Development Cycle Archive

anything that i can display in my house. a trophy for doing that mission, something i can put on my bookshelf to track he adventures i have been on.

Here's my vote/endorsements:

1. Good skill tapes commensurate to the degree of difficulty in getting it

2. One-off schematics (or a group of schematics that when assembled - creates a limited run something cool)

3. Extra special resources to make crafted items - something that can't be surveyed easily, or is unique in its properties and is intrigal in some very cool item crafting

4. Badges, titles, and souviners are cool - but a little bit of a let-down without some matrial rewards (I imagine a shirt that says, I killed all of Jabba's enemies and all I got was this lousy T-shirt)

5. Long story lines with sequential rewards that puzzle into a grand prize (could be combined with any of the suggestions above to create the complete arc of the story from start to finish). This idea could also be part of the story/quest as you might need to make/create/complete these types of items to finish the arc.

just my top 5 since we love David Letterman lists

I haven't read the other responses, but my first thought is, how about some advanced NPC quests designed for crafters? Something a little more subtle than "kill this guy and take his stuff, return the stuff to this other guy, who then gives you the name of the next guy to kill and take his stuff."

Example: Talk to NPCBob. NPCBob was the research assistant of Professor Fred, who was tragically killed in a speeder accident just as he was about to make a great breakthrough in repulsorlift efficiency. NPCBob can't make sense of it by himself, so he needs the help of an expert such as yourself. He gives you Professor Fred's holocron, which contains his notes, a list of colleagues and consultants, and an incomplete repulsorlift schematic. NPCBob also warns you that many other people will be interested in either suppressing this technology or taking it for themselves, and that one of them may have actually sabotaged Professor Fred's speeder. Now you've got a crafting quest and a minor mystery. You travel the galaxy speaking with Fred's contacts, finding out what parts they played in his research, filling in the missing information in the schematic and discovering the story behind the Professor's untimely demise. At the end, you discover (*gasp*) that NPCBob was not Fred's research assistant, but was, in fact, the competitor who had the poor Professor offed and hoped to cash in on his invention, but overestimated how complete the project was and how much information the professor had committed to holocron. You then have the option of giving the completed repulsorlift to NPCBob anyway for a nice but tainted reward, or giving it to one of the Professor's contacts (by that time you'll know which), who has NPCBob arrested and gives you a slightly more modest reward that's easy on the conscience.

Some suggested items:

1. Rare clothing, stuff that crafters can't make. Not schematics just the item.

2. Rare furniture or house decorations, stuff that crafters can't make. Not schematices just the item.

3. unique weapons (but these would be rare to find so as not to unbalance the game)

4. waypoints to interesting locations or other quests.

5. XP or Faction points bonuses

6. items that could be turned into faction recruiters for faction points. Yes...like the deadeye project.

Thats all I can think of right now...

For the crafters

1. Draft schematic that can only be used a few number of times like everyone else has said(keep in mind that one use would allow someone to make a manufacturing schematic to make it 100 times). I think that they should drop from high level creatures/NPCs but have it be very rare if the item is good. This would also give you the opportunity to add some lower level schematics and make them more common loot on NPCs. Maybe even some new armor models . And don't forget to include schematics for cooks, doctors, tailors, droid engineers, architects, and maybe even entertainers and scouts(rangers).


2. A manufacturing schematic with a low amount of uses. This might be kinda cool because it could require resources fromone shift ago and then old resources would be a bit more valuable. It could even be a schematic for something that the crafters can already make, like a gun or a component, but have the quality on the item really high.


3. Uber resources. Give out 1k of some really high quality all-around resources. Like 900+ to all the attributes. With this the crafters can make some good stuff, but not a whole lot of it. You could also do this from looting, make it relatively common, but make the drops only be like 5 resources. This would give people an incentive to go around hunting lots of things and getting the good high quality resources.

For the fighters

1. Having some not so good quality armor, but different looking would add a lot. This would put a lot of variety into the appearance of players, and give some armor for the newbies. This along with different clothing that isn't available normally to the players. Really bad armor could be fairly common among the low level NPCs. Some of the better stuff could be found on not so common randomly spawning NPCs.


2. Atthe end of some quests/dungeons, you can upgrade a single item. This would work on top of a slice and you could only do the quest once. This would produce an item that you'd want to save, and give the item more valuebecause you couldn't keep doing it over and over, and no business taken from the slicers.


3. Randomly drop powerups. Make ones that are better than player crafted ones and ones that are worse. Make the ones that are better drop rarely, and make the ones that are worse, drop a lot.


4. Make spices/foods drop that are really powerful but last only a couple minutes.


5. Implement weapon upgrade kits that drop and that are better than player crafted ones so that slicers can slice weapons and armor better with them.

For everyone

1. I'd like to be able to loot rugs, paintings, statues, decorative weaponsand stuff like that. I'd really like a rug that "really ties the room together"


2. You could have loot drop that has a storyline with the loot. This could be something you could equip, or not, it really doesn't matter. You could then examine it and get clues on what to do with it. It could give you a name of an NPC or a regional clue and you'd have to seek the person out for the reward, and possibly just receive more information on what to do with it, but please don't make the reward 500 credits

There's my ideas.

Make a really really hard quest (hard is not the same as long). Something that takes a considerable amount of effort. Things like Puzzles and difficult enemies with some kind of trophy at the end. It doesn't really need to be GOOD but something like an animal head to put on the wall to wave around. There is nothing like bragging rights

I'm afraid I couldn't read all twenty-something pages so my ideas may already be on here but here goes:

I think that rewards can be desirable without unbalancing the economy or screwing over the crafters. I think it is just a matter of thinking outside the box.

Most time when reward is mentioned, people seem to think of things like credits or armor or weaponry. I personally function a little bit different. I'd rather not get rewards that I can purchase anywhere, I'd like to get something unique.

Before I list my ideas, I want to note that all of the rewards I am mentioning have pre-requisites involved. In other words, not just anybody can walk up and grab these missions, you must run a series of other missions or have some type of faction standing to get these.

Here are some ideas:

1. I for one believe that rewards don't always have to be inventory items. For instance, when I completed the Jabba Theme Park, the small rewards aside, I was now able to walk all the way up to the man himself, and I earned so many Jabba faction points that Red Jabba NPC's don't attack me. That to me is a nice reward but perhaps you could find a way to actually tell the player that this is what happens, so the reward seems more real and not just an after effect. And perhaps the rewards would carry over into other NPC jabba missions. For instance if you took a jabba mission from a random NPC and had already completed the Theme Park, the the mission from the NPC would actually be better and/or produce higher reward. (even credits in this scenario)

2. Improved character statistics. This could range from 1 week HAM increase to a permanent extra lot.

3. Credits. I know this seems to go against my saying "unique stuff" earlier, but even I can't deny that a larger amount of credits would always be good. However I personally would rather it would be in conjunction with another reward that is tangible.

4. A new title. Perhaps it will mean absolutely nothing as far a playability but I wouldn't mind some unique titles that I could put above my head just for completing a mission. (Jabba Henchman, Valarian Thug, or some new as yet un-named title.

5. Furniture, paintings, unique stuff that you can't buy from vendors because it is an artifact or belonging of someone famous within the galaxy.

6. Deeds. Not any old deeds. As in deeds for houses or anything that an architect can make, but deeds for things like a statue to put outside your PA or house.

7. Armor that serves no combat purpose. For instance, Bobba Fetts armor, but don't make it work like armor. Perhaps you could only place in your hall or house for show or something. Perhaps each piece would be found separately.

8. Scrolls. Bits of a story that you must put together by taking different random missions that result in piecing together an ancient story that leads you to some far off place where you get a bigger reward for piecing everything together. The bigger reward could be anything that I listed above.

I can't swear that this will be my last post on this board as I love the opportunity to discuss ideas with the people who actually make the game, so hope you don't get sick of me.

Thanks for listening.

Aglanon

I think to loot like dog tags or rank bars of sorts,off of opposing faction members you have killed. so like you can have a provable tally of how many you've killed to boast about. Even if was possible to be able to loot on that from a human player showing thier rank and/or occupation in there factions army. Over time their would be a large over abundance of low ranking items but to those of I high heavily protected officer would not be. Or somthing along those lines.....

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Q-3PO wrote:

What reward would motivate you to do a long, hard quest or dungeon?

Please try not to remove the crafter market or unbalance the game or reinvent the game. Also please stay on topic.

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Probably too late to expect any reads way back here, but let me say the best reward in the world would be for it to be fun.

I would love to participate in a battle like Hoth, or in an imperial boarding party or a rebel marine group repelling boarders. The reward at the end would be the same as the reward at the end of any good matchup in BF1942: it was fun.

I at least ask/beg you to not give rewards that improve on someone's weapon prowess. I work, I have a life, I still play a lot and I'm competitive but I don't have the time or energy to compete with 80-hour-a-week gamers for uberloot. In Everquest, you could not PvP if you didn't spend horrendous amounts of time online collecting the latest uberloot and I don't want SWG to turn into that.

If you make a Sralacc Tissue or something that grants +150 damage to any weapon, and you make it drop once a week, then you basically mandate a lot of camping for anyone who wants to stay competitive. Please try to avoid this.

The reward for doing a long, hard quest or dungeon should be that it was fun. This is a concept very familiar to FPS level designers as well as platform game designers, I don't know why it escapes RPG designers.

I would love to see at the very least, a temporary?schematic that I could take to my favorite weaponsmith to get a blasted Rantok sword made. I screwed up and talked to the 3PO droid with the Rantok in my inventory. So unless I can talk someone into to letting me have the sword and helping them run the mission again, the Rantok will never be mine

Ooh, fun question.

A reward that would entice me to do a long, hard quest. Here is a list of Items, some I've heard exist, some may not.

1) Broken Lightsaber

2) Special Art Piece (like those seen in the palace on naboo)

3) Statue that can be placed outside of house.

4) Other "fun" "unique" items to place in houses, PA Halls, etc.

5) Special or unique enhancers to be added to clothes.

6) Special or unique Creature items to be used by BE's.

7) Something that allows others to know I've succeeded in doing something tough.

8) Schematics for Mandolarian Armor (make resources needed very difficult to come by to limit the total number available). (or make the stats less than that of crafter armor, but make it look different!)

9) A badge

10) perhaps a special title to be used in place of those we receive within our skill trees.

amiunique

--nope

Put in l33t l00t, nuff said.

Personally, I would like to see a few different things added as loot:

1. Schematics that are only good for 5-10 assemblies and then disappear. This would only be a reward for crafters, but would create a HUGE market for the schematics. Things like, rugs for architects, Armored shoulder pads (like sandtroopers') for armorsmiths, etc would be really cool and create yet another item to stimulate the in-game economy.

2. A single, boss-specific item that you could loot when you kill a dungeon boss. Like the Corbal Hide-out on Rori (that gives nothing at all from ANY of the thugs you kill or containers you look into)...if you could get one of those flaming skull torches from the final room. If you could get a couple of things to split with the group, that would be really cool too.

3. More missions where you get an item upon completion. Maybe some missions where you help a sculptor go back to his house and chase off an infestation of Spine Flaps and he gives you one of 5 random sculptures to put in a house.

4. When you kill an NPC from another faction, it would be really cool if you could get something faction-specific off of them. Like a Stormtrooper helmet or belt when you kill a stormtrooper. Make them un-repairable or less effective than what you would get with faction points...you know, something that we could show off and say, "look what I killed".


Ok, that's my 2 cents.

Zannon