Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: I spoke to soon ...
Snikrop wrote:
doesn't the speech in this post make you think that whatever plan they are going to roll out is _months_ away from being implemented
Of course it's months away. This is a plan. They are not saying, "hey we're almost done with these changes, what do think?" They are saying, "Hey, here's what we're thinking of doing to better your profession, what do you think?"
Ifit's not well recieved they have to go back and make a few changes that change the implimentation of the code. If they had it almost all coded up and ready to go to test center, then gave us the plan, and the community recieved it with an uproar, they would be out all that development time. Once we give feedback on this plan though, that's it... they'll start coding it up, so lets make the feedback good, concise, and constuctive.
It's been stated before that changes were months away for us, after mounts, after cities,and possibly after vehicles. This is to be expected though, and will not be a surprise to me. I fully expect any major changes to not show up until January the earliest. That gives at least2 weeks for feedback on it, at least2 weeks for planning/internal discussion about that feedback, at least3 weeks coding & reviews, at least1 weeks internal testing, at least 2 weeks on test center, and finally the week of catching bugs that made it to live. That puts these changes mid January (to allow for chrismas vacations, schedual slips, etc). Not to mention they aren't JUST going to work on these changes. I'd like to add that the initial planning, which has probably taken a good week itself has been all transparent to us, but Sintrosi had been a part of it.
Some of you non-developers and coders might not think that's acceptable. The devs know you'll get pissed that it takes that long too, but that's how the industry is. Any code really goes through that process, some in many iterations, games like this even more-so. So try and be very helpful in the first few weeks (feedback on the plan) so they have all the info they need to further this plan to implimentation, and be patient, that's all the advice I can offer.
I'm a coder and I've developed games (albeit much more simple ones than this). I understand that large changes to professions can and do take lots of time but small changes shouldn't take more than a few minutes to a few hours.
If the code is well-organized and modular (as it SHOULD be) changing the experimentation points for the class should only take a few minutes, max. Not around four months. If the code is designed properly, it should also only take a few hours to, say, add a new combat droid schematic into the game. Heck, the paperwork from the designers about the 'balance' of the thing should take more time than just the brute coding of it. As far as I know, there are a number of combat and non-combat droids already in the game. Since the art is done for those, all you have to do is COPY+PASTE the probot code (or even better, simply inherit the already created combat_droid class) and voilà, new combat droid.
I really have no idea of the internal workings of Galaxies and such, but if it was designed properly, it really oughtn't be that difficult to add on new things and/or modify old things.
> youHow can you explain a "Droid Level" ? I mean droids are programmed, its not exactly like you need be a certain level in order to "control" one.
I think they should give DE's the ability to make combat droids for certain professions. These droids will be like those in Episode II. Certain Professions can use a certain type of droid. I think DE's should be able to run around withany kind of droid or even multiple ones.
BH's (like myself) Depend on droids for Investigation, and if we could use battle droids it would be even better.
Are you guys ready to be rich?
Grimjakk wrote:
I gotta agree with Marsx, TK. I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding Sintrosi's job.
No...I understand her job just fine, thank you.
I think what's puzzling me is that the Devteam doesn't see fit todiscuss the "Droid Plan" with her until the day they plan to release it. I would think, since she's been good enough to be our correspondent, that they would want to use her experience and knowledge as a'sounding board' for what they had planned. While I'm sure that happened to somedegree, it certainly sounds to me (from what she herself states on these very DE forums)that she was kept in the dark till about an hour ago.
That's just sad.
I have a lot of respect for her dedication and all the work she's done for us, but she's not a dev...
I never said she was, did I? Did you see me say that?
She IS, however, our correspondent. By the very definition of the word, that means an "exchange" of information between parties. So far, from what I can see, this correspondent system is a one-way deal (at least with regard to the release of this "plan" that was never discussed with her prior to its near-release to us).
I just think jumping TH for Sin's not "being in the loop" was a bit declasse.
Why? He's supposed to oversee such things, by his own admission. After being a part of SWG through Beta and release...you better believe that I'm not going to shy away from calling any one of them to the carpet, if I think it needs to be done (especially with regard to the correspondent system, which is one of my personal pet 'peeves'). TH himself has already stated (and I CAN get you a quote) that the current correspondent system is broken.
If it weren't....they wouldn't need to work on it (as he IS right now).
No offense intended.
I don't take offense. I call it like I see it. Plain and simple.
/bow
Respectfully,
TheRealTK421 wrote:
Let me leave you with a quote from Sintrosi:
"Yes, I can guarantee you that any decisions made by the DEVs for DE will be ran by you first, assumming they have me in the loop as well..."
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=droid_engineer&message.id=27488
Um, that's exactly what they are doing, running this idea by us. this is a "plan" it's not set in stone. I really don't see why your all up in arms about this.
Geesh, not even posted yet and people are already picking it apart...
If you remember, Sintrosi said a few weeks ago that they had already discussed many enhancements/changes that she could not address on the forums at that time.
One would assume that she is just getting the "final" information now before it is released, but it will contain some of that information that she had already been privy to.
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