Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: Project: Droid Engineer Modular Upgrade System Synopsis
Jagged-F3l
Tue Nov 30, 2004 1:12 am
#92
AudioOrgana wrote:
Jagged-F3l wrote:
I was not trying to "tear down" anyone's arguments. In fact, I was not aware that this was an argument. I viewed this thread as more of a focus thread that folks could contribute to in a positive way.
That may not be your intent, but that was exactly what you did. You said "I don't want to discuss the pros because they are obvious", which as I pointed out they are not, and then you preceded to take every single pro on Drashk's list and either attempted to dismiss the concern (even if you said you could see it), and the others you said weren't an issue.
In addition, I am not looking at this through a shipwright's eyes, but more from the perspective of my customers. For example, I hadmany customer who have bought astromech droids with a low certification level of '2' come back and ask me if it was possible to upgrade the droid that they had previously purchased. As another example, I have had other customers ask if they could upgrade droids they already had to serve as astromech droids. This isn't just a question of being "cool", it's the way that complex machinery works in real life. I can buy a PC with one hard drive and go out later and add another, and perhaps a DVD writer--but I don't have buy a whole new PC.
To begin with, "real life" has nothing to do with this. That goes under the "cool" category. Yes, it's "cool" when things reflect reality like that, however not at the expense of gameplay. You mentioned shipwright many times in your message, so forgive me for thinking a lot of your opinion comes from your experience in that profession.
As to customer want, yes, customers would love to have to buy less droids, and to not have to buy a new droid to upgrade. They'd also love it if when they got to Novice Rifleman if the WS could "upgrade" their DLT20 to a T21, or if their disabled vehicles could just be repaired instead of replaced. That doesn't make it something that should happen.
Again, you have given no convincing argument as to why it should happen, other than YOUR customers, who are buying JTL droids in your shipwright shop,would prefer to get droids cheaper, or it would be cool to imitate how a PC works in real life. Can't you see how selling one module as opposed to a whole droid is bad for our profession? Perhaps when you spend more time as a DE you will understand how vital these repeat sales are, because right now repeat sales are far and few between for most of our products.
You have no idea what a blessing it is right now that we are seeing such sales of the JTL equipment - admittedly the only reason you became a DE (so you could corner the market in "one stop shopping" as you say). Well, many of us are hard working DE's who have stuck by this profession since before JTL even had a name - back when item storage didn't even work, when all we had to sell was crafting and medical droids. As one of them, I see no possible way this could benefit us - except for course people like yourself who have chosen DE as profession of the week, or as an add-on to your existing profession, and don't want to be bothered to construct a whole droid, or even care that this would hurt the core of our profession. You are concerned about shipwright sales - not DE sales - which is valid as a choice, but it doesn't give you a ton of credit when you attempt to predict the impact on our profession gutting our droids like this would have.
Droids will never be as operationally complex as a Starship, nor would I want them to be. I'm sure some DE is sitting out there with fantasies of making custom motors to make droids run faster/slower, or other trivial things, but minutiae of this type is just...useless. I mean, yeah, it would be cool (in some ways) for those people that just like to tinker with droids, but overall it would be an exersise in tedium with no tangible benefit. It took them an entire game publish to rewrite the code for combat droid stats - even if this was desirable it's not even feasable. And contrary to what you say, this *IS* an essential issue that we must take into consideration in all SWG discussion - effort vs. benefit. It doesn't work that way around here - unless we can convince "them" that it's feasable, they won't even look at the design.
Hmmm...I don't recall asking for this. All I'm asking for is the ability to insert new modules, remove old ones. Nothing nearly as complex as ships.
Exactly, but it's because ships are so complex that they require a module system. There is no reason to upgrade a droid very often unless you advance up a skill tree or change professions. Ships are an entirely different beast, and in many ways the search for the "best" components doesn't even begin until you hit Master. It's a mini-game. There is no need for such a mini-game in the droid market, because there are not the thousands of variations in need like there is for ships. It would be a waste to implement such a system on droids, and again, the biggest reason of all - it would decrease our repeat sales dramatically. Customers may like having to buy less from us, but we've been fighting for a year and a half to get things for people to buy - and taking away our major revenue stream would invalidate all the work we've done to come as far as we have.
AO
AudioOrgana, you are most entirely entitled to your opinion, and I can most certainly respect the fact that you have been a DE as long as you have. First, from where I'm sitting, you're the one tearing down everyone's arguments, opinions, and views. You very much present a "my way or the highway" attitude, and it's people like you that keep alot of people from interacting with forums like this. Second, let's try to remember that this is game; that is, lighten up a little.
OkanoDroids
Tue Nov 30, 2004 2:30 am
#93
Thumbs down to this idea. Like the lengthened customization and droid battery life, it has some nice 'pros' for the non-de, but no 'pros' for the DE. It even takes away part of what we do as Droid Engineers/Droid Designersand hands it over to non-DEs... We become component makers...woohoo
If this idea were implemented,price wars would take over theDE industry...especially if Master DEs were competing with Novice DEs over common marketshare. Bad.
Is this same type of action being considered for other crafting professions, like Armorsmith and/or Weaponsmith? How would it affect anAS or WS? Maybe the same way...? Yeah, if Armor and Weapons cease to decay. I'd love to have a rifle or chestplate that never decays, and has components that can be swapped out at anytime. "Oooo...looted some Krayt tissues. I think I'll upgrade my immortal rifle..." You could buy one weapon...and that's it. Not good.
AudioOrgana
Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:39 am
#94
Gron_DM wrote:
i understand the free checkers argument, given that the combat system is getting an overhaul now is the time for us to press for functions to be a larger part of SWG. and right now i want to see the focus time devs do for DEs to cover both new mods and decay....however i do not think modularity will hurt business i think it would increase it when in concet with good mods and decay. my prime view on how it would help is that there is so many modules currently players dont know about to add more would make it tougher for ppl to get educated on them. modularity flexability would increase our sales as ppl could then get droids made the way the need them after there trail and error phase. you underestimate ppls dislike of droid trial and error, i lose any kind of repeat business for droids as ppl dont get a chance to earn all the functions and after they do its to much of a hassle to get a droid made to spec, modularity makes droid use so convient it would increase sales.
Well, I guess that is where we disagree. First, we just had two publishes and an entire sub-system of JTL designed around us and our products - I just don't see them getting to all of this terribly soon. Maybe some new mods, or maybe if we are super-lucky, Decay, but we won't get a massive overhaul (which any of this would require) for quite some time.
As to functions, yes, again, new functions will hopefully come, but when we had our publishes it was made VERY clear to us how far they were willing to go. That may be a battle you'd like to fight out with them, and I'd support it, but many of us crusty oldies have been there, done that, and have accepted the limitations that exist. Please, hold out that dream - but don't use it as a reason to support a paradigm change that the whole profession rests on.
Finally, I just don't agree that lack of education is a reason to rewrite a system that will financially ruin us. Why don't your customers know about all the droid types? Don't you have catalogs and "help files" that you email to people listing everything that's available, what it does, etc.? If you haven't - you really should. It's not THAT complicated, really it's not. If they change their mind after purchase, well, that's how it works - buying a droid should be a considered thing, not something done willy-nilly.
You say this could be good if coupled with decay and "good modules" - well, that "good modules" thing, again, bothers me. Is this an implication that we have none now? If you are waiting for something spectacularly better than what we already have, again, I'm afraid you are going to be disapointed. If my some miracle it does happen, the point I'm trying to get across is that it won't if they are AGAIN redesigning the module system of droids (done just over a half a year ago), much less put decay in.
I'm just repeating myself here - but again, I see no benefit we would get besides being lazier, the "cool factor", or how much people would love to spend less on our products. It's just not enough to me to justify gutting the entire profession and all of our products with it.
Get these better modules, get decay in...and then come back and talk about this. No one can tell us how it will make our profession better (making you have less to educate the customer on isn't making the profession better, it's making your time in it easier), and virtually everyone who attempts to support it relies on the "make DE's more useful" and "decay" at the same time to say why it would be better. That's all speculation based on development we don't even know we have yet. Further, you can't detail how this would work and somehow enrich us if we got those better modules and decay, because if we did get them we have no idea how it would be practically implemented.
AO
Rihtan
Tue Nov 30, 2004 9:29 am
#95
AudioOrgana wrote:To really break it down :
Time Spent on Rebuilding (AGAIN) How Droid Modules Work = Less Time (or no time) Spent On New Droid Features
This is just my opinion but everytime I've see a redesign project in the early phase start worring about Dev time that project died a horrible and costly death or produced a patch that was worse than the original problem.
I want new modules at least as much as you do but lets design the system we want to play and let the devs worry about when and how it gets done. It may take two years but we'll all be happier in the end.Modularity by it's very nature = less finished droids being sold and our modules being commodified
So? I may sell less finished droids but I believe I will sell a lot more modules at better prices. BTW - I'm for the only DE can can swap modules option. It lets big guys run out bunches of modules and then the little guys can be the techs that swap them out.Again, no one has made any sort of pro-argument aside from cheap players and "cool" factor -
1. The system would provide a much better system for adding new modules, supporting a decay system, and maintaining existing modules.
2. People would get better use out of their droids. They could mix and match till they had what they wanted. Further as their character changes their droid could change with them.
3. The system would make more sense and have a more Star Wars feel. Did Luke ever ditch R2 for a newer model? And that R2 worked for his father.
4. I would like move customer interaction from "What use is it?" to "What can I make it do?". And then Let Them Try It Out.
5. It allows novice DEs to have more to do. The system would not prevent big industralists from continuing their big droid runs but would allow smaller handcrafters and novices to play a droid technician game.
6. If components were destroyed when they were removed it would add another resource drain to the game.
7. And my favorite reason. Its COOL!!! There is no better reason than that.
Quite frankly I feel that the DE profession is broke and that modularity combined with a good decay process was our best course of action to really fix things.
Then I saw Drashk's "Project: Droid Engineer - Droid Model Redesign".
I like it better as a first step but its going to take me days to work though the possible details.
AudioOrgana
Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:28 am
#96
Rihtan wrote:
1. The system would provide a much better system for adding new modules, supporting a decay system, and maintaining existing modules.
2. People would get better use out of their droids. They could mix and match till they had what they wanted. Further as their character changes their droid could change with them.
3. The system would make more sense and have a more Star Wars feel. Did Luke ever ditch R2 for a newer model? And that R2 worked for his father.
4. I would like move customer interaction from "What use is it?" to "What can I make it do?". And then Let Them Try It Out.
5. It allows novice DEs to have more to do. The system would not prevent big industralists from continuing their big droid runs but would allow smaller handcrafters and novices to play a droid technician game.
6. If components were destroyed when they were removed it would add another resource drain to the game.
7. And my favorite reason. Its COOL!!! There is no better reason than that.
Quite frankly I feel that the DE profession is broke and that modularity combined with a good decay process was our best course of action to really fix things.
Then I saw Drashk's "Project: Droid Engineer - Droid Model Redesign".
I like it better as a first step but its going to take me days to work though the possible details.
1. How will it do this? Are you aware that earlier this year they already wrote a brand new system for module use? That they've already done the "under the hood" work, even though the larger playerbase never noticed? How will it make those things easier? Explain, because I don't get it.
2. Yes, they could mix and match and play with droids all day - on one chassis sale. And, yep, you are right - when they change professions no need to buy a new droid, just flip out some modules. HOW IS THIS GOOD? I also think customers would love it if Doctors just made buff packs and you could apply them yourself - but I don't think that would be good for the game. How is this good?
3. "Star Wars" argument = "cool", which we've already established is not a reason to rework the entire paradigm our profession rests upon.
4. You can have all the interaction you want now - and it's up to you as a DE to keep yourself educated, and to educate your customers, as to how to best fill their needs. You shouldn't need "trial and error", you should step up as a DE and learn how to best serve them. As I said before, lack of education, on anyones part, is not enough to change how an entire profession works.
5. I don't think you could say that yet, as you are assuming too much about how such a system would be implemented. It may require a DE, it may not. What I think you might not see is that this would drive hand-crafters out of business. Why? Because the big gate to Industrial droid production is lack of modularity. In some ways, as an Industrialist, I should be cheering this. What's the one thing a handcrafter has over me? They can make an item storage/starship craft/droid repair/three combat module R3 and I can't (or I could, it's just not practical). Go read some of my earlier posts in this thread for an analysis of the business model it would create.
6. Throwing out modules would be a tiny resource drain compared to now, where they have to throw the whole droid away. See, this is the argument about money as well - yes, we'd make money selling individual modules, but we'd make much more money selling the whole package. Especially if decay was implemented.
7. Again, it would be cool. So what? That's what this all boils down to. And I think you will find the vast majority of DE's, even if they agree it would be cool, can see past the surface and see how this would take away what little power in the game we have managed to gain. It wouldn't make our profession better, it would make things more convenient for DE's who don't want to learn the profession enough to be able to configure a droid properly for whatever profession and be fun to tinker with. It would also decimate our price model, forcing us to sell modules as commodities.
It's NOT a good thing for people to have to buy less droids. Period. How can anyone think otherwise?
AO
Sodan-droiddreamer
Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:35 am
#97
AudioOrgana wrote:
Rihtan wrote:
1. The system would provide a much better system for adding new modules, supporting a decay system, and maintaining existing modules.
2. People would get better use out of their droids. They could mix and match till they had what they wanted. Further as their character changes their droid could change with them.
3. The system would make more sense and have a more Star Wars feel. Did Luke ever ditch R2 for a newer model? And that R2 worked for his father.
4. I would like move customer interaction from "What use is it?" to "What can I make it do?". And then Let Them Try It Out.
5. It allows novice DEs to have more to do. The system would not prevent big industralists from continuing their big droid runs but would allow smaller handcrafters and novices to play a droid technician game.
6. If components were destroyed when they were removed it would add another resource drain to the game.
7. And my favorite reason. Its COOL!!! There is no better reason than that.
Quite frankly I feel that the DE profession is broke and that modularity combined with a good decay process was our best course of action to really fix things.
Then I saw Drashk's "Project: Droid Engineer - Droid Model Redesign".
I like it better as a first step but its going to take me days to work though the possible details.
1. How will it do this? Are you aware that earlier this year they already wrote a brand new system for module use? That they've already done the "under the hood" work, even though the larger playerbase never noticed? How will it make those things easier? Explain, because I don't get it.
2. Yes, they could mix and match and play with droids all day - on one chassis sale. And, yep, you are right - when they change professions no need to buy a new droid, just flip out some modules. HOW IS THIS GOOD? I also think customers would love it if Doctors just made buff packs and you could apply them yourself - but I don't think that would be good for the game. How is this good?
3. "Star Wars" argument = "cool", which we've already established is not a reason to rework the entire paradigm our profession rests upon.
4. You can have all the interaction you want now - and it's up to you as a DE to keep yourself educated, and to educate your customers, as to how to best fill their needs. You shouldn't need "trial and error", you should step up as a DE and learn how to best serve them. As I said before, lack of education, on anyones part, is not enough to change how an entire profession works.
5. I don't think you could say that yet, as you are assuming too much about how such a system would be implemented. It may require a DE, it may not. What I think you might not see is that this would drive hand-crafters out of business. Why? Because the big gate to Industrial droid production is lack of modularity. In some ways, as an Industrialist, I should be cheering this. What's the one thing a handcrafter has over me? They can make an item storage/starship craft/droid repair/three combat module R3 and I can't (or I could, it's just not practical). Go read some of my earlier posts in this thread for an analysis of the business model it would create.
6. Throwing out modules would be a tiny resource drain compared to now, where they have to throw the whole droid away. See, this is the argument about money as well - yes, we'd make money selling individual modules, but we'd make much more money selling the whole package. Especially if decay was implemented.
7. Again, it would be cool. So what? That's what this all boils down to. And I think you will find the vast majority of DE's, even if they agree it would be cool, can see past the surface and see how this would take away what little power in the game we have managed to gain. It wouldn't make our profession better, it would make things more convenient for DE's who don't want to learn the profession enough to be able to configure a droid properly for whatever profession and be fun to tinker with. It would also decimate our price model, forcing us to sell modules as commodities.
It's NOT a good thing for people to have to buy less droids. Period. How can anyone think otherwise?
AO
Agree. It is a well-written proposal, but not one that is needed. It will lead to underselling of all components and lowering pf prices. It will lead to less sales in general. Replacement costs to get a new droid 20-60k are something players can afford and will pay.
This is a waste fo developer time. We need them to add new features, functions, droids to the profession, not re-work the profession and leave us where we are at today.
Rihtan
Tue Nov 30, 2004 2:03 pm
#98
AO,
I think its safe to lead this off with the observation that we're not going to convince the other as we seem to be coming at this from totally different positions.
1. I am aware of the work you talk about. I've been in SWG as a DE since last Nov. It made things much better but there is still room for improvement. Breaking the modules apart from the finished droids will allow the Devs to modify them on the fly without having legacy droids. This process would by demand leave us with a framework that would make it easier to add new modules. This would also make it possible to make each module decay based upon the use it sees.
Con: More database space. Not much but it would exist.
2. Its great. The customer buys a chassis and uses it! Then they come back and I fix some old parts and stick some new parts under the hood. Maybe only the chassis survives and I rebuild their droid. Thats how I've always wanted the profession to be.
3. The "Star Wars" argument is the reason I play this game havent gone off to City of Heros. If that isn't a reason to rework the profession I dont know what is.
4. People change, people like to play with things. The buy a new droid everytime you want to change one little thing is a major turn off to many people. And my major goal is to make droids more appealing and useful for other players.
5. Drive handcrafters out of business? HA! What business? I'm a handcrafter, I dont have time to be an industralist, and I have no business. I sell a droid or two every week but nowhere enough to support myself. Without major time investment few DEs make any money. Adding modules that only DEs could swap would give all us little guys something to do.
6. Sure, assuming people bought and tossed away droids at the same rate as they went through modules. But aside from a few Master Rebel Pilots I cant think of anyone that tosses away droids at that rate. With 5 slots most people can get all their droid needs met without ever needing to toss out a droid. So, what drain?
7. Let me reword this the way I see it. It would make our profession better. It would make our profession more customer friendly and give us more ties to other players. Being able have a DE swap out modules would make droids more appealing to our customers and give them more RP value. And if droids are more appealing we will sell more droids. Wouldn't it be nice for the little DE's to make a few credits by switching old modules for new ones.
And one new one.
8. Raises the possibility of modules with charges. The devs seem a lot more free with the charged items than with the permanents.
I think its safe to lead this off with the observation that we're not going to convince the other as we seem to be coming at this from totally different positions.
1. I am aware of the work you talk about. I've been in SWG as a DE since last Nov. It made things much better but there is still room for improvement. Breaking the modules apart from the finished droids will allow the Devs to modify them on the fly without having legacy droids. This process would by demand leave us with a framework that would make it easier to add new modules. This would also make it possible to make each module decay based upon the use it sees.
Con: More database space. Not much but it would exist.
2. Its great. The customer buys a chassis and uses it! Then they come back and I fix some old parts and stick some new parts under the hood. Maybe only the chassis survives and I rebuild their droid. Thats how I've always wanted the profession to be.
3. The "Star Wars" argument is the reason I play this game havent gone off to City of Heros. If that isn't a reason to rework the profession I dont know what is.
4. People change, people like to play with things. The buy a new droid everytime you want to change one little thing is a major turn off to many people. And my major goal is to make droids more appealing and useful for other players.
5. Drive handcrafters out of business? HA! What business? I'm a handcrafter, I dont have time to be an industralist, and I have no business. I sell a droid or two every week but nowhere enough to support myself. Without major time investment few DEs make any money. Adding modules that only DEs could swap would give all us little guys something to do.
6. Sure, assuming people bought and tossed away droids at the same rate as they went through modules. But aside from a few Master Rebel Pilots I cant think of anyone that tosses away droids at that rate. With 5 slots most people can get all their droid needs met without ever needing to toss out a droid. So, what drain?
7. Let me reword this the way I see it. It would make our profession better. It would make our profession more customer friendly and give us more ties to other players. Being able have a DE swap out modules would make droids more appealing to our customers and give them more RP value. And if droids are more appealing we will sell more droids. Wouldn't it be nice for the little DE's to make a few credits by switching old modules for new ones.
And one new one.
8. Raises the possibility of modules with charges. The devs seem a lot more free with the charged items than with the permanents.
AudioOrgana
Wed Dec 01, 2004 3:25 am
#99
Rihtan wrote:
AO,
I think its safe to lead this off with the observation that we're not going to convince the other as we seem to be coming at this from totally different positions.
1. I am aware of the work you talk about. I've been in SWG as a DE since last Nov. It made things much better but there is still room for improvement. Breaking the modules apart from the finished droids will allow the Devs to modify them on the fly without having legacy droids. This process would by demand leave us with a framework that would make it easier to add new modules. This would also make it possible to make each module decay based upon the use it sees.
Con: More database space. Not much but it would exist.
2. Its great. The customer buys a chassis and uses it! Then they come back and I fix some old parts and stick some new parts under the hood. Maybe only the chassis survives and I rebuild their droid. Thats how I've always wanted the profession to be.
3. The "Star Wars" argument is the reason I play this game havent gone off to City of Heros. If that isn't a reason to rework the profession I dont know what is.
4. People change, people like to play with things. The buy a new droid everytime you want to change one little thing is a major turn off to many people. And my major goal is to make droids more appealing and useful for other players.
5. Drive handcrafters out of business? HA! What business? I'm a handcrafter, I dont have time to be an industralist, and I have no business. I sell a droid or two every week but nowhere enough to support myself. Without major time investment few DEs make any money. Adding modules that only DEs could swap would give all us little guys something to do.
6. Sure, assuming people bought and tossed away droids at the same rate as they went through modules. But aside from a few Master Rebel Pilots I cant think of anyone that tosses away droids at that rate. With 5 slots most people can get all their droid needs met without ever needing to toss out a droid. So, what drain?
7. Let me reword this the way I see it. It would make our profession better. It would make our profession more customer friendly and give us more ties to other players. Being able have a DE swap out modules would make droids more appealing to our customers and give them more RP value. And if droids are more appealing we will sell more droids. Wouldn't it be nice for the little DE's to make a few credits by switching old modules for new ones.
And one new one.
8. Raises the possibility of modules with charges. The devs seem a lot more free with the charged items than with the permanents.
Now that you have outlined your wishes, it is clear that we are coming at this from polar opposite sides. However, the burden of proof is with those who want the change, and I don't think that has been met.
The thing is, though, that your whole argument boils down to roleplaying. This would make it easier for you to roleplay.
That's all nice, but changing the entire paradigm of our profession so you can have an easier time at roleplaying it isn't going to convince the Devs to consider this.
1. I still don't think you grasp this - they already rewrote the framework. You are asking them to do it again. Perhaps you aren't very familiar with MMO development, but "no chance in hell" springs to mind at getting that accomplished again without it putting literally years between us and other new developments. And I disagree it would make it "easier" for them - neither of us can make a claim either way on that one, it's simply speculation.
2. You've made it clear you are not business person, that you only sell a droid or two a week. I'm sorry, but your wanting something to do besides what this profession is designed for is not a reason to tear it apart. This profession was designed to build and sell droids, just like WS was designed to build and sell weapons. You want a mini-game that sounds an awful lot like Starship Engineering, which by DESIGN is different because the product is large and important enough on it's own to be modular. What you fail to realize is that adding this mini-game to DE, with products and a sales model that were not designed for it, would ruin what the profession has worked so hard to accomplish.
3. I don't know how to explain this to you. It's just not. Adding enrichment on top of something is one thing, but gutting it apart as you would have them do is quite another. I'm all for adding Star-Warsy things to droids : I'd love to see Droids slicing terminals/locks, it would be so cool if droids could toss your weapon at you as you go into battle, and man, how much would I like to actually see R2 dashing around my MP ship fixing things. Those are neat, Star-Warsy things, that wouldn't come at the expense of the rest of the profession for the negligible value of "isn't it cool how we can upgrade droids like a computer".
4. People also don't want to mess around with having to find a live crafter every time they want something. Sure, again, role players or cheap players will like it, but no one who doesn't need a droid now is going to need one then. This would only make it cheaper for the people who already do. No Doctor has ever said, "Oh, I can't buy a med droid because I can't change the module later if I decide to drop Doctor." It's just like many of us said in the P
E chassis thread - when customization kits went from 20 uses to 200 uses and then (for god knows why) 2000 uses. Do you know what happened? The people that already bought them bought less of them. That's it, in a nutshell. Making droids modular will not bring us new customers. New modules in general will get us new customers.5. Well, that speaks for itself. Why should you, as someone who admittedly doesn't participate very fully in the profession, dictate the design to fit you? You can't say the same about me, because I play the game as designed - as a business. Handcrafter or industrialist, this game is designed for crafting commerce. You are a "little guy" by choice, and I don't see how we should redesign the whole profession because you choose not to play it to it's fullest potential.
6. OK, one more time. It doesn't matter if the droid is actually destroyed or if it "lives" in a datapad - the point is WE GET THE SALE. While we can argue about wanting sales or not, blah blah, play styles, blah blah, the fact of the matter is the goal of a crafting profession by design in a player driven economy is to sell or otherwise provide product to players. Now, no matter if you believe in selling your droids at below-cost or charging 500CPU, it doesn't matter - the goal is still to move droids into the hands of players; it doesn't matter if it's for altruistic or capitalistic reasons. This change would mean less droids would exchange hands, which is bad for the profession. You can argue that you wouldn't see the effects of it, but that doesn't invalidate it for the majority of us who are trying to make a living crafting.
7. Again, this won't sell more people on droids - read above - not that you care, right? You said you don't have a business, it doesn't matter to you. And, again, RP isn't a reason to change the game design in such an extreme manner.
8. This could be accomplished by "power-ups" simmilar to weapons. It doesn't need this system.
What it all seems to boil down to is this : while some of these reasons would be valid if they were SUPPORTING a real argument for this change, but they are NOT reasons in and of themselves. There is no base reasoning for this to be done, it's all "gee, wouldn't that be neat". Any experienced business person can tell you exactly what would happen - our modules would be commodified, and those of us who industrial craft will flood the market with high-value modules made from my millions of units in rare resources stocked away, and you "little guys" will build the chassis to hold my modules. You'll save me the bother of having to make chassis (which are the most complicated thing to industrial produce - you need at least three factories to do it right (I use six). I could cut back to two factories, run one for supplies and one for modules, and make as many millions as I am now. I am gated and can only make runs of 120ish R3 droids at a time. I can make a thousand modules at a time with much less work.
To you, I'm sure that sounds great. But to most DE's, it won't be. Mark my word, this is what would happen. "Common" modules, like level 6 med, item, and data, would be bazaar fodder. Lower level DE's will just buy them off the bazaar, making the level 1-5 even more useless than they already are. Might as well remove 'em from the skill tree, put everything at Master, and just make the trees a blank grind. Most people aren't going to be wanting to put my modules in their droids, so what happens? Novice DE's spring up, or guilds use their alts, and they buy the expensive modules from me, the chassis from you, and put the thing together themselves or pay that guy spamming at the Starport saying "5K +1K/module to assemble droid! you get parts off bazaar first!".
While business may not be a concern for you, it is for the game, and eventually would trickle down to you as well. I think you've made it crystal clear - if you want to have fun role playing then you should support modularity. If you care about the DE economy, the value of our products, and want the future development time on our profession spent on enhancing and not rehashing by gutting the one thing that keeps us powerful as DE's, then you shouldn't. Once you loose control of the crafting process you become the victim of MMO economics and forced commodification - our power lies in the fact that we control and configure our own droids. Unless some provision is made for only allowing a DE to change modules on their own droid, this is going to happen; if such a provision was made, it really wouldn't make any sense at all to spent the enormous amount of time to do this in the first place. Except to someone who just wants help "roleplaying", which should be able to be done without any game systems besides chat at all.
AO
TheRealTK421
Wed Dec 01, 2004 3:21 pm
#101
AO's position on this is correct.
Rihtan wrote:
I think its safe to lead this off with the observation that we're not going to convince the other as we seem to be coming at this from totally different positions.
You'd be wise to heed the comments AO made to you in reply.
It sounds nice/cool on paper but this would be a bad thing for DE business (very, very bad....in fact).
Right now, people have to buy a cow to get the milk. If we made this change, you'd see what amount to a ton of DE 'milk' vendors...and very VERY few that either wanted or sold the 'cow'.
/bow
Respectfully,
Gron_DM
Thu Dec 02, 2004 11:02 am
#102
well ill agreee to disagree then, i dont see this being a financel ruin that youand tk see,i do see it being a system that will be years off in adding if they ever would decide to. i certainly hope that they add more content in for droids given that we arent really a necessary component to swg play. i do educate mycustomers on what droids can do, does that help the fact they ussually end up having to buy many droids toget what they want? no, in the end if they decide to use droids most users will have to go thru many beforefinding the exact mix and match ofmods they need, that process some ppl have no patience for. lastly i am a crusty oldy(registered beforeyou there AO
AudioOrgana wrote:
Gron_DM wrote:
i understand the free checkers argument, given that the combat system is getting an overhaul now is the time for us to press for functions to be a larger part of SWG. and right now i want to see the focus time devs do for DEs to cover both new mods and decay....however i do not think modularity will hurt business i think it would increase it when in concet with good mods and decay. my prime view on how it would help is that there is so many modules currently players dont know about to add more would make it tougher for ppl to get educated on them. modularity flexability would increase our sales as ppl could then get droids made the way the need them after there trail and error phase. you underestimate ppls dislike of droid trial and error, i lose any kind of repeat business for droids as ppl dont get a chance to earn all the functions and after they do its to much of a hassle to get a droid made to spec, modularity makes droid use so convient it would increase sales.
Well, I guess that is where we disagree. First, we just had two publishes and an entire sub-system of JTL designed around us and our products - I just don't see them getting to all of this terribly soon. Maybe some new mods, or maybe if we are super-lucky, Decay, but we won't get a massive overhaul (which any of this would require) for quite some time.
As to functions, yes, again, new functions will hopefully come, but when we had our publishes it was made VERY clear to us how far they were willing to go. That may be a battle you'd like to fight out with them, and I'd support it, but many of us crusty oldies have been there, done that, and have accepted the limitations that exist. Please, hold out that dream - but don't use it as a reason to support a paradigm change that the whole profession rests on.
Finally, I just don't agree that lack of education is a reason to rewrite a system that will financially ruin us. Why don't your customers know about all the droid types? Don't you have catalogs and "help files" that you email to people listing everything that's available, what it does, etc.? If you haven't - you really should. It's not THAT complicated, really it's not. If they change their mind after purchase, well, that's how it works - buying a droid should be a considered thing, not something done willy-nilly.
You say this could be good if coupled with decay and "good modules" - well, that "good modules" thing, again, bothers me. Is this an implication that we have none now? If you are waiting for something spectacularly better than what we already have, again, I'm afraid you are going to be disapointed. If my some miracle it does happen, the point I'm trying to get across is that it won't if they are AGAIN redesigning the module system of droids (done just over a half a year ago), much less put decay in.
I'm just repeating myself here - but again, I see no benefit we would get besides being lazier, the "cool factor", or how much people would love to spend less on our products. It's just not enough to me to justify gutting the entire profession and all of our products with it.
Get these better modules, get decay in...and then come back and talk about this. No one can tell us how it will make our profession better (making you have less to educate the customer on isn't making the profession better, it's making your time in it easier), and virtually everyone who attempts to support it relies on the "make DE's more useful" and "decay" at the same time to say why it would be better. That's all speculation based on development we don't even know we have yet. Further, you can't detail how this would work and somehow enrich us if we got those better modules and decay, because if we did get them we have no idea how it would be practically implemented.
AO
)and with CU and eventually DH/DC i see more functions/models being added, now is the time to press for advocation of being brought into that combat support equation.
Gron_DM
Thu Dec 02, 2004 5:48 pm
#103
Straker_Atrella wrote:
Gron,
Did you read my earlier thread where I demonstrated exactly how much money I would have lost from one customer if this was implemented?
Not in theory, from hard numbers of what one customer bought from me.
It would be bad finiancially.
apples and oranges, easier and more fun to use droids = more sales
your saying that more sales will only break even? its a matter of design
at this point its all theoretical even your example, if the design is well made it could easly net us more creds-imho
i respect all the people that have had this discussion with me but its obvious we arent going to agree on this.
i hope to see new mods added, and then then we can sit down and look this idea over with some merit 
in the mean time this decay writeup looks nice drashk seems very confident well get the green light on it.
if in addition to CU we can get something to make us part of the swg combat scene ill be estatic if not decay would be great.
Straker_Atrella
Fri Dec 03, 2004 1:15 am
#104
Gron,
Did you read my earlier thread where I demonstrated exactly how much money I would have lost from one customer if this was implemented?
Not in theory, from hard numbers of what one customer bought from me.
It would be bad finiancially.