Image Designer Archive

Wow is it ever hilarious to hear people think they can tell these guys anything they didn't think of long ago. Hint: not once has any solution to programming this game been posted on forums. Nor will it. Sorry...just plain facts. I just know one day the SOE guys are gonna see some dippy forum post & be like, "WOW! So THAT'S how we could fix lag in Coronet! Why didn't WE know all this! Quick...write it down! I mean, we DID create the whole game from scratch...but who knew we had so much to learn about our own creation via basic programming ideas gleaned from PC Gamer magazine & forum posts!"

Turning down graphics options is meaningless here anyway. Go to Coronet at say 6 PM. Go offworld. Now crank up the graphics all the way & come back to Coronet starport. LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG. Now do it again, with graphics al the way down. SAME LAAAAAAAAG. This doesn't take much deduction.....every spamming macro, every jerk running in circles, every duel that breaks out, every pet called, and EVERY COMPLEX HARISTYLE, is another drop in the lag bucket. Visual settings don't factor in any meaningful way.

As for the idiotic idea that "disposeable" ID things will somehow FORCE recurring buisiness...WRONG. It mean people do it once or twice..then say SCREW THIS & don't waste time or effort having it done again. It's a one-shot novelty...EXACTLY like vehicle. For 5 minutes, painted vehicles everywhere. After that...same identical stock paint job on every one you see. Even the candles, cool as they are, are a one-trick fad that is already dying off. They're cute but no one is gonna bother with replacing & re-positioning them over...and over...and over.

We need VALUABLE, PERMANENT stuff that people will PAY serious money for. Not MORE crap that just enforces the morons' perception of us as a useless throwaway profession not worth spending real money on.

Can anyone explain why they STILL have the repulsivly over-common comp armor set up so ANYONE can change its look, for free, on a whim, all they want? Only a retard would pretend we had any tiny claim whatsoever to VEHICLE coloring, but worn items are different. We aren't industrial painter nor are we interior designers. We are for altering PERSONAL APPEARANCE.

And hey, if pistoleer is so borked...let's not waste time better spent on ID improvements on it...let's just delete pistoleer. And p i s s on the GCW.

Ninja007 wrote:

Wow is it ever hilarious to hear people think they can tell these guys anything they didn't think of long ago. Hint: not once has any solution to programming this game been posted on forums. Nor will it. Sorry...just plain facts. I just know one day the SOE guys are gonna see some dippy forum post & be like, "WOW! So THAT'S how we could fix lag in Coronet! Why didn't WE know all this! Quick...write it down! I mean, we DID create the whole game from scratch...but who knew we had so much to learn about our own creation via basic programming ideas gleaned from PC Gamer magazine & forum posts!"

Wow, is it ever hilarious to hear people putting others down for trying to be constructive and offer ideas. You know what? I develop web applications. I'd rather like to think I know my technology pretty darned well. I've been doing it for years and have had lots of practice and several collaborations with other developers. But even so, I STILL find myself stumbling upon new ways of doing things that I hadn't thought of before. And if you've ever spent any time in any kind of programming job, you'd know that two things happen: it's very easy to get stuck on an idea as being the 'right' way to do something and there's always another way to do things.

You know what, though? You're right. The devs are infallible. The whole lot of us should stop making ANY suggestions of any kind because they've already thought of it all. For that matter, we should shut down the US Patent Office because everything that could be invented has and there's no chance anyone will ever come up with another way of doing something.Good lord, I don't even know why I'm responding to your message with its thinly veiled insults.

Turning down graphics options is meaningless here anyway. Go to Coronet at say 6 PM. Go offworld. Now crank up the graphics all the way & come back to Coronet starport. LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG. Now do it again, with graphics al the way down. SAME LAAAAAAAAG. This doesn't take much deduction.....every spamming macro, every jerk running in circles, every duel that breaks out, every pet called, and EVERY COMPLEX HARISTYLE, is another drop in the lag bucket. Visual settings don't factor in any meaningful way.

Ever watch your hard-drive activity when you're loading into places? Heck, I get lag walking out of the cantina in my home city. Every time. Even when there's all of four AFK people in /who. Why? Because of all the position data it has to load across the network. And if I sit in the cantina LONG enough or a bunch of people (still silent, mind) have driven up outside, I can see my drive light flashing furiously as it works to load in models and textures too.

As for the idiotic idea that "disposeable" ID things will somehow FORCE recurring buisiness...WRONG. It mean people do it once or twice..then say SCREW THIS & don't waste time or effort having it done again. It's a one-shot novelty...EXACTLY like vehicle. For 5 minutes, painted vehicles everywhere. After that...same identical stock paint job on every one you see. Even the candles, cool as they are, are a one-trick fad that is already dying off. They're cute but no one is gonna bother with replacing & re-positioning them over...and over...and over.

Not entirely true. I constantly keep my speederbike colored. Even today. You know why? Because it's a whole lot easier to find YOUR speederbike amongst the five other speederbikes when you're out on a guild-hunt, if yours is a different color. I know other people who do EXACTLY the same thing. Quite a few, in fact. Probably a quarter of my PA. I DO at least agree that timeout hairstyles will be a fad, but I think the comparrison to vehicles is a little flawed.

We need VALUABLE, PERMANENT stuff that people will PAY serious money for. Not MORE crap that just enforces the morons' perception of us as a useless throwaway profession not worth spending real money on.

This I'll agree with.

Can anyone explain why they STILL have the repulsivly over-common comp armor set up so ANYONE can change its look, for free, on a whim, all they want? Only a retard would pretend we had any tiny claim whatsoever to VEHICLE coloring, but worn items are different. We aren't industrial painter nor are we interior designers. We are for altering PERSONAL APPEARANCE.

Eh... I'm not sure what being able to change composite armor color has to do with Image Design at ALL. Or vehicle coloring, for that matter. And I might point out that the ONLY worn items that can be changed in color are the composite armor pieces. And THAT's in place because the devs screwed it up and caused all armor to reset to white. Though I think it's gone on quite long enough and should be removed again. Why haven't they gotten rid of it? Probably because if they did, tons of people would get upset. "But... but... but I was GOING to change the color tomorrow! Now I have to buy a whole new set!!"

And hey, if pistoleer is so borked...let's not waste time better spent on ID improvements on it...let's just delete pistoleer. And p i s s on the GCW.

All I'll say to this is: This is just as good as the person who suggested maybe the devs should just delete Image Designer if they couldn't fix the pesky body bug.

No, I take it back. I'll also say this: The devs have the unenviable position of having to prioritize things. Usually based on who's whining the loudest.Creature Handlers, Carbineers, Riflemen, TKAs, Combat Medics and a couple other elite combat/combat support professions are horridly, completely unbalanced in both directions andScout and Ranger have been nerfed into being little more than wandering animal-resource collectors. I take dubious pleasure in pointing out we're next up on the list.

-V

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boogie7776 wrote:

wow! Glad to see the ID changes coming in effect! looking good! Nevermind the GCW...... take care fo that later...lol... I made a smart choice today, and that was cancelling my account. Am I a troll / greifer? yeah probably. This kind of change is rediculous. Who cares about image designer changes when people are leaving this game by the dozens due to the broken GCW? I doubt you would have a mass exodus of people if the image designer profession stayed exactly how it is for the next ten years. I'm not understanding the priorities of the developers TH? I'm sure it is a rediculously complex task of re-vamping the GCW, but the time spent tweekig the ID profession IMHO can be better spent. "The greatest good for the greatest amount of people" method isn't in affect here i see. Maybe I'm mistaken, maybe there are more ID's than people who participate in the GCW.[/

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Hey, everyone that works at a company isn't a multifaceted modular tool of programming/art design/ninja skills. I'm sure SoE's graphic artists don't have much they need to do over in the GCW...the last thing they want to do is add new objects and things when code needs to be applied liberally. So SOE spends a little bit of their software design resources in favor of the ID to quell the angry populace, and so that they have an excuse for paying their artists. People professionally trained and paid for graphics work don't have much to do with the code of the GCW. The Janitor doesn't cook. It's not their job.

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Ninja007wrote:

Wow is it ever hilarious to hear people think they can tell these guys anything they didn't think of long ago. Hint: not once has any solution to programming this game been posted on forums. Nor will it. Sorry...just plain facts. I just know one day the SOE guys are gonna see some dippy forum post & be like, "WOW! So THAT'S how we could fix lag in Coronet! Why didn't WE know all this! Quick...write it down! I mean, we DID create the whole game from scratch...but who knew we had so much to learn about our own creation via basic programming ideas gleaned from PC Gamer magazine & forum posts!"

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They created the whole game from scratch. BECAUSE THEY WROTE DirectX. No...not even they could claim they wrote everything. But that's not really the point, and I apologize for that. Some of the suggestions here have validity. I'm sure the whole team doesn't read these forums, and I bet some designer is somewhere thinking - "Didn't we learn anything from Greater Faydark? We thought automated businesses would solve the congregation problems." Yhea, I'm sure someone wasn't thinking about that when they made that. Someone thought that a bazzar would lessen lag, and the fact that you can put your own vendors would do it too. So yhea. I don't hate you though because...

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Ninja007wrote:
As for the idiotic idea that "disposeable" ID things will somehow FORCE recurring buisiness...WRONG. It mean people do it once or twice..then say SCREW THIS & don't waste time or effort having it done again. It's a one-shot novelty...EXACTLY like vehicle. For 5 minutes, painted vehicles everywhere. After that...same identical stock paint job on every one you see. Even the candles, cool as they are, are a one-trick fad that is already dying off. They're cute but no one is gonna bother with replacing & re-positioning them over...and over...and over.[/

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Is the best point I've seen made today. And he's right. I'm an image concious player (not an ID, but I thought about it) and I'm not going to go around and find an ID once an hour. HECK NO. Heck, not even once a day. Basically, if I wanted to keep the cool look going, with the new temp effects, I'm going to have to get penciled in on a scheduled visit to my local ID. That, my friend, is lame.

Haha, ok. You're a dedicated bunch, I'll give ya that... I'll even accept your troll tag, though it doesn't really fit. A troll incites argument for the sake of arguing. I'm presenting an opposing point,you all just don't like it.

Let's leave it at this... you see ID as a core game system. I don't, and neither do most players. If it were, the footage from E3 would have players IDing each other and showing off hairstyles rather than showing the GCW in action.

My point was not that ID should be disregarded or ignored. My point was that for all of the mile-wide holes in the game that span EVERY profession... it's my opinion that a total ID revamp is out of order.

Take it as a flame or trolling or whining or whatever else ya wanna characterize it as, but it's my opinion of it. And I'm far from alone in that.

Message Edited by KaptainKrude on 04-22-2004 06:42 AM

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KaptainKrude wrote:

Haha, ok. You're a dedicated bunch, I'll give ya that... I'll even accept your troll tag, though it doesn't really fit. A troll incites argument for the sake of arguing. I'm presenting an opposing point,you all just don't like it.

Let's leave it at this... you see ID as a core game system. I don't, and neither do most players. If it were, the footage from E3 would have players IDing each other and showing off hairstyles rather than showing the GCW in action.

My point was not that ID should be disregarded or ignored. My point was that for all of the mile-wide holes in the game that span EVERY profession... it's my opinion that a total ID revamp is out of order.

Take it as a flame or trolling or whining or whatever else ya wanna characterize it as, but it's my opinion of it. And I'm far from alone in that.

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I doubt any of us think we're a "core" game system. But for us, ID IS our game. The 7 past publishes practically chock full of combat fixes and tweaks have done little to affect my gaming experience, and I'm a payingcustomer just like you. I'm sorry you would begrudge Image Designers a tiny mini publish in light of all the time spent on combat, particularly since we have the potential to affect every player, while combat certainly can't claim that. But then you don't seem surprised your thoughts were viewed as selfish

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Kwee wrote:

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KaptainKrude wrote:

Haha, ok. You're a dedicated bunch, I'll give ya that... I'll even accept your troll tag, though it doesn't really fit. A troll incites argument for the sake of arguing. I'm presenting an opposing point,you all just don't like it.

Let's leave it at this... you see ID as a core game system. I don't, and neither do most players. If it were, the footage from E3 would have players IDing each other and showing off hairstyles rather than showing the GCW in action.

My point was not that ID should be disregarded or ignored. My point was that for all of the mile-wide holes in the game that span EVERY profession... it's my opinion that a total ID revamp is out of order.

Take it as a flame or trolling or whining or whatever else ya wanna characterize it as, but it's my opinion of it. And I'm far from alone in that.

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I doubt any of us think we're a "core" game system. But for us, ID IS our game. The 7 past publishes practically chock full of combat fixes and tweaks have done little to affect my gaming experience, and I'm a payingcustomer just like you. I'm sorry you would begrudge Image Designers a tiny mini publish in light of all the time spent on combat, particularly since we have the potential to affect every player, while combat certainly can't claim that. But then you don't seem surprised your thoughts were viewed as selfish

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Barb-Wire wrote:

im not a programmer for games but why couldnt you guys do the vast majority of the stuff client side and just add a extra "tag" to each character that told all the clients to use X for the effect and your client would display X effect for the hair tattoo etc.

that way your only transmitting one or two extra bits in the data stream instead of hundreds. data could look like

a: hairstyle
b: effect
c: colour
d: tattoo
e: tattoo location

so each person's client has these databases locally and all the server is sending are the extra bits abcde most of the work is being done client side.

dunno im just a gamer.

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The only way I see tatoo's working is to multitexture or do it in multiple passes. It's an extremely technical challenege because it spreads over a limited amount of polys instead of an entire mesh. It may SOUND easy but it IS a very difficult technical challenge.

IF they were to create predefined meshes for the tatoo's with predefined locations (so you could know which poly's to put it on) it could be done. However this would require a redesign of the player avatar data structure, which would require a change to database design which would require a change to the server database code which would require. . . well you get the idea.

I'm guessing this is the difficulty of tatoo's in the fact that when you deal with player objects WE see a complete player but all the computer "sees" is a bunch of points that make up a bunch of triangles that are rendered (yes in a 3D world EVERYTHING you see at it'score is nothing but a bunch of triangles)

If the devs could redesign the player meshes to incorporate pre-designed meshes for tatoo locations then the tatoo texture could be rendered on top of the player's skin texture on a predefined mesh.

That is justa theory given my limited experience with 3D game programming.

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Kwee wrote:

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KaptainKrude wrote:

Haha, ok. You're a dedicated bunch, I'll give ya that... I'll even accept your troll tag, though it doesn't really fit. A troll incites argument for the sake of arguing. I'm presenting an opposing point,you all just don't like it.

Let's leave it at this... you see ID as a core game system. I don't, and neither do most players. If it were, the footage from E3 would have players IDing each other and showing off hairstyles rather than showing the GCW in action.

My point was not that ID should be disregarded or ignored. My point was that for all of the mile-wide holes in the game that span EVERY profession... it's my opinion that a total ID revamp is out of order.

Take it as a flame or trolling or whining or whatever else ya wanna characterize it as, but it's my opinion of it. And I'm far from alone in that.

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I doubt any of us think we're a "core" game system. But for us, ID IS our game. The 7 past publishes practically chock full of combat fixes and tweaks have done little to affect my gaming experience, and I'm a payingcustomer just like you. I'm sorry you would begrudge Image Designers a tiny mini publish in light of all the time spent on combat, particularly since we have the potential to affect every player, while combat certainly can't claim that. But then you don't seem surprised your thoughts were viewed as selfish

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Well said, Kwee.

Kaptain,

Please remember that there are also players who don't participate in combat at all. I play to make a difference in how people view the entertainment industry through music, dance and helping people with their self-esteem through image design.

With more ID options, you become more of an individual. I would be just as happy seeing more hairstyles, color options, and a fix to the hair color setting issue.

I'm thankful they are taking the time in giving this profession a boost. Being able to add glitter to my hair (or some other effect)for a special performance at the Fireside Cantina (Sanctuary City, Naboo - Naritus), or at another gig would be a great addition to player experience and puts the RP back into the game.

I don't see it as a total revamp, but additions to a rare profession. I'll bet if they added inHAM enhancers everytime you were id'd that your post would be singing a different tune.

Gotta agree with Kwee on that, well said.

We all enjoy SWG and play differently, what some seem to need is a dose of tolerance... accept that some players are going to be "D00ds", some "power gamers", some "roleplayers" and everything inbetween. We arent toddlers who think the world revolves around us still, we can be patient... and in this case I do feel ID has been pretty darn patient.

Everyone in this game deserves a new "toy" now and then, hop in line, put your best request forward and pray it can happen

~C