Paul Inouye, on 03 August 2018 - 04:27 PM, said:
I thought I mentioned the issues with a unit inventory system and after going back through all my posts.. I didn't.
The idea isn't a problem. It's something we discussed very early on in development. The technological impact/development time on backend systems is the problem. [insert picture of that guy with fuzzy hair holding his hands apart]... the backend systems that control player inventory/store purchases/transaction services/player profile data etc is a massive nest of hardwired connections. While this may seem like something that is just as simple as adding a database row to the Unit ID, it's really a lot more than that.
Let's walk through the notion that you want to buy a 'Mech for a Unit's Inventory.
Issue 1: Who's buying the 'Mech? Simple answer.. Unit Leader. Well, here's the problem... the backend services says player "Uber General Leader Guy" has just bought a Urbie K9. I'll put it in his inventory. Well that's no good.. it has to go into the Unit Inventory. There's no itemID injection path for this behavior.
Issue 2: Did Uber General Leader Guy buy it himself out of his pocket? Did you want to use Unit Coffer Money? There's no interface or transaction path (both store and the actual currency tracking/payment system) for this decision tree either.
Issue 3: Who owns the 'Mech? UnitID owns the 'Mech! UnitID does not have an inventory like a PlayerID does. On top of that, CSRs will need detailed audit information for who bought it, for what Unit, what currencies were used, time of transaction etc etc.
Issue 4: Player behavior issues/politics. You are in Unit "Smash Them All" and everyone has donated CB to buy new player "I Equipped 4 TAGs" a 'Mech he can use. The 'Mech is purchased and somehow the new guy is able to add the 'Mech to his own inventory yet still not own it. (This is another cluster of data handling that would be horrible to implement). Uber General Leader Guy decides it's going to be funny to kick everyone out and sell all inventory for his own CB gains.
Issue 5: PGI Engineers have perfected death stares.
In the above scenario.. that is on the tip of the iceberg when implementing something like this. This is why at this time it is something we cannot address due to development time.
i know the exact amount about coding as i do the amount i know of nuclear physics, so im sorry if the answers i have seem like its coming from someone who has no idea how things get coded but...
Issue 1: There could be 2 solutions to this, no idea how much coding work it would take... but is there a way to treat a "unit mechlab" kind-of-like the normal mechlab? Only the leader/approved officers have access too. it could be a tab under unit coffers? Which is where they build the mechs that they want to be able to basically "purchase" and copy-paste to another unit-members inventory. So the Transaction would go Unit ID-purchased from the in-game store, and you could use the same Alerts system as when you get invited to a unit. it would read like "superawesome unit requests you to use this mech". Then they click accept, and as long as they have the mech-bay for it, it permanently becomes their mech, if they do not have the mech-bay for it, they get an error msg saying you need to buy a mech-bay just like buying a regular mech. Once this person has this mech, it becomes theirs just like any-other mech, HOWEVER, it would be locked, Just like the trial mechs, you cant change the load-out or anything. You can use it any any-mode, Quick play/faction/scouting/solaris. It would just be under a new tab, so you would have "owned" "trial" and "faction warfare" or something of those sorts.
Issue 2: As said in issue 1, There would be a new entire tab, under the unit interface called unit-mechlab, that once you go into this, you no longer pay anything from Your pocket, it comes right out of the unit coffers. And in order to get back to the Leaders Mechlabs/store, he would have to leave the faction warfare tab.
Issue 3: Im not 100% sure what this means, but the entire transaction would be exactally like a regular purchase from any ordinary player, under the new faction warfare mechlab/store tab. It would bascially be like a regular player buying a mech, it would go into the "Player name-Superawesome unit", where you can use your UNITS MC, or UNITS cbills to buy mechs, So say you want 10 Warhammer 6D's. The unit leader would use the MC to buy 10 Mech-bays. He then used the UNITS Coffers to go into the Faction Warfare store, and purchase 10 Warhammers for xxxxx C-bills. Unit "superawesome unit" now can give out 10 Warhammers that have been paid for by the unit coffers. Transaction ID-what currency was used-time date etc. Also, once one of those warhammers have been given away, since they purchased 10 mechbays, they now have 1 more mechbay they can add XXXXX mech for.
Issue 4: So, using the new unit store/mech-lab the new player would own the mech, it would be his, forever, 100%. He will just never be able to adjust anyting on the mech, just like the trial mechs. It would forever be what ever it was given to him. Now in-game behavioral issues, Technically unit leaders right now have the ability to Take 100% of the MC that the unit has, and give it to himself. I am 100% un-aware of any unit that has taken planets where this has happened (i could be wrong) (outside i think Merc-Star)? i think?. The easy answer to that would be the Unit leader/officers are not allowed to take out C-bills, they can already take MC so thats a possibility that we have right now that can happen. However the only possibility that i could see happening, in the case you bring up, is The unit-leader spending all the cbills on mechs he wants, and then transferring them all to himself. That is a possibility, However in almost every game i play that has a Guild/Unit/Warband/what ever you want to call it, the Guild/unit/warband leader has the ability to kick everyone out of the guild and take 100% of the guild/unit/warband's coffers. This is a risk World of Warcraft/Starwars Knights of the Old Republic/Warhammer 40k/Everquest/ those are just the games i have played where the Big leader has the ability to kick everyone out and steal all the riches for himself. It may happen in small guilds/units where little are effected, however Say for example, Xavier decided one day to just ban everyone from MS, and steal all of the resources, or Hobbles from BCMC, or whoever leads HHOD/Arc7/Evil/420/JG-X/EMP/D5, there would be a large community out-cry in-game and on the forums. The way you deal with large-scale ones like that, which i think you are referring too, you simply ban the person who kicked everybody and took the Mc/mechs. In the case that he tried to be sneaky, and knowing he will be banned, sends every mech to an alt-account, you will have the normal purchase logs of who the unit leader send the mechs too, and who accepted them. So you could also ban that account, and the currency would never make in to the game. It would suck for the unit-members who donated all of those C-bills, and the way PGI could cover themselves from an angry mob saying its their fault they let this be possible, is add a warning when you donate C-bills, saying that you understand you are donating them to your unit, and you may never see them again, and may not send in tickets to be refunded if one day you decide you don't like the unit anymore. Almost every single unit leader in this game, being a unit leader, sacrifices hours and hours and hours ontop of the hours they play on the game, doing things outside of the game, be it maintaining a website, helping new members in the mech-lab, teaching them how to download teamspeak/discord. The units are like their children, and they would rather see it burn then ever even think of personal profit like that. They put blood sweat and tears building it.
Issue 5: Trust me, You can ask anyone in the game who knows me. On any drunken night my CareBear stare will make your Engineers cower in fear.
Edit: if you have any other concerns on my idea, outside of "we just cant develop that" let me know, like i said at the start i have no idea what it takes to code things like that, so its easy for me to see it, but on your end im sure its way harder than the way im thinking it could be.
Edited by C H E E K I E Z, 03 August 2018 - 07:00 PM.
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