Smuggler Archive

---

Q-3PO wrote:

We're dedicating a designer (Green Marine) next week to looking into fixing some of the bigger issues of the smuggler. (Yes, we are also looking at issues with the other professions, the smuggler just seems to be the one needing the most love at this moment).

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=552985&highlight=smuggler#M552985

---

---

JustG wrote:

There is a lot on our plate, and we are regularly going to provide you with as much information as we can about what is going on. Our priorities and tasks feed in from a variety of sources, and there are very many items on the design priority list. We will not be able to get to all of them with the next few pushes, but we want to take on a number of things that will make the game better, immediately. These include:

• Professions Augmentations
  Droid Engineer
  Smuggler
  Merchant
  Chef

http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/team_comments.jsp?id=59306&page=Team%20Comments[look for Gary Gattis's Letter to the Community" at the bottom of the list]

---

---

Thunderheart wrote:

Smugglers are getting some attention soon. Everything is getting more attention now that Player Cities, Mounts and Vehicles have been added.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=15023&highlight=smuggler#M15023

---

---

Thunderheartwrote:

Both San and I agree that you guys need more of an answer and here it is. The smuggler isn't going to be just "fixed". Its in re-development. Smuggler is an important profession and needs more than a little attention.

Here is what I need from you folks. Since Smuggler is "In Development", I hope you folks can work together to put together some reasonable ideas togetherfor the types of directions you would like to see the Smuggler profession change/develop. . . .

. . .I will take that information to the producers so that your desires and ideas can be accounted for when the development process moves to the next stage.

The best recommendation I can make is to keep your ideas realistic. Come up with ideas using the system as you know it as opposed to inventing things from a "blue sky" approach.

I very much look forward to seeing your input.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=42882&highlight=smuggler#M42882

---

---

Thunderheartwrote:

The thing is that smugglers essentially are a "space based" profession (at least the way we think of it)and giventhe inherent client/server limitations, its atough proposition any way you look at. For instance, lets say Imperials do a search for contraband at starports. Can you imagine the lag if we even did an item check for everything inevery player's inventory as they entered and exited a starport? And then there are the guys that run back and forth across that threshold just to lag things out. This is one tiny piece of a larger puzzle. It has to be a cool game mechanic and work in the game system and in a big MMO environment.

The key here is that while I was in beta and I knew everyone (I actually have almost all of it saved on my hard drive, but doing a search on "smuggler" with 12 gig of materials would be insane). Further still, that was a while ago. I want to hear YOUR ideas and Ive worked with the devs and correspondents to focus communication so that correspondents can get me information and also in a way that I can both share it with the devs AND catalgoue it.

Its all a process and we're working on it and its going to take time. The devs want to make a good game, you and I want to play a fun game and as a community, I believe we can make this whole experience very cool.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=43562&highlight=smuggler#M43562

---

---

Thunderheart wrote:

"Smuggling" really is a spacey kind of profession and doing something on the ground really needs to be thought out.

With that being said, Im working on the Smuggler and Squad Leader profession revamp posts this week. Im just taking the time to put together some really nice posts so that the answers that players put forth can be easily handled and used by the dev team.

Currently, people don't say, "hey we're going out hunting, lets make sure we have a smuggler". That shortfall is something that needs to be included in the revamp thread.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=19680&highlight=smuggler#M19680

---

---

Thunderheart wrote:

... I pushed very hard (I spent a couple of days pushing this issue) and the devs added bonuses to the Smugler Underworld Tree

A small victory, but you asked and its in. Here's how it works:

1. The system counts up your contraband and does the "scanning roll".
2. If the system "sees" the contraband (having made a successful scan roll), it checks to see if you are a smuggler. Depending on what level of Underworld a smuggler has, they get a progressive chance to "escape the scan". If the smuggler roll succeeds, then the player will get a message that reads, "You have successfully avoided the scan."

So if you want to get spice or sliced armor and weapons from one place to another and not get harassed by the Empire, then smuggle it

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=51541&highlight=smuggler#M51541

---

---

Thunderheart wrote:

Based on community input, we have made the following changes to the Imperial Crackdown penalty schema. Thanks go to San Tsu and the Smuggler community and Jester and the Galactic Civil War community.

[Thunderheart then proceeds to describe the system --hugely controversial and now known to Smugglers as "Imperial Immunity" --whereby anyone who invests some Imperial Faction points is able to bypass contraband scans better than a Master Smuggler. I would post it all, but Thunderheart used a strange script and it takes forever to clean it up for posting purposes.]

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=801&highlight=smuggler#M801

Updated on 11 February 2004:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=22484&highlight=smuggler#M22484

---

---

Thunderheart wrote:

One neat new addition to Publish 7 is with the Junk Dealers. Smugglers who have underworld can now take their Junk to the Jawa Traders camp and they can sell their junks to the Jawas up there.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=game_guides&message.id=137614&highlight=smuggler#M137614

---

---

Thunderheart wrote:

... the change to smuggler's [adding the Fred Sanford Trashman minigame] was a small one. Its just me working with the team to fit smuggler stuff in where we can until the revamp - - thats when the beefy changes will occur.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=game_guides&message.id=138096&highlight=smuggler#M138096

---

---

Thunderheart wrote:

You can expect pretty high visibility from the Smuggler thread. Ill do a takeaway and work with the correspondent and the community when we move to In development with it...

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=30240&highlight=smuggler#M30240

---

Public Post by Developers
March 24, 2004

Smuggler Revamp Timeline

As it stands, Smugglers are looking at their revamp to be included within Publish 9. This is essentially within the month of May. Through the State of the Game, posted on March 24, 2004. This information is found here.

Smuggler revamp

CS Issues (Bug fixes/ tools)
QA Issues (Bug fixes/ features)

---

Developer Post April 19, 2004

Thunderheart wrote:

---

bigmacdaddy12 wrote: Smuggler would still like some feedback about their profession and which of their suggestions are actually possible to implement. Please stop by at some point. I mean aren't we scheduled for a revamp about one month from now?

---

The Smuggler revamp moved into its early discussion phases last week. Smuggler_Caylin, the dev working on the revamp and myself have all been in close contact. We've also been reading the In-Concept Smuggler thread and a lot of the big proposals. We're looking at a lot of enhancements to the existing tree to make spices more useful, to make slicing a bigger, more integrated challenging and making the smuggler combat skills more formidable. Its just a question of hoe much is technically possible. When a crafting profession is revamped, its a matter of making new craft items, maybe some new wearables and other things that are more localized.

Smugglers, on the other hand, have a different type of profession. The spice and the fighting are pretty easy to change, but the most anticipated items are difficult to address. Lets look at slicing for instance. Slicing gives bonuses which effect all related game objects inthe world. Thats more interface, more dynamics and a lot more low level coding. Its also very vulnerable to exploits and other tactics that make rapid development very difficult. What we want to do, is get a good system in place and grow it as the game continues to grow.

Another example is the act of "smuggling" itself. We would love to integrate smugglers into some sort of object delivery service to smuggler things, but its way open to grief and its also technically difficult. For instance, to have "smuggling", you need a choke point. At that check point is when some NPC would "scan" or investigate players. Any time you have a choke point, players gather in large groups and suffer wait and lag.Also at that choke point, you get some players who like to try and lag everyone out for some reason. So the obvious grief there is to find check points and lag out everyone in an area to try and beat the system some way, so instead of having something fun, it ends up being "not so fun".

We do want to add a kind of smuggling mini-game, but I dont have any details since its in progress. The developer, myself and Smuggler_Caylin are in close contact though. There will be many additional opportunities when SE comes, but I can't talk about any of that just yet.