Development Cycle Archive
Thread: In-Concept Open Discussion
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 like the idea of apartments, the only problem is, who gets them? Would there be enought room to hold everyone that wants one? How much would it detract from the player city's? How would you aquire one? I think player city apartments would be cool, and alot easier to implement. Although, living in Theed would be pretty cool.
Also, when do we get windows in our houses?Would it be possible to add one or two windows to each house design and give them curtains that can be shut? When I go in any of the houses I feel like I'm in a concrete bomb shelter.
A few different things I wanted to bring up. For one thing, is there any date set in 2004 for the expansion? It mentions that there will be new planets and species, both are good ideas. But if they are going to come out with new species, I may have to start new if i want to change species. If I knew when this was being released, I'd know whether to bother really getting into my character just to make a new one when it comes out.
In mentioning the space expansion, I wondered how this would work. Obviously, they won't just be a personal shuttle in the sense that you get in, it loads new planet, and you get out. If that was the case, you wouldn't have space battles, which they said it will have. I figure that means a ship which when you get in, you control similar to vehicles, but you would be on a map of space, not land. What I wonder about is such ships as corellian starships, ones big enough to include more than a cockpit. It would be nice to have the option to switch from an outer ship view (for travel and battles) to an interior view of your ship, so you could move around inside, even carry cargo (or other people). This would make the expansion worth more to the players who craft more than battle. It would definitely make the smuggler profession interesting if you could hold illegal cargo. And with the imperial crackdown, it could mean routine ship inspections and docking with large freighters.
Also, I was wondering if there was any word on what new species will be included in the expansion. It would be nice to have a forum about that to get an idea of what species players would most like to see added.
About Marketing,
I would think it would be cool for Merchants to buy Bill Boards that they can advertise their shop on. have it have a message and if u click the bill board it auto sends you a mail with the wp of the shop.
Architects could benefit and cost about as much as a small harvestor in both material and lots used.
Politicians could use it when running for a tight election or just to pass on info about the town or for the town.
Just an idea?
Foth!
We've all seen games like Quake, Half Life, Unreal UT, and Wolfenstine but the fundamental problem with these games at least to me is they 1) were to repetitive 2) not enough content 3) there was no in-depth social interaction 4) they all required a high speed connection to get an accurate hit count there fore limiting the audience.
After the release of Americas Army it was proven that you could have a 1st person shooter game that could be played on-line with a 56k connection and a accurate hit count.
What if you took the in-depth social and profession aspects of SWG and integrated a 1st person shooter aspect. Things like having to aim at your target, having the hit section on the target not be randomly rolled but actually aimed for and hit. Also you could add more that the players can do with their weapons, like reloading the power core, being able to grapple to the top of buildings (like in the movies and books.) Snipers will actually be able to use the scope on their weapons and not have it just be a modifier that gives them range but will have a real visual use. There are so many different things you could do with this type of integration that it could quite possibly turn SWG from an exceptional game into a ground breaking hybrid be all and end all game of the century.
If you want more ideas that spawn from this concept please feel free to PM me and I can write up some very in-depth ideas.
Loh Key (wanderhome server)
Here is a couple ofideas to look at:
It seems that alot of players are too lazy or forgettfulto store their speeders and creatures when traveling to other worlds. You can go to any Starport and find a bunch of speeders (many smoking, flaming or outright exploding) hovering at the entrance to the port. This is really annoying as it seems to add additional lag to the game around these areas. With the Imperial Crackdown in publish 6 coming, it would be kinda cool to see Stormtroopers confiscate or impound unattended speeders or creatures left at Starports for too long. Its not hard to store your vehicle once your done with it, maybe a fine or the actual taking away of the speeder would encourage players to store them when their not using them in the city, or at least in front of the starports.
Just an idea but it would be nice to see that changed.
Another issue is Spammers at the Starports, its easy to throw them on your ignore list, but its a pain to constantly have to do it everytime you travel to a player intensive starport (On Bloodfin its Coronet, Bestine and Theed). Its fine that people want to sell their items, but man, there has to be a better way to do it. Maybe have a market type area where they can go and spam their wares instead of doing it in front of Starports among a bunch of screaming creatures, exploding speeders and constantly spawning players.
I dunno about that one, Baffler. Maybe if the devs have fully ironed out the vehicle functions but I remember recently trying to store my vehicle and getting the classic duping bug. I wouldn't want to be punished for something I can control. Maybe if the troopers would just put the vehicle at a compound lot or something so you could pick it up within a week, but no fines.
BafflerMeal wrote:
Here is a couple ofideas to look at:
It seems that alot of players are too lazy or forgettfulto store their speeders and creatures when traveling to other worlds. You can go to any Starport and find a bunch of speeders (many smoking, flaming or outright exploding) hovering at the entrance to the port. This is really annoying as it seems to add additional lag to the game around these areas. With the Imperial Crackdown in publish 6 coming, it would be kinda cool to see Stormtroopers confiscate or impound unattended speeders or creatures left at Starports for too long. Its not hard to store your vehicle once your done with it, maybe a fine or the actual taking away of the speeder would encourage players to store them when their not using them in the city, or at least in front of the starports.
I will probably get a little bit of flame for this one but I don't mind.
I would like to suggest that there are not enough planets in the galaxy. I understand 10, and it's a respectable number I will agree. However, at the very least Dathomir and Endor should have been left off, and there are alot of other much more notable places that should have existed.
To start, I feel that there should have been the homeworlds for each player race available at launch. Why is there no Kashyyyk, Mon Calamari, Ryloth, Rodia, or Botha? If you wanted rough adventure worlds, why not have Kessel? Kashyyyk has a really rough forest floor. It is Wookie tradition to assend to the rank of warrior, a wookie must go and hunt on the forest floor. Kessel is a planet with spice mining operations, some of which is an imperial prison as well (for content people could get arrested and sent to Kessel. That could make for really exciting rescue missions.) Ord Mantell would be a good place for artisans and smugglers to get parts and stuff, since most of the world is a junk yard. What about Bespin? That would be a good place for smugglers to get missions from. Lando sells most of the tabana gas that they harvest to the rebels, thus needing to smuggle it to rebel locations (Tabana gas is used as the ammo for blasters and fuel for most starships, which should be a need for player vehicles.)
There are many more planets out there, and at the very least I would have to say that the inclusion of Dathomir was really one of the biggest errors. You would have to realize thatuntil RotJ the rancor had never been seen and the only people who knew of it were close with Jabba. Even at that time no one knew where it came from. It wasn't untilseveral yearslater when Han won Dathomir in a bet that they found out, and that book was silly anyway.
I don't mind there not being a Hoth yet. However I would have to say that when it does come out, it shouldn't allow any player structures on it unless the structures are fortifications for Echo Base.
As for the CH profession. I don't mind it's existance, but, creature handlers in SW are really fairly rare, and huge beasts roaming around are even rarer, AND most of the creatures that were tamed, were used as mounts or "workhorses" to help do chores.
For DE, droids should be at the fore front of "pets." Droids have to have a real purpose, that directly benefits the player, and should be with-in the scope of the droid purpose. I.e. R2 droids are astromech droids, their purpose is to calculate astrogation jumps while the pilot is busy, and effect repairs on ships. 21-B surgical droids are used as constant supervision over a patient, in treatment (checking vitals at regular intervals, adjusting bacta concentration, and assisting doctors...) The binary loadlifters do exactly that, they carry stuff (perhaps there could be things that are simply too heavy for a player to carry, so they can whip out their lifter droid to carry it for them. Things like large quantities of resources.) Mouse droids are utilitarian, in they are usually cleaners, perhaps item types can have specific away places in a building such as a players house, anything left not in it's away place for say 20 minutes,the mouse droid can grab and move it to where it should be. Probe droids would be best if they could be used remotely. The player could have a probot called, and there could be a function that lets the owner move around as the droid and scout out where they are going. That would be really handy for those people who are overt. As for battle droids, there are really only a few of them, do to their unpredictable nature, and that they are illegal under imperial law. The most notable battle droid at this time is IG-88 who appeared in ESB. If they are buildable, they should come at a heafty cost but should be well worth the price (high credit cost to buy/build, high risk of getting arrested, maybe an expensive permit to legally own one. However, holds it's own in a fight very well.)
As for the Jedi. I haven't had the opportunity to try that yet, but I'm working on it. However, from what I've heard, I have some thoughts. I would have to agree that the FSC shouldn't be limited to only force professions, they should have the ability to learn any other skills as everyone else, so I would think that the unlocking of the FSC would simply make that character FS. I have read the thoughts and changes going into the jedi revamp, and I would have this to say. As you desired, jedi are rare, as they should be. A jedi master is a more formidable opponent than anyone should ever be. But the life of a jedi is slow. I would suggest that a jedi should get exp every time they use a force power to further a goal. The goal they are working toward and how they use their powers should give them either dark exp or light exp. A should not get exp solely from combat and wielding a light saber. That should only give them lightsaber exp. Since a jedi should be able to progress from novice to master without ever having to enter combat is why I say this. Perhaps lightsaber skills need to be a seperate tree. However, I will also concede that a jedi trains for combat because one never knows when one may have to fight. That is the other side to my arguement that the skills should be seperate. Jedi don't kill unless they have to, there should be someway that they can train with out having to kill or do hunting or destroy missions. IMHO dark jedi skills should progress slowly and light jedi skills should progress very VERY slowly. Light jedi is not for the impatient. Impatients helps lead to the dark side.
Professions as a whole. I agree with statements made in earlier posts. There needs to be alot more professions, and with them more skill points. I can make the arguement that there is no way Boba Fett can be as cool in SWG as he is in the movies simply because there aren't enough skill points. If the movie version was exactly set in the game, he would have master BH, some commando, some TKA, a fair amount of pilot, most of marksman, scout, pistoleer, and maybe even some carbineer. There is just no way to get all that with only 250 SP.
For content (or something like it) I wonder why there aren't any apartment buildings in the NPC cities. They could work just like houses, but with probably a slightly higher maint cost "rent". But they would be right there in the city. Also why not have a galactic news or holovid net, where businessmen can place ads and such. Or something like a planetary or galactic phonebook, that could be used to sort out who provides what services. Perhaps some kind of credit system. Players could borrow money from the NPC banking system to buy stuff from players and pay it back to the banking system over time, there could be loan limits and such, so that there isn't too much money going out to the players. However, I already think there is too much money that flows out of the player economy now as it is. I know it was said that things like pod racing and such are already games, but the SW ep 1 Racer game is only upto two players, this could have many players doing it. Card games like Pazaak could be good, games that step out of the total character skill and play with the PLAYER's skill at some thing. It's a nearly fully automated galaxy there, and any form of differing distraction while playing would be great. Maybe you could even have sporting professions, who knows what kinds of sports there are to play, some variation of soccer, or american football, baseball, basketball, etc. Things that throw it all around.
For the artisan grind. I've done some math just so I could see, and I was surprised. I discovered that to get from 0 exp to 50200 armorsmithing exp I have to make 120 tantel chest plates. That requires me to make 480 tantel armor segments. That will take 4800 units of aluminum and another Non-ferrous metal, and 2400 units of an inert petrochem, to make all the segments. Then 4800 units of avian bone, 7800 units of bristley hide, 4800 units of any other hide,3000 more aluminum, 3000 units of polymer, and 120 each of synthetic cloth and re-inforced fiber panels. Assuming I get the cloth and panels for free, and I buy all the rest of the materials to make the requisite 120 tantel chest pieces will cost 210,000 credits. To me that sounds like alot. These calculations are also taking into account that the resources bought were cheap and worthless in the first place. None of the armor made is worth selling to anyone cause it is made from poor quality materials. If I harvest the materials my self, it would cost less I'm sure, however it takes along time to gather that much in all those resources. If the cloths and panels would have to be bought that would possibly push the cost far above 350,000 credits. My solution for this would be, increase the exp payout per item made by 100% - 200%. I know that people will then be flying through the profession like crazy since it usually takes less than a minute for the crafting tool to finish the item. Please note, it probably takes about 2-3 minutes just to get through the 6 crafting steps on top of that, but increase the amount of time it takes the station to turn out the item. If I only had to make 30 tantel chest plates, and it took say5 minutes to craft one tantel chest plate, it would take150 minutes to get them all out. That's 2.5 hours of crafting time total. That is longer than it takes now anyway. Also there could be an exp bonus for doing experimentation, then crafters would be encouraged to experiment even when grinding, which would further extend the amount of time spent crafting. I would be willing to bet that the above examples would also work well with any of the other crafting professions.
Since I can't really think of much more to say about ideas I've had in general. I'm going to bring this to a close.
Raynor Talos - Interplanetary Knights Of the Republic - Gorath