Ranger Archive
Thread: The Ranger Conspiracy (MORE EVIDENCE!!)
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BlakkStar
Wed Sep 22, 2004 8:17 pm
#1
I have never seen any post or information by a developer or spokesperson for the developers, saying that Ranger is suppose to be "creature-centric." Of course I have not seen every post or every bit of information that comes from the official mouth of the SWG, either. Nevertheless the first time I heard of the "creature-centric" idea was late fall/ early winter by the then Ranger correspondent, NRaas. This idea of creature-centricity was a guiding theme to his later influential and inspirational text, The Outdoorsman Proposal. (It is rumored that certain passages of the text, if said in-game, can give a Ranger temporary invincibility.I did this once while hunting some klikniks unbuffed. I got jumped by 3 nests of them as they had all spawned in closeby to one another. Needless to say I survived.)
This idea of creature-centricity seems to be a fallacy, that the devs now wish to be true but didn't originally intend.
The Evidence against Creature-centricity:
Exhibit A: In game description of /conceal
"This allows you to use a camo kit to become far less noticable to NPC's and Mobs while in a concealed state. This can also be used on other players."
Exhibit B: /areatrack
One can do an /areatrack for creatures, NPCs AND Players.
Exhibit C: Manhunting
The fourth box of Tracking is called "ManHunting."
Exhibit D: Holocron's Post
In the post where Holocron briefly stated the new skills rangers would be receiving, he commented on a new trap we were to be receiving. "Tripwire - The tripwire trap can be laid against NPCs as well as creatures. A target who runs across the tripwire will be knocked on his back for a short time."
Exhibit E:Dizzy Effect Traps
TheSonic Pulsetrap emits an AOE dizzy and stunning effect to creatures only, while the Scout (Ranger Prerequisite) trap, Lecepanine Dart only causes the dizzy effect (plus minor damage that is so minimal that it isn't worth noting). The devs have stated that the dizzy effect has NO EFFECT on creatures.
Exhibits F-H:The In-game descriptions of the3 levelsin theScout Trapping Tree (Ranger Prerequisite)
Each of these descriptions exposes the truth behind traps, which is THEY ARE NOT SUPPOSE TO WORK ON CREATURES ONLY!!! (All of the following red emphases are mine.)
Trapping I: The disciplines of trapping is as old as the scouting profession. Whether the scout is setting a trap for his evening meal, or for an encroaching enemy force, the principles are largely the same. Makeshift trap design involves building simple traps out of available resources.
(From "encroaching enemy force," one can assume the forceconsists of an organized unit, most likely consisting of humanoids.)
Trapping III: Martial trap design involves the scout integrating modern military theory into her trap design and creation process. From this point forward, the scout's traps become more lethal and more extreme in their effects.
(Military theory is geared towards humanoid vs. humanoid combat. If traps are designed along those lines then one can assume they would be just as effective against humanoids as they are against creatures.)
Trapping IV: The scout of this level designs traps that are the envy of military forces throughout the galaxy. She could very well be a weapons designer if her interests did not direct her towards wilderness and wild creatures. The scout's traps have become creative and highly effective.
(Again same argument as above. Since military forces are concerned more with humanoid vs. humanoid combat then being able to trap a kreetle would not garner their envy. The second statement further shows that the scout is interested more towards the "wilderness" and "wild creatures." The wilderness simply means "away from a city" and thus does not exclude humanoids.)
Exhibit I:The In-game descriptions ofScout Hunting II(Ranger Prerequisite)
Military Hunting Methodology enhances hunting knowledge by teaching the scout to integrate techniques employed by military special forces. The scout also undergoes an intensive study of common organic lifeforms. The result is an increased ability to harvest organic resources as well as a greater understanding of creature capabilities.
(Once again we see the influence of some sort of military training for the scout. Militaries don't exist to fight nunas for avian meat. Also in the following statements, increases in harvesting and creature knowledge are seen as a separate study from "techniques employed by military special forces." Thephrase "also undergoes an intensive study..." suggests this fact. The question now becomes "What are these special techniques?")
As we can see, each of these examples is representative of each of the Ranger treesexcept for the Frontiering line . The Frontiering line itself is meant to be the healing tree (so to speak) for players outside of a city therefore it isn't specifically oriented towards enemies (minus the creature repelling ability that has never worked). The dizzy effect trapsis also one of the more serious and telling pieces of evidence, though it is relatively weak in that it may not be evidence against creature-centricity at all. Essentiallyitsexistence hasfourpossible meanings:
1. All traps were indeed not suppose to be creature-only devices as suggested before.
2. The fact that dizzy effects do not affect creatures at all was overlooked by the ranger devs.
3.The dizzy effect did have an effect on creatures at some point but the effect was taken out of the game for various reasons and the trap remained.
4.The devs really want Rangers to be gimped.
I choose to believe the first reason as 2 and 3 suggest dev incompetency and 4 suggests a truly insidious and malicious plot that I refused to believe.
The more proper term for Ranger is "wilderness-centered." Being centered around the wilderness of course means that one would possess abilities particularly meant for creatures as they would be the most likely opponent for one in the wilderness. The tactic of calling us "creature-centric" is a conspiracy to further justify the rejection of NPC/player affecting skills we could possess. We obiviously have skills to work against NPCs so the next logical step would be to request these same skills to work against ALL humanoids, including players.
The most controversial skills that have been discussed that would affect players is the use of traps and a concealment technique. The acquisition of these techniques against players could give the ranger skillset actual use in PVP or PVNPC.
Butno they would rather see rangers wearing hawtpants hunting nunas on Tatooine collecting 1 million units of avian in the krayt graveyard.
They think they can bamboozle me but I'm on to them. Yeah I may have had one too many Vasarian brandies or maybe I quit the spice too late. Believe what u will but this ranger is onto them. They can't fool me. And I dare them to come get me.I milk Nighsisters for fun. I play tag with a Gorax when I'm bored. I collect Krayt eggs to throw at the Emperor's Retreat. And Best of all, I track CSRs before they even login...
I am a Ranger... Come and fetch me.
(Edit Notes: Added more evidence: Exhibits E-I)
Message Edited by BlakkStar on 09-23-2004 10:26 AM
FirstPatriarch
Thu Sep 23, 2004 6:23 am
#2
(Loud applause from somewhere in the vacinity of the grassy knoll)
I hear your words and I am in full agreement. It is a conspiracy. The Devs are keeping the Ranger down. What would the galaxy be with out us? How could that Master Armorsmith and the Master Doctor pillage the pockets of the rest of the galaxtic citizenry without our skills in harvesting? Lost! Lost, they would be without us. Vile Devs keeping us under the programming boot of tyrany.
Give me a dark forest, a multiperson camp, and the distant roar of Rancor or give me death!!
Lupas Octuras
Ranger/Rifleman
I hear your words and I am in full agreement. It is a conspiracy. The Devs are keeping the Ranger down. What would the galaxy be with out us? How could that Master Armorsmith and the Master Doctor pillage the pockets of the rest of the galaxtic citizenry without our skills in harvesting? Lost! Lost, they would be without us. Vile Devs keeping us under the programming boot of tyrany.
Give me a dark forest, a multiperson camp, and the distant roar of Rancor or give me death!!
Lupas Octuras
Ranger/Rifleman
Calculus_Entropy
Thu Sep 23, 2004 9:40 am
#3
You make some valid points and they could be used in a conversation with the devs. It would take something major for me to even consider using old, old, old information, though. Regarding the creature-centric vision, that comes from us, dare I say, whining that our skill didn't work against NPCs anyore, the devs coming back with the answer that it was never meant to works on NPCs (We all have our opinions on this). We then asked them to define our profession...they did. Since we had a direction, we ran with it and made the Outdoorsman. Many people liked the idea of (possibly) being big game hunters, and liked the thought of almost never needing to come back into town.
The winds seem to be changing, and now we are in a transition between people loving the creature-centric role, to more and more people wanting to be involved in PvP. Besically, the para-military version of the Ranger is becoming more prominent. I think it will be interesting to see what vision we (and the Devs) have of Rangers when our revamp time comes.
In conclusion, the devs orignal intentions are completely invalid, and worrying about posts from devs that don't work on the game anymore AND are over 1 year old, isn't going to be part of my battle plan. Things change, and if we want to define our skillset, we need to stop worry about the past (but still remember it) and focus on the present.
The winds seem to be changing, and now we are in a transition between people loving the creature-centric role, to more and more people wanting to be involved in PvP. Besically, the para-military version of the Ranger is becoming more prominent. I think it will be interesting to see what vision we (and the Devs) have of Rangers when our revamp time comes.
In conclusion, the devs orignal intentions are completely invalid, and worrying about posts from devs that don't work on the game anymore AND are over 1 year old, isn't going to be part of my battle plan. Things change, and if we want to define our skillset, we need to stop worry about the past (but still remember it) and focus on the present.
AgonThalia
Thu Sep 23, 2004 9:43 am
#4
^
What he said 
Personally, I would love it if scouting skills actually and tangibly translated into hunting skills, but thats just me... i hate pvp
Message Edited by AgonThalia on 09-23-2004 12:44 PM
Phenix1050
Thu Sep 23, 2004 9:56 am
#5
I tried to make the Outdoorsman 2.1 a less creature-centric thing. While I think that a person who lives deep in the woods is more likely going to be in danger from animals, not humans. But there were several additions that I thought should go in and were important for non-creature roles:
Traps: I think we'd all like to see, at the very least, NPC traps. I'd settle for CH pet traps, but in the end, I'd like traps to be useable in some other realm. I also put in some traps that affected droids and turrets, thus giving us a role in the GCW as the people who take out the turrets during a fight.
Stealth: This is a huge bonus, and it's main focus would be PvP-centric. Yes, you could go invisible on creatures...but if they can't smell you they don't attack anyway.
These are the main two...but the modular camping idea has several good PvP or PvNPC attachments, so that Ranger becomes more versatile. I think that we should be Outdoors-centric, which means that most of our skills should be geared towards PvE...but that oftentimes we come in handy against humans, too. It's a little distinction from beng Creature-centric...but creature-centric seems to imply little to no PvP skills, while Outdoors-centric doesn't have the same connotation.
JBMat
Thu Sep 23, 2004 1:01 pm
#6
Someone musta been reading that stupid outdated manual that come with the game.
Silly person.
Cue the announcer voice....
The manual in no way depicts the reality of the game. Professional driver on a closed course. Do not use heavy machinery after ingesting. Take with food or copious adult beverages. Side effects may occur, to include death. Consult your psychic before using. Keep out to the reach of children. Don't believe a word they said.
JB
Fred_Skinner
Thu Sep 23, 2004 2:31 pm
#7
Remember folks, my stealth proposal was not designed to replace the current system. It was designed to extend it into PvP. I am and has also been at heart in the "creature-centric is bunk, we should be far more then that" camp. Remember: we use the points and are stuctured much like master doctors. We should have the utility and be just as vital to the game as them.
Owen-Lars
Thu Sep 23, 2004 2:35 pm
#8
One of the reasons i think that more and more of us are converting to the para military ranger (with big game hunter also) is will all the development time focusing on the Combat Revamp, GCW and other possible additions all focusing towards npc and player combat.
When the devs said that every profession would have a role in pvp, my ears pricked up, i think we all have some great ideas of how ranger could be involved in the GCW and most of those need to be npc or pvp orientated because creatures (non player controlled creatures) dont feature that often in pvp.
I love the idea of the big game hunter and i still think it should be our primary role (pathfinder, hunter, survivalist), however i also believe that we cant restrict ourselve to be totally creature centric so we need ways to aid others (support) in pvp and gcw encounters. I dont mind not doing damage to players using ranger skills, i chose this profession for the lifestyle, not its uberness. However i would love to be able to support the group by:
- Providing effective habitats for survival (healing, hunting and agro bonuses), assaults (staging grounds, recon terminals, scanners, and attack bonuses) and defense (bunkers, trenches, turrets, deflector shield, gunner emplacments), some with the aid of a squad leader enhancing our camps, other times just on our own.
- Ability to walk around unseen to get intel on enemy possitions and lay ground traps on unsuspecting foes (snare and kd traps)
- Lead a group through dangerous lands safely
- Find beasts (low to high level creatures) and big game (rare and boss level creatures) using /track command to supliment /areatrack. /track would lead the group on a hunt rather than find existing spawns.
Those sort of things i would like to see ranger become. Clearly a suport role whilst in groups but also a significantly more experienced effective hunter than most. You would bring the highest damage to the group, the safest means to take a beast down and quickest ways to find them. Whilst solo you would be one of only a few that could hunt the large beasts solo. Not the rares and epic creatures solo as they are group content however you could manage to take down various high level beast much better and quicker than most.
Samtha
Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:18 pm
#9
BlakkStar wrote:
I choose to believe the first reason as 2 and 3 suggest dev incompetency and 4 suggests a truly insidious and malicious plot that I refused to believe.
At this point I have to interject with the concept that maybe we -are- dealing with either incompetancy or a lack of basic understanding of the game itself... for example on one of the wookiee armors they implemented they had an issue where the devs placed one of the resources as something that only ever was looted in locked containers one unit at a time, and when that was pointed out to them they changed to to something that actually spawns.
Looking at how this game has evolved since I started playing, and how patches and changes happen it is clear to me that the developers have this massive disconnect from their hiddem mysterious vision of what the game is and to what it really is in live....
BlakkStar
Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:22 pm
#10
Not I. Nothing I presented here came out of the manual. It only came from this forum and from pressing CTRL+S (skills menu) or CTRL +A (abilities list) IN-GAME.
JBMat wrote:
Someone musta been reading that stupid outdated manual that come with the game.
Silly person.
Cue the announcer voice....
The manual in no way depicts the reality of the game. Professional driver on a closed course. Do not use heavy machinery after ingesting. Take with food or copious adult beverages. Side effects may occur, to include death. Consult your psychic before using. Keep out to the reach of children. Don't believe a word they said.
JB
Message Edited by BlakkStar on 09-23-2004 03:22 PM
WildBil2Me
Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:24 pm
#11
I have... for some time... believed this to be the Case. Under NRaas we began moving towards a more creature centric thought process as often described by the Outdoorsman proposal.
Though personally I'd love to see more PvP functionality for the Ranger class, I'm come to understand that the current vision for the Ranger Profession doesn't include that.
Like the Kinetic Tusken rifle, things that were vanish without a trace. I'd love to see more PvP viability placed in Ranger and I feel, beyond the original intentions, that the simple skill point investiture justifies that stance.
I'll throw my hat in for wanting more PvP functionality any time the question is asked or the option is given.
We are an Elite profession. The only one beside doctor as far as I'm concerned. Everything else is either specialized or hybrid. We are extreme scouts. Make scouting PvE and make Ranger capable all around.
Just some thoughts.
BlakkStar
Thu Sep 23, 2004 3:44 pm
#12
is that the issue is not simply whether we want to have PVP viability. The issue is whether we want to simply have a PVEC (player versus environmental creatures) as our sole role in this game. If that is all we were meant to be then our sp should be lowered. As it stands now other than /rescue, what functionality do we have in high end PVE content that doesn't involve creatures? How helpful is the ranger profession itself in DWB or the Corellian Corvette?
Yes I want PVP viability, I will not deny that. Owen adequately described the role we should have, a few posts up. However, the major point is that the creature-centric focus is a severely limiting concept that ultimately willleave us with very little to offer the SWG galaxy.
zstowell
Thu Sep 23, 2004 4:43 pm
#13
Here, here BlackStarr,
By the actual descriptions in the skill menu in game, and the various post from Sept - Nov 2003 from GreenMarine (the old dev that actually coded a lot of these traps that were ready to go but never made it to the test server or live servers) is what I want. /conceal is supposed to work against everyone. As Rangers we were supposed to be able to hide a strike team from being able to be noticed at the begginning of a raid. We were always meant to set traps up to not only use in PVE but PVP as well.To keep enemies fromsneaking up to our campswithout us noticing. Where is the /track command that is supposed to give us a WP to the creatures or NPCs or Players we were searching for? What happened to the new traps that were supposed to work on NPCs and players?
Around the time that GreenMarine said he finished his work on our traps and such he moved on. He probably ended up in JTL or something. He said that those were supposed to go to the test servers soon. They never did. Whoever came in after him, hit our fixes with the NERF bat, hard. They started changing the idea and concept as what rangers were. They quickly threw out our "REAL" fixes and integrated the minor fixes that they deemed were OK and safe tothe newcreature centric idea. They gave us /areatrack. They altered a couple of traps and made them work better. But at the same time they let out the biggest mistake that still gets me now. If we're creature centric, why can we track NPCs and Players. That slipped out and they have been hard up to come up with an answer to why we're allowed to do that and nothing else to NPCs or Players. They look like dear caught in the headlights whenever that comes up (Surprising to me thatthey didn't immediatly nerf the NPC and Player tracking out of the /areatrack skill myself).
In my deepest regards the ranger profession is supposed to be more PvP orientated. I do want to live with what was said in the past almost a year ago now. It's what has kept me a Ranger this long. I LIVE FOR THE DAY THAT A RANGER CAN SNEAK UP ON AN OPPOSING FACTION PLAYER, AND GET THE FIRST ATTACK and actually surprise him. That's because I didn't show on his radar. Yeah some people might not like that, but with the amount of skill points used to become a master ranger, it doesn't leave us able to defense stack like the regular PvP'ers so we should still be able to be defeated. I also like the idea of being able to conceal a group of my friends for an attack run on other players and NPCs. This is what Rangers were meant to do. That is the Ranger life style in addition to being the best creature hunters in the galaxy. Being the best creature hunters in the galaxy woul make you one nasty and dangerous person to PVP against. Rangers are SUPER SCOUTS CALLED TO SERVICE FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVE IN. Yes we can harvest really good. Yes we provide the same resources that scouts can. But you know what. We come after people too. We take our knowledge of the hunt and take it to the final level, people. If the idea of Ranger being a Creature ONLY profession actually comes to fruition, I am sad to say that I will need to grind Force Sensitive EXP and become a jedi.
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