Droid Engineer Archive

Thread: For New and Prospective DE's

Nyght
Thu Feb 05, 2004 4:27 pm
#1

I've been getting a lot of DE profession 'opportunity' related questions

in game, as I am sure many of you have. This thread is intended for to

bring new and prospective DE's up to date:


The pitch:


JustG, 11/25/03: "I will tell you this, Droids (and DE's) are going to be

the MAIN feature for the January publish. We will be fixing alot of

things and adding combat droids. Yes, talk is cheap."

---------------
In Development 2: Droid Invasion (Editor: not dated, but early January if I

remember correctly)

Welcome to Star Wars Galaxies second In Development overview. During the

first 3 months of 2004, there will be many upcoming game features up for

addition and design changes. The second will be a set of changes made to

the game world that will add combat functionality to Droids.

There are two parts to the "Droid Invasion". The first component is the

adding of combat functionality to droids with "combat modules" that can

be crafted by Droid Engineers. The second component will be a

reiteration of the Droid Engineer profession. In Development ideas will

be considered for the month of January and planned for implementation in

Late February. Points of focus will be:

Droid Combat Functionality

New Combat Droid Models
Combat Module ideas and basic rules for combat modules for all droids
Things to Consider

The role of combat droids in MMO combat and
The repair of combat droids and the crafting of repair kits
Droid combat and owner's Faction modifiers
Droid Engineer Revamp

The Droid Engineer profession will be reiterated as much as possible with

a focus on combat droids. Many of the existing profession issues are In

Production and will be In Test In January.
----------------

Editors comments: [It was certain good to know that "existing profession

issues" were already in production!]


More quotes:


Thunderheart, 1/22/04: "The first two passes of the droid invasion is

going to happen in Publish 7 and Publish 8. In Publish 7, everyone gets

combat droids by giving all the existing droids access to Combat Modules.

These combat modules are like any other modules and will give droids

combat abilities up to level 10. In Publish 8, some type of droid

mastery will be added for the purpose of giving players the option to

handle new combat droid models.

The fact is that is that the Droid Invasion was well underway by the time

the current development cycle was put in place and the high level goals

of getting droids in game for everyone is most important. This helps the

droid engineer economy and makes the game space feel more “star warsy”.

The second part of the Droid Invasion has to deal with who handles high

powered droids, how high powered they actually are and the manner in

which players make character development choices."


Thunderheart, 1/31/04:"The trick is that there will be NO modules that

'add bonuses' or enhance abilities. If the devs did that then we're

getting back into the "extra checker" scenario. Further more, players

can stack modules and start getting really unfair bonuses.

In essence though, there are a lot of profession specific modules that

can be offered. Implementing them in the game will be tough though..."


Thunderheart, 2/3/04: "Yes. It was a long and hard decision and the team

was divided. No Droid Commander at this time. We are going to focus on

utility modules and Droid Engineer Issues. Combat Droids will be added

at some later date."

Runesabre, 2/3/04: "It is my opinion that a new profession should be a

unique, interesting addition to the game that is not merely a copy or

derivative of an existing class. There are already too many professions

in SWG that are similar with each other; I did not want to add to that

problem. The Droid Commander profession would have needed a lot more

development time than I had to spend in the schedule to ensure it was not

simply a "metallic CH" profession. Finally, as mentioned before, it is

my goal to ensure that all existing professions have their own unique,

viable identity in SWG before thinking about adding new professions to

the game"


JustG, 2/4/04: "So while Droids are not the MAIN focus, we are addressing

some of the DE issues. In the next two publishes, after crackdown, we ARE

focussing specifically on Droids. We plan on implementing combat droids

(< level 10) in P7, and Utility Droids in P8."


Editors comments: [Is there a good reason to believe this? What happens

if bugs come up or priorities change again?

What is clear is that Gary still doesn't understand enough to couch his

language in terms of less certainty. This is a process that he is not

entirely in control of and therefore, cannot reasonably make the promises

he just made. (Yep, he did it again!) I guess we are supposed to rest our

outlook upon the word "plan".]


That brings us to today:


Thunderheart, 2/5/04: "I agree. The idea of Droid certifciations was

very popular. Certs arent enough to balance out the really powerful

combat droids, but Im thinking we might be able to get some interesting

functionality by giving profession certs to utility droids. I've raised

that possibility and we might be able to do that."


Editors comments: [So now they are thinking of certing the only products

that we currently or will have? Yeah! What a giant leap forward that

would be!]


And finally, a reflection on the future:


Runesabre, Letter to the Community: "Theme: Each Live Publish, starting

with the publish that's about to go onto Test Center (sometimes referred

to as Publish 6 or the Imperial Crackdown publish) in a few days, will

have a theme which some of the publish's features will support."


Editors comments: [Anyone wanna take bets on the title of the next publish?

Are you afraid? YOU WILL BE.]



-------------------------------------------------
Smuggler revamp or bust!

(There's an old sig for ya!)
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