Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: In-Game Sales Boycott Is this our last / best option to affect change?????
gametruth wrote:
Uh, how exactly is our situation improving, not only have they nerfed armor, but now they are trying to cap resists at 20% - at this rate combat droids will be so laughable people will hunt them for a laugh insted of durni. At this point i want my old tanking Probots back, and i'm sorry i ever asked Sony to "FIX" our proffesion. But thanks for the input
Khadim - officially disgruntled Master Droid Engineer - Sunrunner
it is improving because we have repair kits now, and because the droids DO have some merits (a pet that does ranged attack is useful in ways that a creature cannot be).
In any case, think about what you are saying for a minute. You are saying that our wares are a laughingstock and that nobody wants to buy them, and at the same time advocating a boycott on production to increase awareness. If it is really true that nobody wants the droids, then a boycott isn't going to accomplish anything. A demand for the product has to actually exist for a boycott to have any sort of effect.
Uh, chummer - clean your screen - I did not say NO ONE wants our droids - I said they are primarily in demand by Doctors and Bounty Hunters (2 of the more popular proffesions in the game) I also stated that these 2 professions rely heavily on our droids to sustain themselves. And in case you missed several of my other posts the sales boycott was just an idea - I am not advocating anything yet - Other than much needed change to the DE profession. Furthermore, instead of just disagreeing with me on the sales boycott, could you try to be creastive and cvome up with possible solutions to our plight - other than continually complaining on the forums?? Or is that too much to ask form most of you?? BTW suggesting something is not advocating it - this was simply the best idea I could think of several days ago. Judging by response so far it looks to be about 50/50. Nowhere near enough to be effective in terms of boycotting anything. So, instead of negative comments from the peanut gallery on the boycott - HOW ABOUT IDEAS TO FORCE CHANGE TO OUR PROFESSION????? Cause non-stop posting isn't working!
As for Mal's comment on improvement - woo hoo we got repair kits. Big deal, tanking with a probot before the armor nerf they were rarely needed. Now they are a must have 
Not to mention the scale of improvement / components / rare resources from an A kit to a D kit is entirely unbalanced. Be realistic here folks and call a Lemon a Lemon. After 6 months of hypes and lies we got *self edit*.
Khadim - Officially Disgruntled Master Droid Engineer - Sunrunner
gametruth wrote:
...As for the protocol droid question - yes you can fit 2 combat modules in the protocol droid - NOT CLUSTERS just individual modules. But is can be done for hillarious results.
...
I my opinion.I think a strike or a boycott would be a good idea but as it was put earlier no one wants the droids anyway. All I get is "did you guys get any new droids" and "I don't understand the whole droid thing". Come one, I've been a droid engineer for a short time but still I've only sold one droid and I ahd to talk the guy into buying it.
Your right, something must be done but what I am not sure.
People have to start wanting the droids before anything is going to be done about it and until the droids are "fixed" no one is going to want the droids. There is no hope for the droid profession.
Star Wars is changing. Droids are becoming obsolete. Creatures are the way of the future. Everything old becomes new again.
Before droids there were creatures and after droids there will still be creatures.
I don't even remember there being pets fighting along side there masters in any Star Wars movie. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But I think it should be the whole creature idea that needs to be made less appealing. A creature can not be as powerful as a droid as droids are made of metal, have powerful weapons and have the ability to think for themselves without a masters command.
Thank You,
Fromme
Ingame - Bugeye
I would support a boycott. However since I'm not selling any droids, even the top of the line combatmodels aren't I doing that inadvertantly anyways.
/dizzy
Teeblo
MDE
Corellia - Riverlands
Actually you are forgetting who we are dealing with... the poke-mon lords at SOE- if we went with option 1 the only players we would hurt would be the BHs and that would probably be for about 24 hours when the devs say... "ok DEs you dont want to make BHs their droids, we cant have that... hey you programmer... go uncomment the code for the old BH droid terminals"
and that folks would be the end of the strike and the end of DEs
Message Edited by Aeneus on 03-26-2004 06:45 PM
I think the last / best option is when every DE either moves on to some other profession or better yet, quits the game completely. I am headed in that direction when the next hot MMPORG on the block roles out (hopefully next month). I only get on for an hour or so every couple days because there just isn't enough in the game anymore to keep me satisfied. It was neat and new to start, but now it has gotten stale....especially when you see all thegreat things most of the otherprofessions are getting. I will be 'donating' my DE zoot suit to some suitably masochistic engineer that refuses to give up at that time and inserting my few million credits into my houses maintainence just to torque people off that it never decays when no one is home.
Aeneus wrote:
Actually you are forgetting who we are dealing with... the poke-mon lords at SOE- if we went with option 1 the only players we would hurt would be the BHs and that would probably be for about 24 hours when the devs say... "ok DEs you dont want to make BHs their droids, we cant have that... hey you programmer... go uncomment the code for the old BH droid terminals"
and that folks would be the end of the strike and the end of DEs
Message Edited by Aeneus on 03-26-2004 06:45 PM
I'm sure you would agree with me, it takes a special person to be a droid engineer. Its the reason i like this profession, chose it and stuck with it, which isnt easy. We DEs are a pretty patiant and wise bunch, or at least the ones who endure are. Some say were suckers for punishment, and we are, because something is hard dosent make it not worth doing. I think the personal satisfaction among all professions is highest withDEs. Its seriously not easy,and because we do it, and are successfull (reasonably) we win.SWG isntagame you can win theoretically, but you do when you rake in 100k in one order,which isdefinitely rare,Mastering BH is hard, the feeling you get when you land an order like that is equivalent.
Despite being apatient and mature group andour irrefutable passion for the profession in addition to the inherent potential within our class that has yet to be interpreted pushes us to this kind ofboundary.A lot of the guiding force that helped us endure is the faith that improvement awaits. We will be fixed, and we will be great, all the suffering will be rewarded. And we do suffer by the way. When the recent patches were announced, redemption came! Finnaly our tears have been noticed! But no, patch 7 went live, and patch 8 announced, our hearts collectively sank. What we expected isnt there, and what came is both insufficient and a mockery of our requests. This is a passionate belief, but we are a passionate lot. What awaits us is a drop on a hot stone.
And this is where we all step back a second, look at our lives, and realize; we're playing a game. An expensive game, where i intentionally get shafted, is this worth it? This is going through all our minds right now, because for as much as we know, this is it. It ain't gettin any better than this. The Faith we had is gone, and this isnt something promises will win back. Our patiance is tested on a daily basis. Its not really fun anymore, theres nowhere to progress.
But we are what we are, and we will endure. No 12 year old Creature handler will last a minute in this world. We are i think they only profession that is associated with a self supporting fraternity of players whos mutual function is both survival and the definition of our potential. You dont get that anywhere else. I think thats what draws us to this self-destructive profession, built within the confines of our limitation, bent on achieving what we are deep down capable of.
We are angry, dont undermine our anger, to do so is to misunderstand our whole equation. Some of us sound aggressive, deconstructive or even zealous but this is just the verbalization of our love for the class. It sounds like hate, and all those negative qualities associated with that, but deed down we like it. (Wir haben gehalten in der lanweiligsten landschaft der welt, wir haben uns unterhalten und fest getelt das es uns heir gefaellt.)What sony has here, are people who love what they do, really love what they do. Unlike anyone else. And this makes our case more urgent, or at least feel more urgent. Whats at stake isnt the future of the profession, thats granted to continue. But we want to preserve this relationship to what we have and to one another, this is as fragile as crystal. Evidence to our endurance exists in our presence here, and our expression of the urgency by which we feel compelled.
Whatever happens, be it everything we ever hoped for. It's crucial we retain community.
DigitalOne wrote:
Whatever happens, be it everything we ever hoped for. It's crucial we retain community.
/bow
gametruth wrote:
Hey guys, while reading another threadsomething hit me like a thunderbolt. We are being pushed around and ingnored because of the low numbers of players that keep DE as their chosen profession.
Actually...we're not being pushed around or ignored. You all don't hear much but I can assure thatSOE is pushing on a few thingsthat are good for us. In addition, they don'tignore us because they listened to the "We want more utility" thing that gotDH killed.
While we cannot change this - we do have a way to rally other players and proffesions to our cause. As is the only thing we are really useful for is supplying Doctors and Bounty Hunters.
I don't think you understand droids, man. I sell to every player, if for noother reason than they can get 2 or 3 'furniture' droids from me for their house. If Doctors and BHs are the limit to the marketyou see available as a DE, I don't think you'll last long against serious-minded competition.
No offense.
We should be known as the BH support proffession (LOL). Seriously, we need to find a way to get all the masses of BH's and Doctors behind us. Therefore may i suggest the following:
Option 1) A total boycott of any and all sales by DE's to anyone and everyone in the game. Granted this will hurt our cash flow short term - BUT will rally the other professions around our cause faster than you can say Womp Rat.
As stated above, this has:
- been tried before (sorta...not really)
- no chance of actually being able to 'stick'
- no chance of achieving the desired end result
Now, we can either set a specific length of time for this boycott - or we can keep it in effect unitl the DEV's listen to our plight.
No length of time you could set could be managable. People will make and sell droids to someone out there inevitably. If it's not you, some other DE that doesn't know or care will sell them...and get rich. That's supply and demand, dude. A strike, in this case, can't solve our issues and wouldn't likely stay in place even if the barest hint of one got started.
By crippling the BH and Doctor proffesions SOE would be forced to take action - and forced to do so soon.
No they wouldn't. They'd just go start coding fixes/features/content for some other profession that's also yelling at them.
Option 2) Price Fixing - we would standardize all our droid prices to an outrageous amount (I.E. 10k per seeker droid, 250k for an R3, etc.) actual prices would be set by us here on the boards and then implemented in game.
If you set prices higher, some DEs will start seeing higher sales and just keep on selling. Strike over. That's what's called a few people smart enough to still sell will wipe out the activist DEs that stick to their strike 'guns'. Docs and BHs will still get their droids on your galaxy, and every galaxy, I can assure you.
while this would take longer to effect change by the devs, it would not completely screw other players. But the new, sky-high prices would surely get their support for needed changes to our proffession.
I doubt it. If your prices are so high you can't sell, you better be rich. Otherwise, installations will start poofing, parts get lost or you have to start liquidating. And who would buy your old parts off you?
Keep in mind, the guilds already have a DE more than likely. The strike doesn't affect them at all.
Option 3) Bye - Bye vendors, we would only sell droids face to face, and only on certain days - like the 15th and 30th of the month. we could of course incorporate this with option 2 for a more drastic effect.
You want me to close my vendor? Uhhhh....no. I'd prefer not to go out of business to try and make my business better. That doesn't make a ton of sense.
Now, to make this work we MUST STAND UNITED!!!! if only some of us support this others will just selfishly cash in.
That's why the whole idea is a non-starter. You're right that we need to be united...just not about this.
Also we would need to compile a list of demands (that would not un-balance the game) that until these changes to DE were implemented we would not lift the boycott.
Hehehe...."demands". That's good.
Yes, this would hurt us fiscally - but we could sell resources and other items in the meantime.
I'd rather sell droids...but I'll sell what I can (or need to).
But long term this has the power to make DE a fun, fair profession to play. WE HAVE THE POWER LADIES AND GENTLEMAN - IF WE CHOOSE TO USE IT THE DEVELOPERS AND SOE WILL BE FORCED TO FINALLY LISTEN TO US!!!!!
Uhhhh....yea. Basically, you're wrong. It's assimple as that.
HOWEVER I / WE CANNOT DO IT ALONE. HECK, EVEN THE DE LIASON IS HELPLESS AGAINST THE DEV'S - BUT THIS WOULD RETURN THE POWER TO WHERE IT BELONGS - US THE POOR PLAYERS THAT SHELL OUT 14.95 / acct. EVERY MONTH!!!!
Please leave your opinions and or comments - this issue needs the help of every DE in the game
I understand the frustration that led you to say this. But...it really isn't the answer, even if it seems like it should be. I've been where you are before. I can tell you...a strike can't happen, won't help and will only make matters worse for us. Besides that, I'd rather stay in business.
Respectfully,