Droid Engineer Archive

Ok, I know some of you are going to be surprised at this suggestion (especially coming from me) but bear with me here. It might be the only shot we have left to get some meaningful input into how SOE is going to deal with our profession now and in the future.

Currently, we don't really have any type of unified front. The closest we come is this discussion board, but with all the outsiders dropping by and who knows who else hijacking our threads, a lot of the good work our community does goes mostly unnoticed by the devs. I've spent the last few days poking around some of the other forums, and I have to say that we have the most dedicated and loyal community of any other profession. For the most part, we are all in this because we love droids. No one is in this profession to make money *snort* or to be the 1337st d00d in the game *guffaw*. Most of us are here because we saw the first few minutes of Episode IV and knew what we wanted to do, make droids. Even after all the kicking around we've gotten, and all the disappointments the devs have handed us, we still love to make droids.

If you've looked around, there is only one community that seems to have the devs ear. When the devs need something tested or want to see what the game is working like, where do they go? Test Center. That's what it's there for. The devs are even so afraid of scaring off the TC regulars and treat it with such kid gloves, that it is as far from being an effective test bed as possible. While there are some serious issues with other servers, whenever TC crashes, their own private dev jumps in and brings it back up. I can kinda understand their thinking behind this. Just like it's easier to deal with dozens of us (the correspondent program) than the whole, it's also easier to deal with a few hundred players at a time (TC) than it is to deal with the whole player base. While they (and the rest of us) might complain that the bugs they report don't get fixed prior to going live, when the devs wanna go hunting, where do they go? TC.

I've said all that to get to this. I propose that we all start a character on TC (everyone can have three) and make as many DEs there as we can. Getting to DE is actually a pretty easy task for someone who has mastered DE ( we got the double-click down, baby!) and only takes a few hours to get all the resources needed. Just get steel and grind survey tools 'till Eng III and then do harvesters 'till NDE. Once we have a few of us set up there, we can start a PA. We can all use the extra slots as mules and harvest as many resources as possible. We can collect the resources in the hall and use it as a testbed for all the new features and existing bugs/unknowns. Imagine the work that Drashk has done with testing spread out over all the DE population with an almost unlimited amount of resources. The things we could document and the bugs we could identify would be a benefit to not only the existing DEs but to all the future DEs as well. We could take the "unknown" or "unvalidated" issues from Garantoth's list as a start and find out for sure. Want to know how the effectivness of a crafting station works? Imagine a study done by a dozen DEs of different levels using different quality stations and resources. We could make this the most documented and analyzed profession of not only this game, but of any MMORPG.

I don't think we are going to get anywhere following our current path. Sure, we get apologies from time to time, and we get promises made almost constantly, but until one side changes it's tactics, we aren't going to get anywhere. Let's take a step in a positive direction and give the devs what they want, a place to develop and test the DE profession. If they need anything or the answers to any questions, they will have a place to go to get answers. Let's don't give them a justification to ignore us, let's make it impossible for them to do it. Let's take the raw data we get from this "lab" and send it to them asking for changes and fixes. Let's give them so much information about how DEs work and the bugs with our profession that they can't plead ignorance any longer. In short, let's give them what they say they want...in spades. One side has to be the bigger person if we are going to get anywhere, let's let it be us.

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Smuggler revamp or bust!

(There's an old sig for ya!)

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Arvedui Orthaeus, Master Droid Engineer / Blademaster

The picture is of happiness, the story not. Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there is no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It's loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.
-Margaret Atwood "The Blind Assassin"

Jenden Morn - Master of Droids- Tarquinas
Droid Engineer Blue Glowy
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
Groupy of the best band in the galaxy, Solar Flair
3D art of Jenden by Saeelwenea

Nostradamus Smyth, Former Mayor: Vodo-Siosk Dantooine
Master Droid Engineer | Master Politician | Master Artisan | Master Architect

I'd love to join in on this idea, though my char is novice artisan and only has 100 creds to her name.

Also, why don't we start our own DE Guild / PA? I think that would be pretty cool.

"You Droid Engineers have had to suffer through some tough times. The Devs do not hate the profession and have plans to address some of the larger concerns."
- Q-3PO 10/23/03 1st Annual Droid Engineering Academy Awards
- Fortium - Master Droid Engineer - Master Artisan - Grumpy Advocate for Droids and DE's -
- Proprietor of CF Industries Droidworks -
Naboo: -6600, 3450; Tatooine: -680, -4290; Dantooine: -772, 2860; Corellia: -140, -5500;

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"Never in the field of forum posting has so much bollocks been said to so many by so few"

Taking a well-deserved vacation from his successful Droid Engineering business, Master Rho can be found puttering around the galaxy.

Jenden Morn - Master of Droids- Tarquinas
Droid Engineer Blue Glowy
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
Groupy of the best band in the galaxy, Solar Flair
3D art of Jenden by Saeelwenea

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Castaspella PerfectAntarian
Read about the Antarian Rangers...

Are you guys going to be centrally located somewhere? I know the most active city in the TC server is just NW of theed.. where are you going to locate?

Nostradamus Smyth, Former Mayor: Vodo-Siosk Dantooine
Master Droid Engineer | Master Politician | Master Artisan | Master Architect