Star Wars Galaxies: Droid Engineers hold conference on Corellia (Kettemoor)

On Saturday, November 22, 2003, about a dozen droid engineers, ranging in skill from novice to master met on Corellia about some of the problems facing the Droid Engineering profession. The meeting was organized by Ackoo <DH>, Acktar [ICF], and Jaq-Kutu <JM>. The three organizers also formed the panel that presented topics and lead the discussion.

While everyone at the conference was enthusiastic about being a Droid Engineer all acknowledged that a great deal of frustration comes along with the rewards.

Some of the point discussed were:

• While Droid Engineering, DE, is the second hardest profession, in terms of experience points needed, it is one of the least rewarding in monetary terms.
• Because of the limitations on droids, there are only a few droid configurations that provide any useful benefit to the players that purchase them.
• There are many bugs associated with the DE profession that make it difficult to create worthwhile products that other players would like to buy.
• The lack of a droid that can perform as well in combat as even a mid-level pet means that few players are interested in purchasing droids for use in combat.
• Since it is harder to fix wounds on a droid, due to the relative scarcity of Droid Engineers compared to Medics, droids are harder to maintain if used in combat.
• While plans for making changes to both the Creature Handler, CH, and Droid Engineering, DE, professions were presented to the players, only the CH plan presented firm goals and a schedule.
• There is a rumor that resources have actually taken away from working on DE problems and reassigned to CH.
• Linking vendors with the bazaar network would greatly increase competition and availability of all items.
• Fixing some of the relatively minor bugs that have been outstanding since the release of the game would go a long ways towards improving the situation for droid engineers. For instance, the bug that makes advanced R2 and R3 units change color every time they are brought out of storage.
• It is frustrating to explain to customers over and over that the droids that are supposedly the smart ones, those with personality chips, can't be given a name.
• No one seems to know if the limitation of only one crafting station to a droid is a bug or intentional. (If you put in more than one crafting station, only one of them works.)
• The information screens on the droids don't list everything that is put into the droids, specifically the crafting stations. The numbers that are reported in the information screens for the Medical Level and Inventory Storage are confusing. (A medic level of 110 is the highest. An inventory level of 7 means you can put 6 items in the storage, whereas an inventory level of 14 means you can put 10 items in storage.)
• The impact of Holocron directed Droid Engineers, those grinding their way through the profession in order to open the force sensitive slot, is something that DEs will have to look out for. It is possible that they will flood some of the markets with low cost droids. Since their primary goal is just getting to master level, they don't have to price them realistically.

As you can see from the above list, it was a very lively meeting. After the panel presented the issues that concerned them, members of the audience were able to speak, asking questions of the panel and presenting their own views.

The meeting organizers will send a summary to everyone who was at the conference and organize additional meeting. A tentative goal of preparing a well organized list of issues and questions to SOE was adopted.