Droid Engineer Archive

Here is my post to the devs. As you can see I am a little upset. If I "disappear" in the night and you have a new correspondent, this will be why

I would like an explanation. The real reason that DEs got borked up again (and cant even make a **edit** droid!) that at least shows me you guys are willing to friggin talk to me and keep me in the loop (which I dont feel like yet!)

<rant>

So just how borked IS your testing department? look -- I know you guys love your job, and I know NO ONE writes bugs on purpose ... You guys have done an OUTSTANDING job on the game. And I understand how bugs can be introduced into your code base -- I have bugs in my code as well sometimes. BUT .. my company has a testing process in place that catches 99.99% of the bugs before we push to release. Although we are an international software company, we have no where near the resources I am sure you guys have. AND if a bug is found we DONT continue on with a patch push .. why do you guys do this?

So please ... someone .. tell me what is going on? Do you really think that being able to color your droid (which doesnt work 100%), make seeker droids for bounty hunters and make mouse droids that can hold ANY module (so why make any other frame?) are enough to keep us going?

Your combat classes are a corner stone of the GCW -- your DEs are a cornerstone of the whole friggin universe! Thats what sets Star Wars apart from other science fiction genres in my opinion. Droids droids droids. Instead we have Creatures creatures creatures (which you all admit is not to your liking) .. but you know what? Instead of fixing DEs our DEV is working on Creature Mounts that will only benefit Creature Handlers sales more.

GO TO MY BOARDS! I am echoing what nearly EVERY DE in this game is saying. Dont reply directly to me. TALK TO MY PEOPLE! I am tired of trying to pacify them .. they are probably starting to think that I am full of **edit**.

</rant off>

For what its worth there ya go. I need another vacation.

Wow, thanks for your continued support Sintrosi. I would have said continued patience, but that has already gone out the window for most of us.

Sintrosi,

Excellent post.

Let's hope this helps us to get some actual feedback and/or information coming towards us.


I do hope that you'll stay on during this rough patch (pun intended) but I'd understand completely if you decided to disappear.


I guess we might have a new topic to discuss soon...."Who could ever replace Sintrosi?"


P.S. You'd better repost this to the SWG Discussion forum, so the Devs have an actual shot at seeing it.



/bow

Respectfully,

its really sad that its gotten to that point for you Sintrosi, but again you're just reflecting the same things that every other DE out there has been feeling, and more.

Thanks for giving it a whirl and I do hope SOMETHING is done SOON about this really sad, sad, DISGUSTING situation.

Thanks Sintrosi. It's great to see someone telling them what we keep trying to. If the Devs do try and replace you I think they will have one heck of a hard time finding someone here that has anywhere near the patience you do.

Great post....I hope they sincerely listen... here's my story...I just did the grind just to get to Novice DE this weekend, only to find that I can't create Droids at all...I didn't read all the notes on what got screwed up with the patch...thanks a lot SWG! Way to make CH way better than Droids... PO KE MON!!!!

/pats Sintrosi on the back...

I feel your pain....I was a DAoC TL...I know how frustrating it is to scream at the mountain only to be ignored

You've lasted longer than I did....

Well, here's my take on this whole thing...

Either fix our profession or simply delete it from the game altogether...effectively making droids just background scenery, as the non-player droids are now.

I've even had several "combat-type" players tell me outright that droids are worthless. I quote, from a conversation that took place in the Bestine Cantina the other night: "AllF#%$ing droidsamount to are mobile crafting stations...that's it. The different droid types serve no purpose whatsoever...so why should we pay 45k for your sorry-a** protocol droid that does nothing?Get a real profession, like Creature Handler!"

The problem was...I couldn't argue that point with him. For the most part, he was right.

Speaking of useless Protocol Droids, let's take a look at one of our BIGGEST wastes of resources: All playersalready know all languages, so even if protocol droids are given translation abilities...just WHAT languages are they supposed to translate, exactly? Are the devs going to reset the language skills of every player across every server so one of our most useless droids can be given the main purpose it was intended to have? Not likely...

Something tells me that in doing so, it would enrage many players...especially Wookiees and Trandoshans. Of course, our business would be booming...or scores of accounts would get cancelled out of frustration over "screwing with the game".

The whole combat droid issue has been a hot debate between CHs and DEs since the beginning of the game. If any of you have had the chance to visit the planet Lok, you may have been fortunate enough (or not so fortunate enough) to come across real-honest-to-goodness working Droidekas...

These droids are heavy-duty killing machines that would put a hurt on ANY CH-controlled creature...and give their prized Rancors and Krayt Dragons a run for their money.

But everytime the issue of combat droids comes up, CHs automatically start up with outrage over them. Their argument is that a CH has to level up XP in order to control high-level creatures. But a total NOOB with enough cash could simply walk up to a vendor, purchase a Droideka, and walk away just as powerful as the CH who has spent weeks or months earning XP.

BOO HOO...

Kevin O'Hara has already confirmed that CHs are the only ones able to use mounts in the game. He was quoted in an IGN.com interview as saying that "...any Creature Handler with Creature Taming 4 can use a mount." There you go...there's yet again, your new CH toys. Be satisfied with that.

So again...if we aren't going to be redesigned from the ground up, just delete the profession from the game altogether or absorb it into another profession like Architect or something...that way they can make the big bulky crafting stations or a mobile "droid" station.But as it stands, this profession isn't really going anywhere.

Sintrosi, I tend to agree with you. The time for patiently waiting is over. I was pushed over they edge when they fixed the "Able to tame graul maulers again" before they even acknowledged the droid crafting problem. That proves the Devs devote more time to CH than they do us. An entire broken profession, and they fix one creature for CH's. Bleh. Leaves a bad taste in your mouth. As they say, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. It's time for us to stop patiently waiting and at least get a Dev to acknowledge the DE issues and give us some idea of what/when things are going to be fixed.

Yeah this droid situation were in is horrible, we make crap money if we even do at all.

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I say we go for imediate impact, was thinking about not selling droid stuff, but that sure as hell wouldn't work. We should all PM the devs saying "Fix the Droid Engineers", mabey then we can actualy get a response?
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You've got my 110% support!

There are some very, very serious QA problems in there right now. As a developer myself (I run a small contract software shop specialising in large-scale virtual environments) I get that disgusted feel of "game developers". For those of you that aren't programmers, game developers typically don't have a very good reputation to the rest of the software community. Their stereotype reputation is pretty much what you see here - code and run, no testing, no design, just hack code until it "runs on my box, so it must be your fault".

/Cheers Sintrosi

Excellant Post.

Keep up the fight Sintrosi!

Even if the enemy has packed up and gone home.

Sincerely!