. Rotating the overhead map would make some bubbles shift to the other side of the screen. A second option (Ctrl-N?) could turn these bubbles on/off.
“Per-unit item” vendors which could be loaded with stacked items / crates and have a per-unit price set on each are needed. Thus, I could load a vendor with 7 identical crates, and set the price on one item. Examining the item on the vendor would show the out-of-crate model and stats. Players buying would be prompted for the number of items desired. If more than one item is bought, it sells the player a crate of that item, otherwise, it sells the player a loose item generated from the crate. Thus, if the items are made 25 to a crate, the limit that could be bought at once is 25. Resources would be sold on a “credits per unit” price as well, and this could be a decimal amount (the vendor rounds up on purchase of needed). Of course, the most of any type of resource that could be bought at once would be 100k. If there are 1 million units of a resource on a vendor, and the buyer wants 450k units. He’ll have to buy four 100k stacks and one 50k stack. Since these objects are retained one copy / listing on a vendor and cloned as needed, this would severely reduce the amount of database object space needed as well, since the database now only needs to store the data for one object, and a “number of items” field, rather than 50 identical objects, as the current vendor type is only capable of.
3) Protect the loot containers. There are far, far too many “ninja looters” and people who sit AFK using a 3rd party program to loot containers. Protect these. A system where magseal crates/bones/loose debris could not be accessed unless XX creatures have been killed in that dungeon within the last hour would solve this problem. Once one of these containers have been emptied, make them auto-close in the interface, or close if left open for more than 3 minutes. Number of XX dungeon creatures killed decay after an hour. For example, if I kill my first Pygmy Torton at 3:00PM, and then kill 5 more afterward... I’ll have 6 kills to my record until 4:00PM, where the first kill will drop off and I’ll be left with 5 kills. The first loot spot may require 4 total kills to access, the second 7 total, and the last, maybe 20 creatures total. This would be total for a group if grouped as well. Also, disable logging in and out within the dungeons. Logging out while in a dungeon would transport you to the entrance of the dungeon when you log back in.
Also, to prevent spawn camping, spread creatures with known, camped loot drops out. Wollamander Harrowers are camped because they only spawn in ONE place. If they spawned like a Peko-Peko Albatross, you wouldn’t have spawnpoint campers because nobody knows where the next Peko-Peko Albatross is going to show up next!
4) Give realistic and interesting container loot. We are sick of 1-unit resources and CDEF weapons! Make resource loot drops have 1000 units at the minimum, and maybe 50,000 units maximum. Any type of weapon should loot drop depending on the level of the dungeon. Throw in some interesting loots as well in containers such as force crystals, oddball generic items like the Eyes of Mesara, grenades, clothing, armor, component items (rancor teeth, krayt tissues...), etc. Not only should this apply for loot objects such as magseal crates/bones/loose debris, but also for locked containers and treasure maps. Treasure maps should spawn defenders consistent with the user of the map and his group, if any. Also, treasure maps should reward based on character/group level as well. A review of NPC loot dropping is also sorely needed, with even newer creatures such as Tusken Observers not dropping anything, despite the 250k HAM.
5) Fix the crafting system. Critical failures on assembly should have a chance (maybe not always, maybe having the game do a second roll behind the scenes for each component item and a “double critical” would destroy the item.) to return special items and subcomponents to the inventory. Tailors need something to experiment with..... clothing color fade over time? Clothing durability with visible rips and tears as clothing gets worn and skill attachments, bio-enhancements decreasing unless repaired? Number of available attachment slots?
Second, it’s players who drive the in-game economy, not the crafters. If players only demand high damage weapons, then that’s all they’ll buy, and thus, all the crafters will make. If the other stats play a much larger role, to the point where players will demand precious experimentation points be spent in these areas at the sacrifice of damage/protection/maximum value, then crafters WILL make different varieties of items. This is simply "supply and demand", players "demand", thus, crafters "supply". For example, with weapons, if weapons with no points in durability start disintegrating after two dozen combats, players will demand weaponsmiths put experimentation points into durability (plus, this would be a great way to reduce the massive stockpiles of pre-nerf items in the game, as few have many points at all spent in this area). If the HAM cost on a blade with no points put in efficiency is so ugly, that even a buffed player is wiping themselves out after a few specials, players will demand points be put into that (right now, HAM costs on weapons are a moot point when talking about buffed players. Buffed, I can use my strongest attacks continually and regenerate fully before the next). If a gun with no points spent in accuracy can’t hit the broad side of a Star Destroyer at any range even in the hands of a master, players will demand points be spent there as well. The reason a weaponsmith maxes-out damage/speed first then other stats second is because those other stats don’t matter nearly as much.to players as damage/speed.
Third, want to make having only a partial crafting tree useful? As it currently stands, unless you are a Master crafter, nobody cares about you or buys from you (unless you’re a tailor) because the Master simply has MORE experimentation points to spend, and thus will ALWAYS make the better object. Everybody in the game ONLY wants the best (and they can afford it as well, this is simply the law of min-maxers. You don't hear many crafters bragging about the number of suits of Malbari Armorweave they sell, or Blap Biscuits, or Pyrepenol. There is a reason for this). Here’s the easiest way to fix this... give a player ALL 10 experimentation points at Novice level. The catch is, their chance to fail experimentation is much higher. A master Weaponsmith could make a schematic in maybe two crafting attempts to get top quality product based on the resources he used. A Novice though, using the same resources, may have to try 100 times, but, eventually, he could make something that was exactly as good as a master; something players would actually buy. He may be out 100x the resources from all the experimentation failures or just poor experimentation results, but such is the price one has to pay on the path of learning. He still can’t make really fancy items like Vasarian Brandy, T21 Rifles, or Composite Armor, but he can at least now make a manufacturing schematic for Scout Blasters or Blue Milk players will actually buy. Not only that, from those 100 tries, he gains XP! It’s not a wasted “grind”, the player has something to actually show for his labors, and is a far, far better thing than grinding "blaster barrels" in "practice mode" with junk resources for 4 days straight. Research Player Cities and Skilltapes will still “add” to that base 10 points.
Last, most players liked the variability the Publish 7 experimentation system brought, but were opposed to the 10 point scaling based on resource quality on all the experimentation paths. I don’t see why the variability couldn’t be added back in, but retain the current system where the points possible to experiment in an experiment path are fixed, and not scaled to the 10 points total based on the resource quality. This would cause even master crafters, to go through much resources trying to get that "one amazing success" higher to make an even more superior product.
6) Re-adjust the structure limitations. All structures should cost one lot. The difference should be the amount of maintenance paid for them. If this doubles, triples, or increases my maintenance paid by an order of magnitude, so be it. Having a varying lot cost and a varying maintenance rate is redundant. I’m a rich merchant! Why can’t I own 6 harvesters, a factory, a large house, a tent for my business and a PA hall as my corporate headquarters as long as I can pay 1 million a week in maintenance?! Have ONE control. Maintenance.
Second, remove the 250 item cap. Guild halls are next to impossible to detail with this limit. With many empty rooms resulting. Same with large houses. The load times may be longer, but I doubt players would mind. Perhaps structures could be split into rooms and zones and have them all load on demand. A main room of a generic guild hall would load upon entrance, but the basement rooms would not unless entered. The item limits would simply be by default: 75 (small), 150 (small/mid), 200 (mid), 450 (large) and 675 (PA hall).
Third, give houses a “holding closet”. The holding closet should work like the bank’s safety deposit box. These items are NOT loaded on entry into the house, but instead are loaded on demand when the owner/admin accesses the closet. The number of objects that can be placed here should be “House Item Limit – Visible Items in House + ##” where ## can be different for each house. Thus, out of view, it's possible for a house to hold more objects than currently.
In addition, houses and guild halls dying from lack of maintenance should blacken and burn like harvesters. Also, owner/Admin should be able to remove maintenance from any structure, not just guild halls. Ultimately, a User Interface screen showing all the player’s structures, and how much maintenance/power is left on them would be most beneficial, even if it’s only updated on daily server reboot and only dynamically when the player gets close enough for the structure to load. Also, give architects some experimentation for houses. Maybe “Efficiency” that could reduce maintenance cost by a credit or so an hour, or “Space Effectiveness” to increase in the number of items a house can hold (or it’s storage closet). Let them change the texture on the roofs, outsides, interiors or doors of houses on creation. Maybe rare loot drops such as “nano-maintenance bots”, “super efficient power generator” or “robotic storage and retrieval module” could be optional house components that reduce maintenance or increase maximum limit on items.
On the subject of structures, how about some “storage sheds”, “barns”, and “shop” buildings as well? The tents are nice, but something that looks like a shop, perhaps with a display window would be even better. Artisans need to be able to make “signs” as well. Arrows, wall-mount and pedestal signs that when the player gets close to it, displays a configurable message. Armor shards make ugly signs.
7) Fix the TEF system. The TEF system has some serious issues, some game-play wise, and some that are purely annoying. Coverts, trading with overts should not be kicked from their own house! TEFed players shouldn’t be kicked out of ANY structure and should be able to freely enter and leave as they desire. Overt players can. Coverts grouping with overts should automatically gain a TEF after 2 minutes, and automatically go overt after 10. This should also be based on the last 30 minutes of game history, so groups don’t disband after 9 minutes 50 seconds and re-form. If this was attempted for example, because the covert player has 9minutes and 50 seconds worth of “association time” with an overt player within the last 30 minutes, they’d become overt 10 seconds after re-grouping. Smugglers of a certain level should be able to trade with ANYONE, covert or overt, opposite or like faction as long as they were covert or neutral, and not gain a TEF. Thus, a covert imperial smuggler would be allowed to trade with an overt rebel and not gain a TEF. These are the spies of the rebellion and the empire!
8) Fix the boundary detection. Make game AI smart enough to realize it. Too many people “shooting through walls” or using heavy harvesters to “tank” a creature for an easy kill. Fill in the areas between rooms in 3D space with “no-pass-through” clipping planes. Make the AI smart enough to path AROUND harvesters, or path up onto patios and areas that people exploit from.
9) Create quick and easy channel creation. Having to carry on conversations with 5 different people at once using /tell is painful at best. Allow players to make quick, and easy instant channels. Yes, I know this can be done under the current channel system, but the process is anything but quick and easy (cryptic and frustrating is a better term). /channel new playername1, playername2, playername3 should make a new tab, with a generic name (or the name of the first player name entered) and on all the clients of the players entered pop up “HostPlayer would like to open a dedicated channel with you, accept? Y/N”. A checkbox option could be added to the options screen “Automatically refuse all dedicated channel requests”.
/channel add playername would add a player to an existing channel.
/channel kick playername would allow the channel creator to kick a person from the channel.
/channel disband would allow the channel creator to destroy the entire channel, or non-creator to simply leave.
/channel leave would let a person leave the channel.
10) Create cooperative animations. /kiss, /pat, /noogie, /bite, /hug, /comfort, /slap, /dance.... should all have cooperative animations. For example, if “/hug” was done with another player targeted, the receiving player would receive the popup: “Player wants to hug you, do you: Hug back, stand still, push away, kick in shins”. This would give great fun and interaction on the social aspect of the game. Depending on what the receiving player chooses, the on-screen characters perform a cooperative animation and will actually hug each other, or show a scene where one attempts to hug the other, but instead gets kicked in the shin and hops on one leg for a second... Of course, another option in the options menu “Automatically reject all cooperative socials” would be added as well for those who don’t want to be bothered with this. On the subject of those incredibly handy popup windows, while one comes up for /invite, one does not come up for /trade. Why?
Ability to add text or modifiers to emotes. Examples:
(creature/player/NPC targeted) /comfort :It’s alright. = You comfort <&TT> and say: “It’s alright.”
(creature/player/NPC targeted) /salute snappy = You give <&TT> a snappy salute.
(no target) /grin mischievous = You grin mischievously.
(self targeted) /protect :Hail to the King, Baby. = (animation of character pointing to self) You exclaim: “Hail to the King, Baby”
Also, the game needs a “lay down” animation. There’s a difference between /prone, which has your character looking like a Navy Seal sneaking up on a group of terrorists, and laying back in the grassy fields of Naboo watching the clouds go by. Also, only being able to sit on beds (those VERY TINY, 3-foot long beds) seems pretty dumb.
(continued...)
I have been ranting a little bit on these boards TH. mostly over in the merchant board. i have a big issue with the state of the profession.
first off there is no reason for merchants in the game. any artisan can create a vendor and sell stuff, and you know as well as i do that if that was all we had the game wouldnt suffer for it. instead of being relied upon for anything, people become a master merchant, create everything they need, vendors and stuff, then drop it and take up some combat profession. vendors sit empty, or with stuff on it that is so over priced nobody wants to buy and then those that either cant afford those items or dont want to deal with merchants because they are greedy, use the bazaar. further, the interface and system running vendors is so messed, and so slow it makes me wonder how many people just go around vendors and the bazaar and trade face to face. why can we not multiple select? why cant we sell all the resource and give a cpu amount so that people can buy just what they want instead of hacking it into 5k, 10k, 20k, manually? and why cant we just have a "store" dialog on the store tab instead of having to sell, then withdraw the items that we stacked in there one at a time?
the second major issue has nothing to do with the vendors, it has to do with the database implementation the devs are using. i have never heard of a database losing data. when stuff acidentally disappears where does it go? i have created many databases. i have never accidentally lost data. further why is it called a STOREroom? why not instead call it a 7day DISINTEGRATOR? then instead of weeks before things disappear out of the storage area in the vendor, you could just delete it out. that would really clear that database.
i am being a little over the top yes. but i want everyone here to realize the truth that you have blinded us to with your fancy talk and shifting our mental focus. these people care about the game for one reason. your money. they could care less about your enjoyment of the game. and you know honestly that is business and i agree with it. it is when that "business" policy results in unhappy customers that most businesses find themselves out of business. i am an unhappy customer TH. i lost stuff in my vendor. i had at least 2 pages of stuff being stored. it hadnt disappeared for over a month. last night i logged in and went looking for some of that stuff. i had 15 items out of over 100 left. some of what was missing was trivial. but the houses, harvesters, vehicle deeds, resources, and other items were part of my business. i know for a fact that i lost 100k worth of stuff. probably more on the order of 1mil or better. i freaked. i went to put in a ticket, it forced me to search the knowledge base. i found an answer there saying that things left over 7 days were not guaranteed to stay. (my wording)
i put in my ticket. wanna know the response? most of you probably guessed it by now. sorry you lost items, vendors do not store items for more that 7 days. (my words) this is as it is "INTENDED". (the CSR's word)
so it is policy to not return my items, i understand that could be a lot of work. it is working as intended, great, nice to know something works as you intend.
BUT CAN YOU PLEASE PUT A WARNING SOMEWHERE ON THE VENDOR STOREROOM DIALOG.
then maybe you would have a leg to stand on when you tell me you cant return my items. or that it is working as intended. this is just... expletive here ...
oh and for all you merchants who agree with me, please instead of storing stuff in the STOREroom. put the highest price you can on it, and store it under the selling tab. this will not only drive your customers nuts so that you can then explain to them the reason for it, but you will also have an extra 30 days of time before you have to rotate the items. i think this would be a fitting protest as well to get the devs to realize that thier database sucks and that they need to give all players more storage.
one last, read the book "you WILL be satisfied" by bob tasca. this is how all customers should be treated. dignity and respect.
StarchMonkey wrote:
I don't know about other crafters, but Armorsmiths have to have a rediculous amount of resources. Its just almost unmanageable. Coupled with the limited storage in our houses, it makes juggling resources a major pain. We really need something for crafters to help. More storage, a warehouse, some way to consolidate resources... something.
Armorsmiths and Weaponsmiths are the richest players in the game. Go buy a couple guild halls to dump your resources in and let the DEVs deal with real issues.
IndySWG wrote:
TH ...
You said that soon star ports will go from any planet to any planet. I would offer that this may not be a good idea for the following reasons:
1) Suddenly there would be no "remote" planets. Remote planets are an important part of both RP and Strategy (not to mention comerce)
2) With the Space Expansion - I was hoping that one reason to seek out a smuggler in mos eisley would be to get a non-stop flight to Planet X while avoiding any...imperial entanglements. It would be awesome to start increasing scans AT STAR PORTS (only after the space expansion), and keep the star ports limited runs... giving a very nifty REASON to have a smuggler friend with a ship. "Need to get your Jedi off of Tatooine to Dantooine un-noticed... better find a smuggler - other wise, you'll have to go thru 3 star ports, take 3 times as long, and risk gettin scanned")
Is this change a done deal? I think this should be more fully polled in the community. Sure there is a "squeeky wheel" about shuttle wait times...but most of us want things to be more "star warsy" and this both goes against that and misses an opportunity to add a really cool star-wars aspect to "the galaxy".
yeee Smugglers you want a cheese with that wine. Make it an item that can open mag.seal maybe 5 times then go poof.
There is almost never a smuggler near me in a cave when im hunting, so yes a way to open them would be great.
Hi Devs...
I recall that when you took away the 1% decay on factional death and allowed us to stay insured, you said it was a temporary thing and there would be an alternative insurance method implemented. Can we assume that this will not happen until the GCW revamp publish now?
Oh, and any chance you could say if any changes/improvements will be made to Commando in the next couple of patches?
I thought the first question was nice and easy and one that you'd likely answer, and kind of hoped you might throw in an answer to question 2 whilst you were at it....
and similarly 'citizens' can be used in a mail to mail all the citizens of a city?
LeBob - I know this works with entry rights on a structure so I assume admin rights can be done too.
To give rights to an entire a guild you need to enter Guild:<name> on the list, so for my house I have guild:UKRM. No idea if it works to citizens though.
Jenner wote (among many other great ideas):
10) Create cooperative animations. /kiss, /pat, /noogie, /bite, /hug, /comfort, /slap, /dance.... should all have cooperative animations. For example, if “/hug” was done with another player targeted, the receiving player would receive the popup: “Player wants to hug you, do you: Hug back, stand still, push away, kick in shins”. This would give great fun and interaction on the social aspect of the game. Depending on what the receiving player chooses, the on-screen characters perform a cooperative animation and will actually hug each other, or show a scene where one attempts to hug the other, but instead gets kicked in the shin and hops on one leg for a second... Of course, another option in the options menu “Automatically reject all cooperative socials” would be added as well for those who don’t want to be bothered with this. ..."
and:
"Also, the game needs a “lay down” animation. There’s a difference between /prone, which has your character looking like a Navy Seal sneaking up on a group of terrorists, and laying back in the grassy fields of Naboo watching the clouds go by. Also, only being able to sit on beds (those VERY TINY, 3-foot long beds) seems pretty dumb."
I have been enjoying this game immensely; what has been created here constantly amazes me. The environment (graphics, sound, music, weather) is evocative and often takes my breath away. There is so much to do and see. It is, for me, quite an immersive experience.
I know there are tons of things that need tweaking and overhauling, and a lot has yet to be implemented... so Jenner's item #10 may seem like a drop in the bucket to some folks, but to me and many other people I know who play this game, cooperative animations would bring a SUCH a richness to the social aspect of the game.
-- but after a hard day in combat, it would be so great to actually physically *interact* with someone. I always joke with friends -- "Just passing through!" -- when we hug each other here in SWG. It is... cold. It's like we are each in our own little bubble of isolation, never really "touching." I can imagine that there are issues with avatars and "hard boundaries", but cooperative animations might be one way to provide the warmth that I feel is missing in SWG.