Regent Report: 11
There has been a lot of great discussions I’ve participated in regarding future improvements and systems, with some great progress. Although things have settled down with fixes and adjustments, I wanted to touch on some of the major topics and happenings with this report and keep transparency with the membership on what my team is doing.
Creatures
I have received some great feedback from the membership regarding creatures, with several dozen of you commenting on a discourse thread I started three months back with some specifics. So where are we at right now? Muz Ashen Keibatsu and Shadow Nighthunter have done great work on their own initiative to provide initial lists, and my team has discussed the simplest way to drop the content. Really the next steps would be a green light and pulling a team together to hash out the details and make it happen. In my own opinion, creatures bring with them a Star Wars feel and immersion that adds a lot to the experience and it isn’t so much a matter of it but when depending on the priority of some other projects.
Credit Supply
The entire possessions experience is balanced around things to buy, for which we create demand in a variety of means and set prices accordingly, as well as provide credits to buy those things. The more credits you get, the more you can buy, and the more fun the entire thing works. As long as you don’t run out of things to buy. All that said, we’ve added a substantial content drop after Rogue One, added NPCs that need their own loadouts, and introduced the Celebration Stores that had limited edition items. With upgrades on the horizon further fueling demand, quite a few discussions have started that address the credit supply. There are at least three ongoing projects that would increase supply of credits, and since I could dedicate an entire report to it I won’t do so here, but I expect some wider discussions once details finalize. Just know it’s something at the top of my mind and a priority of my team to get everyone more credits.
Upgrades
This is probably the largest, most time consuming, and highest priority project for the team. I have created several full documents including a ppt presentations exploring different ways to go about this and discussed ease of use and feasibility. I have a really good idea of where I want to go with this and I feel like my team does too and we’re all getting on the same page which is good. I will say that at least at this point, we feel like launching upgrades across all item types and categories simultaneously is the best way to roll this out. So we’ll develop the content and have a large drop, at best Q1 of next year. The basic premise will be, you can use your credits to attain higher rarity level prototype items, and with that higher rarity level comes a range of upgrade options that enhance its functionality. The more rare the ship, droid, weapon, etc. the more upgrade options you will have and the more individual upgrades that can be applied. Experience wise it both gives appropriate functionality to epic and legendary items, while also being in line with Star Wars as many different possessions in the galaxy are customized and unique from one another. Current trend is to have it work similar to Aspects, in the sense that the upgrade is chosen from a list, but with no customization.
Celebration Store
Overall, I feel like the Celebration Store was well received. It gave my team and I a chance to offer some unique items that celebrate Star Wars in a unique way. Some statistics on purchases for the curious. The Dark Jedi Brotherhood History Book was the most popular, though perhaps due to its price tag more than anything with 16 members picking up a copy, along with 14 sets of armor, 20 capes, 11 droids and 17 weapons sold from the store while it was open. For what it is, I was happy with the results and had fun creating them. In the future, I expect to see the store return to the membership, though the offerings are subject to a complete overhaul.
Content Expansion
Right now, among other ongoing discussions and projects, my team and I are working on the next content drop. This will add a range of items as requested by the membership, to add some items that we passed on earlier just due to scope creep, and some new Canon items with details we feel are needed in the offerings. Right now there are 49 items being evaluated and commented on by my team to add, with my hope to add a couple dozen, so we’re likely to cut that in half before you ever see an official new set of items. If there is something you think should be added though, please email me with some details and what it is and I’ll get it considered. After this content drop, it will likely be early next year before we do any considerable expansion of the offerings following the next film.
Space Vehicle Descriptions
My team, with Halcyon Rokir Taldrya taking the lead, has taken on the task to update and overhaul the over one-hundred different Space Vehicle descriptions where we worked from gdrive to compare everything with countless comment level discussions. You may have already noticed that quite a few have been updated, with more coming as we finish up our work. I expect it to be done shortly, but there are some standards discussions that have hung us up once we got to the larger destroyers. These descriptions get up to a level of quality we wish we could have done during launch but would have slowed things down considerably. However, the new descriptions will do a much better job of providing appropriate language to help compare one ship against another, at least within its Item Category set, as well as more easily understand the armament, cargo and passenger capacities. I am quite happy with how it turned out and will use this standard going forward as we add new ships.
Change Log
- Added stamp set as Howie’s GMRG accessory to the store as a new item
- Changed Neutron Star-class Bulk Cruiser to add note in name that it’s the Carrier Conversion of the cruiser as well as external link
Changed Keypad to Gyrda keypad to match Canon reference, item functionality and details stay the same
List
Regent Staff Links
Conclusion
It’s nice just to see possessions running, with members buying and selling on a daily basis. I have to temper my expectations that somehow I’ll launch some impressive system with each report or make a ton of changes. In fact, the short changelog if anything makes me happier than if I had a ton to report on. If there is any takeaway from this report, know there are a lot of great discussions going on and expect to see more in the future as my team continues to enjoy Star Wars and translate that into enjoyment for the rest of the membership as well.
In darkness,
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A quick question for you, Evant, in reply to the mention of ship possessions - if we buy a ship, whether large or small, if there a definite way we can tell that it has crew space such as bunks, a lounge area or a cargo bay?
Also with the mentioning of pets, does each pet come with a cage or bed and a leash, or is this something to add later in time?
Thank you for your hard work!
Great report. Agreed on the need for an increase in income.
I started with top of the line gear and now after buying two NPC's and arming them, most of my gear is second rate. I don't mind my NPC's having second rate gear, but my primary should be able to be good stuff.
Ship interior layout isn't defined. It is what it is from Star Wars resources. No plans to define that for each ship.
Pets and realism are up to the member. Just like any weapon or ship or piece of gear. No need to buy maintenance items ever though .. just like we don't plan to add toothbrushes and fuel for ships or bullets for slugthrowers.