Droid Engineer Archive

128 characters isn't long enough, please extend it.

Also, how many messages may be recorded at a time, just one? (If it is listed here, I may have skipped over reading it)

from the April 23 Testcenter Update Notes:
- Droid: Merchant Barker Module: Changed the functionality of the barker module to only say the message if a player passes close by, with a minimum delay of one minute.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=in_testing&message.id=10479

I personally see this as a good change.

The change to require Advertising IV is disappointing to me. There's no way I can spare the skill points for that, it is hard enough to keep the ones for my vendors. I'm surprised that the DE community is not more upset about this. It certainly limits your market for these droids, probably to about 1/100 of what it could have been.

I suppose there is some benefit if this droid can at least give out a waypoint. But without any way to communicate what I am selling or what my prices are, I'm not sure why anyone would want it. I thought that they were originally supposed to have a price list ability, too.

This idea sounded good in the beginning. Too bad it turned out to be something that so few people will be able to use.

I haven't seen a great deal of demand for these, largely because of the Advert IV requirement. I approve of this requirement, incidentally, though my char does not have merchant.

The reason is that I don't want to see a backlash against droids, and by extension, DEs. Two people asked me about the merchant module, wanting to know how to put it on ignore. I didn't know, but they didn't seem TOO annoyed, initially.

I have one big recommendation for crafting and selling these.

Probably good NOT to put them in the humanoid droids except by request. The reason for this is that you cannot name these droids. Since the ad barking expires every 60 minutes if you don't feed it, once the barking turns off, there is no visual and no verbal clue which type of merchant the droid represents. But if the droid can be named, it can still sit there quietly and politely and display a "billboard" style-name, i.e. "PhippsCombatMedicSupplies", and give out the waypoint on request. As a combat medic who has a hard time finding supplies, I appreciate the informal bazaar in front of the Coronet starport. It's raucous and packed, just like an old world bazaar. In fact, it is very Star Warsy. But I am NOT going to request a waypoint from every "A 3PO Protocol Droid" or whatever, just on the off chance that one might be a CM supplier!

The protocols and surgicals may stand out because they are tall and humanoid-looking, but an R-series or a cheap probot is better for advertising. What's good advertising? Repetition repetition repetition. Say it in the ad bark, say it in the droid name, say it in the waypoint.

If the ad bark runs out, you've still got 2 out of 3.

I also recommend that we keep the Advert IV requirement. Merchants are screwed enough simply by the fact that the vendor cheat (which is a HUGE exploit, can't believe it hasn't been fixed) deeply devalues the profession. They need things that are theirs and theirs alone, just like every other profession. Since they didn't get their NPC ad barker, I think this module goes a decent ways towards giving the merchants some love.

I look forward to hiring a merchant for the use of their droid in RP and PA events!

What really strikes me as suiper odd is that I am not seeing these in use hardly at all yet. I've seen a total of ONE in Coronet. I still see Afk /shouting people, but no droids.

This post is being transfered here from another thread per TK's request.

There's a problem with the way Merchant Barker Droids work that make them impractical. And what I'm seeing in cities like Theed and Coronet on Eclipse is 100% Macro AFK shouters and 0% Merchant Barker Droids. Let's cover some points on each:

Macro AFK Shouters

1. Can be heard throughout the entire area.

2. Requires no skill points to do.

3. Can be done indefinitely, in most cases all nigth while the player is sleeping.

4. Can give out waypoints by just listing "/waypoing x y" in the shout.


Merchant Barker Droids

1. Require battery power to operate which last about an hour before having to be recharged. Recharging requires the owner to be at the keyboard to do it.

2. Requires Merchant Advertising 4. A skill that most combat oriented players are absolutely unwilling to invest skill points in.

3. Requires the owner to be online and on the same cluster machine.

4. Can only be heard in its immediate area.

5. Requires you to buy a droid.

6. Takes up a spot in your datapad.

Conclusion: Macro AFK Shouting >> Merchant Barker Droids

The way things stand, hardly anyone will use them. I'm not arguing the merits or reasons, I'm simply pointing out why nearly 100% of the player population is still resorting to Macro AFK Shouting and will continue to do so. This simple fact, renders the merchart barker module a failure. Macro AFK Shouting is a direct competitor to Merchant Barker Droids. And our droids have had their arses blown completely out of the water by the competition. This means we DE's don't have a real market with this product.

Personally, I think our droids are far less offsensive than the shouters and hope some solution can be made so that Merchant Barker Droids replace the shouters.

I think that if and when they fix the vendor merchant bug that we will see alot more barker droids. Especially if we can find a way for batteries to last longer.

Some idea to make the Barker module better :

- First, fix the auto-store droid issue, it's nice to try to prevent decay, but Droid don't decay so it's pointless and make the barker droid almost useless.
- The timing/battery. I think a 1 minute minimum between each bark is nice, but I would really love ot be able to raise that time in exchange of more battery time because, 1) every minute is sometimes annoying, 2) 1 hour battery is too low. I'm thinking of something like 1 bark every 5 minutes give you 5 hour battery time or 2.5, anything, but more time for less bark.
- The message. Some people complain 128 character is too short, I think it's fine, but how about adding barker module allow you to record different message (1 per module) and have an option that either, at each bark the droid use the next message or 1 message at random, because the same message all the time is boring.

I love Icarus-6's ideas. I think it would be great if they actually put something like this into effect. I am not a merchant, and I will usually not go to shops with the AFK shouting spammers. I do however go to merchant tents/buildings where there is a droid /saying their message.

I still think that Icarus-6 has the right idea.

Drogon Ope, Tempest, Coronet
Founder CDD Emporium
Master Artisan, Master Creature Handler