Droid Engineer Archive

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TheRealTK421 wrote:

I've not actually counted or anything but I'm seeing the contenders as:

(in no particular order....yet)

1. a Droid Decay question
   
   


2. Conversational droid fixes (naming, storage modules, etc.
   
   


3. More chassis-specific 'bonuses'

Note: As you may have guessed, it's likely not a great idea to waste our question on something like, "When will
you fix ______?" They are, I believe, interested in more general gameplay issues.



/bow

Respectfully,

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Gameplay you say, how about you ask when can DE's look forward to loot or even a master quest like RIS armor. I believe weaponsmiths and armorsmiths benefit the most from loot, examples are geo cave, krayt dragons, nightsisters even deathwatch bunker. I want a master quest!

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TheRealTK421 wrote:

I've not actually counted or anything but I'm seeing the contenders as:

(in no particular order....yet)

1. a Droid Decay question
   
   
2. Conversational droid fixes (naming, storage modules, etc.
   
   
3. More chassis-specific 'bonuses'

Note: As you may have guessed, it's likely not a great idea to waste our question on something like, "When will
you fix ______?" They are, I believe, interested in more general gameplay issues.



/bow

Respectfully,

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Hum, the 'why all our product need a manual to use them or even know what to buy?' question isn't gameplay related?

Seriously, Skill requirement not written anywhere, harvesting bonus that aren't bonus, combat 'rating',...

Ok for me if the droids are hard to build, but they shouldn't be that hard to use.

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Gavvot wrote:

Hum, the 'why all our product need a manual to use them or even know what to buy?' question isn't gameplay related?

Seriously, Skill requirement not written anywhere, harvesting bonus that aren't bonus, combat 'rating',...

Ok for me if the droids are hard to build, but they shouldn't be that hard to use.

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Okay, Gavvot, I'll bite...


What kind of answer do you expect we'd get if we asked this question?


You question sounds (honestly) rather 'ranty' and I'm sure that's likely not to be well received.


/bow

Respectfully,

I'm not a diplomat.

If you want something more politicaly friendly, well hum.

'Is there any plan to make the understanding and use of droids easier for the users anytime soon?'.

Yes, my question is ranty, I'm quite pissed to hear all the time that our profession is fixed, when it is not the case at all.

Honestly, I don't know how to make the question more friendly.
The only thing I can do is ask them to make a MDE and go try to sell a droid to a newbie.

Minimum 1 hour of explanation.

EDIT : This is for me the problem number one considering the sales. It really stop people from buying droids when they buy the first one, and need a day to find out they can't use it. And we shouldn't have to explain it on each droid we build.
Droids are the hardest items to understand in the game and for a relatively limited use.

EDIT2 : when I talk about a newbie, I don't talk about someone new in the game, I talk about someone that never read the DE forum or had a droid. A Newbie droid user. Even if he's in the game for 6 months, it'll still take quite a long time.

Message Edited by Gavvot on 06-25-2004 05:47 PM

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Gavvot wrote:

'Is there any plan to make the understanding and use of droids easier for the customers anytime soon?'.


Well...this is better. I'm pretty sure that I can stay that TH would reply...

** pulls TH hawtpuppet **

"No...we don't really have any such "plans". If you want to make this a priority and get something, you can do some tweaking to your Top 5..."

This means, of course, that some other desired features and fixes will take longer to arrive.

Do you really want that?!?


Yes, my question is ranty, I'm quite pissed to hear all the time that our profession is fixed, when it is not the case at all.


/sigh

No profession is ever "fixed", man. It can be made 'closer to done'...but they are never really "done" or fixed.

We just got 2 good sized publishes of stuff. I suspect that we won't be seeing a ton of changes until JTL is pushed and then the DC/ higher-end droid stuff after.

I'll say that, from what I can tell, we are WAY more 'fixed' than we were for a very long time. But, yes...there's always more stuff to do.


Honestly, I don't know how to make the question more friendly. The only thing I can do is ask them to make a MDE and go try to sell a droid to a newbie.


Some of them DO play MDEs.


Minimum 1 hour of explanation.


If it's taking you 1 hour to explain droids to someone, you're playing....'sub-optimally'. I would highly recommend that you create an email full of descriptions and information. Your 'brochure' should educate the user in all they'd need to know.

When I have a real, actual SWG newbie, I just send them my version of said email and the next time I hear from them it's cause they've purchased a droid or are requesting a specific custom order.

You'll also want to try saving yourself time by pointing them to the SWG KB (KnowledgeBase), which has a ton of droid related questions and answers.


EDIT: This is for me the problem number one considering the sales. It really stop people from buying droids when they buy the first one, and need a day to find out they can't use it. And we shouldn't have to explain it on each droid we build.


Don't think I don't sympathize with you here...I definitely do. However, I hesitate to waste our question on an issue that's largely a non-issue, in terms of something that would have a real, quantifiable impact on our market or products.


Droids are the hardest items to understand in the game and for a relatively limited use.


If you don't believe in your products' value, how do you sell them clients? (I'm not asking to be facetious...I honestly want to know...)

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/bow

Respectfully,

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TheRealTK421 wrote:

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Gavvot wrote:

'Is there any plan to make the understanding and use of droids easier for the customers anytime soon?'.


Well...this is better. I'm pretty sure that I can stay that TH would reply...

** pulls TH hawtpuppet **

"No...we don't really have any such "plans". If you want to make this a priority and get something, you can do some tweaking to your Top 5..."

This means, of course, that some other desired features and fixes will take longer to arrive.

Do you really want that?!?

Do I want a no? No

Do I want that answer more than a No to droid decay, an after JTL for Conversational droid fix or droid specific bonus? Yes.

Even more concidering the way they went with publish 7&8 and new modules is the oposite of chassis specific bonus (which I'm against btw)

Yes, my question is ranty, I'm quite pissed to hear all the time that our profession is fixed, when it is not the case at all.


/sigh

No profession is ever "fixed", man. It can be made 'closer to done'...but they are never really "done" or fixed.

We just got 2 good sized publishes of stuff. I suspect that we won't be seeing a ton of changes until JTL is pushed and then the DC/ higher-end droid stuff after.

I'll say that, from what I can tell, we are WAY more 'fixed' than we were for a very long time. But, yes...there's always more stuff to do.

I know that nothing is ever finished in an MMORPG.

We just got 2 half-finished publish that bring more issue than fixes and will have to wait for month to finally have something we shouted very very loud against for quite a long time.

Yes, we are 'a little' more fixed than before, but are we less broken than any other prof? On my count, I'll say no.

Honestly, I don't know how to make the question more friendly. The only thing I can do is ask them to make a MDE and go try to sell a droid to a newbie.


Some of them DO play MDEs.


Minimum 1 hour of explanation.


If it's taking you 1 hour to explain droids to someone, you're playing....'sub-optimally'. I would highly recommend that you create an email full of descriptions and information. Your 'brochure' should educate the user in all they'd need to know.

My point is that on a vendor, I will have to put that on every single droid and hope that the customer read EVERYTHING before he buy. Or put a note and hope that the customer find it and read it BEFORE he buy a droid.

I don't know any other profession in the game that require such kind of warning and explanation to customers. Do you?

When I have a real, actual SWG newbie, I just send them my version of said email and the next time I hear from them it's cause they've purchased a droid or are requesting a specific custom order.

You missed my last edit on that one

You'll also want to try saving yourself time by pointing them to the SWG KB (KnowledgeBase), which has a ton of droid related questions and answers.
I'll do that when I'll find a way to an answer on one of my question down there.

EDIT: This is for me the problem number one considering the sales. It really stop people from buying droids when they buy the first one, and need a day to find out they can't use it. And we shouldn't have to explain it on each droid we build.


Don't think I don't sympathize with you here...I definitely do. However, I hesitate to waste our question on an issue that's largely a non-issue, in terms of something that would have a real, quantifiable impact on our market or products.

Well, maybe it's a non issue for you. Droid Decay is a non issue for me. Fixes, I'm quite sure you won't have enough room in the question to put them all. And chassis-specific is a complete non-issue for me either. All of the stuff being modular now, that mean I can do all kind of droids and I'm perfectly fine with that.

Droid decay might have a more visible impact on the market of our products, but I have some serious doubt that it will be a good impact. People don't like the droids atm because they are hard to use and understand.

Make them being finite use, and they'll go far far away from any droid shops until the dev add some mechanism to force them to buy droids. And I don't want that.


Droids are the hardest items to understand in the game and for a relatively limited use.


If you don't believe in your products' value, how do you sell them clients? (I'm not asking to be facetious...I honestly want to know...)

I'm not saying that droids are useless, I'm saying that the complexity of the use and understanding of the droids compared to the use they can have of it is very high. (It's like buying a server with a database and application to use a spreadsheet,. The spreadsheet is usefull, the server isn't)

Remember I talked about use, not about value. The highest value of the droids is that they are droids. And nothing else in the game, even a glowing stick, could make this game look more like starwars than droids.

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/bow

Respectfully,

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Hope that cleared some stuff.