Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: barker droids
Malitevv
Tue Mar 30, 2004 12:20 pm
#14
I agree with Magic and others. What they will hopefully do is the owner put some sore of text sign floating over the droid's head so thatpeople will notice it, then the droid only speaks when spoken to, and only the player speaking with the droid will see what it says.
Regarding how this is better than vendor registration (hopefully): the issue with vendor registration is that a great many registered vendors are left over from players who quit their crafting profession eons ago and thus have no stock. So we shouldn't be seeing a barker droid for every vendor on the map, but only for vendors where the vendor actually has something in it. Player's whose vendors are useless wall decorations won't take the time to set up and manage a barker droid.
I do think that they will need to require players to reset up the droid periodically. If it's too easy to "auto-pilot" a barker droid across mutiple logins then there will simply be too many of them.
I don't think this will address the worst spam though either way. The barker droid will hopefully address the issue where merchants stand in startports running macros that advertise their wares, but in my opinion, that's not the root of the spam problem. The serious merchants understand the spam issue and tend to run macros that spam the screen only once every minute or two. That cuts down on the annoyance factor significantly. The larger part of the spam problem I think is the non-merchant players who have no vendors and no shop but are trying to sell some loot they've acquired for quick cash. Those players are the ones that are exceedingly impatient and spam the same message to the screen every 10 seconds. And those players aren't going to use these droids.
CallistoPrime
Wed Mar 31, 2004 1:07 am
#15
I'm very concerned about spam at the already too-busy spots like main cities and spaceports. I hope the barker droids do not work like the barker vendors currently do.
Malitevv
Wed Mar 31, 2004 10:41 am
#16
the guy I talked to about that said "shut the *bleep* up before I add you to my ignore list!"
didn't hear a word he said after that.
Pallida
Wed Mar 31, 2004 11:38 am
#17
Malitevv wrote:
the guy I talked to about that said "shut the *bleep* up before I add you to my ignore list!"
didn't hear a word he said after that.
You're MUCH kinder than I am. I would have taken a screen shot and responded, "Thank you for your input. Have a nice discussion with the next available CSR".
ssssssssssssSSS(:-<
Thibz
Sat Nov 06, 2004 6:10 pm
#18
Okay, I have an ad barking droid. I've tried everything,and i still cant get it to work.Do you have to have a certain skill? Someone plz help.
I'm a 2-0-2-1 merchant if that has any relevence.
Ani_cul
Sat Nov 06, 2004 6:20 pm
#20
Yes once you have advertising 4 you will then see the opyion on the radial menu of your droid all about barking.
Haveing a higher level merchnat set this for you does not work, you yourself must own the bot and have the skill.
JeebusCrisp
Mon Nov 08, 2004 1:14 pm
#21
For the love of GOD is there any way to /addignore these blasted things??????
I have spamfilters on free email accounts, I should at least have them in a game I pay to play.
Not asking for nerfs, not asking to have them removed, I just shouldn't have to listen to them any more than I have to listen to AFK players.
I have spamfilters on free email accounts, I should at least have them in a game I pay to play.
Not asking for nerfs, not asking to have them removed, I just shouldn't have to listen to them any more than I have to listen to AFK players.
Fodder650
Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:51 pm
#22
Well I set my first one up tonight. And i was thinking of actually doing a post on here on the specifics on how to use them.
Maybe instead of hating them offer an option of being able to set the bark times. 30-60 seconds is pretty often and will anger the customers.
Maybe instead of hating them offer an option of being able to set the bark times. 30-60 seconds is pretty often and will anger the customers.
JeebusCrisp
Mon Nov 08, 2004 5:03 pm
#23
I actually don't think there should be any limitations on your usage of them, but a player SHOULD have the option of choosing to participate in said marketing or not.
Word of mouth and the planetary vendor map serves me, and I'm sure many other players quite well. Like I said you use them as you see fit, I just want some way to ignore the darn things.
As it is, me and my group of friends just choose not to shop at whoever uses them, just like we won't buy from e-mail spammers.
I've been pretty quiet about this but the sudden influx of POI advertising REALLY has gotten to me lately.
Like I said, leave them the way they are, but give us the option to ignore them.
Word of mouth and the planetary vendor map serves me, and I'm sure many other players quite well. Like I said you use them as you see fit, I just want some way to ignore the darn things.
As it is, me and my group of friends just choose not to shop at whoever uses them, just like we won't buy from e-mail spammers.
I've been pretty quiet about this but the sudden influx of POI advertising REALLY has gotten to me lately.
Like I said, leave them the way they are, but give us the option to ignore them.
Dimear
Wed Nov 10, 2004 2:56 pm
#24
No way dude - spambots are 1/3 of the merchant profession's usefulness (the other 2/3 being more items on a vendor and planetary registration). Everything else about merchant is us not very useful. As soon as I can /ignore a rifleman's headshot, or a TKA's knockdown/dizzy, I'll consider supporting a merchant nerf like this...
CTRL_ALT
Thu Nov 11, 2004 7:41 am
#25
you should be able to addignore them, they are just like AFK players. 1/3 the Merchant Profession? Yeah right. You should be able to ignore words, not PvP attacks, lol. This is not a nerf, this is an annoyance blocker that should be made for droids just as it is made for spammers.
Message Edited by CTRL_ALT on 11-11-2004 06:43 AM
cl0kwerq
Thu Nov 11, 2004 9:49 am
#26
1) The planetary map service is great...if you're lucky enough to have the server actually register your vendor, which mine doesn't, and it been up for well over 2 months now.
I agree that spam is annoying, but would you rather see 128 character spam, or the multi-line along with emote spam that afk'ers just love to use to fill up your entire chat bubble.
Oh, and if you think checking that ignore chat from afk button does anygood, just look 2 buttons up and look in the afk box, there's a way to get rid of the auto-afk, so you have to "hear" them anyways, unless you just like to sit around Theed with a macro'd /addignore or something.
From a vendor who can't compete on the world map - cause it's broken for me - and being a droid engineer, merchant barkers have given life to an otherwise unknown little vendor near Bestine.
I'm sorry if you don't like it, and I won't force you to buy a droid, but saying that if someone advertises their shopto let you know about it, you won't go is nuts. That's like saying "ya know, I was gonna go to the market, but they had an ad on TV, and I just don't go for that annoyance, so I'm never shopping there. That's fine. Use the map to fine 5 vendors with 1 item, and 3 that are overpriced, and the other 10 that are just plain worthless.
2) Sorry for ranting. I do have to say that I find it very distateful to advertise anywhere but places where you would expect to see it, i.e. Large cities, starports, that sort of thing. It would be nice if they limited the areas in which barker droids could funtion - specifically to exclude content heavy areas. I try to make my message as tasteful and unobtrusive as possible, but it's hard when some people have 10 box spams running around :\
....or you could just do what I usually do....don't read it.