Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Binding Droids to your house
Herbsman
Tue Jun 29, 2004 2:12 pm
#27
w00t, I came up with a good idea and I'm not even a Droid Engineer. 
/doTheRobot 
Handsnake
Tue Jun 29, 2004 2:42 pm
#28
Herbsman wrote:
w00t, I came up with a good idea and I'm not even a Droid Engineer.
/doTheRobot
You are hereby granted the honorary title of Droid Engineer. Great idea.
Herbsman
Tue Jun 29, 2004 3:21 pm
#29
I think that people would benefit more from a house binding than a city bind. Plus you guys would sell more droids. I think a lone hermit moisture farmer somewhere out in the desert would be more in need of this feature than a guy who lives in a player city who's within earshot of another droid owner or maker. If you're stranded all alone in the desert in your lil cabin, who's gonna fix your droid?
Plus I think we have plenty of player city content at the moment. If you bind droids to a player city it is more likely to cause even greater lag. If it's bound inside a persons house, nobody has to load it if they don't want to go inside the house, hence no added lag.
Ps. W00t, I'm an honorary droidie!!!!!
Drashk
Tue Jun 29, 2004 3:57 pm
#30
Herbsman wrote:
I think that people would benefit more from a house binding than a city bind. Plus you guys would sell more droids. I think a lone hermit moisture farmer somewhere out in the desert would be more in need of this feature than a guy who lives in a player city who's within earshot of another droid owner or maker. If you're stranded all alone in the desert in your lil cabin, who's gonna fix your droid?
Plus I think we have plenty of player city content at the moment. If you bind droids to a player city it is more likely to cause even greater lag. If it's bound inside a persons house, nobody has to load it if they don't want to go inside the house, hence no added lag.
I'm not saying that a City bind is more important than a Structure bind. I would rather see astructure bind, however I think that if the DEVs had a choice between adding the two features, a City bind would make it into production time. One of the biggest considerations to look at, when suggesting content, is what would be feasible to the development team and what would be easiest to implement. Cities already have a binding function, when it comes to adding structures andmight be easier to tweak a little, instead of having to write new code from scratch, to bind the droid to a Structure. Also, movement has to be taken into consideration. A bound droid would ultimately be considered an NPC and wouldmore than likely fall under the movement rules of an NPC. Houses are set up with different zoning, as is evident if you have ever tried to move an item from one room to another. This might lead to difficulties with where a droid could patrol within a house, unless a form of permenate patrol coordinates could be given to a droid. Programming the movement of a droid within a city could be easier, since the typical NPC droid movement script could more than likely be used for the droid.
I made the suggestions that I did, because I think they have the best chance of being considered for production time.
Herbsman
Tue Jun 29, 2004 4:27 pm
#31
While I agree that it may be far easier to implement a bind droid to playercity function, I just don't see it as being worth it. Sure it might be fun to see, for a month or so, but I just don't see it being worth it for players and DE's alike. Now a housebind is something everyone could get on board with, even if it takes a lil longer to implement.
Rogue1970
Wed Jun 30, 2004 12:07 am
#32
Amazing - a two page DE thread without any negativity, we're actually agreeing on things again. Finally, we have moved on from the haggling arguing we used to do over ideas.....
This idea has some serious potential. Anyone else have any comments or ideas?
brittas
Wed Jun 30, 2004 9:26 am
#33
I really like this idea. Perhaps the house bound droids can come with new house bound only mods. Mood lighting modules, backgroud music modules (probably much better mod ideas out there) etc.
ResourceMonkey
Wed Jun 30, 2004 9:55 am
#34
What this sounds like is like creating a vendor in your house except for the following differences:
1) The droid can move around the house.
2) The droid cannot sell items as a vendor could.
3) The droid's functionalities can still be used.
As a Dev, the first thought that pops into my head would be "How can this be exploited?" I personally can't think of one but I have been out of the DE loop for a while hologrinding.
Everything else seems to have the elements already in the coding. It even might become something that is added onto the structure management menu. It might be easier in that way as far as coding is concerned.
Straker_Atrella
Thu Jul 01, 2004 12:00 pm
#35
The more and more I think about this, the more I like it. It seems like the perfect answer to many Chasis issues.
BLL - Holds an extra 20 items in your house. Other droids could only hold 10 using normal storage. If server load is an issue, make only the BLL have storage in the house.
Power Droid - Now you can charge your droids at home.
Repair Droid - Now you can use it to repair your own droids.
Protocol Droid - If somebody speaks a different language at your house, he will repeat it in common for you. A translater.
Would be really cool, if for some of the chasis like the Protocol, you could tell it to "dust" or "sweep" and it would clean your house lol.
Even if it was limited to jsut one room, it would be great.
JansosHosphe
Thu Jul 01, 2004 6:05 pm
#36
I give total support for this idea. I'd love to offer charging and repair services in my shop. I like the idea that I could let customers recharge or repair either by paying a fee, or just for free as a loss leader service to attract more customers. I think if a droid is bound to the house as a permanent fixture it should not require batteries, though. The power station would be acceptable, or they could just increase the structure maintenence cost slightly. If I bound a droid for power, greeting (barking),or repair, I wouldn't want it to be patrolling... standing still would be better. If I bound it for "atmosphere", I'd want it to patrol.
I would rate this idea as way up towards the top of my wish list.
_KernMist
Fri Jul 02, 2004 1:16 am
#37
I would also love to bind droids to my houses. To bind a barker droid there so that he can give out information and a waypoint to my other stores would be worth the effort alone. At least it would demonstrate the droids usefulness, add a bit of atmosphere and look cool.
But I agree with the above posters. The whole repair, recharge thing would just become better if these could be bound to the house.
Sumus
Fri Jul 02, 2004 1:25 am
#38
One of the best Ideas I have heard in a little while, I would love to have a power droid and a repair droid in my house. Have a fleet of MSE droids running around beeping like mad as they sweep up the place after people track mud in to shop at my vendor. Set up patrol points would be useful there as well. It deffentaly would make my house more "alive" than just a place to drop my stuff.
Shoot there are already droids wandering around the starting citys, haveing some wandering the player citys and buildings would make them seem less like ghost towns.
Shoot there are already droids wandering around the starting citys, haveing some wandering the player citys and buildings would make them seem less like ghost towns.
Message Edited by Sumus on 07-02-2004 04:24 AM
O-Boo-1
Fri Jul 02, 2004 2:14 am
#39
This is one of the best Droid Engineer ideas that I have heard of ever.
It is another Star Warsy effect that will enrich and enliven the playing experience (as well as make our sales go through the roof!)
The idea of having droids operating inside buildings as part of the structural maintenance is such a clever idea and adds so much scope to the game.
Imagine cantinas having R2 units backing up musicians and dancers as a matter of course.
Imagine the DEs own house also charging for automated repairs and recharging from the attached droids.
Imagine a merchant's tent also having a barker droid give out additional information, like the way point to the next shop.
Imagine having an event day when players have to keep on visiting the next merchant barker droid fot the next waypoint until they have completed the quest.
Imagine having the medical centre also having fully stocked stimpack droids to give out a little relief when there are no docs about.
Imagine having a probot attached to the shuttleport patrolling the ocal area and killing any unwanted spawns, or getting involved in PvP city fights.
IMO this idea adds to the game in a number of aspects. Everyone is a winner and the game moves on a whole new level.
This surely must be our number one priority and request for an imminent patch.