Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion
RageGods
Sat Feb 07, 2004 12:26 pm
#417
Rebel and Imperial Faction only chat
When Im covert and see a member of the oppisit faction going around Overt I cant do anything about it but /yell to everyone around me. That informs the Overt I am on to them and to either get ready to fight or run away and hide.
What I am thinking of is what if there was a channel for factions or something like that. Like there is with group or guild chat.
Imperial:
If your Imperial and you see an Overt Rebel, you could type something like /Imperial "Calling all Imperials near the Bestine, Medical Center. There is an Overt Rebel and 3 other suspisous looking blue players following them sneeking around near the north door. Looks like the Rebels are about to attack."
If your Imperial and you see an Overt Rebel, you could type something like /Imperial "Calling all Imperials near the Bestine, Medical Center. There is an Overt Rebel and 3 other suspisous looking blue players following them sneeking around near the north door. Looks like the Rebels are about to attack."
Rebel:
If your Rebel and you see an Overt Imperial, you could type something like /Rebel "I have spoted an ATST slowly approaching Ancorheads East entrance and a group of Overt Imperials approaching from the West."
If your Rebel and you see an Overt Imperial, you could type something like /Rebel "I have spoted an ATST slowly approaching Ancorheads East entrance and a group of Overt Imperials approaching from the West."
All members of the same faction would see your message in there chat or faction chat box. Members of the oppisit faction would not see this of course. Coverts could spy and Overts could call for backup.
This would have to be planet only. If your on Tatooine, you can only see messages from that planet and not from Dathomir, Dantooine, Naboo, etc... If you could see messages from all planets, I think it might get confusing. Maybe not, but if something is happing on Tatooine, It would probably be over by the time someone comming from Endor got to Tatooine to help.
You could also use these faction channels to ask your faction if they want to come to a battlefield or raid a faction base or town, etc...
Let me know what you think. If you like it, let a Dev know. Thanks for reading.
RageGods
Sat Feb 07, 2004 12:29 pm
#418
An idea on an alternitive way to earn APPRENTICESHIP!
You just made Scout 4/4/4/4 and want to Master Scout. You have 0 apprenticeship. There are no players around that you can teach to get apprenticeship and you have been searching for many months. What can you do?
Simple, You visit your Scout Trainer. Converse with them and select the "Quests for Master" option. You pay the Scout Trainer 10,000 credits and they give you random Scout type quests for 50 apprenticeship each until you have enough for Master Scout. Before you can do each quest, you must pay the trainer 10,000 credits. You get no credits, loot or rewards from doing these Apprenticeship Quests. Your only reward is 50 special [SCOUT Apprenticeship points] at the end of each quest that is only good for mastering the Scout profession and does not work with mastering any other profession. To master other professions once you have enough skill points you would do the same but just talk to the correct NPC Trainer. The quests would be located in a city (on the same planet) other then the city your trainer is in or at least 4,000-9,000m away in the wilderness and have something to do with the profession, maybe just like the Profession Mission Terminals.
If youve trained enough players to get 600 apprenticeship points and just couldnt find anyone else to train, you could go to the Scout Trainer and complete an Apprenticeship Quest for 50 Scout Apprenticeship Points. You now have enough to Master Scout. 600 Regular Apprenticeship Points and 50 Scout Apprenticeship Points. 600 Regular Apprenticeship points and 20 Scout Apprenticeship Points go into Master Scout. The 30 Scout Apprenticeship Points left over dissapear because you would not need them. You just Mastered Scout and they would be useless. If you had 50 Regular Apprenticeship Points and 600 Scout Apprenticeship Points and you trained for Master Scout, you would have 30 Regular Apprenticeship Points left.
I hope I havent confused anyone. I may read this later and be a bit confused but hopefully someone (Devs) can make use of this idea and put something like this into the game so getting Apprenticeship Points wouldnt be so difficult.
Maybe there could be a simpler way to get apprenticeship then this. I like this idea though. It would be easyer then shouting for days and days in front of Cornets starport lagging everyone that trys to walk by and spamming their chat boxes with annoying garble.
Let me know what you think. If you like it, let a Dev know. Thanks for reading.
BafflerMeal
Sat Feb 07, 2004 2:05 pm
#419
Yeah, actually good point; speeders still are pretty buggy. Well, maybe, like you said, when they iron out the bugs things can be changed, but it wuld be cool to see a couple Stormtroopers come up to a speeder and haul it off to aImperial base or lot of some kind. It would certainly suck if you're a rebel.
Boothby
Sat Feb 07, 2004 3:00 pm
#420
This game desperately needs a /market channel. This would solve the spamming problem and provide a valuable place to advertise. Another idea: how about an ingame advertising board. You could pay a fixed fee to place an ad, like the classifieds, which could be accessed from terminals (maybe in the starport)?
BadDawGe
Sat Feb 07, 2004 3:39 pm
#421
I was thinking of a really nice idea to help organize player cities (if this applies). My problem is seeing player cities with houses scattered here and there with no real reason behind the madness. I like to see houses in rows so its easy to know where you are going and what part of the city you are in.
I thought it would be nice to have a house moving mode that the mayor of a city could access. In this mode the mayor could click on a house and move it to a desired location, rotate it, or even remove it from the city. If there is a house in the way, he/she can put it in temporary storage (which must be emptied before the mayor leaves the housing mode). If the mayor should lose connection while in this mode or time out, the houses are restored to their original location. When a mayor moves a house, the citizen is notified that the house has been moved and gets a waypoint in their email.
Another nice part, if this was implemented, would be to have deed storage. The mayor could place deeds (max of 5) in storage. He/she could choose a few locations where the house can be placed and when a player with zoning rights selects the option to use *1* deed, he/she sees the locations that the mayor has chosen and can place them there, or somewhere else they are comfortable with.
Thats about it, tell me what ya think..
I thought it would be nice to have a house moving mode that the mayor of a city could access. In this mode the mayor could click on a house and move it to a desired location, rotate it, or even remove it from the city. If there is a house in the way, he/she can put it in temporary storage (which must be emptied before the mayor leaves the housing mode). If the mayor should lose connection while in this mode or time out, the houses are restored to their original location. When a mayor moves a house, the citizen is notified that the house has been moved and gets a waypoint in their email.
Another nice part, if this was implemented, would be to have deed storage. The mayor could place deeds (max of 5) in storage. He/she could choose a few locations where the house can be placed and when a player with zoning rights selects the option to use *1* deed, he/she sees the locations that the mayor has chosen and can place them there, or somewhere else they are comfortable with.
Thats about it, tell me what ya think..
Xyrll
Sat Feb 07, 2004 4:19 pm
#422
I'm just wondering, does anyone know what ever happened to a Hutt Faction? All we can be right now is Imperial or Rebel, it seems like there should be something between those two. Right now all we have is black and white choices (they are exact opposites), what we need is a blue choice. But just wondering if it is still going to happen. A while before release date when they made a list of things they weren't doing and things that would be after launch the Hutt faction was something that was on the after launch list.
Durangoo
Sat Feb 07, 2004 4:47 pm
#423
I really think alot of great ideas here, ya I like the leave resiegn a penality, perhaps this might be a bounty hunters mission 
. You resieghn names becomes a bounty hunter mission for say a week.
The bomb thing is great too, make it so only a smugler or Jedi can locate the bomb, defuse it , what would be a nice add is if in the cantina there was alot of Imps or Rebs that would indicate the degree of risk, ie 25 Imps in the Cantina, 10 Neutrals, 3 undeclared Rebs, inc transmission from Luke Skywalker (to the Rebs) please meet our under cover person at (loc) for a high priority mission, sent to the Rebs. They go to the location, meet an npc, one obtains the mission, recieves an item he gets to drop in the cantina, goes back, places the item somewhere in the cantina, if its not detected by an Imp Smugler the bomb goes off, damage to players based upon how close you are to the detonation site;the same for covert Imperials. Add in random cantina's ie npc's already there ya never know who's faction the bar tender is on do you ? Can ya trust him, did he plant a bomb under the counter ?
Also the Harvester post was great with deeding of City halls etc.
/salute
Accaba
Sat Feb 07, 2004 5:31 pm
#424
I know, its annoying. But change the times for the shuttles. Im waiting for the bus every workingday in RL. WHY SHOULD I DO THIS IN THIS GAME TOO? I dont pay for watching a protocol droid. I pay for playing the game. Please change that as soon as possible. I like the game to much. I dont wont quit it, cause of such a thing.
IgescaStorm
Sat Feb 07, 2004 6:04 pm
#425
ClollinLightningsun wrote:
BTW, I want to bring up the idea of apartments again because I just saw a nice row of apartment buildings on the border of Theed and it looked like it would be so fun to live in them. There were agro NPCs and stuff walking around. They could be like the negihborhood thieves that everybody who lives there has to deal (but have fun) with. No one ever commented on this in the first place, so what do you think?
I had this idea the last days too.
It would be nice to live in a mayor city.
Not everybody want to have a house.... i have one, but i dont use it...
TheMDude
Sat Feb 07, 2004 6:22 pm
#426
IgescaStorm wrote:
I had this idea the last days too.
It would be nice to live in a mayor city.
Not everybody want to have a house.... i have one, but i dont use it...
Yes, well see that's the beauty of the NPC cities having varieties. I can't vouch too much for other planest and cities as I don't go to them very often. Still, I can say that in the case of Coronet and most corellian cities:
You have the rusty, ragged looking buildings that could be used by people with little money.
The alright looking buildings that can be taken up by the average player.
And the super tall skyscrappers that the very rich can occupy.
So you could have shops and houses of all ranges. From the low income houses and one player establishments up to the super expensive apartment condos and the huge PA stores.
Let's not forget how this would greatly lessen the sprawl ring around some cities. It's sort of annoying to leave town and be assaulted by building after building.
You have the rusty, ragged looking buildings that could be used by people with little money.
The alright looking buildings that can be taken up by the average player.
And the super tall skyscrappers that the very rich can occupy.
So you could have shops and houses of all ranges. From the low income houses and one player establishments up to the super expensive apartment condos and the huge PA stores.
Let's not forget how this would greatly lessen the sprawl ring around some cities. It's sort of annoying to leave town and be assaulted by building after building.
NaKitNa
Sat Feb 07, 2004 6:54 pm
#427
GCW needs to be a focus after classes are fixed. Of course there is so much going on right now there will be nth times the chaos when Space hits. Personally I think that is whena lot of the flavor of SW will be found. Until then I urge diversity. That is probably the second most flavor of SW is the sheer diversity. More races, more armor, weapons, outfits, etc... looks like you are heading in that direction. I hope to see new and intersting things. I also would love more detail to cities. Make more of the doors go somewhere. More unique quests, etc... Each city should have its own life. I would like to see some of the places in each city rentable by PC's.
OdiousEncounter
Sat Feb 07, 2004 7:07 pm
#428
An idea i had regarding the new "Did you know..." section of the launchpad:
I think something that would be useful and appreciated by many players was if you created a set of "Top 5 things people should know about your profession" posts, and then cycled through what was selected on the "Did you know..." section. For example, I know smugglers would love it if you stated that slices were completely random and not affected by tool quality. This would save them a lot of explaining and annoyed/annoying customers. I'm sure most proffesions (especially the crafting, maybe not so much the combat) have many things that they would like everyone to know to make their job easier.
JediDerf
Sat Feb 07, 2004 7:16 pm
#429
Database Integrity (Hoping this gets to JustG @ company)
Okay, to start off, pardon the rather lengthy post but I don't know a better place to post this. I started thinking about this issue when I read that players who don't log in for 3 weeks will no longer be considered residents of cities.
I think most of the live servers are becoming more unstable all the time. On Chilastra, it's fairly common to find signs hanging in mid-air with no building attached. I'm guessing that this is an indicator of an orphan object. At one time there was a house there and it was re-deeded or decayed.
At a wild guess, the sign was on another server from the house, and thus the sign stayed in place after the house vanished. The BEST (least worrisome) possibility is that the house is still there, but hasn't loaded yet.
We hear stories of 300 buildings being administered by a single player. Somehow I suspect that quite a few of those are on lots belonging to characters that haven't been on the server in more than a month.
What I think needs to be done is have a database verification done periodically or a slow continuous one (maybe only when server load drops under a certain margin).
EVERY account and object needs be scanned periodically. At minimum, they need to be verified once every Major Publish.
Symptomatic Related Problems and Suggestions
Lot adjustment.
This can get out of whack either way. I've had structures get stuck in 'marker' mode -- but taking up a lot. Every time I see one as I travel around I wince in remembered pain for the first time it happened to me. A month after it happened to me the first time, I got a CSR response and was fortunately able to locate the bug'd structure to delete it with the slash command.
I've placed structures just before a server crash and ended up with missing lots.
I know of a few characters that have ended up with 11+ lots on a single character. Don't know if they're lost if you ever have it display 11+ or not, somehow all those characters have been careful to NEVER pickup every structure on their lots.
Every so often, the lots need to be verified. The database and programming must be able to handle negative numbers of lots. In extreme cases, it should be flagged for CSR and/or Dev review (and lost account if done maliciously?)
Orphaned / Legacy Structures.
I'm in a guild that has a well-planned city. Our planning committee spent probably 100+ hours thrashing out ideas and planning where everything should go, etc. Surprise, in the middle of our 'mall' area, there's a house. No one knew whose house it was, no one has seen anyone enter or exit it. We finally have decided that it probably belongs to a guild member who quit the game several months ago.
I don't know if he's paid-up to Sony or not, we assume he placed 100k+ in his house before he logged out for the 'last' time.
My solution to this would take a fair amount of coding time, but I think would be usable in MANY areas that are giving tough problems to CSRs, Towns, and Dev plans. A new type of 'deed' needs to be developed. A 'composite' deed. Allow mayors to place on a voting terminal the option to redeed a structure with all items in it (when placed, all items inside the structure return as well). 60% of the residents have to vote for this to vote to carry. This allows guilds to handle griefers with existing structures in their city boundaries.
To reduce database performance issues, items in 'Composite' form are: 1) relocated to a backup database after verification. 2) redeeded only during server resets. 3) stay in 'marker' form until another server reset when placed.
Now, to reduce griefing by mayors, I think this option should be such that the flagged structure(s) will have some highly visible sign for say a week before they get deeded, and an email sent to everyone on the target structure’s admin list when the issue is first placed on the voting terminal.
Cities obstructing starport and POI access
The mechanics from the above could be used iteratively to remove most of these problems. If a city hall is too close to a POI, etc, force it to 'composite' deed form. HOWEVER, make sure that their slot as a certain level city is retained for several days so they can relocate w/o loosing their status.
Sending all civic structures into composite deed form at the same time would be a logical move imo. Best timing on this would seem to be when a city is examined for growth status. Give them their growth for the week, pay maintenance, etc. After all that is done, check locations and redeed. They have till the next growth cycle to replace their city so as not to loose their city status.
IMO, any structure that was w/in city limits gets the option during that week to be placed into composite form as well. That way residents can 'move' w/o the worst of the grief.
City hostile taker-overs and other griefing related tactics.
This isn't really a database bug, but is a problem (imo). Someone standing just outside the edge of a player-city boundary can use a deed and then scroll over and drop a structure w/in the city limits -- w/o having any building rights. I'm not certain, but I see no reason these same people couldn't then proclaim their residency in the new structure...
The main bug here is that the placing structure interface needs to examine zoning rights. If a player is standing w/in city limits, he needs everything outside the city limits to be a gold no-place code.
If he's not in a city limits, he needs to have anything inside city limits colored gold. This is also a problem with NPC cities to a lesser extent. If you try to place just outside the no-build zone, you have no graphical way of knowing if you are trying to drop it inside the no-build or not. Trying to place inside the no-build will just cause a failed drop.
Legacy structures in No-Build sites / planets.
Forcing these into composite form allows the player to relocate w/o as much extreme strain. It sucks for them, but it does allow the Devs to enforce the rules fairly. I'm suspecting that towns placed on the edge of the imperial / rebel bases with starports can grant zoning rights that allow folks to build inside no-build zones.... Forcing the city to move would ripple down. Obviously, you need to make a bit more stringent checks when a town hall or 'composite' town hall is placed.
Something like this would also allow city-warn to be returned in some form. I've visited a few POIs that are entirely w/in a player city's limits.
Orphaned structures part two.
If you're verifying the structures, items, characters, and lots, you have the opportunity to remove more of the cross-server trading, or at least make it more fair. Any structure that is owned by a character that hasn't been logged in for a few months should be forced into a 'composite' form. To reduce the angst of this, I think everyone on the structure's admin list should get an email a week before it goes composite. So I guess it only gets archived if they don't log in for 5 weeks.... This also makes it easier for folks to unexpectedly loose access to their characters for real-life reasons to return to the game. As long as they have a month and a half maintenance (or a friend on admin), they will be able to retrieve their items and structures. Perhaps to reduce exploiting this, make it that no 'normal' structure can be placed while the player has a 'composite' deed in his inventory. And of course, such deeds are no-drop, no-trade, etc.
Database issues will be reduced in the long run because the archived 'composite' items get placed into another database during normal play.
Lost Items from vendors
I don't have a 'good' solution for this. I personally know several crafters from the beginning of the game who are / have cancelled their accounts after their vendors ate their stocks. Quite a few people keep their most valued items on their vendors. CSRs have replied: 'Vendors were never intended to be used for item storage.' Okay, but you're totally destroying their character's trade if you don't let them have their items back in some form. One weaponsmith lost over 1 million of the best reactive gas, crates of pre-nerf weapons, etc. I think this happened when he got busy IRL for a few weeks and didn't tend his stock room frequently. Is there any second court of appeal via email, or should he just finish canceling 2 of his three accounts?
Okay, to start off, pardon the rather lengthy post but I don't know a better place to post this. I started thinking about this issue when I read that players who don't log in for 3 weeks will no longer be considered residents of cities.
I think most of the live servers are becoming more unstable all the time. On Chilastra, it's fairly common to find signs hanging in mid-air with no building attached. I'm guessing that this is an indicator of an orphan object. At one time there was a house there and it was re-deeded or decayed.
At a wild guess, the sign was on another server from the house, and thus the sign stayed in place after the house vanished. The BEST (least worrisome) possibility is that the house is still there, but hasn't loaded yet.
We hear stories of 300 buildings being administered by a single player. Somehow I suspect that quite a few of those are on lots belonging to characters that haven't been on the server in more than a month.
What I think needs to be done is have a database verification done periodically or a slow continuous one (maybe only when server load drops under a certain margin).
EVERY account and object needs be scanned periodically. At minimum, they need to be verified once every Major Publish.
Symptomatic Related Problems and Suggestions
Lot adjustment.
This can get out of whack either way. I've had structures get stuck in 'marker' mode -- but taking up a lot. Every time I see one as I travel around I wince in remembered pain for the first time it happened to me. A month after it happened to me the first time, I got a CSR response and was fortunately able to locate the bug'd structure to delete it with the slash command.
I've placed structures just before a server crash and ended up with missing lots.
I know of a few characters that have ended up with 11+ lots on a single character. Don't know if they're lost if you ever have it display 11+ or not, somehow all those characters have been careful to NEVER pickup every structure on their lots.
Every so often, the lots need to be verified. The database and programming must be able to handle negative numbers of lots. In extreme cases, it should be flagged for CSR and/or Dev review (and lost account if done maliciously?)
Orphaned / Legacy Structures.
I'm in a guild that has a well-planned city. Our planning committee spent probably 100+ hours thrashing out ideas and planning where everything should go, etc. Surprise, in the middle of our 'mall' area, there's a house. No one knew whose house it was, no one has seen anyone enter or exit it. We finally have decided that it probably belongs to a guild member who quit the game several months ago.
I don't know if he's paid-up to Sony or not, we assume he placed 100k+ in his house before he logged out for the 'last' time.
My solution to this would take a fair amount of coding time, but I think would be usable in MANY areas that are giving tough problems to CSRs, Towns, and Dev plans. A new type of 'deed' needs to be developed. A 'composite' deed. Allow mayors to place on a voting terminal the option to redeed a structure with all items in it (when placed, all items inside the structure return as well). 60% of the residents have to vote for this to vote to carry. This allows guilds to handle griefers with existing structures in their city boundaries.
To reduce database performance issues, items in 'Composite' form are: 1) relocated to a backup database after verification. 2) redeeded only during server resets. 3) stay in 'marker' form until another server reset when placed.
Now, to reduce griefing by mayors, I think this option should be such that the flagged structure(s) will have some highly visible sign for say a week before they get deeded, and an email sent to everyone on the target structure’s admin list when the issue is first placed on the voting terminal.
Cities obstructing starport and POI access
The mechanics from the above could be used iteratively to remove most of these problems. If a city hall is too close to a POI, etc, force it to 'composite' deed form. HOWEVER, make sure that their slot as a certain level city is retained for several days so they can relocate w/o loosing their status.
Sending all civic structures into composite deed form at the same time would be a logical move imo. Best timing on this would seem to be when a city is examined for growth status. Give them their growth for the week, pay maintenance, etc. After all that is done, check locations and redeed. They have till the next growth cycle to replace their city so as not to loose their city status.
IMO, any structure that was w/in city limits gets the option during that week to be placed into composite form as well. That way residents can 'move' w/o the worst of the grief.
City hostile taker-overs and other griefing related tactics.
This isn't really a database bug, but is a problem (imo). Someone standing just outside the edge of a player-city boundary can use a deed and then scroll over and drop a structure w/in the city limits -- w/o having any building rights. I'm not certain, but I see no reason these same people couldn't then proclaim their residency in the new structure...
The main bug here is that the placing structure interface needs to examine zoning rights. If a player is standing w/in city limits, he needs everything outside the city limits to be a gold no-place code.
If he's not in a city limits, he needs to have anything inside city limits colored gold. This is also a problem with NPC cities to a lesser extent. If you try to place just outside the no-build zone, you have no graphical way of knowing if you are trying to drop it inside the no-build or not. Trying to place inside the no-build will just cause a failed drop.
Legacy structures in No-Build sites / planets.
Forcing these into composite form allows the player to relocate w/o as much extreme strain. It sucks for them, but it does allow the Devs to enforce the rules fairly. I'm suspecting that towns placed on the edge of the imperial / rebel bases with starports can grant zoning rights that allow folks to build inside no-build zones.... Forcing the city to move would ripple down. Obviously, you need to make a bit more stringent checks when a town hall or 'composite' town hall is placed.
Something like this would also allow city-warn to be returned in some form. I've visited a few POIs that are entirely w/in a player city's limits.
Orphaned structures part two.
If you're verifying the structures, items, characters, and lots, you have the opportunity to remove more of the cross-server trading, or at least make it more fair. Any structure that is owned by a character that hasn't been logged in for a few months should be forced into a 'composite' form. To reduce the angst of this, I think everyone on the structure's admin list should get an email a week before it goes composite. So I guess it only gets archived if they don't log in for 5 weeks.... This also makes it easier for folks to unexpectedly loose access to their characters for real-life reasons to return to the game. As long as they have a month and a half maintenance (or a friend on admin), they will be able to retrieve their items and structures. Perhaps to reduce exploiting this, make it that no 'normal' structure can be placed while the player has a 'composite' deed in his inventory. And of course, such deeds are no-drop, no-trade, etc.
Database issues will be reduced in the long run because the archived 'composite' items get placed into another database during normal play.
Lost Items from vendors
I don't have a 'good' solution for this. I personally know several crafters from the beginning of the game who are / have cancelled their accounts after their vendors ate their stocks. Quite a few people keep their most valued items on their vendors. CSRs have replied: 'Vendors were never intended to be used for item storage.' Okay, but you're totally destroying their character's trade if you don't let them have their items back in some form. One weaponsmith lost over 1 million of the best reactive gas, crates of pre-nerf weapons, etc. I think this happened when he got busy IRL for a few weeks and didn't tend his stock room frequently. Is there any second court of appeal via email, or should he just finish canceling 2 of his three accounts?