Ranger Archive

My fellow Rangers,

I apologize if this issue has already been addressed in another thread (really, I looked), but I'm concerned with the new Player Cities that are popping up just outside the Krayt Canyon and the Tusken Fort. When full cities come out, within a month or so these collections of hunting lodges could incorporate a hospital, cantina and (gasp) a shuttle port!

I have nothing against there being lodges near the hunting grounds, but where's the challenge if you have a hospital and shuttle port within a stone's throw of a Krayt lair? Half the fun of going on those hunts is getting there in one piece, surviving the hunt and running to the nearest town some 3-5km away without having to clone. Now it looks like we'll be able to shuttle in, clone, go 1km out, die as many times as we want and then take a short jog back into town to grab a shuttle to the next hunting ground.

Player Mounts I'm cool with because (as I understand it) I can run my normal speed and other players can keep up with me, but the idea of shuttling in and out of the Krayt Canyon or Tusken Fort area just takes away from the game. If you remove the risk and the consequences, all you've done is create a "shoot 'em up" game with unlimited lives.

One of the reasons I love playing a Ranger is I enjoy the support services it provides. I'm a tracker, I can camo the group and I can provide camps in the middle of nowhere so people can heal and call pets/droids. If people can shuttle in to a major hunting ground, they don't need my camo. Depending on what they're hunting, they might not need my tracking because they're close enough to town to give them some confidence in venturing a little further out on their own. And with a town so close to the lairs, there's no need for my camps to heal or call pets/droids.

I play SWG because I'm a Star Wars fan. I've always tried to look at SWG as an experience, rather than a game. For me, part of that experience was building my character and my confidence enough to venture out and take risks. True experience is not just a stat.

I love the idea of Player Cities, I just don't agree with some of the proposed locations. I haven't seen any documentation on whether or not cities (and shuttle ports) can be developed near tourist attractions like the Lars Homestead or the Escape Pod, so please excuse my ignorance, but I sure hope that's never allowed.

Zingonia

Well, the Krayt Graveyard area is not in a no build zone, so I assume you can create a ctiy there. I think that placing cities there will cause me to not hunt there anymore.Some places are already overcrowded, so easy access will make it unbearable, IMO. BUT, until the cities get shuttles, people will sill have to make the trek, but I agree that camps will become less useful as a town is only steps away.

Yes, I now feel a bit guilty for having a hunting lodge.

I see two ways of fixing this. First and probubly the best is to make make the hunting grounds a no build zone. Second, and this one is a lot more fun, is to have Krayts, or Tuskans spawn and WRECK the towns. Sure people will try to exploit this at first, but the sheer cost of rebuilding cities will prevent them from becoming perminant. It should be easy enough to code. Just code the spawn to happen a couple of times a day when there are no or few players within 500m.

Don't feel guilty for having a hunting lodge! There's nothing wrong with having a place to call your own near a spot you like to frequent. Hunting lodges are great places to recoup and regroup (my thanks to all who keep their doors open to strangers!). And Krayts do spawn right in the middle of "town" already; we were fighting two of them in-between buildings just the other day.

All I fear is allowing the owners of hunting lodges to form Player Cities, taking away the remoteness and danger of our more adventurous hunting grounds.

The "Godzilla" approach is an interesting one, though...

Zingonia

I agree with you all on this point. There shouldnt be a city within 2-3k m. If this happens, then our ranger profession will get less and less important.