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robiwan
Moderator
1035 Posts |
 Posted - 12/07/2007 : 06:15:18
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Odkaz: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/posts/list.m?topic_id=404151
Now that our BugBash is out on Test I'd like to chat with everyone on more details on the content and systems we have started working on for Chapter 7. We have already mentioned the big bullet points a few times, Heroic Encounters, and Collections. However I haven't delved to much into what each means.
Heroic Encounters -
We have chosen to advance the story of our good friends from the former Village of Aurilia. Apparently all the materials and effort the players contributed helped grow the Village into a Township. This Township will be our "nexus" or gathering spot for linking up with others to go on the Heroic encounters with, obtain buffs, or just hang out. Dropships to quickly transport groups from the Township to areas near the entrances to the encounter areas should be available here. There will also be a variety of new quests and rewards will be available for helping out the people of Aurilia.
As for the encounters these should all be tuned to 8 people and yield some fun surprises. I'm not going to reveal what goes on inside the encounters until we get closer to Testing.
Collections -
The most basic form of collection all players have been collecting since the game launched, you just know them as Badges. We have come up with a slick UI and our artists are going through and adding Badge Icons to all old and new badges. You will be able to examine another player and look out their collections if you so desire. After Badges the next level of collection is the kill collection, represented in a different page in the Collection's Journal. Killing specific creatures/NPCs will yield collection credit and eventually rewards and further collections or badges. Finally we move into objects in the world inside buildings or areas that are clicked on to collect them or objects looted from creatures/NPCs that are clicked on to collect them. Each collection usually has a reward associated with it from credits, xp, titles, to more exotic custom rewards.
A good example of a collection is mousing over a crate in a starport you notice your cursor changes to a hand, clicking on the crate yields a message that the crate has been added to your crate collection. Looking in your collection journal you notice there are 10 icons, 9 are greyed out 1 has been colored in, representing the crate you just clicked. There are 9 other crates you need to find in the galaxy to complete the crate collection. Over to the right of these icons you see a bigger icon, and mousing over it you see that completing this collection will grant you a Structure Storage Increase Crate. The reward object can be added to a structure you own to increase the number of items you can place in it.
All the little pieces are looking like it should be a fun Chapter.
Blixtev
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I have waited and planned and built my strength for fifteen thousand years. I have evolved. It is time.
(Omnius Evermind)
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Feyd'Rautha Saresh (Medic, Rebel Alliance, Europe-Chimaera), Robe Saresh (Force Sensitive, Rebel Alliance, Europe-Chimaera)
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robiwan
Moderator
1035 Posts |
Posted - 12/07/2007 : 06:16:30
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Otázky a odpovede:
Q: Looks awesome Blix! Can't wait to see more of this coming to test and then live!
Q... with the example of the storage crates, is that a real example, or just an example to let us know how it works?
And, can we do this storage crate thing more than once?
Also, glad to hear the village (township) of Aurillia is moving forward... i can't wait to see what new stuff is coming from there!! I miss that village!
A: I finshed coding the storage crates a few days ago, the standard crate adds 100 to a house and you can put multiples on your house. Hopefully so many items people will no longer need any storage houses.
Q: Can those increase house limit things be used in guildhalls? since that vet reward can't (not sure tbh though).
And will they be tradeable?
Is it only 1 device per house, or can you place as many house limit increase devices you want in one house?
What about the current Veteran reward (I mean house device thing) will that one get an increase or?
A: I plan on making some tweaks so they work on guildhalls, the bigger stuctures look so much nicer with fully decorated rooms imo. They will not be tradeable, you will need to do the collections to get the storage upgrade. Right now I capped it at +5000 increase, so the design crew will have to put in a bunch of collections to get these out to you. They also stack with the 200 item vet reward.
Do remember one of the collection types is looted objects, so there will be a secondary market for many of these, ie "anyone have box 2 for the box collection quest?".
Q: thats lame tthe vet reward is 200 but the mission one is 5000.. wtf is the point in choosing my vet reward for 200 extra items when i can just get to crates..
lame and whats my other choice cheaper respec..... i dont respec
total waste of a 4 year reward. give me 2 30k resource deeds ill be happy
A: Well its not like getting one object and boom here is a big increase. Its doing lots of different collections for +100 crates as the reward. So the veteran reward is still a fantastic item. Remeber our goal is to give you lots of fun things to do.
Q: Will the village have phases again that switch all 4 weeks ? Please SMILEY:D And nice
A: There is no multi phase for the Township. I still have nightmare's about all the problems that caused.
We have multiple new rewards coming your way, that should do fun and exciting things in their own rights. I do not plan to re use any of the old Village rewards.
Q: Chapter 7 is definitely looking to be a great addition to the game! Great work and thanks to all the team!
A quick question on Bug Bash. It sounds like it is all basically on Test Center now, but are there going to be any more additions to the current list? It's a significant number of positive changes and additions (which I'm very glad to see), but I was hoping that we'd also see the inclusion of the Citizenship List bugs fix with it. Is there any updates on that front?
A: Citizenship List bug fixes are done and will make it into Bug Bash with the next update. Here's the prelimary notes for the fix, with the usual "subject to change/cancellation" caveat.
This should be in the next Bug Bash update:
Player City: During each galaxy restart, every player city will check and correct its citizenship list so that only the mayor and owners of declared structures within the city limits will be allowed on the citizenship list. The mayor will be notified by mail if any citizens are added or removed from this fix up. The mail will contain the subject "City Fix Up: Added Citizens" for additions and "City Fix Up: Removed Citizens" for deletions.
This should be in the following Bug Bash update:
Player City: During each galaxy restart, every player city will check and correct its citizenship list so that the mayor of the city is a citizen of only the city that she is mayor of.
A: DevH checked in his citizenship cleanup stuff yesterday, unfortunately I don't think there will be many Test cases on TC to test it out with. If you do have a valid one and the citizen is removed I would love to know about it.
Q: And what, exactly are the rules? Each toon can ONLY declare residency in one house in one city? Or one per planet?
A: Citizenship is determined by declared structures. During galaxy startup, every city looks at all the declared structures within its city limits, and only the mayor and owners of declared structures within the city limits are allowed on the citizenship list. Additionally, during this galaxy startup fix up, it will also check (and fix, if necessary) to make sure that a mayor is a citizen of *only* the city that she is mayor of.
The intended behavior is each toon can only have 1 declared residence. We also have fix up code in place which runs when a toon logs in and enters a structure to clean up any "bad" residency issue, to fix up cases where a toon has more than 1 declared residences. Then at the next galaxy restart, any of this clean up that occurred when the toon logs in or enters a structure will be processed and the citizenship list updated accordingly.
In addition to these clean up code, citizenship list will still get updated normally in real time when you declare/undeclare/change residency in-game. If anything goes wrong and the real time update doesn't occur, it'll get fixed up during the next galaxy restart.
Q: I would seriously reconsider this, at least consider allowing one residence per planet. I would NOT want to be you the day this goes live because these forums will EXPLODE... again...
This is going to leave the landscape even more cluttered, as MANY cities will be destroyed or damaged beyond repair, negating any advantage gained by the packup event.
A: The packup event was to help cleanup these old ghost cities, in some cases it did happen but some cities with 30+ ghost citizens were effected not at all. With only a limited amount of cities on a planet, old unused cities need to evaporate to make room for new cities.
Cities were never designed to be supported by 1 person, as we can see happening on live with cities with many ghost citizens.
Pokracovanie13.07.2007:
Q: Please clarify, about the 1 declared residence. Do you mean 1 declared residence for each planet or 1 declared residence per character? For over 3 years now since the launch of player cities the game has allowed one declared residence per planet.
Surely you guys have learned your lesson regarding radical changes. Cities are a major part of SWG and players that have invested their time and energy over the years will not be happy to lose a city because somebody felt like changing the rules 3 years later.
I am happy to see fixes for the ghost citizens and those that have residency in multiple cities on the same planet. I think we are on the right track after the housing purge. I do not support a limit of one residence per character and hope that will not be the case.
A: 1 declared residence per character. This has always been the intended behavior. There is only 1 field on the character data that identifies the 1 structure that is the character's declared residence. There is also only 1 field on the structure data that identifies the 1 character that is the declared resident of the structure.
There have been bugs that resulted in more than 1 structures pointing to the same character as the resident, causing the character to become a citizen of each city the structures are in (i.e. one cause of the dual citizenship issue). We have added code that runs when a character logs in or when a character enters a structure to compare the 2 "pointers" and fix it up, if necessary.
Q: I'm glad this is finally decided, though I have mixed feelings about it. I'm not sure we have the population anymore for there to be an adequate number of shuttles per planet. Time will tell I suppose. I would have liked to have seen the planets with all the ghost citizens removed first.
Also, if someone is declared on more than one planet, how is the system going to choose which ONE residence is their true residence? Or is it going to drop them from ALL residences? This could REALLY cause lots of trouble for current paying players.
A: "There is only 1 field on the character data that identifies the 1 structure that is the character's declared residence" and "There is also only 1 field on the structure data that identifies the 1 character that is the declared resident of the structure." If these 2 values match up, then this is *THE ONE* residence. The character only qualifies to be citizen of the city that this *THE ONE* residence is within.
The fix up code that runs at galaxy startup will only remove citizenship if the citizen doesn't have a structure within the city limits that *THINKS* it is the residence of the citizen. We err on the cautious side here and allow the citizen to remain at this time even though we have not confirmed that the citizen's data actually points to the structure that *THINKS* it is the residence of the citizen. When the citizen logs in and/or enters the structure, we check again to make sure that the citizen's data points to the structure and the structure's data points to the citizen, and if not, we clean things up so that the structure no longer *THINKS* it is the residence of the citizen. The next time the galaxy starts up, we check again, and this time there is no structure in the city limits that *THINKS* it is the residence of the citizen, and the citizen is then removed from the citizenship list.
Q: The game has always allowed a character to declare residency in one city per planet.
A: The code as it is written is to *NOT* allow a character to declare residency in one city per planet. The character sheet will always show 1 residence. What is supposed to happen when you declare structure A your residence is that the data on the structure B that you previously declared residence is cleared out so that structure B will no longer think that it is your residence (because structure A is now your residence). This step was not always reliable, and when it failed, both structure A and structure B thinks that it is your residence, but you will still notice that the character sheet still only displays 1 structure as your residence, most likely structure A because when you changed your residence to structure A from structure B, your character data got updated to mark structure A as your residence. This causes the unintended behavior that you are now a citizen of both cities that structure A and structure B are in.
Q: Um, not in my experience. My character sheet changes depending on what planet Im on. If Im on a planet Ive declared on , that structure is listed (or the Wp of the structure anyway). If Im on a different planet Ive declared on, it shows a DIFFERENT waypoint/structure. If I'm not on a planet Ive declared on, I am listed as wanderer.
A: Here's the test that I did and here's what I found out:
1) Start out with no declared residence anywhere. Character sheet says wanderer. This is correct.
2) Declare a house on Tatooine. Character sheet says home is the Tatooine house. This is correct.
3) Go to Naboo. Character sheet says wanderer. This is a *not* correct. It should say the Ttatooine house.
4) Declare a house on Naboo. Character sheet says home is the Naboo house. this is correct.
5) Go to Tatooine. Character sheet says wanderer. This is a *not* correct. It should say the Naboo house.
You are correct, and I stand corrected. I have confirmed that there is a bug in the character sheet where if you are not in the same "area" as your declared residence, it will show wanderer. However, the information is still there on your toon that points to *THE ONE* structure that is your residence. So the character sheet will either show wanderer, or show the location of *THE ONE* structure that is your residence if you are in the same "area" as the structure. I can't see in the code where it could possibly show a different location in the character sheet depending on where you are, unless you have redeclared. If you have a confirmed case where you see a different location (*NOT* wanderer) in the character sheet depending your where you are, PM me because I would like to take a look at your toon and see what's going on.
Q: There's a few of us that have known about the Wanderer issue for a while and just wrote it off as another bug that wasn't that big of an issue. From what I've personally seen, it seems to revert you Wanderer when your residence has "unloaded" from the server.
I've not gone into any major detail on this, just letting you know what I've seen over the past few years.
A: Structures don't actually get unloaded from the server. They get loaded into the world at galaxy startup and stay there - otherwise, you wouldn't be able to find your structure. But if you move "out of the area" where the structure is located, the character sheet will show wanderer because the area server that you are on doesn't have the structure, but the structure is still there on a different area server where the structure is located.
But internally, no information is lost because of this behavior. Your toon still has the information indicating which structure is the toon's residence.
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I have waited and planned and built my strength for fifteen thousand years. I have evolved. It is time.
(Omnius Evermind)
---------------------------
Feyd'Rautha Saresh (Medic, Rebel Alliance, Europe-Chimaera), Robe Saresh (Force Sensitive, Rebel Alliance, Europe-Chimaera)
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Edited by - robiwan on 13/07/2007 06:15:57 |
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