Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion (Week Ending 5-3-04)
Ren
My concept is to fix the current UI system. It affects every player and is the foundation that the game is built upon.
A thread in the Core Systems that KStarFire was kind enough to starthighlights most of the current problems with the UI and some settings. I'm sure it has been seen, but I'm just trying to shine the spotlight on it a little.
SPOTLIGHT ON: ISSUES WITH PERSISTANT SETTINGS
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=csystems&message.id=8818
TH,
I'm curious to find out if the development team is aware of a rather annoying bug which has to deal with crossing zones, and macros. Ever since the last mini-publish I've been unable to "Save" my crafting macro. As soon as I take a shuttle, or log out/in my crafting macro is reverted to it's previously unfinished state. This one particular macro is a bit long and it's very tedious to continually have to type this thing in every time I relog or travel to get training. Please look into the problem.
CHESTS and ARMOIRES for storage in houses, not backpacks.
NON-COMBAT content.
ITEMS FOR ALL PLAYERS, not the high-end.
BADGES revamped.
POLITICIANS able to resign.
RbT
Sometimes people seem to overlook that simple things can make a game as a whole mucn more fun. Right now, cantina's are boring and have no real purpose. You go in, heal your mind, watch an afk dancer or musician, and usually leave. Also, I don't remember seeing in the movies or reading in any book about performers in the middle of the floor. Entertainors should need to be on a stage, and there should be some kind of thing to prevent afk macro's. Theres nothing more boring than watching ten afk entertainors.
Going back to the small things, minigames would be an incredibly fun addition. Card games like sabaac to play for fun or gamble on, or holo chess. With this, before you start the game, you can make bets in either credits or items. As the game goes on you can increase your bets, but you can't remove any. And, as in any game, you can leave at any time, however you will lose anything you bet down. Outside people should also be able to watch these games and put down thier own bets if the players are ok with them watching. Finally, to make it realistic, some kind of table with chairs should be required to play. Playing in the grass or on a hill isn't very realistic. These tables should be found in cantina's, or you can buy them for player owned buildings. To encourage the use of cantina's however, player or npc tournaments should be held frequently, and there should be a limit to the number of people who can play in a house, and a higher limit of those who can play in a cantina.
To add a sense of realism, add a drunken state of mind. Pre-launch the devs said this was in, then took it out. In other games, such as EQ, too much alcohol lowers your stats, makes you slurr words, and messes up your screen temporarily. Theres nothing harmful in this, and its fun. At a cantina, allow players to show their drink in their hands or on the table, same for food, and have a small animation when they eat or drink. It's trivial, yes, but at least for me would be an incredible addition.
Make cantina's a place to get jobs and missions. Put an npc smuggler in a dark corner where smugglers can get missions to smuggle good x onto planet y and deliver it to customer x. All the while, you need to get it past Imperial or CorSec patrols and scans. Or, you can have someone looking for bounty hunters to get a bounty filled out. Rather than a wp, bounty hunters would have to use their droids and possible "informants" or such on the way, and the missions probably wouldn't even be on the same planet, but they would pay well and be fun to do. Also, when and if player missions and bounties are added in (as said pre launch and I remember a referance to them not too long ago) cantina's would offer things such as job boards or give advantages to people who hire or take on a job in a cantina.
Put in some kind of "barfight" system. Any players or team of players cound do this, and can only use their fists. A players actual skill or profession would have nothing to do with it, some new type of system could be added in. Bets could be made on these, or they can just be started when someone looks at you funny. The loser is simply incapaciated and removed from the cantina for X time (say 5 minutes) However, to prevent griefing, the winner has to pay for any "damages" and can only attack the same person once ever certain amount of time. (maybe an hour?) Also, performers can not be attacked. While this system might need some tweaking, something along those general lines would be fun.
Also, Hotels and Cantinas should be joined together. Right now a hotel is just a building that takes up space with a few gambling machines in it. While entertainors can use it, they rarely if ever. Add on to cantina's and you get both in one.
Finally, remake cantina designs. I highly doubt every cantina in the galaxy looks exactly the same besides for decorations. Cantina's should be fun and interesting to just visit. Seeing the same cantina design in Theed as in every other city in the galaxy isn't very inspiring, and extremely plain and boring.
My 2 cents worth. First of all, my apologies for the length. I have been playing almost constantly since January, and have tried many different professions with different characters. This is my wish list for this game which has become a huge part of my life, and a lot of time and thought went into these suggestions. I fully expect that these recommendations might incite flames against me, but I don't care. I pay to play this game, and with this open forum I have the right to express what I would like to see out of my favorite game:
1. Limit the number of entertainers allowed in a single cantina. This will accomplish several things: a) you might actually find an entertainer or entertainer group in a city besides Theed and Coronet. b) reduce lag. c) reduce lag. d) reduce lag. I am sick of only being able to find people in 2 cities in the game if I need BF healed or need medical attention. Just like a real life night-club, there are occupancy limits imposed by fire marshals. There should only be one (with 20 max) entertainer group at a time in a given cantina.
2. Regular mission terminals provide missions of increasing difficulty based on the skill of the character or group perusing them. Why not have Artisan, Explorer and Entertainer mission terminals do this as well? There should be elaborate and high-reward crafting missions for near-master artisans, and more difficult surveying missions available. Instead, a master artisan can still only get newbie level crafting missions. This seems silly.
3. A Pikeman should be on-par (at least comparable at the master pikeman level) with other elite combat classes, especially because the XP requirements are about the same (if not exactly). The HAM costs are deadly for polearms, and the damage/defense that your average TKM commands puts pikemen to shame. Also, does block even work? I think I get hit EVERY SINGLE TIME during combat, even by lower con creatures and NPCs.
4. More on Pikeman: can we please PLEASE see a couple of additional weapons available? I can't count how many swordsmen I see running around with those cool Scythes. I think it is ridiculous that our elite weapon (the energy lance) is almost impossible to find because it is a rare uber-loot, and if you could find it, it would go for multiple millions. I don't know how people earn so much money. Literally everyone it seems just has millions upon millions of credits to spend. Between cloning/insurance, travel, and keeping my armor pieced together (or replaced), medic/entertainer tips, stims, maintenance on my house, etc. I can never hold on to more than about 50k at a time. And again, the HAM costs and accuracy SUCK for every polearm I've seen. Even still, I love being a pikeman because not too many do it, and it has a subtle bad-ass quality that I can't explain.
5. To further point #2, why not medical mission terminals? Missions where you go out and keep friendly "mob A" healed while they defend themselves from angry "mob B", etc. In addition, why not have random NPCs occasionally wander into med centers needing medical attention (poison cure, disease, wounds, damage, etc). These types of missions, in addition to artisan, entertainer, and explorer missions, should all have a faction flavor to them as well.
I think most of us agree we would like to see a better use for the faction rankings.
I won't go into long details, but perhaps a re-working of the perks system offering new faction items based on your rank level. I think the possibilities are endless as to what type of new faction goodies to offer. If you had to rank up to get the better goodies it would put some more worth into spending those FP's to rank up. Uniforms seem like a big thing missing, and other faction "branded" clothing. I imagine adding items would be the quick and easy fix to our rank woes.
More cool stuff to own and equip while overt may give the GCW that roleplay boost I feel it lacks. No one even uses faction pets anymore it seems. I remember how cool it was in the first months seeing all these stormtrooper pets vs. rebel marine pets PVP'ing. Now we just have composite armored clones all over the place.
Keep up the good work devs. All the new changes have brought my interest back to the game.
OK Sorry, one more suggestion.
The main cities (such as Theed) are full of huge, useless buildings. What not convert some of those big buildings into APARTMENTS? Big soaring buildings with multiple floors and RENT? I would love to be able to live and shop in a main city that has pavement and not so many red con creatures wandering the streets. Let's face it: many player cities are just plain ugly and lack any kind of planning. No streets or pavement, etc. Another idea is to havea shopping mall where players can place vendors in cities such as Theed and Coronet? I for one am not a fan of joining guilds. Too much soap opera. This would greatly enhance the solo experience for everyone and may go a bit further to reduce spam. The cities already have the space, don't they? If not, the buildings could have above-ground and below-ground levels, perhaps with varying rent based on size and floor level, just like in real life.
Thunderheart wrote:
DorTaul wrote:
Why not make Rebels who kill Imperial Crackdown Stormtroopers appear on the Bounty Hunter Terminals? The Empire, instead of doing nothing about the 15 Stormtroopers killed in Kaadara, posts a bounty on the head of the murderer. Or, instead of doing this, make the murdering Rebel kill on sight to all other Imperial Crackdown Stormtoopers until he/she is killed by them.
I believe my idea is a good one. Anybody else?
This is a great idea. I'll share it with the team. Everyone reads the weekly dev cycle threads, but I'll send this around for a second look.
I disagree with this being a "great" idea. SWG is a game that was meant to be played either PVP or PVE with the individual players having the choice. I think you will find there are many people (rebel and imperial) that enjoy destroying PVE faction content but have no desire to engage in PVP.
By putting bounties on people's heads because they kill a certain NPC, you have forced PVP on people who may not want it (and may not even know they can have bouties placed on them). If you must add bounties make sure only Overt declared players show up on the bounty list. These folks have agreed to engage in PVP, the rest of us haven't.
And before everyone clammers about not joining one side unless you PVP, the reason I joined was to chck out the little extra game content provided to factions. This change would lock-out content and make the game much less appealing to me. I have not, nor will I kill a character controlled by a real warm-blooded human.