Jump To Lightspeed Archive

Secondly there will need to be an extraordinary level of detail about every conceivable object to make contracts useful. Your notion of using a sample object isn’t sensitive enough because unless you're using a schematic, you're not guaranteed to have exact copies of the first object. Taking a droid for instance, if I want a droid what specs will it have? Does it require a specific chassis or does the owner not care? What about modules, what types can they have, what minimum ratings are required on each module? Now this isn’t terrible for one type of object, but what you’re proposing will require SOE to code every possibility into the contract interface. A job that will probably take at least six months of development for a system that arguably does not add a great deal of value to the player’s experience.

Third is that it isn’t flexible enough for special instance contracts. I’ve heard of more than one person requiring a “deposit” on large objects such as PA Halls. Then if the item critical fails on the final build the crafterkeeps that portion of the payment and the customer gets no item. Granted it doesn’t seem fair to the customer, but in the end both parties lose equally on the crit fail instead of the crafter bearing the entire weight of the loss.

Shipping Terminals

I actually mistyped my post earlier, I should have written “buy orders” not “sell orders”. Essentially the problem I see is that if players are given the ability to say “Hey I want this item, I’ll pay you this much, have it delivered to me” is that you’ve now put every store out of business. You underestimate how lazy people can be. Once a system is put into place to allow people to request items they want it’s all they’ll use, especially with how frustrated people already are about empty vendors, small selections, etc, etc. That’s why I say it’ll kill the Merchant profession.

Now that being said, if you’re instead talking about a player buying an item from a bazaar that’s located on another planet and then saying that they’d like to have it shipped to their current location, that I could see working because it’s fostering additional player involvement without taking it away from someplace else.

I apologize if I have any typos in this post, it's late and I can feel the grogginess affecting my concentration.

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Flatfingers wrote:

Admittedly, thinking mostly in terms of resource sales narrows the utility of a delivery function. But I suspect there'd bepeoplewilling to have objects worth 6000cr or lessdelivered to other planets to try to make sales there. Enough to make this system worthwhile? Possibly not, not on its own... but what if we added NPC freight delivery missions?

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Would the current forums dedicated to each server be a better place for this? I'm not saying this isn't an idea worth investigating, but it sounds like it would require a great deal of work from the development teams that might be better spent elsewhere. Can this sort ofa thing be accomplished through any of the currently available forums? Like lists from different smiths (weaponsmiths, architects, etc.) saying what resources they're looking for, and responses from miners? I only sold resources once, a while ago and that was only something I did for a short while, so I don't know how possible this is.

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Flatfingers wrote:

I wouldn't be surprisedif there werea better way to accomplish this goal of letting potential cargo shippers know what people on other planetswant to buy... but if there is,I haven't been able to think ofit yet! If you've got some ideas for how else we might do this, I hope you'll add them to this conversation.

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I'm not sure...but trust me, I'm thinking hard about. Again, I really like the idea of supporting commerce in JTL. And I'm sure there are some great ideas we can come up with. Thanks for sharing, I'll let you know when I've thought of somethign worth sharing.

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LAR wrote:

Player Contracts

Here are my issues with contracts. First I don’t believe that they can be made grief proof. I could conceivably see players try to intentionally make it so that the other party cannot complete the contract in order to cash in on the penalty clause.

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There aretwo responses to this.

First, I think "close enough" is achievable. The conditions for successful termination of each contract type would have to be chosen carefully, and the game system itself would have to be able to reliably tell when those conditions have been met, but while difficult those things are not impossible. So I think the level of grief-proofing could actually be pretty good.

Second, the system doesn't have to be perfect for people to use it -- justclose enoughto be worth more than the occasional headache. (If perfection in everything were required, no one would play this game or any other!)

Let's say some contracts do occasionally allow the creative player to grief someone else. If that happened to me, I'd be pretty upset, especially if I lost something valuable. On the other hand, that would be the last time I sign a contract with that griefer, and I'd be more careful about who I sign valuable contracts with in the future.Ultimately, as long as the number and valueof successful contracts sufficiently outweigh the failures, people will still use the system.

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Secondly there will need to be an extraordinary level of detail about every conceivable object to make contracts useful. Your notion of using a sample object isn’t sensitive enough because unless you're using a schematic, you're not guaranteed to have exact copies of the first object. Taking a droid for instance, if I want a droid what specs will it have? Does it require a specific chassis or does the owner not care? What about modules, what types can they have, what minimum ratings are required on each module?

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With respect, I believe you'refocusing a little too closely on just one contract type. I actually agree with you that the Craft contractmight betoo complex to implement as a contract type -- if people really want to specify that level of detail in custom crafted products (and I'm sure some people would), then yes, the number of options would probably be excessive.

Other potentialcontract types -- Repair, Slice, Destroy, etc. -- can be worth having even though the number of options would be fairly limited. So even if we don't implement a Craft contract, there are still plenty of other types of contracts possible that would make a Player Contracts system worth having.

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Now this isn’t terrible for one type of object, but what you’re proposing will require SOE to code every possibility into the contract interface. A job that will probably take at least six months of development for a system that arguably does not add a great deal of value to the player’s experience.

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I'm glad you added that word "arguably" as I have and would argue precisely the opposite. Aplayer mission system (which my contract system would support)has beenone of the most requested features for this game in the roughly two years I've been active in the two official SWG forums (including the pre-launch forum). Players want to be have a trustable way to give each other missions -- this system would give them that capability.

I've also made the case that a player contract system would be a Good Thing from an economic perspective, not just for SWG but for the MMOG industry generally. As I've pointed out, a Secure Trade window is nice, but it's a fairly primitive economic technology, not much better than Og and Bloob tradingpointed sticks for sharp rocksten thousand years ago. A secure contract system would generate more turnover of money inside MMOGs, which would be useful not only from the individual player's perspective (more opportunities to earn money and acquire desired objects)but would also improve the economic health of MMOGs by increasing the velocity of money -- that is, spreading it around is better than letting a few people stuff tens of millions under their mattresses. And finally, more opportunities for players to interact -- even if only economically -- ismore opportunities for roleplaying and social mixing, which are good for the general health of any serious MMOG.

There are other features that would be necessary to create a truly vibrant economy inside a MMOG, but a secure contract system is probably the most important. SoI would argue that implementing a player contract system (whether mine or someone else's) would, in fact, be worth the development time.

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Third is that it isn’t flexible enough for special instance contracts. I’ve heard of more than one person requiring a “deposit” on large objects such as PA Halls. Then if the item critical fails on the final build the crafterkeeps that portion of the payment and the customer gets no item. Granted it doesn’t seem fair to the customer, but in the end both parties lose equally on the crit fail instead of the crafter bearing the entire weight of the loss.

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But it's not necessary to constructthis kind ofcontract's conditions in that way. You could also set it up suchthat satisfying the contract happens when the deed (and not just any deed, but the correct kind) is transferred into the payoff account of the requestor.

Architects don't actually lose their resources on a critically failed assembly, but even if they did that's part of the cost of doing business. Those non-Architectcrafters who take special-order jobs set their prices to take into account the occasional failure (and loss of resources), and that's precisely how it should be. But even if there was something wrong with that, it's not a flaw inherent to a player contract system, which simply formalizes the current informal system by spelling out that the "deposit" is what the person who wants the PA hall puts into the Penalty Account.

If the crafter crit fails as part of a contract, well, how is either party worse off than if the failure occured in an informal contract? In fact, both players are better off with a contract because it spells out exactly what happens in such an event before the crafting ever happens... as opposed to the post-failurearguments about who promised what that we enjoy now. (Note that this is also the reason why we have contracts in the Real World.)

As for flexibility... well, I suspect that's an argument I'm probably not going to win with you. My position is that a contract system doesn't have to be as flexible as RL contracts -- it just has to capture the main things that people want to do in the game world. You lose some economic activity without that flexibility, but that's the way it has to be to have a chance of implementing such a system on a computer at all.

Would such a system be good enough? Well. I suspect that's a judgement call. I think the odds that it would be good enougharesufficient to make the attempt worthwhile.

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Shipping Terminals

I actually mistyped my post earlier, I should have written “buy orders” not “sell orders”. Essentially the problem I see is that if players are given the ability to say “Hey I want this item, I’ll pay you this much, have it delivered to me” is that you’ve now put every store out of business. You underestimate how lazy people can be. Once a system is put into place to allow people to request items they want it’s all they’ll use, especially with how frustrated people already are about empty vendors, small selections, etc, etc. That’s why I say it’ll kill the Merchant profession.

Now that being said, if you’re instead talking about a player buying an item from a bazaar that’s located on another planet and then saying that they’d like to have it shipped to their current location, that I could see working because it’s fostering additional player involvement without taking it away from someplace else.

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Let's be clearabout what I'm suggesting here. I'm proposing two new features: 1)deliveryas freight of anitemfrom a starport Shipping terminal on one planet to a starport Shipping terminal on another planet, and 2) delivery as cargo of anitemthat someone requested in a Want Ad intothe Bazaar terminal where the ad was placed (which would include Shipping terminals).

Even assuming that a Want Ad system designed to promote interplanetarycargo shippingwould additionallybe used by some peopletoto try to avoidhaving to walk around to find desired goods (and I agree that it would),I don't think there'd be as much damage done to Merchants as you suggest. In the first place, just being able to ask for something (as in a Want Ad)doesn't imply that you'll always get it -- people will still have to get up and go looking for some things from time to time.

In the second place, why is it good for players to be frustrated by having to walk around for hours only to find empty vendors?Ifplayers can usethe Want Adstopost a message saying,"Bring ItemA to me personally and I'll pay you X credits for it," how is that worse than the currentpointless searching of vendors, some of which will be empty?

Finally, and most importantly,we currentlyhave the situation of peoplegoing to the nearest Bazaar terminal to look for Item A, butnever finding it becauseno onerealizes that someonewants that item. A terminal-basedWant Ad system would in fact expand economic activity by allowing sales that would otherwise never happen. Far from putting Merchants out of business, it would expand their sales opportunities. The ability to easily see what people actually want (instead of spending the resources to make a bunch of things most of which no one ever buys) would make Merchants more profitable, not less.

And as someone who's played a Merchant, that sure seems like a good thing to me.

Thanks again for the opportunity to explain some of the ideas I've had. Honorable criticism (at the appropriate time)is the best thing that can happen to an idea; I appreciate your taking the time to offer your perspectives on this stuff.

--Flatfingers

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AuleyDavyds wrote:

Would the current forums dedicated to each server be a better place for this? I'm not saying this isn't an idea worth investigating, but it sounds like it would require a great deal of work from the development teams that might be better spent elsewhere.

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I've got a general rule of thumb for how to decide what features ought to go into a program. It goes something like this: If it's worth doing, it's worth doing in the game.

In other words, if there's some activity that players want to do, and that activity is valid or even desirable in the game context, then playersshouldn't be forced to "jump out of the system" to have to do it.

I'd say that object and resource sales is just such an activity. The fact that we have external forums for trading goods does not imply that that's how it should be -- just that that's how it is now.

To put it another way: If trading goods using this external Sony forum is good, then trading on eBay must be good, too. Alternately, if trading items on eBay is undesirable, then how can trading on these forums be desirable? In both cases, you've got players making business deals outside the gamebecause 1) they want to make deals, and 2) it's too hard to find people to make deals with inside the game.

It seems to me that aWant Ad system would help bring those transactions inside the game, where they should be.

--Flatfingers

Looks like there's been some additional interest recently inhaving a good freight/cargo shipping game as part of Jump to Lightspeed, so I thought it might beuseful to bump this thread for a few more comments.

So here's a question: Should Smugglers have any special abilities added as part of Jump to Lightspeed that allow them to get bonuses to the rewards for shipping freight or cargo? How about special abilities to use smuggling holds in multi-player freighters like the YT-1300? Or is that something everyone should be able to use?

--Flatfingers

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Flatfingers wrote:

Looks like there's been some additional interest recently inhaving a good freight/cargo shipping game as part of Jump to Lightspeed, so I thought it might beuseful to bump this thread for a few more comments.

So here's a question: Should Smugglers have any special abilities added as part of Jump to Lightspeed that allow them to get bonuses to the rewards for shipping freight or cargo? How about special abilities to use smuggling holds in multi-player freighters like the YT-1300? Or is that something everyone should be able to use?

--Flatfingers

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I think that there should be an actual "smuggling" skill mod and Master smugglers would obviousely have +100Smuggling Ability. When running into imperial patrols in space they wouldconduct a scan similar to the current contraband/ faction scans that ST's do now. If we do not comply to the request of being scanned and / or they find contraband we can get our stuff confiscated, fined orget shot up!

Haven't reallythought about the details, just throwing some ideas out there.

Your proposal seems like a good start for giving players some intriguing content and would be a great way to implement the long awaited smugglers revamp...

Message Edited by SolRetriever on 07-13-2004 02:39 PM

Message Edited by SolRetriever on 07-13-2004 02:40 PM

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SolRetriever wrote:

Nice post Flatfingers! I would like to see this implemented along with a smuggler's angle to it. I would really like to trasnport spice and contraband through imperial and pirate territories and get payed accordingly for my services. If I can make it in one piece I get paid big bucks. They would also need to implement an insurance fee so that if I got toasted on my way to deliver my shipment ofcontraband, sliced weapons, spiceto corellia than the playerwho posted the contract would be reimbursed. I however would be left with nothing.

Such is the life of a gambler/ smuggler. High reward=high risk! Love it. Great job!

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Thanks! I actually tried to address this possibility (for freight missions, not cargo, which is risk you take on for your own profit) by suggesting that freight items are never actually carried on board your ship -- they're just marked on the shipping terminal manifest as "in transit."

This would prevent players from taking and keeping someone else's valuable stuff. You could still "lose" items due to combat -- the item is removed from your ship'smanifest (and marked as "available for delivery" on the shipping terminal, since the person who owned the item shouldn't have to suffer).

Alternately, you could physicallytransport actualfreight items using the Player Contracts system I came up with. If you lose the item in transit (either by keeping it or losing it to piracy or damage), then you'd have to pay the surety amount spelled out in the Penalty Account of thedeliverycontract.

Personally I could live with either one of these approaches...just as long as JtL offers somefeatures to support space-based commerce!

--Flatfingers

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DawsonDraco wrote:

Maybe this could also work with a Player Bounty System so if you take a risky cargo and have to eject it or get boarded you get a Bounty on you valued twice the vaule of the loot.

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I like this idea a lot. It's reasonably simple and has good roleplaying possibilities.

The only questions I have are:

1. How does the gameknow what an object's value is?

You might be able to write some game code that scans the various Bazaar terminals, or possibly player vendors,to calculate an average price for that type of object. But you still might run into situations where that object isn't being sold anywhere --howcould the game determine an object's valuethen?

Even worse, scanning Bazaar terminals and/or vendors would probably be very time-intensive. The good news is that you probably wouldn't have to do it very often; the bad news is that it would likely take a long time when you did have to calculate an object's general value.

2. Boarding apparently won't be implemented in the initial version of JtL, so where does the risk of losing a cargo object come from?

One possibility might be to have a chance of destroying some randomly-chosen object when your ship takes a certain large amount of damage. Players would probably scream loudly about this, given all the hollering we heard about "death decay." But it's a possibility.

Personally, I'd rather the developers implemented docking ports. There is just WAY too much gaming goodness implicit in being able to go aboard other ships in space. Naturally there'd have to be rules about who could dock with whom under which circumstances, but we could work those rules out.

--Flatfingers