Development Cycle Archive

Player Cities sound great woop di do! Fix all the old outstanding problems first!! Fix the Classes properly then concerntrate on the new stuff. Our PA has ppl leaving the game every week cause there characters arent complete

ALSO Pls reboot the servers in Reverse Alphabetical order. You do realise that Valcyn is the Unofficial Aussie Server and you shut it down at 8:30pm Sydney time and its not backup until 9:30pm Sydney time. Geez! I only get to play for 2-3 Hours a nite and 1 hour is not at the computer screen.!!

This sounds good Q. I'm really looking forward to cities and mounts. Thanks for keeping us apprised.

why are some of the items on the 'in testing' list, things that are already in the game? A mistake that vass already admitted to when he posted the in testing list a week or so back. Did no one bother to even double check that this list was correct before posting it officially?? I don't mind slow, or even no respond from the dev. team... this I can live with beause it's the nature of the beast... but mistakes, and openly admitted mistakes, with no hint of a correction, like say, the 30 second timer for combat or well over half of the list in things under combat are not being tested but are quite live and have been live for just over a month, but are listed as 'in testing'.... I start to wonder.

-chee

Thanks for the words of goodness. But that patch list is the same as before...most of that is live already. I am confused.

What about the stealth nerf harvester changes?

This will greatly impact the economy and how this game is played, much more so than the devs anticipate I think. It will slow everything down, causing more micro-management, making the game even more unfun thant it already is.

Did you guys decide to keep the manufacturing schematic down at 100?

The patch currently being tested on the test server has a change that allows pet owners ONLY to call pets: (1) outside buildings in cities; (2) standing outside the player’s residence; and (3) in camps.

Please consider the following discussion of this issue:

There have been several threads criticizing and disagreeing with the new “pet call” rules that are being implemented in the new patch. Most agree this change seems to be aimed at preventing creature handlers from pulling huge pets out inside buildings. However, if this is the intended effect, the change doesn't quite do the job.

This change to the pet call rules does not prevent creature handlers from having big pets in buildings as (1) the creature handler can easily leave the building, call the pet outside the building, and lead the pet back in; and (2) this problem is most prevalent in cities in med. centers and cantinas that people visit after they are wounded; since CHs use pets to fight, it is probable that the CH already has his pets out before he ever enters the cantina or med center. Really this change does nothing to creature handlers, since most CHs keep their pets out at all times and have scout skills to pitch a camp at almost any place and any time to call their pets.

HOWEVER, creatures ARE NOT the only type of pet. Instead, the real effect of this change is to hurt droid owners and players who use faction pets (note: droids and faction soldiers are small and are seen in the movies inside buildings all the time). There are many crafters, medics, and doctors who use droids, and factional players who use faction pets for protection, who are severely hampered by this change. Unlike CHs, many of these droid and faction pet owners do not have scout skills, and cannot pitch a camp anywhere they like.

The only real change from the patch would be that non-scout players would not be able to call pets in buildings remote from town.

These droid and faction pet owners (without scout skills) NEED to be able to call pets in buildings outside towns for several reasons:

(1) People sometimes have to log off in remote areas. When those players log back on it is unproductive (and just no fun) to make those players run close to an hour (assuming a 30 minute trip to town and back) just to call pets. As an example, I spent 3 days in the Rebel CorSec base completing the missions there (I didn’t have much time on any one night to play). The ONLY place you can call pets in the CorSec base is in the buildings. Preventing me from calling pets in the buildings there would force me to make an hour round trip run to KorValla just to call my droid (so I can heal wounds from stormtroopers) and my faction pet helpers. Personally, I would rather just not play than spend a whole hour doing nothing but running to call pets.

(2) Some planets do not have ANY cities--just outposts—and you cannot call pets in most outposts. After flying by shuttle to one of those planets (pets don’t follow on shuttles) how do you call pets on those planets?

(3) Pets often warp and disappear. This change keeps players from avoiding the problem by finding a nearby structure to call pets in.

(4) Pathing is still REALLY bad for all pets. It helps players sanity to run to a location and call pets rather than dragging them kicking and screaming halfway across the planet.

Really, the ONLY time this rule prevents players from calling pets is when the players are in a remote area, and probably NEED to be able to call pets in a nearby structure. Also, since nearby structures are probably few and far between in those areas, the current system ALREADY prevents limitless pet calling, but requires (1) a camp; or (2) a group of NPC houses like an outpost or group of buildings. Really, if there is a group of buildings it does not make sense that although those buildings have roofs, furniture, shuttles, facilities, and NPC’s they are not hospitable enough to allow players to call pets (even though a rough tent outside those same buildings is hospitable enough).

Additionally, the places where pets in buildings are a problem is mainly in cities, where any player can run outside a building, call the pet, and drag the pet back in the building. The only thing this change does to pet-in-building problems is to increase the annoyance level for pet owners in towns, while causing problems for non-CH/non-scouts outside towns that far outweighs any utility it has.

I had one idea that lots of people have liked a lot for controlling pets in towns:

Instead of nerfing pet calling, use a proactive solution that encourages pet politeness without forcing anything. Put a "pet stable" area (open fenced area; no fancy graphics, just a simple fence) outside of every town where pets regenerate at faster than normal speeds. Pets would not longer hang out in cantinas or med centers because the owners would want the faster regeneration. Note: It would probably also be necessary to make it so that pets could not be attacked by others, and will not attack others, to prevent other players from griefing pets in the stable. I think this would be a great solution, without taking my ability away to protect myself in remote areas.

Please consider cutting this change from the test server, and putting the pet call issue up for more discussion. For a lot of players, the change does nothing (scouts can just call camps). For all others, it creates frustrating problems with no real rhyme or reason for the change.

Thanks Q for you attention and all your hard work!

Q -

Are you still going ahead with the 100 limit on schematics even though you asked for feedback and got a landslide vote for a negative on this change?

PLEASE TELL USE SCHEMATICS WILL NOT BE LIMITED 100

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Jarob wrote:

PLEASE TELL USE SCHEMATICS WILL NOT BE LIMITED 100

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Err... I wish there was an edit function.. Try again:

PLEASE TELL US SCHEMATICS WILL NOT BE LIMITED 100 ITEMS.

I hope one of those meetings addressed the fact that 65% of your customers have maxed out their character and more and more very day and there's only one character per server because if you guys didn't address that problem and the empty friends lists and starter cities that are a result of that rather shortsighted policy then the other stuff doesn't really matter.

Bind the player lots to the account and give people one or two more character slots per server (only 10 lots per server but 2 or 3 charaacters) that will buy you the time you need to give some sort of meaning to the end-game. If you don't more and more people are going to be logging into their maxxed characters and wondering why the heck they did.

Just my humble opinion of course but having 2 maxxed chars I really dont' see myself playing much beyond october unless this issue is addressed.

thanks Q! I'm happy to hear that about the new dungeon..... when I found my first dungeon I was like WOW!! this is sweet.... then after seeing several others I found that they were all the same.... just another cave with a differant creature in it.... I even found a dungeon with the same layout as another and just differant creatures. and I was thinking comon devs u can do better... I hope this will be somthing u do with all your dungeons.

I have to say you guys have done a great job bug stomping! I hope one of the things on your list of things to work on is making missions and quests more diverse and involved. I feel like they are all the same thing...

although there are things that need work dont get me wrong u guys are doing the best job on adressing these isues and I really am injoying myself in game.. Just keep up the good work and we'll have a masterpeice by the time the space expansion is out!

How about a simple fix for scouts/rangers? Fix /throwTrap. <grin>