Droid Engineer Archive

Welcome, one and all to the 1st Annual Droid Engineering Academy Awards!

Each year towards the end of January, we will compile a list of the most notable Developer posts within the last year, to serve as a beacon of hope and light for our sullen, neglected profession! All of the quotes below were compiled using the Advanced Search feature and are accessible to all who utilize it.

Without further adoo, let's get started with the categories and the nominees...

In the "We Can And Will Do Droid Certifications" category, the nominations for best Developer post are:

- Holocron, regarding the Probot nerf, 07/21/03: "It turns up with all pets, but it's exacerbated with the prbot because anyone can use the probot, whereas the pet case is limited mostly to CHs. I am not sure how else to band-aid the problem while we put in certs...?"

- Holocron, regarding creature pet changes, 07/21/03: "You will be unable to call pets that you are not advanced enough in creature handling to call (effectively a cert system)."

- Holocron, 07/21/03: "We're going to take the following steps, and invite comment on them before they go in: Nerf the probot. We'll work on developing a more robust combat droid system (most likely centering around certifications for combat droid use), but in the interim, the probot needs to come way way down so that it isn't abused."

- Holocron, 07/21/03: "OK, now that you've read that--how will it impact you? Well, for now, you will retain customers for your probots. But frankly, probots are going to have to fall in power around 70% just to make them fall in line for now, until such time as we can get a cert system in for combat droids."

- Holocron, regarding giving Certifications to the CH profession, 07/21/03: "There are changes pending which will effectively give "pet certs" to creature handlers, so it's handled on that side."

- Holocron, 07/21/03: "To repeat: we are nerfing the probot in the interim until we come up with a cert system."

In the "After All These Months, Now We Don't Want To Do Droid Certifications" category, the nominations for best Developer post are:

- Thunderheart, 01/20/04: "That is probably not possible, though I will find out."

- Thunderheart, 01/20/04: "The Cert system will not work."

- Thunderheart, 01/20/04: "Also, I suggested the certifications-per-profession idea and the team told me that it would require too much coding and development time when compared to the relative payoff."

In the "Brevity Is The Soul of Wit, AKA Substantive Communication" category, the nominations for best Developer post are:

- Thunderheart, 10/24/03: "FIRST!"

- Thunderheart, 11/13/03: "LOL"

- Thunderheart, 11/14/03: "Thanks"

- Thunderheart, 10/13/03: "All in due time.... "

- Thunderheart, 10/29/03: "Yep"

In the "Do They Really Know What They're Talking About?" category, the nominations for best Developer post are:

- Thunderheart, 12/06/03: "Btw, have you seen the clear domed R2 units? Very cool!"

- Blair, 08/26/03: "Probots/Seekers: These now have charges. Instead of using a 5k probot once, you get 5 charges. Seekers get 10 charges."

- Holocron, 08/21/03: "Added 10 charges to probots."

- Thunderheart, 11/13/03: "Destroyed droids and incapacitated pets will auto-store if not quickly revived."

- BoShek, 07/25/03: "Hmmm...my name got messed up"

In the "Droid Engineers Are Still Waiting…" category, the nominations for best Developer post are:

- Shug_Ninx, 09/10/03: "10. Add more droids. We're working on this now. No concrete details yet, but we are generating a list of new droids to add and finalizing plans for combat droids."

- JustG, 11/25/03: "I will tell you this, Droids (and DE's) are going to be the MAIN feature for the January publish. We will be fixing alot of things and adding combat droids.Yes, talk is cheap. I will get you more info as the schedule solidifies."

- JustG, 11/07/03: "Hi. We ARE focussing on Droid Engineers. I am not sure what is happening in the next publish, but January will see low and mid-level combat droids, and February will see some serious high level ones."

- Holocron, 08/22/03: "We realize you guys still need a lot of lovin’ on the profession just in terms of bugs to look at, and we’re using Gorantoth’s list as something to march down. But the DE bugs are proving to be pesky critters that are hard to stomp."

- Holocron, 08/22/03: "Huge increase in the number of combat droids available for players."

- Holocron, 08/22/03: "There is no mechanism in place to heal the white bar of a droid. We are going to add a repair kit for droids that artisans can make. This should take care of things for you."

For this year's first special category, we have the "We Started Making Drastic Changes Without Really Communicating With The Players First" category. The nominations for best Developer post are:

- Thunderheart, 01/22/04: "The fact is that is that the Droid Invasion was well underway by the time the current development cycle was put in place and the high level goals of getting droids in game for everyone is most important."

- Thunderheart, 01/19/04: "So what we'll have is a Droid Engineer profession and a Droid Handling profession. All players will have access to combat droids up to level 10 and DH's will get a wide range of heavy combat droids to handle."

For this year's second special category, we have the "Shouldn't Joke With DE's About Reviving Their Incapped Probots" category. The nominations for best Developer post are:

- Thunderheart, after making some flippant remarks about reviving Probots with our non-existent Droid Stim, 11/20/03: "Folks, you are reading way to much into this. If you feel slighted, then Im sorry, but lets be clear here, Im not making light of anyone's difficulties. Im interacting with the community."

For this year's third special category, we have the "It's On Test Center, But Will Take Months To Get Into The Game; And Still Not Work Quite Right" category. The nominations for best Developer post are:

- Holocron, 07/08/03: "The following are already fixed internally, and should make it out to Test Center this week: Inability to customize droids. This is actually going to be a post-crafting step, where you use a droid customization tool to customize them, but it still relies on skill. That way you can change your droid after crafting."

- Vass, 08/30/03: "You need to craft droid customization tools to be able to use this command. They might be ready for the next patch on TC (after we push this one out), but I don't know that for sure."

For this year's fourth special category, we have the "Want Something Done Right? Forget The Forums… Call Us On Your Phone!" category. The nominations for best Developer post are:

- Holocron, 07/18/03: "We decide what to fix based on what the top complaints are from players. And we don't base that on the boards---we base it on customer service calls, because there's a heck more of those and they tend to be about the most game-breaking issues."

For this year's fifth and last special category, we have the "When We Say 'This Week', We Mean Maybe Never" category. The nominations for best Developer post are:

- Thunderheart, 11/17/03: "This week, I’ll post on the Professions and I have to work with the Correspondents a bit too."

In the "What We Need Is More Hot Air!" category, the nominations for best Developer post are:

- Holocron, 09/04/03: "There's a designer who works on Droid Engineers, and he's also in charge of general crafting skills. He does try to read the DE forum when he can, but it's not like part of his job in the sense I think you mean. But he doesn't have permission to post there anyway-when you see one of the other profession forums get a post from "their dev" it's because either someone asked them to write something up for them, or because they saw something they wanted to reply to, and they asked me to post it."

- Holocron, 09/10/03: "But what we found was that in the correspondent's lists, around half the list or more were line items that could EACH take three or four hours to discuss, much less arrive at an answer. And the result was, we blew it. We blew it bad, because we invited the commentary and the input, and then failed to uphold our end of the bargain."

- Holocron, 09/25/03: "We are terrified of giving out dates."

- Holocron, 08/22/03: "Some professions are getting shorter shrift than others. In some cases, it's because we judged the priority level to be lower relative to other professions (weaponsmith, for example). In other cases, it's because we're still working on what we can do and what more fixes we can add (droid engineer, for example)."

In the "You And Your Correspondent Need To Engage Us, But We'll Still Ignore You" category, the nominations for best Developer post are:

- Thunderheart, 01/19/04: "The timetable was changed because the Droid Engineers were very clear in telling me they wanted Droid Engineering and Droid Handling as two seperate professions."

- Thunderheart, 10/30/03: "Yes. Engage me and the Correspondent. We gather the info and I take inside so the team can know what you want; what you like, what you want and what is fun."

In the "We Broke You, We Fixed You, We'll Break You Again" category, the nominations for best Developer post are:

- Thunderheart, 11/26/03: "Made droids private crafting stations again."

- Q-3PO, regarding the broken modules patch, 07/28/03: "Answer to the Droid Module question (I finally got the proper response from the Dev team). We've uncovered the issue and it is nearly fixed internally. It will go live Wednesday morning."

- Thunderheart, regarding the Socket Module exploit, 12/05/03: "Yes it is a bug and a fix is in progress."

- Q-3PO, 07/24/03: "Attached sounds to 3po protocol droid R2D2 now has correct sounds attached"

- Q-3PO, 10/23/03: "I believe we have a fix going in tomorrow for the crafting and calling bug. 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. The communication flow should be getting better with the correspondent now that Thunderheart has started."

- Holocron, regarding droids being untameable, 10/09/03: "Yep, we know. It's listed in the Known Issues post on the Announcements forum. I don't have any more info on the status than what is posted there, though. Everything on that list is a high priority, and this one especially since it breaks the profession."

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This concludes the 2003 Droid Engineering Academy Awards. You may now vote for your favorite posts. All posts and dates have been checked to the best of my ability but minor errors may have cropped in.

Thank you all and have a good night.

---

Virtanis wrote:

In the "We Can And Will Do Droid Certifications" category, the winner is:


- Holocron, 07/21/03: "OK, now that you've read that--how will it impact you? Well, for now, you will retain customers for your probots. But frankly, probots are going to have to fall in power around 70% just to make them fall in line for now, until such time as we can get a cert system in for combat droids."

In the "After All These Months, Now We Don't Want To Do Droid Certifications" category, the winner is:

- Thunderheart, 01/20/04: "Also, I suggested the certifications-per-profession idea and the team told me that it would require too much coding and development time when compared to the relative payoff." (Ed. note: Kinda like the game as a whole, huh? )

In the "Brevity Is The Soul of Wit, AKA Substantive Communication" category, the winner is:

- Thunderheart, 10/13/03: "All in due time.... " (read: "....or not at all.")

In the "Do They Really Know What They're Talking About?" category, the winner is:


Note: this one was a 3-way tie.


- Thunderheart, 12/06/03: "Btw, have you seen the clear domed R2 units? Very cool!"

- Blair, 08/26/03: "Probots/Seekers: These now have charges. Instead of using a 5k probot once, you get 5 charges. Seekers get 10 charges."

- Holocron, 08/21/03: "Added 10 charges to probots."

In the "Droid Engineers Are Still Waiting…" category, the winner is:

- Holocron, 08/22/03: "There is no mechanism in place to heal the white bar of a droid. We are going to add a repair kit for droids that artisans can make. This should take care of things for you."

For this year's first special category, we have the "We Started Making Drastic Changes Without Really Communicating With The Players First" category.


The winner is: Again....a tie.

- Thunderheart, 01/22/04: "The fact is that is that the Droid Invasion was well underway by the time the current development cycle was put in place and the high level goals of getting droids in game for everyone is most important."

- Thunderheart, 01/19/04: "So what we'll have is a Droid Engineer profession and a Droid Handling profession. All players will have access to combat droids up to level 10 and DH's will get a wide range of heavy combat droids to handle."

For this year's second special category, we have the "Shouldn't Joke With DE's About Reviving Their Incapped Probots" category. The winner is:

- Thunderheart, after making some flippant remarks about reviving Probots with our non-existent Droid Stim, 11/20/03: "Folks, you are reading way to much into this. If you feel slighted, then Im sorry, but lets be clear here, Im not making light of anyone's difficulties. Im interacting with the community."

For this year's third special category, we have the "It's On Test Center, But Will Take Months To Get Into The Game; And Still Not Work Quite Right" category. The winner is:

- Vass, 08/30/03: "You need to craft droid customization tools to be able to use this command. They might be ready for the next patch on TC (after we push this one out), but I don't know that for sure."

For this year's fourth special category, we have the "Want Something Done Right? Forget The Forums… Call Us On Your Phone!" category. The winner is:

- Holocron, 07/18/03: "We decide what to fix based on what the top complaints are from players. And we don't base that on the boards---we base it on customer service calls, because there's a heck more of those and they tend to be about the most game-breaking issues."

For this year's fifth and last special category, we have the "When We Say 'This Week', We Mean Maybe Never" category. The winner is:

- Thunderheart, 11/17/03: "This week, I’ll post on the Professions and I have to work with the Correspondents a bit too."

In the "What We Need Is More Hot Air!" category, The winner is:


- Holocron, 09/10/03: "But what we found was that in the correspondent's lists, around half the list or more were line items that could EACH take three or four hours to discuss, much less arrive at an answer. And the result was, we blew it. We blew it bad, because we invited the commentary and the input, and then failed to uphold our end of the bargain."

In the "You And Your Correspondent Need To Engage Us, But We'll Still Ignore You" category, The winner is:

- Thunderheart, 01/19/04: "The timetable was changed because the Droid Engineers were very clear in telling me they wanted Droid Engineering and Droid Handling as two seperate professions."

In the "We Broke You, We Fixed You, We'll Break You Again" category, The winner is:

- Q-3PO, 10/23/03: "I believe we have a fix going in tomorrow for the crafting and calling bug. 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. The communication flow should be getting better with the correspondent now that Thunderheart has started."

---

Man, I really don't know whether to laugh, cry, or put my head through the wall...

/ /

Best.

Thread.

EVER.

Audio

---

Virtanis wrote:

In the "Droid Engineers Are Still Waiting…" category, the nominations for best Developer post are:

- JustG, 11/25/03: "I will tell you this, Droids (and DE's) are going to be the MAIN feature for the January publish. We will be fixing alot of things and adding combat droids.Yes, talk is cheap. I will get you more info as the schedule solidifies."

- JustG, 11/07/03: "Hi. We ARE focussing on Droid Engineers. I am not sure what is happening in the next publish, but January will see low and mid-level combat droids, and February will see some serious high level ones."

---

January? You mean I have to wait until 2005?

Great job Virtanis! This is the best post EVER! Hope you copied it cause the Devs will probably erase it in the morning...

BTW it seems painfully obvious it is time for SOE to hire more developers eh?

Here is a preview of next years awards:

- l337 Ub3rDev, 08/06/04: "Fix in place to go in next publish, made droid crafting modules private crafiting stations again. Internal testing has helped us track down the problem once and for all."

- l337 Ub3rDev, 11/22/04: "You will be excited when you see what droids we have in store for you. I wish I could give more details at the time but expect to see combat droids in the next publish. They should be on Test Center by January..."

I think you guys have dealt with the most BS yet. The devs need to poop or get off the pot already...

I join with those who do not know whether to laugh or cry.

I knew all this, I've read all of those posts, most of them the day they came out. But there is a real power to seeing them all gathered together.

This should be stickied, and by that, I mean stapled to the eyeballs of all the development team.

Incredible post Vert. Well done and your hard work is much appreciated. Yup, save this, cause if I was a Dev, I would erase it too.

This post simply and accurately shows no matter how hard we have worked to make DE work, SOE is out to hamstring us. We have been lied to since day one, and no one seems to remember that. This post brings all the lies back for all to see. Again, great job Vert. (I am truly sorry, this too won't make a difference.)

I see SOE walking towards a fully loaded camel. In SOE's hand is a piece of straw. There is pain in the camel's eyes.

Goss

Glad I got this list saved off before the thread got deleted.... (though, how can they get mad? I remember every single one of these posts...)

A truely awsome post!

Now, as soon as the next roundtable thread gets opened up, cross post this there....

I cant 5 star that post enough!

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Neroir wrote:

Ough Dough, why did you choose the winners?? I wanted to vote too

Really funny post... we need some humor right now

Ellesa

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You can still vote. Those are my winners...


/bow

Respectfully,