Bio Engineer Archive

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PlainWhiteSocks wrote:

This is a war. If you stand up and declare your allegience for one side or the other, then your enemies are going to shoot at you with the intent to kill. Should have been this way all along, for both sides.

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It is also a game. Bear in mind that getting killed on a regular basis with no way to prevent it or even fight back just isn't fun.

I'm not asking to be exempt. I'm asking to be able to fight back.

My head is going to explode. I read all 900 plus posts in the original anouncement for the GCW TEF changes. I don't remember the time I've seen so many people confused over the same document. In fact I had to make another doc of only Dev quotes to make heads or tails of it myself. There were just too many people giving out too many opinions on how bad or good this change is. No wonder I was having such a hard time trying to figure out what the big deal is. Until I saw the thing as a whole I couldn't comprehend the extent of the misinformation.

My original unerstanding when I read the post the day it was posted was that if you wanted to be in a faction, but didn't want to fight all the time you could just go on leave, and you would be on leave till you took yourself off leave. I was mostly right. In the clarification post by Calandryll (an SOE representitive) he states:

Q: What about dedicated crafters? Are we going to get attacked by enemy faction NPCs?
A: If you set yourself to “On Leave” enemy faction NPCs will not attack you. However, if you enter a city that is controlled by the enemy faction and are scanned you will be set to Combatant and be attackable by enemy NPCs. The scanner may also call reinforcements on you. This is a war. Choosing a side means the other side will want to kill you if they find you.

Players who are scanned by the police run the risk of having their faction exposed if they are in the opposing faction of the one that controls the city. This means players who are “On Leave” may become set to “Combatant” due to the scan. Faction NPCs will then attack the player on sight. Police may also call in more powerful reinforcements should they expose an enemy faction player (Rebel or Imperial) in opposition to the faction controlling the city.

Read the full post here.

This looks like things really are not going to change that much for people that don't want to be involved, but want to keep a faction. They still have to find you to attack you, and it looks to be avoidable.

This is what I see...

I'm a rebel crafter with no combat skills, no marksman, brawler, swords, rife, nothing. A good CDEF (when I can find it) and a few harsh words are my only defense. I'm on leave. I have to meet someone in an imp city. A group of ST's scan me (ut-oh). They find out I'm a rebel, and change my status from on-leave to combatant. They attack. Odds are (10:1) they kill me. I clone. If I was smart I would have cloned in a place not controlled by my enemy before going into the city preferably with a recruiter to put me back on leave. A pain in the butt, I agree, but workable.

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droid327 wrote:

Personally I think it would be better if your chance of being attacked was proportional to your mission payout rating, but with that rating inversely proportional to fines...that is, if you have combat skills you're more likely to be attacked, if you dont you're more likely to have a fine incurred on you. That would make the most sense, anyway, you dont tend to punish nonviolent offenders with violence.

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Normally, I would agree with you. But the thematic element is still there, and time and again in the movies we see StormTroopers preferring blasters over tickets. Heck, the fan film "Troops" is fairly accurate. Just think of stormtroopers as being the worst bunch of corrupt LAPD out their, and yourself as being Rodney King.

Rebel Crafter - "Can't we just get along, THX-1138?"

THX-1138- "No." <blaster fire>

This is going to suck, but I don't see much of a change from my cycle of dying when passing through heavily Imperial areas anyways. Well, the only difference is that now it could happen to Imperial players. Or, if I get it right, Rogue Corsec factioned people passing through Corsec areas. (I've always wondered what effect my 5000 faction rating with Corsec has other than making Meatlumps try to jump me on sight.)

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PlainWhiteSocks wrote:

I'm a rebel crafter with no combat skills, no marksman, brawler, swords, rife, nothing. A good CDEF (when I can find it) and a few harsh words are my only defense. I'm on leave. I have to meet someone in an imp city. A group of ST's scan me (ut-oh). They find out I'm a rebel, and change my status from on-leave to combatant. They attack. Odds are (10:1) they kill me. I clone. If I was smart I would have cloned in a place not controlled by my enemy before going into the city preferably with a recruiter to put me back on leave. A pain in the butt, I agree, but workable.

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This is actually an improvement over the current system for rebels, where the system changes your status to overt, meaning you still have to wait an hour after finding your rebel recruiter before you can go covert again. So much for the meeting

The bad part about it is the decay of items in inventory and the frustration factor. Where I live (near Theed) the ST's will even come into the house to scan you. There is no place to safely work.

The main arguments I have seen in those threads is that it is similar to a real life situation where noncombatants are often oppressed and killed.

The main argument I see against that argument is that there really is no fun in being oppressed and powerless to do anything about it. You never see games featuring the atrocities of humanity in the past for good reason: people play games to escape that aspect of real life. They are played for fun, not to simulate misery well.

So far, the best solution I have thought of is to separate combat and noncombat skill points, preventing anyone from stacking either combat or crafting professions and bringing a more even playing field to both types of professions by allowing everyone to have access to a mastery in each, but not three masteries in either. I can think of several negatives to that idea, though, so I suspect an even better solution is out there. I just haven't thought of one yet.

It seems that crafters are taking a fairly stiff hit these days, between combat being substantially more profitable, the loss of crafting station storage, the increase in the Imperial crackdown, the advent of planetary police scans, the Rebel version of the Imperial Crackdown with yet more scans, and galaxy-wide vendor searches with price comparisons and immediate delivery without ever visiting the vendor. I hope this means relief is just around the corner, but that it hasn't been revealed yet.

Oh, to be fair, the immediate delivery on the galaxy-wide vendor searches from the bazaar has been removed for now. Someone does indeed listen.

The sad thing is that most players think all crafters are rich. I have about 50K cr in my possession, own one medium Naboo House with primarily resources in it, a couple of factories and some harvesters (for which I have to have someone else do the surveying). If I pay 50 cpu for meat (which is reaching up to 300 cpu now on Gorath) and 5 cpu for flora, I earn 100 cr profit per BSN I make not counting the cost of making a schematic or maintaining a factory. Obtaining quality meat still is a limiting factor in keeping my vendor stocked. I'm far from rich.

Edit: LOL, Corbis, in my effort to make a general point that wasn't really a direct reply to your message, I forgot to mention that that was a great post. Thanks for the link!

Message Edited by Hylidex on 02-12-2005 06:32 PM

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Felisconcolori wrote:

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droid327 wrote:

Personally I think it would be better if your chance of being attacked was proportional to your mission payout rating, but with that rating inversely proportional to fines...that is, if you have combat skills you're more likely to be attacked, if you dont you're more likely to have a fine incurred on you. That would make the most sense, anyway, you dont tend to punish nonviolent offenders with violence.

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Normally, I would agree with you. But the thematic element is still there, and time and again in the movies we see StormTroopers preferring blasters over tickets. Heck, the fan film "Troops" is fairly accurate. Just think of stormtroopers as being the worst bunch of corrupt LAPD out their, and yourself as being Rodney King.

Rebel Crafter - "Can't we just get along, THX-1138?"

THX-1138- "No."

This is going to suck, but I don't see much of a change from my cycle of dying when passing through heavily Imperial areas anyways. Well, the only difference is that now it could happen to Imperial players. Or, if I get it right, Rogue Corsec factioned people passing through Corsec areas. (I've always wondered what effect my 5000 faction rating with Corsec has other than making Meatlumps try to jump me on sight.)

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Rushyo wrote:

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Felisconcolori wrote:

Fion13... Yes, I don't think we (the US) would go shoot every person that worked in an arms factory in Iraq. But then, you are also missing a major thematic element in the entire StarWars galaxy.

The Empire is not like the U.S. The Empire is a proven dictatorship, relying on military might and fear of retribution to enforce its laws and the viewpoints of the ruling elite class. Much closer to Saddam's regime, than anything else.

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*accidentally forgets the no politics rule*

You know, I'd call that description of the Empire very fitting for the US's current policies, but don't mind me.

*suddenly remembers them and walks off to another thread, whistling happily*

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I wanted to say it but thought GarVa might frown upon meh

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Zadokk wrote:

I wanted to say it but thought GarVa might frown upon meh

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Rushyo wrote:

*accidentally forgets the no politics rule*

You know, I'd call that description of the Empire very fitting for the US's current policies, but don't mind me.

*suddenly remembers them and walks off to another thread, whistling happily*

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geez its just so fashionable to take a shot, isnt it? The no politics rule is there for a reason, you might piss someone off. Like me.

** Self Censored **

Message Edited by Halthron on 02-13-2005 05:29 PM

I'm glad to see so many replied to this thread. It's an important discussion IMHO on the life of the non-combatant in the game. If I can go 'on leave' indefinately for the most part I am perfectly fine with being scanned. I mean at least it'll just make me pve enabled instead of overt I can name countless times where I've been made overt (I learned not to run when being scanned rather quickly lol) and comming upon some overt imperial who thought 'ooh look it's a squishy rebel with no weapon and no buffs, GET 'IM!' hehe.

"and galaxy-wide vendor searches with price comparisons and immediate delivery without ever visiting the vendor."

Actually there isn't going to be immediate delivery. They are removing that entirely. So the buyer will still have to make his way to your store to pick up his goods. As to price comparisons, I say thats a great thing! Poeple won't be able to charge and arm and a leg anymore just cause they cant find an item on any vendors. It'll bring peoples prices into check and create competition. For SWG having a real world ecconomy (and a very realistic one at that, we are having a slight resession on starsider), the lack of crafter competition has helped. You hear that you cnet merchants? No more charging 300k for a toy bantha!

"Just for the record, I'm your typical tulip BE. I'm just trying to be kind ot my Imperial colleagues by giving them a heads up"

I'm just picking. I call all the imperials, even friends, gImps THey typically tell me to *BLEEP* off lmao, but they know I am only jesting.

Message Edited by Fion13 on 02-13-2005 12:08 PM