Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Weekly Roundtable Discussion (Week Ending 3-29-04)
/standingovation
Limbonik wrote:
Alright. Sorry guys (subscribers), but I will continue to post this until we see/hear clear cut answers on all of it.
1. Make use of the Skywalker Sound archives.
- Music for cities; I hear music everytime I land at Nym's. Where's the rest of the love?
- More than one choice to "battle" music.
- Music keyed to factionally-aligned base destructions.
- Ambience
- Background "chatter". (e.g. Cantinas, Hospitals, Starports, Bazaars, etc.)
- Beeps, bells and whistles
- Fix "wrong sounds" on weapons.
- Only one Corellian Corvette between every planet? No? Alter the pitch/tone for variance.
- Stormtroopers should be saying "Move along," "Nothing to see here," and "Hey, you there!" for starters.
- Is there an enviornment in Star Wars Galaxies? Funny, I haven't heard it.
2. Factionally-aligned crafters:
- Armoursmiths: Republic/Imperial armour.
- Weaponsmiths: Republic blasters are in the game, where is the Imperial Blaster?
- Tailors: Republic/Imperial Uniforms.
- Droid Engineers: Faction specific droids. RX-7 (Republic) and Death Star Droid (Imperial) as examples.
3a. Droids> Pokèmon
- 10 available droid-types, but how many creature-types are available as pets?
- Droid CL should be higher than CL. Creatures have a will; Droids are a pre-programmed set of routines with no "will to live"
- Allow either more than one droid out at one time, or remove the formation commands from the radial menu. It looks horrible to see that on a menu when it is useless.
- Return the Pre-nerf, "Legacy" Probots armour. If you can't do this, than do this to everything. I have houses I built when I was an architect that can't be placed on planets other than what they were created for. If you can go in and remove armour from a droid that old, then you can modify everything else old to reflect new.
3b. Make droids do what they should do.
- Protocol Droids should translate languages. Remove the ability to learn languages, or make them cost skill points.
- LE Repair Droids should repair droids. This droid should be callable no matter the other droid you have out, so you can actually repair your own droids, and not waste money on a droid that repairs everyone elses droids.
- Power Droids should recharge droids (this is currently implemented and fine.) This droid should be callable no matter the other droid you have out, so you can actually recharge your own droids, and not waste money on a droid thatrecharges everyone elses droids.
- Surgical Droids should heal players. Make this a Doctor/Combat Medic droid only.
- Binary Load Lifters should allow you to carry a larger amount of items inside of it automatically. Make this droid work as a harvestor and/or resource "container".
- R2 astromechs should give a bonus to slicing and to later inclusion of X-Wings.
- R4 astromechs should give a bonus to the later inclusion of Y-Wings.
- Probe Droids should be Imperial only. Their primary function isn't combat, it's recon. Give the Probot the ability to travel to xx / xx waypoint, and provide the ability to "view" from the Probots current location, in a 360 degree view.
3c. AT-ST
- Give us a way to repair our AT-ST already.
- Give us the option to trade in our AT-ST. Some of us purchased ours at the start of the game, and would not have bought one had we known how bad you were going to screw them up.
4. Addition of Hutt faction (the game is programmed for it already.)
- Rebel and Imperial forces may attack known (or overt) Hutt aligned faction players.
- Hutt aligned forces may attack Rebels and Imperials that are known (or overt.)
- Placement of a new negative faction system.
- Introduction of "Player Bounties/War Crimes"; Once a player hits -5000 faction(if a new negative systemwere implemented,) a mission would be given out randomly to 3 players to kill them. In order to prevent a bounty (Hutt) or a war crime (imp/reb) from occuring, players could seek out an NPC and pay them X amount of credits in order to "raise" their standing with said faction. Negative faction should also "decay over time," giving a player the choice between spending credits to keep on slaughtering, or "taking a break" from their crimes.
5. Addition of new "faction capture points."
- These points contain Cloning, Insurance, Healing, Missions and a "Declare" terminal.
- These points cover a radius of 1-300m. Faction who controls capture point receives a bonus to defense while in the area of the capture points.
- Doors on any entrance for the control point.
- Doors must be destroyed whichX of time.A Master Smuggler can slice thru it 50% faster.
- Each point captured counts toward the /GCW
- Capture points to execute "NPC events." (think Bestine Political Quest.)
- Allow "Detention Center" feature w/i control points. Similiar to the warning of Battlefields, a player could be given the choice to take part in a "prison break" feature, or could also pass on the feature, if they did not want to feel "punished" by the game for error.
6. Addition of "animated" Load screens (or small .AVIs).
- Instead of a Picture of a Jawa with information on Selonians maybe we could find a tad more "immersion" to chuck in.
- "animated" load screen depicting planet lift-off/landings
- "animated" load screens depicting town-to-town shuttle flights. (small video plays of flying over the vast, vacant deserts on Tatooine as Mos Eisley appears on the horizon, etc.)
7. Variety is key.
- If you must use a solitary corvette model as our only planet-to-planet ship, can we at least have different coloured stripes/markings based on planet? At least try to make us think there's more than 1 corvette out there.
- Shuttles should vary in striped/markings colour as well.
- Spaceports shouldn't look the same on every planet. Are all spaceports pre-fabs from the same manufacturer?
8. Scripted Events.
- Tatooine: Sandcrawler should be moving across the desert from the Jawa Fortress to another point, then return. Imperial Patrols should be found patrolling outside of cities/deserts with Dewbacks. Slave-1 should be seen arriving to/leaving Jabba's Palace. Sand Skiffs dumping hapless victim into Sarlacc, etc.
- Endor: Imperial Speederbike patrols should be seen all over theplanet. Ewok hunting parties raiding enemy camps, etc.
- Dantooine: Imperial presence should be more visible. AT-ST patrols, AT-PT/AT-AT patrols.
- Dathomir: Larger, sweeping Imperial presence near the Prison. Nightsisters dropping slaves into the Lesser Sarlacc, etc.
- Corellia: Larger, sweeping CorSec presence. Shuttles arriving/leaving Hidden Rebel Base, etc.
9. Armour
- Fix the "armour hole" that's plagued armour forever now.
- We have lots of armours, and only Composite is used. Are the players the only ones who notice this?
- Armour should slow (speed/dodge/etc) players down. Wow...an encumberance that doesn't encumber speed?
- Armour should only cover a few types of DMG max. This prevents a world of BLAND. This will also help foster a bit of variance between players.
- Imperial armour needs to stay human-specific. You've screwed way to much continuity wise to just screw everything else up.
- There needs to be species-specific Imperial factional armour to replace the Stormtrooper armour for aliens.
- There should be a species-specific armour for each alien race. Although I stand by the fact that Wookiees should not have armour, but something that can be worn to give the same bonuses armoured classes recieve. (See my bandolier and ammoclip suggestion in previous threads for more information.)
10. Player Cities
- Return /citywarn to us already.
- If you will NOT return /citywarn, give us the option of NPCs that will enforce our city for us.
- Give us pavement.
- Give us bridges.
- Give us walls.
- Give us the ability to remove players from our city.
- Remove the ability recently added to allow a player to undeclare residency in a city.
- If a player removes themselves as a "citizen" of the city, they should be forced to move from the city so we can recover our lot space w/o losing our City Rank due to poor planning on the development end.
- Example of above comment: 8 players "quit" the game and never come back - but paid 6 mos maint. We can't remove those houses and lose space needed to refill the city to keep out City Rank. Since we can't remove the houses or recover our player count, we lose our City Rank at next election, and then we lose more radius in the city, effectively booting active players and civic buildings from our City, costing us millions in credits lost in civic buildings due to a poorly conceived, poorly implemented "Lemming-based" system.
- Cities are democratic-only, and yet we live in a Dictator-controlled Galaxy?
11. Add Imperial/Rebellion Banners as faction-purchased items from the Recruiter.
12. Immediate Concerns/Priorities needed in order to at least make this game playable.
- Bugfixes > New Dungeons.
- Bugfixes > Content.
- Hotfix the "armour hole" bug.
- Hotfix Line of sight.
- Hotfix shooting thru base walls.
- Hotfix covert/dead/feign death base shutdowns. Enough is enough.
- Hotfix "poison/disease" decay incap for Combat Medics.
- Hotfix "Greater than 64m" poison/disease throwsfor Combat Medics.
- Give us the ability to keep our city rank if we lose players from our city because of your poorly conceived "feature."
- GCW > Jedi: Jedi is the minority, Galactic Civil War is the majority. GCW publishes should take priority over Jedi path publishes.
(Oh, and give us control of our cities again, as I posted previously.) I find new things to add to this every week and will continue to post this until all points are answered with a well thought, intelligent response that does not add more questions than it answers, so let's see if anybody in charge is listening. Of course, if I end up having to wait on an Imperial Banner until the next "chance" at it - I won't keep posting this...I'll just give my money to a company who will listen to it's players.
Krayvex wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
Any thoughts on how to stop everyother pvp player from using a jawa rifle or stun baton?
No. Do you find this to be a problem?
Sometimes I wonder if we are playing the same game, then I realize that I play pvp and you don't. Due to stun damage being a vulnerability in armor, almost everyone uses a stun damage weapon in pvp. I can only guess this is the way the designers wanted it. My question was more of a "is there a way other than stun layered composite to stop stun damage and is it the design of the game that any profession that doesn't have a stun damage weapon be worthless in pvp? Things have gotten worse since the Geno blaster came out. That thing would be a decent pistol no matter what type of damage it did. Using Last Ditch with it on other players is very unbalanced.
well that is the point in variety in armor, isnt it...its a known weakness in composite and since everyone bought the cookie cutter kinetic resist composite, you are all screwed...its called stategy..find your opponets weakness and exploit it...
there are also defense vs. stun CLOTHING you can buy...
i just dont see the issue here
Do any players still use creature mounts?
Yes.
We're talking about SWG, right? I'll admit bantha's are cool, but that's the only pet i've seen out in the last 2 months. Anyone who can afford a bike, which i see on the bazaar for 6k, rides a bike. Mounts only get used by SOE employees. I guess that'd be an easy way to find a CSR in disguise. Anyone riding a dewback worksfor SOE....
yeah...
What happened to the Republic Blaster cert?
It is in the Novice Pistoleer Box
The cert is listed there. I won't argue that. What's funny is that I have no pistleer skill and yet I can use this gun with no penalty and no message telling me i'm not qualified. The cert may be listed there, the combat system wasn't informed of the change.
they cant seem to grasp that no matter how many times its brought up...
Why are the "crackdown's" a joke to anyone over novice level?
We beefed it up in Publish 7 and recieved a lot of positive feedback. We're looking at other ways to make it tougher, but its a tough balancing act. Thats why it happens slowly.
I can accept this. It's no where near enough of a hazard for players to worry about, but it sounds like you know this. Keep it up.
Where'd all the entertainers go?
To the cantina?
Which cantina? Not any that I go to. The last dregs of the hologrinders are always grouped up in one cantina on one planet. Theed, Naboo. If you'd like to test this, pick a server and then travel around to all the player cities you can get to in a night and tell me how many had working entertainers while you were there. I really want to hear your results.
Who cares...i personally am glad they are gone..i wish they would come up with food or spice to cure BF so we dont have to go watch the few that are left....the entertainers have alsways congregated in one cantina and never been spread out. there are some towns that i have never seen one in...SINCE BETA....i say good riddence anyway...most entertainers are annoying
the Medical Centers seem even more deserted...and thats saying a lot since they have basically been empty for the past 6 months...
Krayvex wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
Any thoughts on how to stop everyother pvp player from using a jawa rifle or stun baton?
No. Do you find this to be a problem?
Sometimes I wonder if we are playing the same game, then I realize that I play pvp and you don't. Due to stun damage being a vulnerability in armor, almost everyone uses a stun damage weapon in pvp. I can only guess this is the way the designers wanted it. My question was more of a "is there a way other than stun layered composite to stop stun damage and is it the design of the game that any profession that doesn't have a stun damage weapon be worthless in pvp? Things have gotten worse since the Geno blaster came out. That thing would be a decent pistol no matter what type of damage it did. Using Last Ditch with it on other players is very unbalanced.
well that is the point in variety in armor, isnt it...its a known weakness in composite and since everyone bought the cookie cutter kinetic resist composite, you are all screwed...its called stategy..find your opponets weakness and exploit it...
there are also defense vs. stun CLOTHING you can buy...
i just dont see the issue here
Do any players still use creature mounts?
Yes.
We're talking about SWG, right? I'll admit bantha's are cool, but that's the only pet i've seen out in the last 2 months. Anyone who can afford a bike, which i see on the bazaar for 6k, rides a bike. Mounts only get used by SOE employees. I guess that'd be an easy way to find a CSR in disguise. Anyone riding a dewback worksfor SOE....
yeah...
What happened to the Republic Blaster cert?
It is in the Novice Pistoleer Box
The cert is listed there. I won't argue that. What's funny is that I have no pistleer skill and yet I can use this gun with no penalty and no message telling me i'm not qualified. The cert may be listed there, the combat system wasn't informed of the change.
they cant seem to grasp that no matter how many times its brought up...
Why are the "crackdown's" a joke to anyone over novice level?
We beefed it up in Publish 7 and recieved a lot of positive feedback. We're looking at other ways to make it tougher, but its a tough balancing act. Thats why it happens slowly.
I can accept this. It's no where near enough of a hazard for players to worry about, but it sounds like you know this. Keep it up.
Where'd all the entertainers go?
To the cantina?
Which cantina? Not any that I go to. The last dregs of the hologrinders are always grouped up in one cantina on one planet. Theed, Naboo. If you'd like to test this, pick a server and then travel around to all the player cities you can get to in a night and tell me how many had working entertainers while you were there. I really want to hear your results.
Who cares...i personally am glad they are gone..i wish they would come up with food or spice to cure BF so we dont have to go watch the few that are left....the entertainers have alsways congregated in one cantina and never been spread out. there are some towns that i have never seen one in...SINCE BETA....i say good riddence anyway...most entertainers are annoying
the Medical Centers seem even more deserted...and thats saying a lot since they have basically been empty for the past 6 months...
Given my limited knowledge of cloning technology... I've never cloned a person before... Having buffs work their way of of the persons system after they've been cloned is rather silly.
Given that a clone is generated by injecting genetic matierial into an unfertilized egg which has had its original genentic material removed then induced via and electrical charge to begin dividing and replecating.
How exactly do food and medical buffs follow through the cloning process in genetic material that was likely collected hours before the buffs were applied. Even if we work on the assumption that medical buffs alter the genetic code of an individual if the code sample was taken prior to being buffed it would stand to reason that the clone would be unbuffed. Were the sample taken after the buff... assuming that the doctor buffs modify the genetic code of the individual, unlikely because you'd have to use some sort of retrograde virus to return the gentic code to its original state as the buff wears off but that's neither here nor there. Would it not stand to reason that the individual, given the previous assumption would clone buffed.
Ragnaat wrote:
You missed the point of the question. IF the mayor is absentee *AND* some other player form the town are also absentee then there is NOTHING that the active players ca currently do about this situaton.
Thunderheart wrote:
How do you vote out a mayor who no longer plays when alot of the town no longer plays?
An incumbent mayor has to run against the absentee mayor and everyone has to vote for the new mayor.
How do you verify that all of these people are indeed AWOL?
The filling effects are not cleared.
Skedoozy wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
Krayvex wrote:
What's the status on stomachs being emptied on cloning? Wasn't it supposed to be in the last publish?
No. The effects of food buffs are not cleared when you clone. They have to naturally time out.
Okay now you will have to clarify. You say the EFFECTS of Food Buffs are not cleared. But the EFFECTS are what clears when you clone. The only thing that stays is the TIMER. Your HAM goes back to normal when you clone and the TIMER remains. If the EFFECTS are not supposed to be cleared you have a nasty bug on yer hands that needs to be fixed ASAP.
Thunderheart wrote:
Ragnaat wrote:You missed the point of the question. IF the mayor is absentee *AND* some other player form the town are also absentee then there is NOTHING that the active players ca currently do about this situaton.
Thunderheart wrote:
How do you vote out a mayor who no longer plays when alot of the town no longer plays?An incumbent mayor has to run against the absentee mayor and everyone has to vote for the new mayor.
How do you verify that all of these people are indeed AWOL?
Yeah, that's real hard... perhaps if they don't log on for a few weeks? or if they told you their account had expired? doh..
That said, all inactive citizens will have no effect on voting after a 6 week inactive period. So the problem isn't THAT huge.
Thunderheart wrote:The filling effects are not cleared.
Skedoozy wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
Krayvex wrote:What's the status on stomachs being emptied on cloning? Wasn't it supposed to be in the last publish?
No. The effects of food buffs are not cleared when you clone. They have to naturally time out.
Okay now you will have to clarify. You say the EFFECTS of Food Buffs are not cleared. But the EFFECTS are what clears when you clone. The only thing that stays is the TIMER. Your HAM goes back to normal when you clone and the TIMER remains. If the EFFECTS are not supposed to be cleared you have a nasty bug on yer hands that needs to be fixed ASAP.
WHY aren't the stomach cleared on death? Are there ANY reason to keep us from "rebuffing" through foods after we've died? To keep it "real" consider that when we clone we take control of a new cloned version of our body which obviously hadn't eaten the same foods...
SamhainLFC wrote:
Sorry to post in the wrong forum, but I tried posting this several times in the Game Guide forum since it pertains to strategy, but each time the forum nazi's just delete the post and dont answer my question..
Is killing the SMC scouts and dragoons and slaves at the SMC cave considered an exploit? I am constantly told it is.
If it is, why does the content remain after 3 major publishes and 20 something hotfixes?
If it is not, why are the CSR's harrasing your players?
If it is.. why dont you just fix the spawn rate? Why are you making us travel around a planet where there are virtually no othe spawns of SMC unless you ride around for hours at time.
Is this REALLY an exploit?
SOE : We have a cool cave, go check it out. SMC cave on dathomir.
CUSTOMER: Great, lets go. cool.. Lets kill this stuff.
SOE : If you kill this stuff you will be banned because it is an exploit.
CUSTOMER : oh.. what can I kill..
SOE : there are plenty of other empty caves on dathomir, please go there instead.
CUSTOMER : Well, how is this exploiting if im just killing things as they spawn. Im not doing anything out of the ordinary? Can you please explain?
SOE : *POOF*you are now back at the outpost. Check your email because you will be banned if you come back here.
CUSTOMER : Why dont you fix the problem then? I dont get it.
SOE : You have been warned?
CUSTOMER : Yes I have, but what did I do wrong?
SOE : The respawn rate is too quick..
CUSTOMER : Why dont they slow it down.
SOE : Just dont go back there.
CUSTOMER : Why dont they close the cave?
SOE : You have been warned.
CUSTOMER : what is the point of having this in game?
SOE : Dont make me ban you.
CUSTOMER : I dont get it. WHY? that is all i am asking
SOE : the devs know about it but they have more important things to work on.
CUSTOMER : But there is an exploit that you are threatening banning people, who arent even really EXPLOITING, they are just killing a spawn when it appears.
SOE : Please leave the planet now before I port you to an enraged rancor lair.
CUSTOMER : Huh?
SOE : CsrjoseO is not online.
PLEASE. I JUST WANT AN ANSWER TO THIS MADNESS!
Thunderheart wrote:
Ragnaat wrote:
You missed the point of the question. IF the mayor is absentee *AND* some other player form the town are also absentee then there is NOTHING that the active players ca currently do about this situaton.
Thunderheart wrote:
How do you vote out a mayor who no longer plays when alot of the town no longer plays?
An incumbent mayor has to run against the absentee mayor and everyone has to vote for the new mayor.
How do you verify that all of these people are indeed AWOL?
Hmm...could it be the never ending emails we Mayors receive from our players saying "Screw this game I'm done?"
Regardless of that fact, all this "programming" has done is punish us Mayors and all active members of our city. In 1 day the update comes and I lose my city rank because I cannot put more players into my city with these homes (now non-residential homes) in the way. And then my city rank drops, I lose 100m of the city and all active players in that 100m range will lose their citizenship and be punished by this "system." - And we lose the millions we've spent on civic buildings.
In just under 1 day we will lose our Cloning, Cantina and Hospital...because of the short sightedness in the planning of your "Let's remove players who are inactive but allow them to destroy a city by not removing their homes" programming.
It's. just. not. fair.
Naufragus wrote:
Krayvex wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
Any thoughts on how to stop everyother pvp player from using a jawa rifle or stun baton?No. Do you find this to be a problem?
Sometimes I wonder if we are playing the same game, then I realize that I play pvp and you don't. Due to stun damage being a vulnerability in armor, almost everyone uses a stun damage weapon in pvp. I can only guess this is the way the designers wanted it. My question was more of a "is there a way other than stun layered composite to stop stun damage and is it the design of the game that any profession that doesn't have a stun damage weapon be worthless in pvp? Things have gotten worse since the Geno blaster came out. That thing would be a decent pistol no matter what type of damage it did. Using Last Ditch with it on other players is very unbalanced.
well that is the point in variety in armor, isnt it...its a known weakness in composite and since everyone bought the cookie cutter kinetic resist composite, you are all screwed...its called stategy..find your opponets weakness and exploit it...
there are also defense vs. stun CLOTHING you can buy...
i just dont see the issue here
Defense vs Stun is against the STATE stun, not the DAMAGE TYPE stun.
You are missing the point that armor can be and is made that has 80-90% resist to EVERYTHING but stun. Composite has only one weakness, stun. Composite is so incredibly much better than any other type of armor out there (which guess what, is also inherently vulnerable to stun) that wearing anything but composite in pvp is suicide. I think armor needs to be reworked. There is absolutely no reason for a master armorsmith to make anything but composite for supreme protection, and with the power of doc enhances/food/spice/music buffs encumberance/HAM cost is a non-issue.
-Shi