Development Cycle Archive
Thread: 19 Answers 5-26-04
MisterWizard
Wed May 26, 2004 2:30 pm
#53
Comments:
- Resource stacks of 100,000 is more than adequate, and this is coming from a former master architect who had more resources than I can imagine.
- Dropping factory runs to 100 will severely hurt crafting. Consider an item which requires five identical components: You create 100 of the subcomponents, then can make a factory run of only 19 of the master components. OK, that's not horrible, but it is a major change. Is there a particular reason why 1000 is a bad thing?
- Vehicles did a lot for artisans. I would like to continue seeing the master artisan goods as components used by other professions, and as components in starships, to give mastering the profession wholesale value.
* When you get around to the smuggler revamp, take molecular clamps, laser knives, and the like away from them and give them to artisans. (I wouldn't do it before the smuggler revamp.) - Don't go too far with TC Rewards. The recent "two week for Jedi on TC2" was great, and things like that should persist in TC. Will TC rewards apply just to TC characters or to all the characters in that person's account? If the latter, be very careful what you offer, as you will undoubtedly increase the TC volume without the quality (people will log in to TC and do nothing just to get the rewards).
- Veteran Rewards include "new emotes"? My Collector's Edition goggles are more fun than that! I hope it's something a little more entertaining than that. Perhaps alternate titles or something that we can walk around with that shows off our "veteran" status?
EMC2
Wed May 26, 2004 2:31 pm
#54
So.....they are going to fix necklaces for Tailors (thank goodness on that one)and everyone else gets a "no" or a "sorry, we would like to do something about that but we are busy with JTL at this time".
I seriously hate to sound negative, but what's the point of even having Top 5 issues for professions or sending TH through this exercise if every week is going to have the same NULL results?
Should the correspondents just take a vacation until JTL is live?
sirsri
Wed May 26, 2004 2:33 pm
#55
Architect
Thanks for backing up the architect arguement with the schematic example. Now clearly the fundamental issue isn't an arcitect issue exclusively. Right now what you have is people using vendors for storage to compensate for the dev's unwillingness to adjust the system to something sensible. The whole item storage issue needs a rethink and rewrite, and from what you're saying that isn't going to happen. This is a bad sign.
Armoursmith
"No, the drop rate for Giant Dune Kimogila scales will not be increased. RIS armor is equivalent to “epic quest” armor and as such, the drop rate is one of the only ways to control difficulty"
How on earth do you people manage to not learn from everquest repeatedly? Difficulty and drop rate are not the same thing. Rate of entering the server is what you're talking about. If you want something to be 'epic' to obtain then make the stuff that drops it hard. Not rare, that just annoys people. See epic quests in EQ originally. And if you think they were good the way they started you should get out of the game business. Another bad sign.
Artisan.
Fair enough.
Bio eng.
Uh... right. What you said doesn't really fit in with what we (the bio engs) experience. Because the method you use to calculate pet levels changes its very hard to make reliable pets. Crit fails and amazing successes bugger things up. But until you tell us what exactly the calculation you think you're doing is, we can't fix it for you. Not that it matters much, my business for CH pets is almost non existant now (which is related to things like pet decay, and the CH profession as a whole). More in the Bad sign department.
Chef:
So you can't stack things after you die, but you can stack them when you log in first thing? That makes no sense, sorry. As you say the drawback is in stomach emptying time. Once you're dead you're obviously not getting the benefits of the food, and it clearly didn't do you enough good in the frist place or you wouldn't have died. Only a minor logical flaw here so it's not such a bad sign.
Dancer:
This is the first reference you make to 'not happening till post JTL timeframes', which is a VERY BAD THEME. Don't go down that road. There will always be a new expansion in the works, get separate teams and get it on the books independent of expansion work or don't mislead people into thinking it will be done. See ruins of kunark, SOV, SOL, POP etc... etc... etc... so that by the time this stuff is fixed its worthless.
Doctor:
Again with the 'after JTL'.
DE.
More procrastinating things that have a slim chance of getting dealt with before no one cares any more.
Entertainer:
You want to enhance mastery boxes in time... fair enough I guess. Something to discuss later, because you're getting into the 'level 59' in everquest thing, not a good place to be headed.
ID:
"Players won’t be able to select any image the way a player can because it takes up database space to store all of those individual variables, but we want to add a series of pre-selected choices that an Image Designer could choose from. This would definitely be after the Jump to Lightspeed" Uh.. pardon?
You're going away from the unique serialized things to a stock database of things now? You seem to be suggesting something they aren't really looking for. All you need is to tie in the ID UI to the vendor appearance, with the owner in control. Not trivial I'll grant but I don't see how what they want takes any more database information than you are saving now.
Medic:
Was there any point in even typing out a reply to their question?
Merchant:
Until you know what you want the front end to be able to do, you can't develop the back end. If I tell you to go build me a car, and you put a 12 L engine in it, a top speed of 400 km/ hour and ideal cruising speed of 150km/h in a chasis 2.5 m wide and 5m long it may be a lovely vehicle but you'll never see it on the road. You need to know what you're trying to do with the database before you make a new one. So you'll probably have to rewrite the whole database once you decide what you want on the interface you should start taking suggestions now, stop the rewrite and restart once you know what you're going to do with it. This is a REALLY bad sign.
Musician:
"Musicians will not get the ability to buff their own Focus and Willpower. As the system currently exists, if players could buff themselves, they would get experience points every time they buffed themselves and that is bad design."
Ok so rather than standing around afk for 8 hours to get x amount of xp they stand around afk for 7.5 hours, and this is bad design? Since as it is they get xp for themselves with no 'risk' I'm not sure how buffing onesself would be a noteworthy change. If you can make some arguement related to combat I'm all ears, but since docs can buff themselves you're not going to get far.
As for the buff window change, and buff information etc... (which applies as much to dancers and musicians) its the sort of thing that doesn't necessarily need a new UI. A commandline for /startbuff, the buff will be done in 8 minutes, the buff will be done in 4 minutes, the buff will be done in 1 minute system messages would do the trick. Saying 'all' the UI programmers are on JTL is a bit of a concern, unless its just one person, you're doing the same thing I mentioned with dancer/doctor.
P.A.s?
"We understand that players want some leeway with storage space and we are considering different ways to do this, but there are some other back end concerns (such as the commodity system revamp) that have to be completed before we can tackle the design side of this request."
What on earth does that anser have to do with adding some small storage space to PA halls? You're addressing the more fundamental issue of a revamp of how items are stored, how many of them etc... which is fine, but it doesn't really answer why or why not you can't put item storage space on PA halls, a simple: PA halls don't support item storage would suffice I guess.
Politician:
Again with the JTL thing, but I guess its survivable.
Tailor/TC/Weaponsmith
not much to work with there, so whatever, seems straightforward enough.
Thanks for backing up the architect arguement with the schematic example. Now clearly the fundamental issue isn't an arcitect issue exclusively. Right now what you have is people using vendors for storage to compensate for the dev's unwillingness to adjust the system to something sensible. The whole item storage issue needs a rethink and rewrite, and from what you're saying that isn't going to happen. This is a bad sign.
Armoursmith
"No, the drop rate for Giant Dune Kimogila scales will not be increased. RIS armor is equivalent to “epic quest” armor and as such, the drop rate is one of the only ways to control difficulty"
How on earth do you people manage to not learn from everquest repeatedly? Difficulty and drop rate are not the same thing. Rate of entering the server is what you're talking about. If you want something to be 'epic' to obtain then make the stuff that drops it hard. Not rare, that just annoys people. See epic quests in EQ originally. And if you think they were good the way they started you should get out of the game business. Another bad sign.
Artisan.
Fair enough.
Bio eng.
Uh... right. What you said doesn't really fit in with what we (the bio engs) experience. Because the method you use to calculate pet levels changes its very hard to make reliable pets. Crit fails and amazing successes bugger things up. But until you tell us what exactly the calculation you think you're doing is, we can't fix it for you. Not that it matters much, my business for CH pets is almost non existant now (which is related to things like pet decay, and the CH profession as a whole). More in the Bad sign department.
Chef:
So you can't stack things after you die, but you can stack them when you log in first thing? That makes no sense, sorry. As you say the drawback is in stomach emptying time. Once you're dead you're obviously not getting the benefits of the food, and it clearly didn't do you enough good in the frist place or you wouldn't have died. Only a minor logical flaw here so it's not such a bad sign.
Dancer:
This is the first reference you make to 'not happening till post JTL timeframes', which is a VERY BAD THEME. Don't go down that road. There will always be a new expansion in the works, get separate teams and get it on the books independent of expansion work or don't mislead people into thinking it will be done. See ruins of kunark, SOV, SOL, POP etc... etc... etc... so that by the time this stuff is fixed its worthless.
Doctor:
Again with the 'after JTL'.
DE.
More procrastinating things that have a slim chance of getting dealt with before no one cares any more.
Entertainer:
You want to enhance mastery boxes in time... fair enough I guess. Something to discuss later, because you're getting into the 'level 59' in everquest thing, not a good place to be headed.
ID:
"Players won’t be able to select any image the way a player can because it takes up database space to store all of those individual variables, but we want to add a series of pre-selected choices that an Image Designer could choose from. This would definitely be after the Jump to Lightspeed" Uh.. pardon?
You're going away from the unique serialized things to a stock database of things now? You seem to be suggesting something they aren't really looking for. All you need is to tie in the ID UI to the vendor appearance, with the owner in control. Not trivial I'll grant but I don't see how what they want takes any more database information than you are saving now.
Medic:
Was there any point in even typing out a reply to their question?
Merchant:
Until you know what you want the front end to be able to do, you can't develop the back end. If I tell you to go build me a car, and you put a 12 L engine in it, a top speed of 400 km/ hour and ideal cruising speed of 150km/h in a chasis 2.5 m wide and 5m long it may be a lovely vehicle but you'll never see it on the road. You need to know what you're trying to do with the database before you make a new one. So you'll probably have to rewrite the whole database once you decide what you want on the interface you should start taking suggestions now, stop the rewrite and restart once you know what you're going to do with it. This is a REALLY bad sign.
Musician:
"Musicians will not get the ability to buff their own Focus and Willpower. As the system currently exists, if players could buff themselves, they would get experience points every time they buffed themselves and that is bad design."
Ok so rather than standing around afk for 8 hours to get x amount of xp they stand around afk for 7.5 hours, and this is bad design? Since as it is they get xp for themselves with no 'risk' I'm not sure how buffing onesself would be a noteworthy change. If you can make some arguement related to combat I'm all ears, but since docs can buff themselves you're not going to get far.
As for the buff window change, and buff information etc... (which applies as much to dancers and musicians) its the sort of thing that doesn't necessarily need a new UI. A commandline for /startbuff, the buff will be done in 8 minutes, the buff will be done in 4 minutes, the buff will be done in 1 minute system messages would do the trick. Saying 'all' the UI programmers are on JTL is a bit of a concern, unless its just one person, you're doing the same thing I mentioned with dancer/doctor.
P.A.s?
"We understand that players want some leeway with storage space and we are considering different ways to do this, but there are some other back end concerns (such as the commodity system revamp) that have to be completed before we can tackle the design side of this request."
What on earth does that anser have to do with adding some small storage space to PA halls? You're addressing the more fundamental issue of a revamp of how items are stored, how many of them etc... which is fine, but it doesn't really answer why or why not you can't put item storage space on PA halls, a simple: PA halls don't support item storage would suffice I guess.
Politician:
Again with the JTL thing, but I guess its survivable.
Tailor/TC/Weaponsmith
not much to work with there, so whatever, seems straightforward enough.
Monthigos
Wed May 26, 2004 2:33 pm
#56
Thanks for the answers. Too bad there is a lot of 'no' answers in there, but then I suppose we can't get everything we want when we want it. If that was the case I would have been a billionaire long ago. 
Makkari
Wed May 26, 2004 2:38 pm
#57
19 Answers??
No, more like 3 answers:
- No.
- We'll see.
- Sometimeafter hell freez...uhm...after JTL.
Spacey
Wed May 26, 2004 2:39 pm
#58
If resource stacks were raised to 1,000,000 or if houses were raised to 500 storage then next monthwe would be asking for resource stacks of 10,000,000 and 750 house caps.
I would much prefer a better way to manage all of my resources and items than just "More space".
SunLao
Wed May 26, 2004 2:40 pm
#59
Thunderheart wrote:
Because the various changes since launch, it certainly doesn’t seem that RIS is epic armor, but after the combat balance, all of these details will make more sense.
There it is again...in a response to ARMORSMITHs, no less.
I know it's coming...but damn, this had better be one hell of a different game after the combat balance. Everything seems dependent upon it.
p4Samwise
Wed May 26, 2004 2:42 pm
#60
Thunderheart wrote:
Players won’t be able to select any image the way a player can because it takes up database space to store all of those individual variables
All right, I hate to do it, butI'm really gonna have to call BS here.
As far as I can tell, vendors currently can have appearances every bit as varied as players. You can create a million vendors and never see the same one twice.They run the full gamut of height, weight, hairstyle, clothing, makeup, et cetera. In fact, they have MORE variety than players, because they come in more races. And the data for each vendor's appearance definitely gets stored in the database, because the vendors maintain their appearance over time.
The data is already being stored. The request is to be able to modify that data.
Data does not get bigger when it's modified.
The answer just doesn't add up. Could the dev who originally provided this answer possibly give a more detailed explanation of why IDing a vendor would magically consume more database space than randomly generating a vendor with the same level of variety?
DeQuosaek
Wed May 26, 2004 2:46 pm
#61
Yeah, starting with backpacks that retain their sort order! I can't remember how many times I've mentioned this, but having the backpack remeber what sort order you set it to would help extremely to organize the contents. As it is we have to click "Change Views" and then "Name" and then "Type" (or however you prefer to organize things) and then click "Change Views" again every time you open a backpack! It's very much a hassle.
Spacey wrote:
If resource stacks were raised to 1,000,000 or if houses were raised to 500 storage then next monthwe would be asking for resource stacks of 10,000,000 and 750 house caps.
I would much prefer a better way to manage all of my resources and items than just "More space".
asdartha
Wed May 26, 2004 2:46 pm
#62
Actually at this point I am starting to think that when JTL is published the game will be so buggy that no one will be able to play it. The bugs that exist are being ignore in favor of new material and new bugs are added with each publish. I think by "combat rebalance" the game will be so buggy that it won't matter to begin with.
Hey TH when will the bugs get fixed.
Answer: after combat rebalance aka after JTL....
DustusNavar
Wed May 26, 2004 2:48 pm
#63
TH, on food buffs:
Can we get numbers or a % added when we drag the mouse over the stomach/drink bars in the ctrl-c window?A[X of Y] pop-uplike HAM bars would be great. Currently there's not way to know how full your stomach is, and the graphic bars do not provide any real indication. Or maybe a "Time to Empty" stomach timer, or a "Percent Full"data entry,or something...
Jedi Padawan
Rebel Colonel
Cafa
Wed May 26, 2004 2:50 pm
#64
MisterWizard wrote:
Comments:
- Resource stacks of 100,000 is more than adequate, and this is coming from a former master architect who had more resources than I can imagine.
Then apparently you weren't a very good Master Architect. I got houses filled up and that's fine. They wanna add this lair to the game just to grieve me to discourage large guilds, that's fine. I can handle it and keep going.
BUT NEVER AGAIN MAKE THE BS EXCUSE THAT THE DATABASE IS A LIMITING FACTOR IN ANYTHING.
Tired of the lies.
Fivo Asia
Meplorium
Wed May 26, 2004 2:54 pm
#65
That was a very negitive post. Way too many 'No's". I understand that many people are shifted to JtL and why some things are put on the back burner. However the one that really got me was the item storage issues with resources and crates. Using the dead horse of schematic size to address this issue was just missing the point. I suggest you guys do some internal statitics so you get an idea of the consumption rate of people in this game. Also item storage is cheap to get, just place another factory or house. You are not limiting anyones ability to store items. What you are doing is annoying your customers with stupid game play. The success of a game is all about the game play and transfering 40 crates from the output hopper to the input hopper and organizing resources is stupid game play. This needs to be reexamined again and again until the stupid game play is removed.
The 100k max for stacked resources made sense before the supper 13-14 BER harvesters and before vehicles. Now people can find good resource spots and place harvesters that extract twice the amount. This has resulted in a tripling of resources gathered. The old stack size quite simply doesn't stack up anymore. It is a simple change that would be welcomed by all.