Droid Engineer Archive
Thread: We should look on this as an opportunity.
We've been through some hard times over the past few months, but there's one thing I see on these boards that drives me crazy no matter how much I may agree with specific points. We sit around here making statements like, "all they really need to do is small-thing-X and it'd be better than ignoring us." Then they do small-thing-X, and invariably somebody pops up and screams, "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY JUST DID SMALL-THING-X!!! THAT JUST MAKES IT WORSE!!!" It's just another example of why I couldn't do TH's new job, because that would happen to me about twice before I started telling people to f- off.
We've complained that they should keep us informed on the their plans and discussions related to our class, preferably before they are too finalized to be changed. It looks to me like today's proposal was exactly that. Given the state of completeness, it looks like it was presented to us at the early stage we asked for. You can decide that this sucks because you want something NOW, or you can decide that it doesn't suck so much because you've got a chance to start a productive dialog and influence the final design. If we want to be kept in the loop, we've got to be able to take the rough drafts.
Also, TH initially refered to this as "stage one" of enhancements to DE. I infer from this that they are planning other stages. These are just the things they need to do to lay groundwork and get us rolling.
The plan has some of the most important things we asked for, in some form. It's still rough around the edges, but that can be fixed. It has droid combat abilities. It has droid repair. It has multiple active droids at one time. It mentions the possibility of putting droids into a world-persistent "decorative" mode. It lets power droids power structures.
Using that last one as an example, yes, they said the power droid would decay, but they didn't say how fast. Some of you simply assumed that meant they would decay so fast it wouldn't make it worthwhile to use them. What I'm suggesting is that we have the opportunity to argue for a decay rate that does make this feature worthwhile, before they implement it.
We have early access to future directions for out class, a Correspondent willing to fight for us, and a new Assistant Community Dude who wants to get correspondents more involved. We're doing ourselves a favor if we at least try to take advantage of this situation.
Excellent post Kitsunetsuki.
Something that I would like to add is a bit of speculation on my part, but feels correct the more that I think about it. After reading 'The Plan' a few times I am starting to wonder why it took so long for it to be approved today for posting on the forum. For the small-ish amount of content that was posted and from the statements made by Thunderheart and even Sintrosi (in earlier posts) it would seem that there should have been a bit more information passed down the pipe line. I believe that 'The Plan' that we saw unveiled yesterday is actually just the icing on the cake of what is really in-store, but wasn't approved for public release yet.
Let ususe the example of the soon to be released Player Cities and Mounts. One of the main reasons that these two items are being pushed so quickly from TC to Live is because of statements made very early in SWGs release in regards to adding the items. It has taken almost 4 months for something 'promised' at release to be added in its semi-complete form. It would seem that the attitude of 'tell the people what they want to hear' is finally giving way to the realization that the actualDEV programingteam needs to be able to back up what is said by the DEV Public Relations people.
If I'm not mistaken, both Q-3PO and Holo have in the past made comments in regards to droids and the DE profession during various interviews that have prematurely raised the hopes of many DEs and droid owners. I'm under the impression, from the way that the release of 'The Plan' was made, by offering it through Sintrosi,that the DEV team didn't want to include certain content, such as new droid types, until they are certain that they can live up to their own expectations.Since droid changes will effect a lot more people than just DEs anddroids will have an even larger effect once the Space Expansion is released, I believe that the DEVs are just now realizing that they need to be a lot more careful in what they say or do, from here on out, in regards to Droids.
that is a great outlook!
plus it makes sense. i don't care for some of the changes,, but the things that most of us asked for, was to bring out more than one droid... and we have it. the other changes are very nice cosmetic as well.
i just hope they don't forget about the minor fixes (naming humoniod droids, multiple crafting station bugs, purpose for each specialty droid so that a mouse droid isn't able to help healing as much as a surgical droid, and a repair droid repairs, etc... also what on earth is the binary load lifter do?)
i know they must be aware of the small, yet large changes that need to come about, and i have every confidence they will iron out the bugs..
i say bump this post up, hopefully others will read it.
But this is the only real problem I had with the "plan". Its that your interpretation of it IS so vastly different from the majority of the posts I have been reading. You inferred several items from that document that I did not. Now I wouldn't say that you understood it better, I would say that it is way too open to interpretation.
Wild speculation from both sides of the argument, and few real solid conclusions.
Now I agree with you. But I also agree with everyone who is moaning and complaining, if not for the same reasons. I mean, if you go sleeping around, is a rose going to make it okay with your wife? No. They downright romance the Creature Handlers, even when they are basically nerfing them. Then they tell us, "yeah, if we ever get around to it, we will give you guys some stuff that you have been asking for. Maybe.".
The language used when they actually have a real plan is deliberate, concise, and explains fairly well some insight on the game holistically. They obviously leverage whatever resources they have in order to get it done. And they are capable of doing a great many things. It seems obvious to me that they either do not have a real plan for DE, or they have no intention of leveraging resources in order to implement one, for fear of getting it wrong. They used the word "perception" twice, both times when talking about something not working. This is being defensive, and is NOT indicitive of being open to critisism.
So yes, be positive, be open, be optimistic. Maybe it will rub off on everyone else. I am still very cynical and jaded.
I used to be optimistic and hopeful and all of that. I didn't get this way overnight. But I will never fault those who are. Again, I am just trying to explain why I find the "plan" to be so dissapointing.
/Agree We are being heard and looked at which is a big change!
/Netchan..
SinjenRandall wrote:
But this is the only real problem I had with the "plan". Its that your interpretation of it IS so vastly different from the majority of the posts I have been reading. You inferred several items from that document that I did not.
As far as my reaction to The Plan differing from that of many other posts, to start with, I wouldn't say it differs quite as much as you may think. I actually tried to infer very little, so if you have some specific examples of shaky assumptions I made of which I am not aware, then I'd appreciate you pointing them out to me.
The assumption I'm very explicitly not making is that they hate us and want us to be miserable and have no interest in making DE a more viable profession.
I see that my original post got one-starred by some anonymous coward who, I would guess, simply opposed the fact that I didn't respond with the same amount of unproductive venom and spite they want to see. Being productive rather than hateful and adversarial isn't "sucking up." I mean, are you folks like this in real life? If so, one wonders how you ever successfully complete any interaction with another human being.
The developers of this game are soliciting our input to an almost unprecedented degree, and all some of you are doing is demonstrating to them that it's a bad idea to do that. We have a good opportunity here, and all I'm saying is that we should approach it like adults.
I was rushed IRL when posting that reply, and I should have been more clear as to which parts were responding to you directly and which parts were not. My apologies for that.
The part that was directed towards you, and which I'm still wondering, is, what assumptions? I'm not claiming I haven't made any, though I tried to look at the situation as objectively as I could. It's a fairly vague criticism you've made. I think I could defend any assumptions I have made, either objectively or in terms of what's going to best help this profession, but I have to know what I've said that you believe is a poor assumption.
--- END OF SINJEN-SPECIFIC RESPONSE, BEGINNING OF MORE GENERAL RESPONSE ---
I think I've been pretty clear that the DE plan was not everything I was hoping it would be. But on the other hand I am glad to see concrete evidence that they're considering the issues and trying to come up with solutions. Even if the solutions aren't ideal, the attempt itself is progress. I'm willing to go on record as saying I don't particularly like "droid modules" as the sole means of giving droids functionality, and extending that by allowing us to add "combat modules" to droids in the same way that we add "data modules" and so forth today seems less than satisfying. It's not satisfying in that the droid chassis itself is just a decorative touch. There's no significance to building an Advanced Protocol Droid versus an Advanced R5. You shove the same modules into both, and they're both effectively the same droid (ignoring the bugs with conversational droids). It makes the whole profession sort of ring hollow to me.
The whole point of this thread is that one doesn't have to choose between just merrily accepting whatever happens and screaming like a two year old. There is a middle ground. In that middle ground dwell people who get things done and get what they want. Abusing people when they don't do what you want is a surprisingly ineffective means of getting your way, yet it seems to be the only tactic some people around here understand.
We all have the same goal here, to make DE the best profession it can possibly be. We are the ones who can provide the constructive feedback they need to make positive changes. Why some people are so resistant to doing that is beyond me.
Two thumbs up Kitsunetsuki.
If the devs don't post anything, people cry that no one is listening to them, if the devs do post something, people vehemently shred it and fill the forums with hate.
What motivation is there for them to keep an open line of communication? At least when they don't say anything they only get the occassional "You hate us" threads which eventually die. I never seen so much negativity since they actually came out and gave us some info.
There is some usefulness to some of the "I hate this" posts, if they can remain at least a little constructive, in that you can get a pretty good idea of what people don't like about the plan. Unfortunately if no one says "I'd rather see this instead" without the riotous "Redesign the whole game" posts, there are no alternatives except what the devs come up with.
There is no purpose in these posts screaming "Suck, suck, suck" or "I quit"some people come up with.
As you've stated, we have the unprecedented opportunity, that I've never seen with any other profession, to change things we don't think will work, and try to get some features implemented that will actually benefit us - the people that are actually playing the profession.
Otherwise, we get what we get. And we deserve it.