Droid Engineer Archive

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Malice2025 wrote:
Will droid decay be added in at all? I might be the only one thinking this, but if droids are permanent, then the market will quickly saturate. At the moment, Seekers and other BH droids are 1-time use, so there isn't a problem there. However, I can definitely see someone keeping a utility droid forever.

Saturation isn't happening w/ weapons/armor because they are difficult to repair and lose condition when you try. Cars often get disabled (though its kinda buggy right now).

I'd just like to see DE's balanced in the player-economy so that future DE's can make constant profit without needing a constant influx of new players.

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Message Edited by Gribnitz on 02-24-2004 09:19 PM

Malice,

Youve got an excellent point there. I wont matter what improvements the droids have if everyone simply buys one and has it forever. Granted something like a droid might last longer than a weapon, but price will represent that.

What would be interesting and possibly lucrative is having the combat modules act like weapon powerups. Droid owners would be forced to return to their dealer for more modules as they expire. Perhaps a main module would be permanent (so their isnt a loss of droid functionality in the middle of combat) but there would be some kinda of combat upgrade (remember KOTOR).

The attention does not feel undivided. In fact, the attention level is not much higher than previous months and publishes.

Are we going to get some answers or have you written the code already and we're just spinning our collective wheels? This is NOT feeling very interactive. Thunderheart, JustG, et al - can we get a response?

Did I miss it?

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Thunderheart wrote:

Publish 7: Droid Invasion

It is still an early look, but here is our goal for Droid Modules:

Entertainer module: Entertainers would get a certification so that only they could use this droid (no combat functionality is added so its different that the combat certs). This module would allow an entertainer to queue one of 10 different new effects (smoke, lighting, etc.) The advantage is that the droid won’t consume entertainers HAM (just batteries). Each module will represent a different effect. So with 10 different effects, there will be 10 Entertainer modules which means the higher level droids with more module slots will be more useful for queuing different effects.

Merchant Barker module: This would give droids the ability to bark advertisements, give waypoints to shops, have additional information available so players could list prices, services, etc through a radial menu command.

Covert Detector Module: The covert detector module would allow a droid to detect and disable a covert detector in an area.

Exploding Module: This combat ability would consume a droid in a fixed damage blast.

These changes in addition to combat droid modules and utility modules will address 8 of the 10 Droid Engineers’ Questions. We are very interested in hearing what people have to say throughout this discussion. I’ll post follow-up threads on In Dev and In Concept for each main topic.

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Great stuff! but need more modules.

how about a slicing module? it would allow smugglers to slice without a molecular clamp for so many uses. maybe 100. then you need a new slicing module.

how about a sampling module, allows droids to sample for whatever resources. this would allow the droid to deal with radioactive so that we dont have to take damage if we wanted to see the quality before laying a harvester.

how about a delivery droid. one that we put stuff into, tell it the name of the player that it should deliver too and then when that player is online it goes to that person and only they can open the storage module.

more ideas people give them more ideas!

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Kilarny wrote:

The attention does not feel undivided. In fact, the attention level is not much higher than previous months and publishes.

Are we going to get some answers or have you written the code already and we're just spinning our collective wheels? This is NOT feeling very interactive. Thunderheart, JustG, et al - can we get a response?

Did I miss it?

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TH - What about droids that DO something worth while? Yay entertainer effects... do they increase a buff? reduce HAM cost on specials? Decrease the TWENTY MINUTES it takes to get a full buff? Effects are showy but big woop.

Barker bot? yay more spam and lag at the starports. Terrible idea.

Why not make some droids that people need? Maybe crafter droids that add to experimentation? A repair droid that actually repairs something? (like harvs, vehicles etc).. maybe a med droid that actualy does some healing (hand it stims, programable to use stims when a certain % of your health is breached) For god sakes! Put in something useful!

I think it's important to distinguish between things players would want and things people would need. The difference is, if a player would end upneeding an item it likely won't make it in to the game. For instance, the slicing module everyone's talking about... basically it would get to the point where if you were a slicer and didn't have a slicing bot, you'd be worthless because people would go to the slicers that had the bots instead, for that extra little bonus.

Now at first glance I know many of you are saying, "Good!" But the problem is that if something is required it makes it more of an inconvenience than a convenience. An example of this would be armor (and I'm not trying to bash armorsmiths here, just making a point). Basically if you're going to be a combat profession, you're going to need armor. It's very close to the point (some would argue it's past the point) where if you go out hunting or PvP'ing without armor, you're useless. So what happens is that armor becomes an inconvenience... it's something you have to buy rather than something that you could do without, but would really make things easier or better if you had it. An example of a want would be something like food. Food isn't required tofight well, but it certainly helps.

If they come out with droids that people literally can't play the game without, I don't think that's good for us as a class. It's good for our pocketbooks, sure, but I think that down the road it would just cause people to want to swing the nerf bat at us.

I think this is what TH meant when he said that any utility module that they came out with would not be able to add to the abilities of players (extra checkers). We should be able to make droids that people want and get excited about, not droids that people come buy from us begrudgingly because they are worthless without them.

If you look at the short (and I'm sure, partial) list of modules that TH listed, you'll notice that all of these would likely be classified as a "want" and not a "need." Entertainers would want a droid with the new effects, but they wouldn't need them. Merchants would want a barker droid, but they wouldn't need them. I think this is an important distinction to remember as we go forward.

Thankyou Thuderheart for that rundown. Very exciting. I'm especially glad to see the Merchant module included.

To elaborate on that item. Would it ever be possible to craft a data disc or parchment that has an entry for a long string of text? Useful for communication in many situations. Price lists for one,or city newspapers and even books to be written!

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Kilarny wrote:

OrionsByte: So you basically think that DE should not be a useful class? Thanks.

Secondly, why is it that the entire communication process stops because one fellow is on vacation? That is NOT repeat NOT undivided attention.

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Don't be silly. Of course I want DE to be useful. I'm just saying that there's a thin line between making a product that people want to buy and one that people are required to buy.

Here's another way of looking at it: if the droids we want make it so that someone can not realize the full potential of their class unless they own a droid then those droids won't make it in to the game. However, I think it's still possible to make droids that are so useful that everyone wants them without crossing that line.

I'm just trying to see it froma DEV perspective, because I have the overwhelming feeling that TH is going to come back and be compelled to post that a lot of these modules we've been suggesting aren't going to happen, and if that happens it's better to understand why now, rather than argue about it for another week after he says it (which is going to happen anyway).

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TheRealTK421wrote:

Heya, all...

I wanted to throw out to you a bit of my larger-scheme thinking on a possible DE future.

Some of the future utility droid modules like a good first step. There's been a ton of excellent new (and revived) ideas on the DE boards lately. It's a great place again (I hope you'll agree).

When I consider new modules, one of the things that I tend to fall back on is...."How is this fun? How does this feature make SWG more immersive...like I'm IN Star Wars?"


"Is a new module that an Entertainer use to do effects fun and Star-Warsy?" Yea...sorta. I guess I can see that.

"Is a new module that can help Merchants (in whatever fashion it eventually shows up)?" Okay...that's more helpful than fun...but that's cool. I can dig it as long as it actually IS practically worthwhile to own and use.


When I started thinking about what being a DE in SWG would be like (well before beta), I imagined things ("modules", if you want) which would be possible:

• I could build an Entertainment "HoloCapture/HoloDisplay"module, usable by Entertainer's to make 'Help me Obi-Wan, you're my only hope'-stylerecording oftheir performances and save them toDatadisks. However, it doesn't have to end there. It could also be used to 'record' events to send any kind of action or spatial chat by a player (otherwise, how'd Leia program that message so fast? Was she a Master Entertainer?)
  
  Basically, this lets you have a little droid 'videocam' that would capture and playback. If this could be tied in tightly to Entertainers, that's cool. This imagery is, to me, very much the kind of thing that people that think "Star Wars" equate with what was really "fun" about it. It's the kind of thing that I think would be a great kick. Practical? Maybe not directly. Yucky on the Art Dept? Very likely, yes. Star Warsy and fun? Absolutely.
  
  To me, this has "player-created content via events, etc.", and maybe more (via factionable tie-ins) written all over it.
  
  
  
  
• These disks could be traded (user XP to the Entertainer, if played) and sold in any number of ways (including vending via the new Merchant vendor/barker droid module).
  
  
• These disks could also contact text/email, which my droids could store in their Datapad storage device. Note: I would think that player created disks would need to take up a higher number of Datapad storage slots.
  
  
• These disks could (and likely would) be encrypted by Slicers (with the help of my droids)...and maybe 'hacked' by other Slicers (again, with the help of my droids).
  
  
• My droid could be sent as a "Messenger" (autonomously), such that you could effectively be two places at once.
  
  
• My droid's could be made such that they would be needed when conversing with the local populace. My poor Protocol (translator) droid is starting to get rust, andsort of forlorn, from not having ever done any translation. I think he's only up to like 4 forms of communication. Gee, those Protocols are a testy bunch...
  

Okay...so, all of those types of things are what I think of droids sometimes doing for those we see in the movies and/or read about. But, there's a few issues...

Why would we need droids to DO any of these things? True...it is primarily a roleplay, player-content bunch of changes. None of this really is "useful" to anyone in the game, as far as character enhancement or getting an edge....




Or is it?



Some of the kinds of droid changes that I'm suggesting, I believe, might later be well-fed with quest content upcoming via the Jedi Revamp. It is **very** possible for the Devs to build an infrastructure of droid module features that can be leverage into truly completed content down the line (as it is 'switched on').

By this, I mean that the droid utility modules that are being concerned should be considered with an eye towards how they can fit together to form a large whole. A more dynamic system.


Okay, well...that's my random rambling for tonight. I'm on the clock now.

/emote straps on his DE goggles and grabs his can of Wookiee Air Freshner...

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OrionsByte wrote:

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Kilarny wrote:

OrionsByte: So you basically think that DE should not be a useful class? Thanks.

Secondly, why is it that the entire communication process stops because one fellow is on vacation? That is NOT repeat NOT undivided attention.

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Don't be silly. Of course I want DE to be useful. I'm just saying that there's a thin line between making a product that people want to buy and one that people are required to buy.

Here's another way of looking at it: if the droids we want make it so that someone can not realize the full potential of their class unless they own a droid then those droids won't make it in to the game. However, I think it's still possible to make droids that are so useful that everyone wants them without crossing that line.

I'm just trying to see it froma DEV perspective, because I have the overwhelming feeling that TH is going to come back and be compelled to post that a lot of these modules we've been suggesting aren't going to happen, and if that happens it's better to understand why now, rather than argue about it for another week after he says it (which is going to happen anyway).

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