Droid Engineer Archive

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Naufragus wrote:

no it doesnt do ANYTHING...

no one consulted merchants on this...

Don't you mean no one consulted you? Or how is it that you can speak for all the Merchants?

i can tell you a spam spewing droid would have been at the bottom of our list of things we would want a droid to do

I don't know...I'm a Master Merchant and I kinda like it. Get off your high horse! Don't like it, don't use it. It's really nothing much more than a toy anyway. It'll last about a week and then everyone will get bored with it.

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Message Edited by GnomeAd on 04-15-2004 12:06 PM

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GnomeAd wrote:

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Naufragus wrote:

no it doesnt do ANYTHING...

no one consulted merchants on this...

Don't you mean no one consulted you? Or how is it that you can speak for all the Merchants?

I quote the Merchant Correspondant:"I'm just reporting on what the module does. We weren't asked to design this it was just presented"

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Hi all,

I have shops on three planets, I have my factories and workshop in a different location to any of my shops. I really like the idea of this droid, I can even alternate the droid between planets and have one shop being advertised at a time (you can only have one droid out I assume).

Heres a few points though:
- having to be in the same area will be impossible
- having to recharge it really limits its use
- having to be online while its doing its job is also limiting

Some suggestions:
- have the droids run on maint like vendors or even need maint and power like harvesters
- have them run 24x7 like vendors (no restrictions on where the player is)
- allow higher lvl merchants to deploy more droids (like vendors)

How about tie it to hiring so you could have 4 vendors and 2 merchant droids (out of your total of what is now 6 vendors).

I also agree with making the message bark less often, how about they just disply the message above their head all the time (not in chat), no problems with spam then and players see the message all the time (like house signs maybe).

Just some ideas

This module would be useful if it could give waypoints while the owner is far away, i would name it "Waypoint-To-Stuff" or something, park it at a popular starport and walk away, it wouldnt bark spam, but still give waypoints. If the waypoint part was limited by batteries also, that would limit its usefulness somewhat (unless it told you when the batteries died via system message). If i was near it, or had it follow me while i did business, i would just have it say "Need a droid? check me for a Waypoint" or something. The waypoint part is the most valuable part of this module. (I am a novice merchant along with the rifleman/DE.)

I, like many many players, keep my home in a spot that is adjacent to the city zone. I love the idea of this module, and want to use it, but I foresee a nasty effect up coming. Not only will people have to cope with Starport spam, they will have to cope with Barker droids that have been set up to bark and patrol at the server boundary for the city, while they work at home.

Also what if I do decide to stay in the city, but I cross to the far side of town? Most non player cities I know cross a server line at some point (ever been running through a city and have it visually disappear for a split second? I have, that's called crossing a boundary kids) if I can't even go to the Bestine Museum or the City Hall while I leave my droid to bark by the cantina, then I'm gonna call it a wash.

I live near Kaadara, which in Bestine is BH central. I would love nothing more than to create named GilacksDroids, then set it up on a short patrol in the town square, and have it say "Want BH droids? Click me for a waypoint! Only 1200m away." But if I can't go home and do work while this droid works for me, then I don't need it.

meant to say, "which on Bloodfin" not "which in Bestine"

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TheRealTK421 wrote:

This droid will only continue to bark IF you are in the same server zone. It will go quiet if you go too far away from it. In addition, when the droid gets into a low power state the ad barking is turned off. Once you recharge the droid you have to manually enable the barking again.Message Edited by TheRealTK421 on 04-14-2004 01:58 PM

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Oh........by the way..........

You should try leaving the droid barking in a player city (instead of a Dev city/outpost) to see if this report holds true, just in case.



/bow

Respectfully,

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DocSavag wrote:

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TheRealTK421 wrote:

This droid will only continue to bark IF you are in the same server zone. It will go quiet if you go too far away from it. In addition, when the droid gets into a low power state the ad barking is turned off. Once you recharge the droid you have to manually enable the barking again.Message Edited by TheRealTK421 on 04-14-2004 01:58 PM

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I tested this last night and it simply isn't true that you have to remain close to the droid. I left my protocol droid standing in the Mining outpost on Dantooine ad barking. I left a fellow merchant with him to monitor his behaviour. I then rode my speederbike 6500 meters away. The droid continued to bark the whole trip out and back. I then purchased a round trip ticket from Dantooine to Corellia. The droid continued to bark while I was on Corellia and up on arriving back on Dantooine he was still barking.

I was only on Corellia for about a minute or two as the return ship was already there when I arrived. But there was no interuption of the barking at all while I was not on the local server. It might be true that it stops after time but I haven't seen any evidence that suggests that anything other than low power and storing him stops the bark.

I agree that the interval needs to be boosted to at least 45-60 seconds to avoid making it simply intolerable. Some merchants would also like to request that a static text field larger than 128 characters be available on demand by clicking the droid. This was mentioned in the original concept post. Some where that we could post information such as prices and such on the droid that could be viewed by our potential customers.

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Sweet - i was taking that information myself from TK's report - i am glad that it isnt the case

From the TC update notes:

- Changed the skill requirement for the merchant barker to Advertising IV
- Increased the time between merchant barks to 60s.

Time increase good, but why the skill requirement increase?