Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: AFK Macro Shouting vs Merchant Barker Droid
Malitevv
Fri May 07, 2004 1:00 pm
#15
Tycalibur wrote:
Merchant Barker droids can do one thing that the AFK Macro Shouter cannot. They can BE there while the Merchant can go off and do other things.
True, but the problem is that it lasts no more than 1 hour and very likely stops long before that because of auto-store problems. Even if there were no auto-store issues, 1 hour just isn't long enough in my opinion.
ArdenStarmariner
Fri May 07, 2004 1:20 pm
#16
Tycalibur wrote:Merchant Barker droids can do one thing that the AFK Macro Shouter cannot. They can BE there while the Merchant can go off and do other things. And frankly, when I'm spamming for my vendor, I'd rather be tending my harvesters, preparing to restock my vendors, or just doing other things that I need to get done rather than stand in a starport for hours spamming my vendor location.Conclusion: People that don't want to spend time yacking away in the starports WILL buy these droids, so IMO, there IS a market for them.
Good in theory, but direct observation of the market places on Eclipse demonstrates that this isn't occurring amoung the general population. At least not on Eclipse which is one of the biggest and most most populated servers.
Malitevv
Fri May 07, 2004 1:25 pm
#17
I agree that they aren't very useful in their current form, but people are using them on Kauri. Like I said in another thread, at peak times, there are always multiple barker droids walking around at the major starports there.
TuskKiller
Fri May 07, 2004 2:55 pm
#18
TheRealTK421 wrote:
neinnunb wrote:
Maybethe devs can nurf the ability to /say or /shout from a macro?
Not a good idea. That would mess with pet macros too much. I don't see that being the answer.
Just leave in the "/tellpet" command.... people should spam pet commands either! Use "/tellpet" and save the spatial clutter..... anyone who uses /yell /say, etc... in a macro is of the devil..... never a need for it!
FragN8Tr
Fri May 07, 2004 3:13 pm
#19
ArdenStarmariner wrote:
Tycalibur wrote:
Merchant Barker droids can do one thing that the AFK Macro Shouter cannot. They can BE there while the Merchant can go off and do other things. And frankly, when I'm spamming for my vendor, I'd rather be tending my harvesters, preparing to restock my vendors, or just doing other things that I need to get done rather than stand in a starport for hours spamming my vendor location.
Conclusion: People that don't want to spend time yacking away in the starports WILL buy these droids, so IMO, there IS a market for them.
Good in theory, but direct observation of the market places on Eclipse demonstrates that this isn't occurring amoung the general population. At least not on Eclipse which is one of the biggest and most most populated servers.
Here is a thought, how about letting customers access the vedor from the droid IE: Make a transaction, but have to go to the vendor to retrieve the product...
BTW if the droid is on patrol and barking, then I can go play the game...
If I am AFK barking, I cannot play the game...
At some point the AFK barkers have to leave and have fun playing the game.
I do like the idea of making the droids more appealing, say allowing some form of Business training use the barking feature and not necessarily a Merchant Advertiser.
How about even Merchant XP to those who use the droid, like say 500 xp when the way point is downloaded from the droid.
I know these are best kept in the Merchant forum, but since it was posted here I decided to reply here.
Rippen208
Fri May 07, 2004 3:54 pm
#20
I think you guys are starting to get close to a good workable solution here, which seems to be either a lowering of the skill requirements of merchant barkers, or making the merchant barkers droids "mobile vendors," or some combination of the two.
One thing I think should also be considered here is the apparent plan to make it possible to go from any planet to any planet via starports (correct me if this plan has been scrapped or altered). I'm assuming that this will serve to break up the dense clusters of sellers (and thus spammers) around Coronet and Theed, and so I wonder how it will relate to the merchant barker issue.
In other words, if we can go anywhere from any starport, not as many people will need to be clumped outside a major hub like Coronet starport. With that in mind, what should the barker droid do AFTER this is implemented?
Rippen
One thing I think should also be considered here is the apparent plan to make it possible to go from any planet to any planet via starports (correct me if this plan has been scrapped or altered). I'm assuming that this will serve to break up the dense clusters of sellers (and thus spammers) around Coronet and Theed, and so I wonder how it will relate to the merchant barker issue.
In other words, if we can go anywhere from any starport, not as many people will need to be clumped outside a major hub like Coronet starport. With that in mind, what should the barker droid do AFTER this is implemented?
Rippen
Straker_Atrella
Fri May 07, 2004 3:56 pm
#21
While being able to remotely scan the vendor seems like the best option, that is my number 1 fix.
However, short of that, how about this.
1. Make it so Power Droids don't need batteries. They have their own power core, it makes no sense that we need to charge them.
2. Then we can put Barker Modules on Power Droids. This fixes the number one problem, which is the power issue.
Also would be Master Artisan love, since they make the cores.
Indene
Fri May 07, 2004 4:47 pm
#22
Malitevv wrote:
Tycalibur wrote:Merchant Barker droids can do one thing that the AFK Macro Shouter cannot. They can BE there while the Merchant can go off and do other things.True, but the problem is that it lasts no more than 1 hour and very likely stops long before that because of auto-store problems. Even if there were no auto-store issues, 1 hour just isn't long enough in my opinion.
And the autostore issue is the bug created by the fix to the vehicles not storing (Remeber way back in the first day of vehicles when they were all over cause they wouldnt go away. I say this because I have noticed that the autostore action tends to hit my droids, pet, vehicles in almost the same way/time. If I leave them out and alone and cross a server boundry and wait they will all dissappear togeather.
-Indene-
MekeaAdetu
Fri May 07, 2004 5:35 pm
#23
I have a solution that will fix several problems witha fewadjustments.
1. Remove the player ability to stop the "AFK" tag from going on. The player can still turn it on or off manually, but the auto-afk will turn on in ten minutes, period.
2. While AFK, macros stop. While macroing isn't technically an exploit, it's been stated time and again that players weren't meant to be able to gain profit or experience from actions a toon takes while you're AFK. This includes macrotainers, buffbots, afk looters, afk samplers, afk combat exp campers, afk camp exp grinders, and all manner of other things. Having macros stop while you're AFK would immediately stop spam.
3. FIX THE AUTOSTORE BUG. Really, this has been in how long now?
Not only would this make the merchant module immediate gold, but merchant would become half a viable class again (and the other half when they fix the vendor exploit). And heck, they make entertainer a viable class to PLAY again, rather than a reason to park in a cantina for days.
Indene
Fri May 07, 2004 6:57 pm
#24
TuskKiller wrote:
TheRealTK421 wrote:
neinnunb wrote:
Maybe the devs can nurf the ability to /say or /shout from a macro?Not a good idea. That would mess with pet macros too much. I don't see that being the answer.
Just leave in the "/tellpet" command.... people should spam pet commands either! Use "/tellpet" and save the spatial clutter..... anyone who uses /yell /say, etc... in a macro is of the devil..... never a need for it!
This presumes the /TellPet command actually works. Which it doesnt.
-Indene-
LonelyGhost
Fri May 07, 2004 7:33 pm
#25
Changing the way AFK works would be a good thing, but they'd have to put some time into it. All you need is a macro to /sit and /stand every minute or so and you do not go afk. This does seem to be at the root of the problem though. A good number of the people who spam in the starports dont CARE that they can not play the game while they are in the Starport because they are NOT THERE! They are at work, or sleeping...not at the keyboard. I had always thought AFK was for those SHORT times when you got distracted by a phone call, baby waking, dinner on fire on the stove, etc.... A short term thing so people trying to talk to you wouldn't think you were ignoring them.
By removing the ability go AFK long-term, you fix a huge percentage of spamming.
Malitevv
Sat May 08, 2004 12:25 am
#26
i agree we need to make them more attractive then macro spamming so that merchants have a reason to use them. but let's be honest with ourselves: they will never replace macro spamming because many players would rather macro spam than invest skill points in advertising 4 no matter how attractive the droid is. replacing macro spamming is impossible without removing the use restrictions on the droid. and I don't think removing the use restrictions is a good idea because it will encourage players who currently aren't afk macro spamming to start droid spamming... :-)
but how to make them more attractive than macro spamming? i suggested this a long time ago, but let me say it again:
First: make them less annoying, loosen the restrictions on how long they stay active, and fix any lingering auto-store issues.
I say make them less annoying so that there is less negative consequences to increasing the length and ease of use. Personally, I would prefer that they stay out indefinitely. To make them less annoying, they need to put a hard cap on how often it barks (because they do bark very frequently when their are a lot of people around) and they need to fix the issues with /ignoring the droid (reports are that sometimes /ignoring the droid owner also /ignores the droid, and sometime it doesn't). To make them more useful, I think they should give the owner of the droid the ability to give the droid a sub-title that has a large number of characters in it. That subtitle would be like the name of a building (and would be entered that way) so a large number of characters would be possible and so would multiple colors. The subtitle would appear under the name of the droid at any time that the name of the droid is displayed. It wouldn't stop displaying when the battery runs out either of course. The name would have enough characters for the merchant to put a good advertising message in it. It wouldn't be annoying or invasive because players could choose not to look at it.
This wouldn't make them better than afk spamming, but it would make them a viable alternative way of doing prolonged advertising at a fixed location.
I don't think anything is ever going to be "better" than the ability to spam any message you want for as long as you want with a looping macro. So I'm not trying to think of ways to make the droid better than that. But the way the work now, is silly, because they directly mimic a weak version of AFK spamming.
The fact that the droid lasts no more than an hour and eventually auto-stores fairly quickly means it has no value whatsoever when compared against the afk alternative.
Giving them a customizable sub-title that is viewable indefinitely and fixing the autostore issues will make it so the droid will at least function for a prolongned period of time and while still not better than AFK spamming, is at least a viable alternative. personally, I think they would be more useful as an advertisement with the subtitle even if they didn't bark at all.
Ideas that involve giving customers accesss to some portion of the merchantsmerchandise through the droid or allowing the droid to actually work like limited functionality vendor are also good ones. but as an advertising tool, the only thing that is going to make the droid useful is to make the time during which it is functional very long, and then replace the spam feature with something less invasive and annoying, like a customizable sub-title. in my opinion anyway.