Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: POLL: Ethical or not?
We know that these pets are grossly overpowered and MUCH higher than can be found in nature AND more powerful than the devs intend non-ch pets to be.
These we know to be fact.
A lot of people would argue that to sell them at all is unethical since we know them to be unintended creations.
If you make and sell these without informing your customer of the risks then its up to you however, its your business and your reputation - obviously the more you charge, if you're charging a huge amount of money it becomes more than just your reputation. Personally I've never sold a CL 10 for more than 30k so its not that much of an issue but I've also never sold any of the 10k HAM 60% kinetic combos either - the few I've made have been for friends as gifts with a complete understanding that they are temporary
Regardless of ethics if you make a habit of selling these pets for your own personal financial gain without informing the buyer then you risk harming your reputation when a) the pets get fixed or b) someone sees your customer with the pet and tells them that its overpowered and tells them its going to get fixed.
I started out refusing to make these obviously over-the-limit pets. I also started asking that the pet check be applied to the pets at creation, when the stats are defined. I continued to refuse to make the "monster pets" and attempt to make well balanced CL 10's with what was considered acceptable levels of health/action/mind, resists and damage.
What happened was the "acceptable" level pets were nerfed by the pet check about 80% of the time. I stopped making and selling them; as I was spending more of my time replacing invalid pets, often 4 , 5 or 6 times and having them nerfed a day later. I continued to post that the pet check was a problem. I submitted bug reports frequently. I spoke with a CSR who said the pet checks are working as intended.
I made a monster pet, tamed it and gave it to a friend. It is still valid and useful. I made more, and gave those away as well, and they all continue to be effective and usable pets. I sold some, with emails to the customer saying I would replace them if they became Invalid within a month's time. Nobody seems to have much of a good guess as to where the state of the game will be much farther out than that anyway, except that many long-standing bugs will still be unresolved.
I may learn slowly, but I learn. SOE seems to have established a system in which the high health, high kinetic non-CH tank is acceptable, and the BE's equivalent to the Cowardly Gurreck for stats is not. I have friends and customers who want and need non-CH level creatures to protect , tank and handle crowd control issues for them. I have holo-chasing friends that have had to drop most of the self-preservation skills they have to pursue Jedi, who are desperate for the pets.
I don't like the end result of all of this. I think the 9-10K health, 60% Kinetic, 150 damage non-CH pet is a travesty. I can wish and complain all I want, but the simple fact is that the only viable non-CH pet seems to be these outlandish freaks, and there seems to be little alternative.
I do not at all fault the other BE's that have worked to create these types of creatures. I may see ome of them setting their prices as outrageous sometimes, and perhaps predatory, and some misrepresent the creatures badly, but that will be the case no matter what the stats of the "top pet" is, sadly. There are both the "I want all the money I can get for everything" types and the ones to whom making the best they can is the challenge and the reward, and their riches are measured in something more than the size of their bank accounts, who I admire.
Is it ethical to sell these pets without a disclaimer? I think there is a somewhat more important ethic than the knowledge that the pet will no doubt eventually be rendered unusable, and it is very much usable when it is sold, which is all the control we really have.
I think SOE needs to put a disclaimer on the entire BE profession, stating that it is a work in progress, and perhaps not the highest priority is placed on making it anything other than unfinished as it is. I feel distinctly let down by the unrealized potential in the profession, given the state of the pet check issue in particular, and I think the ethics of selling a pet that works, though we do not have any certainty as to how long it will do so, pale to insignificance in the light of the unkept promise of the BE profession.
Perhaps SOE should place the disclaimer on these pets.
WARNING - This creature was clearly never intended to work but we do not have adequate control, interest, or the will to dedicate the resources to establishing a stable, working creature level system for the Bio Engineering profession. Use this game at your own risk, no guarantee of reasonable performance or stability is expressed or implied.
LLan