Development Cycle Archive

Have Resources be the HUB of the economy. Resource gathering should NOT be dependent on the skill of the player. Resources should be equal Quality and relatively equal Quantity, regardless of the skill of the player gathering the resources, unless a rare vein or quantity of the resource is found. Doing so will create a renewable and valuable source of resources that ALL players can dip into and sell on the Bazaar. Higher grade yields will obviously be worth more, because it is only High grade resources to that produce High Quality goods.

Market flooding of resources + lower resource Stack QTY + Demand + Price Checking = Steady, Moderate Price for average resources on the open market, which will be the stable base for the entire economy.

This is a definite Blue Sky Mining topic

I would like to see the Miner/Farmer Elite Profession looked at again. It was on the original profession's list when that list was firstpublished, but was dropped just before Beta started.

Skills, benefits, and perks I would like to see the class have:

Increased sampling capacity

Decreased time between samples

Greater harvester efficiency on current harvester models

Bigger harvesters (would need some support from the Architect profession obviously)

Lower harvester maintenance costs

The ability to sample/mine rare materials not available to other professions. In addition, I think the ability to harvest radioactives and the extremely high quality resources should be a Miner only perk.

When the Space Expansion comes out, Miners should be able to perform extraterrestrial mining operations (i.e. mining asteroids, gas clouds, meteor swarms, zero-g flora farms, etc.)

Allow the smaller harvesters to use fewer lots (i.e. mediums = 1/4 lot, heavy = 1/2 lot. personals would still require a full lot, as I see them intended to be quick, temporary operations until a largerharvester can be placed there) I'm not sure if lots can be fractured, this is just an idea

Allow harvesters to be placed closer together (like buildings are currently)

That's just off the top of my head, I'm sure I could come up with more and even a skill tree if pressed to do so.

There's alot of stuff flying around in an "open thread" like this, and so I just hope this is the right place to put this.

Languages should be much much harder to learn. I'm sure the thinking was to allow people to communicate freely, but with the exceptions of wookies, we can all use basic anyway. The different languages would be "just for fun", at the moment they are "just cuz".

Learning languages should require xp in that particular language. You gain the xp by listening to people speak that language. Lets say to begin with you understand 1% of what is being said. This means that every 100 words that you hear that are jibberish, 1 word will actually come out correctly. (No need to do something hard like remember which word it was for future, just make it a random thing) Everytime you hear a word correctly, your language comprehension raises by 5.

I've been saying "earn xp", but it's not really, just your language comprehension goes up automatically after you have done something enough (hear the language spoken), which is like xping.

This way, if you want to actively learn a language, you can quite quickly. If you want to pick a language up through osmosis, it'll happen after a while too. And if you don't know any languages, that's ok, you can still communicate with everyone with Basic.

Wookies will have to resort to tells if they run into people who can't speak shyriiwook.

Double the chance of understanding if the sentence goes with an animation (such as "here")

There you have it. Simple, fun, and doesn't ruin people's ability to chit-chat.

More on the In-game Economy:

Ok, we already know what I've said about it... now I want to give some more interpretation of where my reasoning was coming from.

I inclined to agree that Player Owned vendors did help to sky rocket prices... all the credit dupping aside... and, yes, I still believe the credit dupping has completely thrown off the balance of the economy in game... and thank you for banning these people. Do it once by accident... it can happen... turn the other cheak... Do it again, and again, and again, shame on them... they deserve the ban. In fact... since SOE does have their name and addy and credit card number *if their not using a game card* They should be banned every attempt they make to come back to game. But, now I'm straying from my real point.

I think the in-game vendors really were encouraging a more realistic economy where the average weapon was intended to sell for around 500 credits and the high-quality ones for 3000 at the most. I liked that in the first month believing... hey, I'm in a real galaxy here. Then the vedors opened up... players could charge whatever they wanted... the credit dupping and even the mission pay got all out of hand. Return us to the Star Wars galaxy please. And before anyone says anything about... well, you know there are items in KOTOR that cost well over 10k... etc, etc... that's a linear game... this is not. We're going for realism here. Realism with enjoyability. And the economy needs realism.

And for those artisans that stick with it and do make the millions upon millions I'd view as a Lando Calrissian sort of gambler then. These characters with all the money should have the option of risking all that value to expand an empire of merchant trading or... fling their artisan career into the wind and forge a town with those credits.

I'm beating the gundark with a dead stick here... but I'm saying it again... give us a realistic economy... even if it has to be forcibly put in. Whipe out all the credits... give credit to player cities/player housing and the like *time to get on our feet* so that doesn't disrupt that aspect of the game... and just reset the economy. Just to poll... reply to this if you want a more realistic player economy... and flame me if not... I've got my Mabari Helmet ready... heh heh heh.

Sincerely,

The Lunatic Fringer

"A lunatic thinks outside a box and lives in one.." -- The Boss

The next game

I'm mostly a musician on kauri. I hang around on coronet. Cantina is full of spam. We're paying for combat medic to disease us. Players run around saying they will pay to teach.

What's wrong with this picture. Nothing, in a way. People will exchange what they don't desire with what they do. The rare commodities is experience and we will dump or tip anything to get it. But once that elite master title is achieved? Enjoy it a bit - or longer- but then get goalless. Come in the jedi grind. Lofty goal, that is suppose to get even tougher once you got it.

But suppose I like being a musician? Of course, when I master, I can set goals on my popularity, my friend lists, my conversation off and on topic.

But I like character building. I like my personna to get markable steps. It is the main reason why I play games. To live an unlikely progress from anonymity to stardom. I am quite sure I don't want this in real life but playing it is a tremendous appeal that comes back all the time. Books, games, movies. A character that progress, always.

I trully don't know if I will quit this game soon after my 2 characters hit their goals. Because they are going to be capped. End of progress, arbitrarily. Or else it's Jedi.

Of course One holo tells me to master what the other persona is reaching for. At this point I don't care to read the other holo. Hollow is exactly how it feels.

Why can't I become an even greater musician? Why can't aspire to the celebrity of a star empire, bad or good? Role-play is again possible but still the appeal of the game is markable progress.

Hence a proposition:
open-handed skill points
open-handed professions
skill decay

Let's say a skill not used (in a certain time to be tuned) decays. The benefit from any skill is always a percentage of your mean experience in that skill.

But there are steps (title) at which the decay slows very much. It humps and then go down as fast as before.

Maybe, if you reached any exp, it's always easier -progressively- to get back to it. Or we could have a diminishing return algorythm, we could also have a vote of every titled member of the profession on what is the next step.

But anyway, it should be open-ended.

We should not get our perseverence prized by capping. It should be the neverending story, that is the true destiny of any mmorpg.

Nerfing:

Way too much way too much of that, take an Imp CH for instance under the pre-nerf he could call up three pets, and three troopers type of thing, and all would attack any target selected. Now he can only call one pet untill he is a master CH, only one support trooper who now will only attack Reb targets. Now this might not be bad except for three items, first rank, what good is that ? Reduction in costs of items you say and availability of usable items. Really tell that to a none human Imp player with a 30% plus penalty tacked on, thus the rank has little if any advantage on these two things. Next I dont know about you but hey ever see a sergeant with a one man platoon ? In the movies I seem to have missed that. So again what point is rank ? It sure doesnt seem to have any bearing in numbers of suport troops you can command, reduction in prices or really what items you can buy, many crafted items are far better than what they offer you.

Then they nerfed the creatures, well hmmm okay, however try and find the new stats that are accurate for these critters, lots of luck, I spent two days dieng many times etc to locate a pet at the level I wanted, then eureka found a baby, did the taming thingy only to find out that the stats had changed and it was really useless. So CH were too strong, why be a bio-engineer then as they only made weaker pets than natural ones. So they corrected that via nerfing wild pets, and beefing up the Bio'd pets, well that was over balanced so they nerfed them again. My opinion here is that any tameable creature should be able to be Bio-engineered aka DNA altered to be increased by one third to 50% better than a wild creature. As for tamable creatures, every creature in the game should be tameable or rather have a tamable version, however the rarity of that should be dependant upon the rarity of the creature itself. There should be a cap on wild creatures ie lev 150 say thatbased upon abilty of the CH can tame or use as it is now. There should be a seperate category that includes the quality of training which in turn indicates the availabilty od None CH to use these pets. There should always be a ratio of random chance with regards to not obeying orders as with wild animals that can cause the pet to attack its owner, run off, refuse to obey or just vanish into the wilds as in line with RL. No animal is 100% depenable 24/7. Only Rebs shouls be CH's while both could buy/use Bio-engineered pets, Imp's as said relie upon mechanical items ie AT's or Trooper support. When they nerfed the pets, well that was just to makevehicles more attractive, thats okay but again, mounts should be a Reb only item with Imp's relieing more upon vehicles or possibly bio-engineered mounts on certain planets.

General:

Unless something is done about the Reb-Imp ratio in game there isnt really an empire divided as its already over with the Rebs winning isnt it. Rebels in the movies and real life for that matter always number fewer that the in power opposition, however the inevitably have a better grasp on being located, ie harder to find, use hit & run tactics, thus surprise is usually on their side with communication and intelligence gather re using spies, ohh yes they also usally are better at being mobile. These are just as I said my opinions on these issues and well unless some positive changes to correct this stuff is made, well Horizons is looking good and there will be five used copies of SWG on that shelf soon. Thanks for your time and reading this.

/salute

On economy:

The Bazaar charges 20 credits to put something to sale. My first impression was: ookay, anything and I mean any freakin dirt with almost no value is gonna be worth around 40. At least NOTHING is worth less than 20. Than I realized the limit was 3000. So, 20 is 0, 40 is 1. Makes 3000 equal 75. A pretty useless spread I though.
But my assumption was that the empire (thru the bazaar) would not put a tax over 50%. Here's a nice twist to add some content to the galactic civil war: change bazaar AND vendor tax, make it different in different towns. Make it different on factional players. Let's feel the empire. Let's say that as one goes on up on imp hierarchy, one pays less and less taxes. Surely at a point, imp will sell to rebs but add a fp twist to it (both buyer and seller gets a tem).

Corruption anyone?

I was thinking a little about the eventual space expansion, and while I havent read anything specific about what it will include, here's a few things I wondered about:

- will a player's ship in any aspect be like a house or merely a vehicle. IE, as a joke, I kept telling my gaming buddies that I didn't want a house if I had a ship to live in. If the ship were large enough, you'd have personal quarters and storage space on it.

- new species. As another joke, I said I was taking my time trying to get the FS slot because if I had the option to become a jedi, it would be neater for me to become.. I dunno... even more unique by choosing a new home planet and species to explore than the ones we have now.

- finally, the bigger thought for me with space expansion entailed a bit about what sort of universe it opened up. To me, the space expansion means I should be able to take my ship and visit not a *planet*, but a spacedock and massive cruisers or other dockable platforms. Players cities in space wouldbe unique cruisersbetween planets that include familiar necessities like trainers, repairs, entertainment and so on - but also unique encounters, information, and adventure. Maybe there is a particular alien species which we only see on ships, and who can offer up rumors or missions between planets. Maybe the ships have access to new technology and gaming options that don't exist in the planetbound 'backwards' cities. Would smugglers find special allies onboard, or merchants gain special skills and items there? Missions aboard these ships might include timers relevant to an expected arrival at one planet or the arrival of imperial troops. Maybe a ship isgoing to crash - would there be atmosphere effects on planets below? Would a planetside wreck reveal clues about something going on in space - like a starter seedfor a mission enabliing players to embark on a unique quest for information or an item?

One of my alltime favorite moments in the Expanded Universe was in STAR BY STAR when the twilek sisters were trying to escape voxyn - and for the first time as I read that scene, I was thinking of Star Wars not merely as planet adventures, but space adventures. So instead of visiting 'dungeons' like The Warren, you'd have a scientific vessel. In general, I'm hoping that when you say space expansion, the region of space includes new places to go that exist only between planets - not just ship battles and personal transport. Makespace relevant! I think a lot of people will remember that closing moment of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK when we see all the ships gathered in one spot, and you wonder, what makes them unique. What's going on in there. Right now I'm terribly psyched about the space expansion - but more because what I think itcould bring.

I have a concept for the forums but don’t know where to address it so I guess here is as good as any..

My concept is this make a thread that is for all the whiners and make them post there. If they use the other threads for their whining then ban them from the forums. I get tired of going over post after post of Boo hoo hoo Devs did this so now I am going to quit. Boo hoo hoo... No constructive criticism just plain whining.

I completely understand I the posts that have something the poster don’t like with a solution. But this garbage of the complaining is getting old.

My hats off to the Devs. I appreciate all the hard work they do. As a developer of multimedia I understand the hard work, effort, and passion they put in to their work. People should give them more props and stop the unnecessary complaining and flaming!

Kind Regards

Arepon •Shadowfire•

On the subject of jedi, it looks like it takes all the skill points to become a jedi apprentice. This concept seems a little absurd to me. If you look at the Starwars universe,most if not all jedi appear to have skills from the other professions. Anakin appears to have been a pilot, artisan, and droid engineer.In the books, other jedi have definitely shown skills of the other professions, both basic and advanced. If anything force-sensitivity should make it easier to gain other skills. Perhaps force-sensitives should get extra skill points or the points for jedi apprentice should bereduced/eliminated.

The other subject is the dark side. How will this be implemented? Maybe there should be a system for gaining darkside points. For instance, you use force lightning to fry an imperial or telekinetically strangle someone and you gain dark side points. The more darkside points you have could influence how fast you learn abilitiesor losethem upon death. This would provide a lot ofpotential quests for atoning or going over to the dark side. Perhaps the jedi padawan could choose to become jedi or dark jedi or even sith based upon the dak side energy he posesses. The Emperor had at least two beside Vader whom he had trained (Mara and Rowanda).

Radnovius

Argent D'Azure (Flurry)

Sutekh Bloodscale (Intrepid)

Tenebrous Shadowdragon (Bloodfin)

Well sence no thread has opened up and no devs have responded to me I guess ill put my SE thoughts/sugestions here for the moment, i can always copy and paste once we do get a forum for SE

Hopes for SE

• Space Combat (this is a given)


• Space Travel (easy travel from one place to another)


• Space production (allow PCs to build starships, orbital facilties and deep space facilites)


• PC controled cap ships (this is kinda of a "pet project" but if implimented could make the game very exciting IMHO)


• New planets (kessel, mon cal, courousant, just to name a few the SW univierse is teaming with planets weve only scrached the surface)


• Advanced plantary combat (allow for "air support", orbital bobardment (if PC cap ships are allowed), all these things would contribute uncalcuable depth to the combat in SWG)


• New Profesions (this to is a given (things like pilot, starship propoulsion engeneer, starship wepons manufature etc . . .

Ok first and foremost the SE must have the space combat we EXPECT from Star Wars. That is to say it needs to fast paced, exciting, even twitchy (a turn based system IMHO will have alot of difficulty feeling like starwars) If the devs want to do see a good example of why a turn based system doesnt work they need look no farther than Earth and Beyond! If any of you have played that game you will know what im talking about. The combat for all of its graphical beauty was just plain boring. There was no way(or very little) that you the player could control weather you got hit, weather you hit the enemy etc . . . The way I think of space combat in an MMO is much the way Planet Side handels FPS in an MMO, your charcter gains ablities. These ablities help augment your character, however skill and finess are still required by the player (no matter how advanced the players character) These ablites could range from power managment skills, as you progress up this line you learn how to better alocate your power reaserves (lossing less power as you change from say propolution to shields in terms of %, also think X-wing series) Pre-set series of manuvers (ie talon roll, corilian slip), Starship weapon certification (ie: missles, proton torpedoes, advanced lasers), and finaly posibly repair and maintence or extreeme piloting (either be able to equip and astromech and have minimal on board repair ablity for maintence and repair or the ablity to use like and after burrner or preform very fast turn with extreeme piloting). I would also like to see more than just starfigherts PC controled. I think frieghters are a must for smugglers and merchants. However i would like to see just about everything be able to be PC controled, all the way up to cap ships. I think it would be very interesting to see things like an ISD controled by a PC or PCs. Which brings me to my next point; multiple PCs required to control one cap ship. (while this would probably be very difficult to impliment it could add a huge strategic aspect to the gameplay and realy bond the factional sides together). You could have say a pilot (basicaly steering), and gunners (posibly only one controling all the guns with a point and click type interface or 4 covering different firing arcs ie forward, aft, port, starbard) This would IMO make these war machies feel like they should a giant that requires more than just one person to operate.

The other thing i see with the space expansion is the posiblity to travel from one planet to another without using the current transport system. (if the devs are woried about lossing the money sink that is transportation then make players buy fuel from npc) This would allow for the "terrif" system that the devs are imposing to be truely effective. Smugglers who have there own ship could load the "goods" onto there ship and actualy summgle good say past an imperial check point. As for the actual interfase used why not just make it so you can pull up the exsisting planetary map from inside a player starship equiped with a hyperdrive and select your destination and go. Just keep all the existing transport routes the same (so if say you wanted to get from talus to naboo you would still have to go thru coreila)

Space production, well this is what i REALY hope to see. In this group things like PC space stations, Extraterestrial mining, PC built shipyards the list is nearly endless, and thats the problem. If implimented this is something the devs could continualy add on to with every new expansion. What i would like to see in the SE is just the basics; extraterestrial mining, PC shipyards, and maybe a PC space platform or something (think a PC city in space, not only would it free up some of the urban spral but would give people the chance to be a purly space based char). Its is my belief that a new profesion should be set up, eitehr an elite of an elite or just a new elite profesion; Space Engineer (or something along those lines, im sure someone can think up a better name) whos basicaly an archtect for space instalations. Lets make no bones about this building things in space takes ALOT Extraterestiral mining, lets face it not all reacourcesare found in aboundanceon terestrial planets. A whole new profesions could be devoted to harvesting and refing extraterestrial reasources, things like tibana gas, new radioactive isotopes could be added. These could enhance exisiting reacources making better weapons or bikes or droids, and can also be used in starship contruction.