Development Cycle Archive

I got a new subject:

We on Infintiy (well Barrahoth should get the credit) were having a chat. Basically we think that there are a couple of things we would really like to see in the game.

Firstly that you can make/buy holsters and scabbards for your weapons. so instead of storing them in your inventory you have them visably at your side ie poistols on side, sword at side or on back, rifle on back (or on your mount!) etc

Secondly I was thinking that it would be really cool to be able to wear large cloaks/robes/jackets over your composite

Those two ideas combinded could look well cool! and make it alot better customizing you character

Iwill agree, the planetary maps need to be increased by at least 2-4x. Speeders made the world feel much smaller. Limit number of player cities but allow them to grow bigger like npc cities. The apartment idea is very good alternative. Would be cool if we can get a planet that has some snow just for some different scenery.

Creature Density - this is the biggest concern for me. Those of you that were around since Day 1 would know what im talking about. The spawns just are not the same as they use be, very little to kill. Put spawns back to pre-nerf settings where it took some skill and strategy to move around on lok or dantooine (as overt imp) as well as the other planets.I rather be mobbed by npc's and/or creatures than bored to tears running around looking for something to kill. It makes you a more skilled player when you can handle heated situations like that, also adds a bit of realism and of course fun

Increase planet sizes and it may be possible to allow ships (space expansion) to fly over/land in realtime on planets.

i was just laying in bed after waking up from a nap, and i was thinking about weaponsmithing in terms of the new deathbunker minipublish that is coming up, my boyfriend and i are both teras kasi artists and he is a weaponsmith also. i was thinking it would be neat to be able to reverse engineer loot in order for players to be able to make even more superior weapons. for instance, take a nightsister vibrolance, take it apart, grab the vibrounit and use it in something else in a vibroknuckler or vibroblade.

so, here's to reverse engineering!

i thought about this the other day. it would add alot more to the game if players could be held prisoner by certain delegations. for instance say you've been wondering around the outskirts of tatooine when a group of hutt members attack you and instead of deathblowing you you are warped to a hold facilty were you are forced to fight for jabb's entertainment. it would adsd alot to the game and add more realism to the game. say if you are taken to an imperial prison, things like jail breaksand prison escapes could be implemented to. well just my 2 cents.

Ok, here is my next post. Which could possibly actually be kind of short (depends on if I get a head of steam I guess).

I promised I would comment on the Star Wars-y feel. To start with, I'm going to say that the rebellion is the underdog. They are under-manned, under-equipped, and under-paid. The reason the rebellion has members is it's goal to not be governed by a careless government, (i.e. the government doesn't care about it's member worlds and citizens) Kinda like when China was under the rule of General Tao. He cared so little about the country and it's people that he would have people killed just for having a similar hair style as his. Anyone who did a good job was considered an opportunist and could possibly consider taking over the country someday, so they were imprisoned and/or killed just for that... The empire works much the same way. Every officer will cheat and lie to benefit them selves, get rid for young upstarts and not give a tinkers cuss for the struggling commoner. That being said, I have noticed that alot of the rebel missions are not actually like what they should be. The rebellion just doesn't have the people to send an entire platoon of people to sabotage one starship (corellian corvette.) At best the rebellion would only be willing to sacrifice 4-5 people on such a mission. Further, most of the rebellions missions are meant to be quiet and secretive, utilizing highly skilled people. The rebellion has had to do so much with so little for so long, they are practically qualified to do anything with nothing. For what I see of the imperial versions, they make complete sense. Rebels on the other hand, should have to do some improv to succeed. Perhaps they have a slicer in the group. They could try to sneak their way upto the bridge, slice the navigational system and lock in a course that would crash the ship into a nearby planet or star. Or, they could try and work their way to the main power core, set a bomb there, then split like a banana before the timer goes.

Kinda what I'm trying to say is, there doesn't seem to be much that can be done by a 1-5 person team. I know that I, as a rifleman, have so far been unsuccessful in doing any of the missions from either the terminals or the themepark folk on my own. Part of that is the rediculous HAM for the standard imperial engineering cadets, and the like who also seem to be near masters in all forms of combat, (trust me I got et by a cadet that tooled me with a pistol, carbine, rifle, vibro-axe, vibro-blade, heavy sword and his bare hands all in the same fight, and STILL had over 1500 Mind pool after 3 successful hits with a DLT20A.) I don't know what's in the works for the combat revamp, and maybe things like this will be fixed. However, maybe they won't. I understand the desire to want to give a challenge, but that can be just as easily done with a crap load of people with normal stats as with one guy with way hella ugly stats.

As for PvP. I had some ideas after reading someone say that what was needed was PvP goals. It made sense, and I realized that there is a game that did exactly that, and the PvP areas are always full of people. DAoC has fortresses that give bonuses to the keep holders. That made me think. What kinds of things would be tactically desirable. Well, How about a weapons factory. A big one, covers about 1000 square meters, something about the size of the secret rebel base. All weaponsmiths for the faction that is in control of the factory get bonuses to their WS skills, experimentation, everything. Maybe the WS have to do their work there at the factory,but that would give some reason for the opposing faction to want to take it. Do the same thing with an armor, droid, vehicle, starship (after JLS) factories. Perhaps you could block "tells" across planets unless the factions had control of communication towers, not like the little one from Act 2 but big ones with big dishes on them. Have one for each world, then communications could only be done to and from towers that are owned by the same faction.If the live capture was implemented for BH (which I forgot to note that the live capture would still be a choice made by the target, not the BH. The target can always chose to run or fight) then this could also be done with prisons. How about power stations, all members of the faction that is in control of the power station on a planet (say Dantooine) get a discount on all of their maintenance costs on that planet. Same could be done with a special medical facility, (I leave out an entertainment facility simply because I don't really see that as a militarily advantageous target but I could also be wrong, and it could be done) How about a "Supply Depot"that would cause all harvesting work ("scout" harvesting included) to have better results for all members of the faction that controls the supply depot on that planet. What about possibly a combat training academy or facility, that would have all combat trainers who will teach for half price to members of the faction in control of the facility, or better ALL combat trainers on that planet would do that. And finally what about a transportation command center, the faction in control of that would cause there to be NPCs for that faction patrolling all of the starports on that planet. Some of these you wouldn't want to have too many of. Possibly only one for each of the crafting factories spread across the galaxy. But you would then want several power generators, a couple of supply depot's, and a comm station on each planet. That would give the factions to be in constant struggle for control of something that benefits them.

Yesterday I posted several ideas on how to make good use of the buildings in the NPC cities. Now I'm going to give you ways to draw people to player cities. Currently the reason a person goes to a player city, is to get missions from it (cause they pay more) and then promptly leave the city to do said missions. What you need to do, is create structures that there can only be one of on any planet and they must be placed in a player city. I've posted this idea before but I just want to pitch it again and would like to hear what people think. How about things like this.... A medical university. The university comes standard with ALL trainers for every medical field (medic, doctor, cm...) and those trainers do NOT count agains't the city's trainer limit. It also has special bazaar terminals that can be used to purchase material components for medical crafting only AND they can retrieve them from across the galaxy without having to travel. It also has public crafting stations that are better than the ones that are found in any of the NPC cities. The same can be done with a technical school for all of the engineering professions, with similar amenities. Likewise with a vocational school for chef and tailor, a combat school for all of the fighters (which could be broken up into two schools Melee and Ranged). How about a special landing pad for smugglers that allows them to avoid imperial patrols at the more conventional starports. Maybe a bounty hunters guild that pays more for BH missions. The long and short of this paragraph is, there needs to be something that gives a REALLY good reason to go to a player city other than the current incentive. Probably the only other thing I can think of that will help pull people to player cities is allowing metropoli to have a starport.

That reminds me I would like to suggest that there be more than just 5 levels of city size. As I recall, most maps have 8 -10 different city scales, ranging from small towns of < 1000 people, to Metropolis being >2,000,000 people (please note that the stated numbers for city populations are for RL cities, not SWG cities, that would be rediculous). I don't actually have a map to look at right now or I could be more specific, but again, that is what I would suggest. Then have it so that there can be only one player metropolis (size 10), 2 upto size 8, 4 upto size 6, 6 upto size 4, 7 upto size 2. That makes for upto 20 cities on any one planet, but only one city has a starport (3 if you're generous enough to allow size 8 cities to have starports) and have three cities that can utilize the special buildings from the above paragraph.

I must say I am happy you have started work using instanced zones with the Corellian Corvette missions, but I really would like to see more. Those three missions per faction just aren't enough, there needs to be more, and different styles and different settings. Please if you can try to expand on that alot as fast as you can.

We need another pass on some other things too, otherwise there will be a couple of professions out of work:

1. I know CH's don't like the fact of people who aren;t CH's being able to control large pets and neither do the Devs, but what purpose is a CH anyway? They are worthless in PvP, and almost equally as poor in PvE combat. I don't think non-CH's should be running around with 3 rancors like back in the days of launch, but with these new watered down versions of pets, i think the CH level handled by a non-CH should be increased to allow a CH some sort of profitability now that an animal mount is pretty much obsolete.

2. Architecture needs an actual decay timer. Maybe not houses, because it would definitely be a pain to have to "move" every 3-6 months. Harvesters and factories, however, are a different story. These should have components like the new starships will. pieces that get used up and have to be replaced. I am totally against any new loot. There is too much loot in the game already, and I am a long time complainer of how terrbile the loot system is because nothing ever drops. Ore mining units, MFG units, and the likes can all be made to be decayab;e items that must be maintained, and replaced. Eventually, the factory or mining structure itself should decay to a point it must be replaced with a new one. Every 3 months (90 days) seems like a good round number. This saves the third profession in danger of extinction.

3. With the widespread use of non played character lots (cross server trades), the resource seller is also becomming useless. even more so is the fact that no grinding will need to be done to reach a FSCS anymore. The two major buyers from resourcers were grinders and architects. Quality plays such a huge role in weaponsmithing and armoursmithing that they can't really use a bulk resourcer unless the only thing they mine is high quality stuff, and this stuff is gathered in such great numbers that even the lesser quality stuff is rendered useless. I know a WS who has a plentiful supply of all the "best ever" resources to ever spawn in the game. Unles a new server best pops up, he doesn't need to buy anything. Same goes for one of the most successful armoursmiths on my server. An architect doesn't need all of their supplies to be top notch, just key components and final assembly. They need something collapsable or their will come a time where there is nothing they will need to buy.


These three professions are endangered through lack of vision. They never should have come to this point, but they have. There are two or three vendors left on my server that still deal in "bulk resources", but they don't sell as quickly as they used to because there are fewer buyers. The increased amount of "quality" loot has many saving their pennies to buy that next DoT weapon someone auctions. The tables haven't turned on anyone, the names have just changed. The richest people shouldn't be the ones who gather the most loot. This sends a negative message. It also should be two professions that are the most lucrative. Chef can become a third, but a tailor, a droid engineer, and an architect should all be able to be in that same class. a resourcer and loot seller should be a middle income type of profession, but instead the resourcer is becoming extinct and the loot seller is one of the highest paid professions in the game. there are several imbalances in the economy right now that may not show up, but they will soon enough if nothing is done.

dang... i feel like i am talking about Social Security.

Do you guys ever get any feedback on which ideas have some merit (like rebalancing the brawler professions), or which arereally rather silly(like adding Pharmacist and Chemist professions)?

I am beginning to seriously doubt that any dev would by choice read this stuff, let alone be able tofind the time to read some of these excessivelylong-winded posts.Are they really interested in reading what amounts to our personal diariesaboutevery insignificant, mediocreaspect of the game?

If that is indeed what this thread is for, then for pete's sake please just list your suggestions in point form, to reduce the risk that the well concieved, and more importantly, feasiblesuggestions are passed over in a dev's attempt tonavigate around thesebloody essays.

I know y'all think you're Dr.MMORPG, but I mean really .. let'sget real here..