CUEmu - Thread Posts

Azton-Cobalt

Tue Mar 09, 2004 8:53 am

Droid Engineers should have the ability to craft restraining bolts that allow them to rent out droids. A bolted droid would have an optional radial menu item to set it's hourly rate. The bolted droid could then be dropped in a player owned structure and not count against called droids but rather act like a decoration. Other players could come in, examine the droid and it's cost and decide if they want to rent it. DEs could also trade over rental droids by hand.

Players renting droids would have to pay them similar to maintenence like harvesters, with the money going to the DEs bank account. A droid who fees have not been paid would only have 2 options for the player, pay rental fee or return to creator. Rental time would only be subtracted when the droid is out of the datapad, so DEs would want to set the rental rate to a number high enough to make sure that it is cheaper in the long run to just buy a droid.

Even with high hourly rates, there would be a market for rental droids for things like short term hunts, guard duty on harvester runs, player events, and power crafting. With new droid utility on the horizon, there will be even more reasons why players might want access to a droid for a short period of time.

Azton Cobalt - Master Doc / Novice Idea Guy - Kettemoor

Random Idea #2: Player Crafted Racing Parts

TheWoody

Tue Mar 09, 2004 8:54 am

#2

Now that would be cool

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"Never in the field of forum posting has so much bollocks been said to so many by so few"

Pallida

Tue Mar 09, 2004 9:12 am

#3

Interesting concept.. I like it

Unfortunately, I doubt that the Devs will

- Account: Master TKA (cancelled)
- Account: Master Doctor (cancelled)
- Account: Smuggler (cancelled)
- Account: Master Chef (cancelled)
- Account: Master Droid Engineer (activity suspended pending developments)
Total loss of annual revenue (SOE): ~$715US to ~$900US
- Bad press: Priceless
Should Sony and Lucas Arts be worried? (15000 users * 5 accts = ~$13MIL in potential lost gross annual revenue) If I were the CEO for either LA or SOE, I would certainly be worried.

Jenden

Tue Mar 09, 2004 9:23 am

#4

I like the idea, could definately make for some interesting business.

Jenden Morn - Master of Droids- Tarquinas
Droid Engineer Blue Glowy
Owner, Operator, and Founder of DarkStar Inc.
Groupy of the best band in the galaxy, Solar Flair
3D art of Jenden by Saeelwenea

TheRealTK421

Tue Mar 09, 2004 9:41 am

#5

This is a great concept but I fear it wouldn't hold up in game.

A few reasons...

Droids aren't exactly super expensive to own. It appears to be easy enough to make money in the game that most people would simply buy the droid.

ROI for the DE that's renting. I'm wondering that, at the rates that could be set, how long it would take for renting a droid to pay off for the DE. If a player spents, say, 2000 to rent the droid for a couple of hours....it would take me (personally) about 15 of those rentals to equal a single 30k sale on a Probot. Not cost effective, to either party, if you ask me.

This could take monies and business from lower-level DEs. People would just rent from a Master DE instead of looking into buying a lower priced droid from a 1/1/1/1 DE or some such. Part of what's "borked" about DE is how lower and mid-level DEs are able to get and keep business.

It is worthwhile to explore this more....I just see a lot of issues in having it be a practical addition to the game.

/bow

Respectfully,

TheRealTK421 a.k.a. "Doughbacca"

SWG DE Correspondent

Co-Founding member of Ahazi DENet & SWG DEA (Droid Engineer Association)

"I think all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. ...I'm certainly not. And I'm sick and tired of being told that I am."

Azton-Cobalt

Tue Mar 09, 2004 10:26 am

#6

Good points TheRealTK421 and I agree that droids are not super expensive to own at the moment. After the DE changes I guess it will depend on the new functionality and how much it takes to make the new modules. Some of the great utility ideas I've seen suggested in the DE forums, like Binary load lifters for house movement seem like something that you would ONLY want to rent.

In your rental Vs sales example the difference is that after the 2 or so hours you would get back all of your rental droids. So a single 30K probot sale would be similar to renting 1 probot for 2 hours to 15 different players. But then you could just rent it again the next week.

Lower level DEs are always going to be at a disadvantage because of lesser quality droids not just price. So if a master is renting a crafting droid lower than an novice sells one for, the novice will also have to rent out his version to remain competitive. I'd imagine just like droid costs, droid rental fees would stabalize across all skill levels with only a few gougers above and a few undercutters below.

Azton Cobalt - Master Doc / Novice Idea Guy - Kettemoor

Random Idea #2: Player Crafted Racing Parts

Droid Engineer Archive

Thread: Rental Droids