Droid Engineer Archive

Thanks for this post, TK. Its good to see that you're at your post. Pls keep conveying what our concerns are; we will try to keep it constructive and forward thinking.

I realize that the devs are limited by their development schedule; as a paying customer -- two accounts lol -- I am asking for a little more DE love action. I know a lot of others are as well.

I would like to add one thing that qualifies as a BIG plus in my book. I wish they had listed it twice, once in the Droid changes section and once where it is, far down the list.

• Status Effect Changes: The ability to effect the status of inanimate objects has been removed. Players will no longer be able to effect AT-STs, player vehicles, droids and turrets by the special effects of Stun, Dizzy, Blind, Warcry and wookiee roar. Additionally, biological DoT's (poison and disease) will no longer effect vehicles, droids or turrets and finally, AT-ST's and players vehicles will be immune to all posture changes.

I don't think people have mentioned this good thing nearly enough today...

You're a beautiful man TK, keep up the outstanding work

DE's are cursed on so many levels but out Correspondents have all been Saints, we are truly blessed.

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Thunderheart wrote:

The first two passes of the droid invasion is going to happen in Publish 7 and Publish 8.

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Thunderheart wrote:

The first two passes of the droid invasion is going to happen in Publish 7 and Publish 8.

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TheRealTK421 wrote:

On the DE Hybrid proposal...

The proposal is FAR from off the table and is most definitely NOT being ignored. I need all of you to understand that.The devs have not ourtight shot this plan down (in fact, I am hearing words such as "strong" used).

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Good strong or bad strong? What is the context for the word strong..."Strongly Considering It?" (please say its so)

[quote] I played Everquest for 5 years, SWG is a totally different game. [quote]

No way -- not totally different. After the Geocaves started spawning wildly out of control last night, I remember shouting "train to zone" several times. -- Just need to find a druid now .

Say No to Personal Combat Droids, and Any Profession Designed to Employ them.

I just wanted to make my position clear from the get go. I have been a big fan of Star Wars for years. I have digested virtually every movie and book devoted to the topic. Across the entire expanse of the extended Star Wars Universe, there is one enuring theme. Droids. Star Wars is a story about people, politics, planets, space and droids. Everything that exists in the Star Wars universe revolves around these principal props. And not one of them has had the endurence of the droids. They are part of almost every facet of the Star Wars Universe.

Now... Answer me true. How many individual characters in the Star Wars Universe have you ever seen with a personal combat droid?

Droids fill one of two primary roles in the Star Wars Universe:

Droid Armies (not indiviual combat droids) which serve a government or faction. How many people playing the game can claim they are a government? I expect there to be a few tounge-in-cheek responses to that about player cities or guilds, but the truth is, no one individual can pretend to be worthy of a Droid Army. In the books and movies, this type of droid was an "extra." A prop to carry the story line. I challenge anyone to come up with a licencedmovie or book precedent for personal combat droids (other video games and comics withstanding)

Service. These are the droids I want. Servants and machines that do things that humans and aliens can't or won't do. Droids designed to ease the burden of daily life in SWG. Droids that are "usefull." That's what personal droids are in the Star Wars Universe.

There are enough different ways to kill things in SWG. Why add one more? Why take SWG one step closer to every other run-of-the-mill MMPORPG? SWG has the potential to be different. Fresh. Exciting. The friction level goes up with this statement be cause that means fresh, exciting code. It would seem that the developers set out to make the same game that every other MMPORPG already is, and just dress it up with Star Wars trapings. Let's step outside the box!

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Laaba wrote:

TheRealTK421

I am so upset with this patch and the lie's that proceeded it... The Arch and Ch got more out of this patch than we did.

IMHO the best thing we can do at this point is either give up the DE profession or just give up the game. If we get enough people to do this the DEV's will start to pay attention. I hate to point this out but u have failed... Please do us all a favor and instead of Kissing ***** just resign your position. If u and all other players that have contact with the dev's would do the same maybe we would get somewhere.

/snip

I have been a Master DE myself for over 7 months close to 8 now.

/snip

Please don't take this as a personal attack on YOU. I know from reading how much u have tried to help us and it is not your falt things did not work out u are just talking to death ears and there is REALLY nothing that is going to be done for us to bring us up to par with other trades... It is just impossible at this time. Heck there has already been a post on what is coming out in PUBLISH 8... woot 10 new mods [and how many more rare resourses] for the ent class and some new barking mods for Merchants.

Respectfully

Laaba - Wookiee

Master Smuggler - Master DE

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Um... how about you re-read the parts I left and see how rude and contradictory they are. First you accuse a person who has been out correspondent for less than a week of somehow being responsible for this fiasco. You call him an @$$ kisser, though he has held the Devs feet to the fire, day after day after day... all the way back to the PRE-BETA!!! boards. But somehow that is not a personal attack?!? And then you sign it "respectfully". Hypocrit.

We're getting 4 modules. Not 10. One of them is a droid barking module. Statements like these make it obvious that you are oblivious.

YOU... only 2 letters more that u

Respectfully (yeah, right)

Deidre

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jemelby wrote:

Say No to Personal Combat Droids, and Any Profession Designed to Employ them.

I just wanted to make my position clear from the get go. I have been a big fan of Star Wars for years. I have digested virtually every movie and book devoted to the topic. Across the entire expanse of the extended Star Wars Universe, there is one enuring theme. Droids. Star Wars is a story about people, politics, planets, space and droids. Everything that exists in the Star Wars universe revolves around these principal props. And not one of them has had the endurence of the droids. They are part of almost every facet of the Star Wars Universe.

Now... Answer me true. How many individual characters in the Star Wars Universe have you ever seen with a personal combat droid?

Droids fill one of two primary roles in the Star Wars Universe:

Droid Armies (not indiviual combat droids) which serve a government or faction. How many people playing the game can claim they are a government? I expect there to be a few tounge-in-cheek responses to that about player cities or guilds, but the truth is, no one individual can pretend to be worthy of a Droid Army. In the books and movies, this type of droid was an "extra." A prop to carry the story line. I challenge anyone to come up with a licencedmovie or book precedent for personal combat droids (other video games and comics withstanding)

Service. These are the droids I want. Servants and machines that do things that humans and aliens can't or won't do. Droids designed to ease the burden of daily life in SWG. Droids that are "usefull." That's what personal droids are in the Star Wars Universe.

There are enough different ways to kill things in SWG. Why add one more? Why take SWG one step closer to every other run-of-the-mill MMPORPG? SWG has the potential to be different. Fresh. Exciting. The friction level goes up with this statement be cause that means fresh, exciting code. It would seem that the developers set out to make the same game that every other MMPORPG already is, and just dress it up with Star Wars trapings. Let's step outside the box!

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150% correct.

J'Vee,

Yes, there were few personal combat droids in Star Wars. Yes, most of the long-standing characters are utility droids. However, you can not directly transfer Star Wars to SWG. Underlying it all, SWG is unfortunately still a combat-based game at the moment. The crafters serve mostly to augment the combat system in the game.

Weaponsmiths, Armorsmiths, Chefs, Doctors, and Tailors/BE (enhanced clothing) all serve to boost the combat professions. Architects have found the market more and more difficult w/out providing anything to the combat classes.

I am not challenging your argument that personal combat droids are not prevalent in Star Wars, but I'm stating that it is important that droid engineers have a way to make a good viable living (though I can't speak for all servers). Unfortunately, crafters do not decay wealth, combat does. There is a fixed cost to crafting (getting harvesters/equipment factories/tapes, etc.). However, once that is purchased, none of it decays. Weapons and armor, however, decay and need to be renewed. Food and buffs last only a short time. Also, most of the influx of new wealth is based on the combat classes and missions. Artisans do *not* create wealth (unless you take the 910 credit artisan missions on the terminals).

Now, if you look at it, you realize that 1) combat professions create wealth 2) combat professions decay wealth -- the "money sink". In other words, *Combat Defines the Game and the Economy.* So the question is -- for DEs -- would it be optimal to sell to the larger market of repeat customers, or a smaller market of one-time buyers?

I, for one, prefer to sell to the larger market. Unless the economic system is completely revampped, catering to the majority of SWG players (who do combat in 1 form or another) is probably the best route for the DE. Granted, there are compromises that could be made between your and my views (such as combat medic droids that heal you throughout battle or maybe some fast droid that helps to slow down escaping targets). However, I guess the main bulk of my argument is that DE's should not walk down the path of providing only providing utility droids that cater to artisans, since that'll cause us to be stuck in the mire of poverty.

Jemelby:

I understand what you're saying, and I agree to some extent. The issue as far as I see it (and I'll admit I'm fairly new to the game, only a novice droid engineer and having been desperately trying to catch up with everything that's been going on on this forum over the last week) is that truely useful non-combat droids aren't going to be heading our way any time soon. Droid Engineers need a decent income source and a renewable income source. I'm not sure whether the new modules due in publish 7 will amount to a real income source. They certainly won't amount to a renewable income source (except perhaps the exploding module, but that's combat oriented anyway). The only way I see to get a decent renewable income source into the game for Droid Engineers in the short to medium turn is for the developers to introduce combat droids. I hope that in the long term we will be able to shift our profession towards more interesting, varied and useful droids and leave the combat droids as a minor part of the profession.

Now as to your challenge: "I challenge anyone to come up with a licenced movie or book precedent for personal combat droids (other video games and comics withstanding)". Will you accept the personal combat droid owned by the commander of Star's End in the Han Solo prequel novel?

EnigmaBSc

Jemelby:

Also, its a fallacy to compare Star Wars to SWG. What percentage of the Star Wars population wielded a T21 rifle compared to the SWG population ?