Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Weekly Roundtable Discussion (Week Ending 3-29-04)
Limbonik wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
Plus a couple more answers:
First off: Thanks to whomever deleted my post.
Secondly: Why was my post asking why you skirted all the Mayor and City issues deleted?
Thirdly: I'm still sending our cities bill to you when we lose our city due to programming implemented that punishes active players and takes away their citizenship.
Do not 1-star important posts please. The issue with player cities is vital at this current point in the game. Screw the Mayor issues, but the Player city issue needs to be looked at.
Why you people are 1-starring pertinant threads off these forums is beyond me.
On the Krayt Skull quest thing, this isn't a resolution, but it is a way around the problem. I too was stuck at the briefcase part; i.e. I had given it to Borvo before the quest was fixed. A kind soul offered to help me through the quest by creating a character on my server, and running through the quest up until he got the briefcase. He gave it to me, I gave it to Borvo, and was able to complete the quest.
Like I said, not a resolution, but if you can find someone to help you through it, you can finish it off.
Limbonik wrote:
Karquile wrote:
TH's question is a valid one. How do you know people are AWOL?
If you know because they TOLD you that they're AWOL, tell them to redeed their houses since you're having such a nice conversation and everything. If they're your Frat buddies and you know they all quit, walk into the Frat house and say guys, I need those lots, log in one last time and clear them out ok?
Hard to log in "one last time" when their accounts are inactive. Unless you think they should have to re-activate their account just to redeed the house? Note I said I received "emails" from said players. I did not say I received an ingame email.
How do you know their accounts are inactive? Again, this is amazingly detailed information to be getting in an out-of-game email. In my experience, most people who say that they're quitting the game give a (near term) future date and offer to give stuff away, etc. There are also people who drift away without announcing it... but that includes announcements telling me whether their accounts are inactive. So I don't really know.
I had someone quit the game on me this week. I didn't raise a fuss, we all know what an addicting grind SWG can be, and when you've put your time in and had some fun, hey, it's your call. I met him in-game and he /transferstruc'd his house to me. Now if I have someone for it, I'll move them in there, if not, I'll use the lot for something else.
That is a great idea...if you do not have anything on your lots to take the structures from them. Just because I'm a Mayor does not mean I can give up my lots. I need to be able to make money somehow myself, don't I? And some structures, such as PAs, take up way to many lots to just transfer them.
I would - and do - take the position that if you are going to be the Mayor of a sizable city, you owe it to your citizens to behave like a real mayor, and not some uber Commando who wants an extra title to hang next to Guild leader. Leave a few lots free at all times so that you can do transfers when needed. Draw a salary if you need it, or use some (not all) lots to pull and sell some good resources, etc. If you really play SWG for the other things, and Mayor is just a necessary evil, then someone else should be Mayor.
If someone hasn't logged in for six weeks and I haven't heard from them, I have no d4mn business passing judgment on their gameplay. Being Mayor doesn't mean being Tinpot Galactic Dictator. It means I run a city. I don't own it, I run it.There's rocks and dunes where I can't build, there's places where people had houses before I showed up, and there's places where inactive players have houses. Deal with it.
It's not as easy to just "deal with it" when you have no other space in your city to move players. Rank I and Rank III are no big deal, but when you're dealing with Rank II good luck. Ranks 1&3 provide 100m radius around City Hall, but Rank 2 only provides a paltry 50m to work with. And while we may not be allowed to dictate the city, so to should the Developers not be allowed to punish the active players of a City because of a short-sightedness in their programming.
There's more than enough short-sightedness to go around, however. If you're laying out a city in an area with limited buildable space, you should place houses yourself and not leave zoning wide open. You should make having an out-of-game email contact be a condition of moving in. You should bug your citizens to send you an outside email if you DON'T have one.
Uncontrolled cities on rough terrain only work if you have a bulldozer. And we're not getting a bulldozer.
Limbonik wrote:
Karquile wrote:
TH's question is a valid one. How do you know people are AWOL?
If you know because they TOLD you that they're AWOL, tell them to redeed their houses since you're having such a nice conversation and everything. If they're your Frat buddies and you know they all quit, walk into the Frat house and say guys, I need those lots, log in one last time and clear them out ok?
Hard to log in "one last time" when their accounts are inactive. Unless you think they should have to re-activate their account just to redeed the house? Note I said I received "emails" from said players. I did not say I received an ingame email.
How do you know their accounts are inactive? Again, this is amazingly detailed information to be getting in an out-of-game email. In my experience, most people who say that they're quitting the game give a (near term) future date and offer to give stuff away, etc. There are also people who drift away without announcing it... but that includes announcements telling me whether their accounts are inactive. So I don't really know.
I had someone quit the game on me this week. I didn't raise a fuss, we all know what an addicting grind SWG can be, and when you've put your time in and had some fun, hey, it's your call. I met him in-game and he /transferstruc'd his house to me. Now if I have someone for it, I'll move them in there, if not, I'll use the lot for something else.
That is a great idea...if you do not have anything on your lots to take the structures from them. Just because I'm a Mayor does not mean I can give up my lots. I need to be able to make money somehow myself, don't I? And some structures, such as PAs, take up way to many lots to just transfer them.
I would - and do - take the position that if you are going to be the Mayor of a sizable city, you owe it to your citizens to behave like a real mayor, and not some uber Commando who wants an extra title to hang next to Guild leader. Leave a few lots free at all times so that you can do transfers when needed. Draw a salary if you need it, or use some (not all) lots to pull and sell some good resources, etc. If you really play SWG for the other things, and Mayor is just a necessary evil, then someone else should be Mayor.
If someone hasn't logged in for six weeks and I haven't heard from them, I have no d4mn business passing judgment on their gameplay. Being Mayor doesn't mean being Tinpot Galactic Dictator. It means I run a city. I don't own it, I run it.There's rocks and dunes where I can't build, there's places where people had houses before I showed up, and there's places where inactive players have houses. Deal with it.
It's not as easy to just "deal with it" when you have no other space in your city to move players. Rank I and Rank III are no big deal, but when you're dealing with Rank II good luck. Ranks 1&3 provide 100m radius around City Hall, but Rank 2 only provides a paltry 50m to work with. And while we may not be allowed to dictate the city, so to should the Developers not be allowed to punish the active players of a City because of a short-sightedness in their programming.
There's more than enough short-sightedness to go around, however. If you're laying out a city in an area with limited buildable space, you should place houses yourself and not leave zoning wide open. You should make having an out-of-game email contact be a condition of moving in. You should bug your citizens to send you an outside email if you DON'T have one.
Uncontrolled cities on rough terrain only work if you have a bulldozer. And we're not getting a bulldozer.
Implement a more threating punishment system other than open attack on the individual:
Player bounties like the ones that are against Jedi would work beautifully if you would extend that system to contraband violators.Currently there is no danger seeing as how the Imp Crackdown frequency is so far below your radar you dont even notice it. And when you do, its a squad of stormtroopers atthat. More danger comes from a player BH coming after you in addition to a fine placed against you.
Install more Imperial npcs that are non-attackable like the Recruiters outside starports and throughout the city:
I know that scanningmay cause lag so maybethese Imperial "Scanners" can be placed randomly throught out the city near cantinas, medcenters, and the like. When players are scanned for contraband (not being a rebel), instead of stormtroopers being released, a bounty is registered to the BH Holonet and placed against the violater.
An Imperial perk that grants contraband scanning:
Maybe this wont work out as well but at least its a thought..
A Global Vending System
Scenario 1:
Its come time for you to buy yourself a new FWG5, some pet stimsandpowerups.So you do a search via the planetary map and look under vendors. You see several of them specializing in the items you need. You waypoint a few close ones, maybe even a few far ones, and you go searching.
You come to the first vendor - Nada. Allhe has is some heavy harvestors, skill tapes, and a bantha statue.
Second vendor -Nothing again. This time the tent/building is completely empty.
Third vendor - He's no longer a vendor.
You do the same thing with the more distant vendors and find the same occurances.
Scenario 2:
Again, it comes time for you purchase a new pistol. You mark your vendors with waypoints and out you go. This time however, he has what you want on stock in multiples. You do your price and quality comparison and purchase the one you like. On your way back, you stop in another vendor to see what he has. Much to your dismay, he has better prices on what you just bought AND a little better quality.
Most of us like to shop and compare. Its what we do in life. We want more bang for our buck. Not all of us have personal tailors, weaponsmiths, and armorsmiths. Not all of us are guilded, and we really dont want to spend that much time looking for a weapon. Its a game after all and some of us are limited in time but want the same opportunities as every other player. I know, I know, Im going to hear somepeople say Im just lazy, or its really not that hard or whatnot. Honestly, traveling is not that hard and Im not asking totake it out but instead reduce travel time. Thats all Im really asking for.
A Global Vending/Advertising system could be very effective if installed. Though Im not sure of the difficulty. We already have a system on the bazaar that tells us whats located on every planet in the galaxy and in which outpost or city. Why not give this capability to Merchants? Global Advertising of whats on stock, how much, and item description. Keep it planet specific if you have to. And If a vending fee has to be slapped on there, then fine, but this will alleviate alot these scenarios that Im sure plagues the majority of players out there.
If you can, please comment on these issues. I'd really like to know what you guys feel about this.
BigAke 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?
hm, maybe that question was worded badly, how about this:
What are you going to do in effort to encourage pvp players to use non-stun damage weaponry in PvP?
this also extends to the following question:
What are you going to do in effort to encourage pvp players to use other armor beside composite?
I have concernwith this as well. There is no incentive to use a non stun weapon if you have one at your disposal. Everyone will go with the "cookie-cutter" template of composite armor and stun weapons if they can. It all comes down to needing more balance. I'd like to see more diversity than we have now with weapon types and armor as well. This makes pvp terribly unexciting as it sits right now.
ErantiaPrym wrote:
We've been running a "mayor changeover" campaign lately. I think theunderlying issue is that everyone's vote changes back every time the city resets. In a real life election 50% voter turnout is hard to get. Even with all the new players we've been adding to the town we were two votes short of getting the city to turnover. This our third time (the second time had less votes, mostly because people had thought they had already voted I think).
Can we get the system changed so that your vote is sticky until the candidate is no longer listed?
For that matter why can't the incumbent mayor just resign if there is another candidate on the list?
JediKozel wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
I don't mean to complain because we did get a good revamp a few publishes back but like one BE on the BE Profession board put it, it seems like "We're the ugly red headed step child of SWG". We never get any of the goodies that the other crafting professions get. I can't believe we didn't get a crafting apron, not like it would be worth anything at +5/+5 because we don't have skill tapes.
At least you got a revamp. Some profs never did. So no, you are not the "ugly step child of SWG". Smugglers &Squad Leaders are more qualified.
Not sure if this one has been brought up but as a Master Weaponsmith it is near and dear for me...
Since publish 7 came out I have seen a drastic drop in the number of acceptable (ie minor blemishes) weapon repairs. I am using 100% effectiveness craft tools and between skill tapes and my toolkit have over +10 to weapon repair. My last attempt (just for a little sampling of data) was 4 weapons repaired for one person. only 1 of the 4 was a minor blemish repair. The other 3 repairs caused a drastic reduction in the max condition of the item, though thankfully none were failures. Anybody else noticing this?
I have had 2 friends leave the game already do to them (Mik Kieth, and PBR). Another friend of mine is talking about leaving. We have always pvped and done very well. Now we are getting killed by people useing stun batons that hit at 790 and 700. When i asked the guy he said he had a stun baton that max was 375... now we all know that there is no way he can have a stun baton that high. I know about stun armor and i have a 30% suit agianst stun and a psg at 40% (that only works half of the time).
Another thing is the ppl who have this weapons have always been really bad at pvp and really most of them have been involved in about every exploit in the game so far. It is something that needs fixed ASAP, I really dont see anything more important.
So what is the word on fixing this...
should I just give in and get all my stuff double sliced?
PLC