Development Cycle Archive

Some interface suggestions...

An extension to the /waypoint command. Anything after the y coordinate -- or after the /waypoint command if the numeric arguments are not present -- would be the name of the waypoint, so you can do things like:

/waypoint 1234 -5678 Joe's Armor Shack
/waypoint my bike!!!

The combat queue window should maintain its location. Currently, this needs to be re-placed every session.

Windows should maintain column widths and sorting order from session to session. This includes the bazaar window, the email window, anything with adjustable columns and sorting.

The factions window isn't sortable, but it should be.

Transparency of the overhead map should be adjustable. Maybe the colors, too.

Email should have folders (or sortable categories, or whatever).

The cash and bank figures in the inventory window should be right-aligned in a monospace font for the mathematically challenged. :-)

I really like Amphiaraus' idea for the news terminals, but letting anybody post an article would create too much content too quickly. you would have to wade through hundreds of useless articles before finding something useful. so this would have to be limited somehow, either by charging credits to post articles, or perhaps integrate that ablility into the merchant tree or something.

Nerf buffs to 500, and just Health and Action? Um...no. When you're doing team missions, if you attack something first, its you it attacks. Armour or no, you need more than 500 to stay alive. Also, drinking brandy boosts your Mind WAY over that. Ok, so when you're buffed, you can do the higher-level missions easier. But I personally don't see a problem with that. If you were Han Solo, or Wedge Antilles, or someone like that, you'd probably be able to do those missions anyway.

I've done missions unbuffed. Not the highest level ones, but I went through almost all of the Emperor's Retreat missions unbuffed. It wasn't challenging. It was STUPID. Fact 1, if I'm stood there with a rifle, and all I've gotta do is aim and sqeeze the trigger, there's enough flex in the armour to let me do that easily. If I'm lying on my front, aiming up for a head shot, I just need to move my hand by a few millimeters to aim. That doesn't require a lot of action. Nor does it require a lot of strength...I'm lying down, for gawds sake.

Melee experience is pretty easy to get. But if you think about it, thats fair enough. Once you get the hang of an action, it gets easier to do it. I do Kung Fu, and it doesn't take all that long to get the general idea of a particular kick or punch. Ergo, if I was getting experience for that, I'd level pretty quickly. In fact, the instructors want me to double-grade, so I skip out the first sash, and go straight to Blue (you need to pass an exam to get white).

Don't nerf buffs. All your example proves is that TK is too powerful, not the buffs. I mean, I've died while buffed. I got about 7 Gurks ganging up on me. Thats an example of a mission where you DO need more people, regardless of how buffed you are. I don't think ANYTHING to do with your example needs nerfing. Not buffs, or TK. I think nerfing those is gonna cause more problems than it will solve.

Something I thought of earlier, then forgot, and only just remembered.

Right now, you walk into people's houses, and they have vendors. Except they're not vendors. They ARE vendors, but they're not being used as such. They're being used like Mobs. In the same way that you can get droids, you should be able to get mobs. They'd be on the structural management terminal in your house, and you'd have to pay for them, but you wouldn't have to "hire" them, or anything. They're just gonna stand there, and say stuff, every now and again. You could access them, and set up an action/speach thing for them, so when someone does "converse", you pre-set what its gonna say. You could even have a few options for converse, like with some mobs out there. They'd essentially be like a droid chassis, only you set what they do/say. It means that people who want a doorman at their house, or someone to say "Welcome", or whatever, don't have to pay for a vendor that they are never gonna use, and they don't have to use up one of their vendor slots to do it. One of the merchant skills allows you to "give" items to your vendor, which they will hold/wear. You could do that with your mob, only you have to pay for each item that gets put on, rather than needing merchant levels. You'd still need those for a vendor, but these Mobs would be different...they're just items of furniture, essentially.

Also, tying in with both the mobs, and pets, and droids, it would be nice to have a "name" function, instead of having to do the repeating commands thing. When you're on your fifth droid, it does get a little frustrating. All of the names (including Mobs, which could count as "pets", possibly) would be in brackets, as they are now. The idea works with pets, because you'd train them, so they learn their name. But droids are intelligent enough to understand that, when you say "Your name is Artoo", it will know that its name is Artoo. I believe that names in brackets don't have the first name issue (because you don't /tell them, or anything), so it'd mean you could name your mob with whatever name you wanted, without worrying that Luke, Jacen, Lando, Han, etc are all taken names. I'm sure that there is more than 1 Luke in the galaxy.

Message Edited by Fueller on 06-24-2004 07:36 AM

Passengers. If Luke can squeeze himself, ben and both droids into an X-34, why can't we give someone a lift? Let players ride pillion or as a passenger in a group members vehicle.

Market forces......

It's hard in game to know what the relative value of each item is. When we are talking about specifics (a certain coloured style of clothing, a high grade Buff pack etc.) then the Bazzar as it stands should be used. however, rosources are a seperate matter.

As was stated earlier by someone else and in addition to it:

When it comes to selling resources, you should simply be able to upload x amount of resources onto the system eg. 10k steel, and you should set what price you want for it. Then, an artisan in need of steel should be able to search according to: unit cost, conductivity, quality etc... but most importantly VALUE FOR MONEY.

There should be an option to show the most cost efective resource of it's type and how many units are available at what price. If you are a tarting artisan, you can then buy cheap but low quality easily whereas a master who needs quality goods can either buy the most cost effective, or easily determine which is the most useful but not necessarily the cheapest resources. That way, resource miners can tailour what they mine to what market they are trying to appeal to.

We need to have economic stats and information available as well. Graphs such as:

Relative prices of low med and high grade resources
Average price of standard items ie. bone armour chest plate, laser rifles, food stocks etc. in the area
Money in-out of economy etc.

And all with historical data so market players can predict trends and shortages of supply and demand etc.

If the economy has to be purely player driven, then give us economic types the tools to play the market. I'd like to be able to compare prices of items i.e. speederbikes on tatooine against the cot of those items on another planet. Then, I could buy the deeds for 25 of them where they are cheapest, carry (smuggle?) them to the other end and sell for a profit on the market.

Make Illegal goods ILLEGAL. Proper penalties for carryiing them, good smuggler skills to start getting them through customs when using public transport (or load into your on ship for JTL).

More stuff later.

Also:

Ban Barking droids and AFK advertising by having an imperial patrol look at whatever entity is not moving. If it hasn't moved after a set period of time, then check it's last says/ tells etc. If there are too many of the same thing, then they are ordered to "Move Along... Stop loitering..."

If they still haven't moved later, then droids are de-summonned and PC's are "Transferred" to a holding cell, where they have to pay a fine (or donate an item) to be released....

Stop them hanging about and filling the chat with shouts.

Then, implement a series of Ad-Boards. How much you spend determines how long your message is posted for and how often it is shown. Have also a browsable catalogue In-game (not just on the forums) where players can register their vendors...