Smuggler Archive
Thread: Revamp Discussion: Contraband & Smuggling Missions
majorslappy
Wed Jun 16, 2004 4:55 pm
#118
Halaster,
Sliced weapons and armor are and have been illegal ever since I started the game in January. The authorities in game just haven't enforced the law. That's all we are asking for. And it doesn't hurt me. I make my money through lots of different means.
HalasterTheBlack
Wed Jun 16, 2004 4:57 pm
#119
Ternque01 wrote:
I'm sorry, but I don't see anywhere in GreenMarines post that the normal person would be hindered from traveling. It was only stated that "highly illegal" goods are only able to be carried through existing starports by smugglers. Theses highly-illegal goods are only obtained only through smuggler missions. Sliced guns/armor and spices will either fall under "quasi-illegal" or "banned" and are able to be carried through starports by any player. Refute me if you must, for the argument you present has little base
Old sliced weapons and armor will be converted to have the legality level of “banned.”
Those two straight from GM's original post.
So if you go through a starport with a sliced weapon, you get attacked AND you get BH visibility.
That will discourage people from carrying sliced weapons and armor, certainly. To the extent that it will DISCOURAGE THEM FROM USING OUR SERVICES.
Let's think about this a bit. Don't be emotional. Don't be a fanboi lapping up the first thing the developer posts. THINK about how this will impact YOUR GAMEPLAY.
And that's just appealing to the selfishness in people. Think about how that will impact others' gameplay too. I assure you, they'll see it as a significant nerf. Which is bad for the game overall, if they dislike it enough.
jseames
Wed Jun 16, 2004 4:59 pm
#120
Smuggler_Caylin wrote:
It appears we will have a dozen ways to get ourselves on the terminals, but I have yet to see mention of an ability to get us the hell off them.
In GMs original post was the line, "Smugglers may attempt to find out or reduce the visibility of any player by slicing a bounty hunter terminal." He also goes on to say that this will be further expanded upon when he gets to posting the ideas on slicing. I believe this qualifies as a mention of an ability to get us off the terminals, though. Unless he simply neglected to mention an exclusion, any player would include the smuggler, themself, and decreasing visibilty would logically result in that player likely being removed from the terminal until accumulating more visibility once again.
Betatoxin
Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:02 pm
#121
GreenMarine wrote:
Britamart wrote:any thoughts to the possibilty of smugglers getting on BH terms? I think pc bounties are one the best ideas to come around in a long time, and would love to see them expanded upon."Visibility" is the system by which players go onto BH terminals. I don't have plans to add arbitrary player bounties as a part of the smuggler revamp. But smugglers (and other players) will now accumulate visibility points as they deal in illegal goods. Smugglers will now be able to gamble at looking to see how visible someone is (how likely they are to receive a bounty) at the risk of being caught snooping around bounty hunter computer archives (highly illegal).This will require a reworking of the visibility code, which is currently specific to Jedi. I don't think that will be too much of a technical effort, though. It's an area I have to research.
Well there is the OOB (out of band) attack that you can check if you are on a BH terminal by getting a BH buddy to check....
Of course if we are talking status, that is how close you are to getting listed, then that would be immune from a OOB attack since you could find out how close they are to being listed.
Excellent idea for sure, and still fits into the PvP opt-in policy.
majorslappy
Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:03 pm
#122
Halaster,
Please keep the name calling out of it (fanboi). I want to slice weapons and armor, but I want them to be illegal. They should be desireable enough to make people want them anyway.
ruehs
Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:04 pm
#123
If you have been paying attention at all with smugglers you would know that when JTL comes out smugglers will have contacts they can go to to get from planet to planet, not going through the major starports, but I guess you missed that. You might want to do some research before you try to make something up.
HalasterTheBlack wrote:
Um... tell me, how do I get from Theed to Coronet if not through the starports?
ruehs wrote:
HalasterTheBlack wrote:
Is nobody here concerned that we're talking about severely hindering most players' ability to travel in order to give ourselves a raison d'etre?
What are folks going to do when they can't go to a different planet with a sliced weapon or sliced armor? How many advendurers do you know that do NOT have sliced weapons and armor?
I'm all for giving us Smugglers something far more interesting to do, but not at the expense of everyone else in the game...
If it wasn't for smugglers they wouldn't have sliced weapons and sliced armor. They will know understand that slicing is against the law. The rest of the players are too comfortable with their sliced weapons and armor, they should not. Players will find a way around not traveling through the main starports to get to the planets they want to get to. If they want their sliced weapons and armor they will have to.
JTGAlpha
Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:06 pm
#124
Halaster...how do you get from Theed to Coronet? Through the starport. Just don't carry illegal items in there. Oh, but you want to? Well, roll the dice and take your chances. The only reason your stuff is sliced to begin with is to give us something to do, so it's not fair to say that we get to exist to serve you but not to have fun. I pay the same money you do.
HalasterTheBlack
Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:06 pm
#125
majorslappy wrote:
Halaster,
Please keep the name calling out of it (fanboi). I want to slice weapons and armor, but I want them to be illegal. They should be desireable enough to make people want them anyway.
I'm not calling people names. I'm pointing out a mindset that damages the game. I've seen it happen in several other MMOG's. It's happening here in this thread today.
People will NOT want sliced goods if every time they go through a starport they'll be attacked by the authorities and increase their BH visibility. They MIGHT want sliced goods if they have a low chance of being attacked and increasing their BH visibility.
As this proposal stands, it will reduce the interaction that I as a smuggler have with other players and reduce my potential for income. Both of those results come from the same effect - reducing peoples' desire to carry sliced weapons.
This is a BAD IDEA.
Edit: And no, they're not going to go find a PC smuggler and pay 300%+ of normal travel expenses to travel, either. They're just not going to get their stuff sliced.
Message Edited by HalasterTheBlack on 06-16-2004 08:08 PM
Daker-Naritus
Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:08 pm
#126
"Old sliced weapons and armor will be converted to have the legality level of “banned.”"
I highly disagree with this, and I think that most other players do as well.
The first problem is that some players are already really pissed about the current contraband system. Some items, like composite armor, cannot be worn or used without buffs or slicing. Although the Devs have talked consistently about nerfing armor and weapons in the combat balance, no one has ever addressed the high (and unreasonable) encumberance penalties. Players are already annoyed that they are forced to slice some items just to use them, yet get attacked for wearing them. Now you want to increase the annoyance level with bounty visibility...I think forcing people into the bounty/pvp system in this way is bad...you should not increase the contraband level of sliced items. People need to keep their choice of engaging in pvp, and this flies in the face of that principle.
The second problem, is that you are gutting the smuggler revamp by the very fixing you are trying to accomplish. Let me explain...
If you are a smuggler, you are choosing the path of a live of crime. You are choosing to do illegal things, you are choosing to be hunted by bounty hunters. You are choosing to suffer the annoyance of inventory checks and BHs chasing you. That is your choice.
However, most non-smugglers will probably want to avoid "contraband." Personally nothing pisses me off more than getting ambushed for carrying contraband, so I have stopped carrying spices and using composite armor (that has to be sliced). If you increase the annoyance level to players who don't want to be annoyed, you are going to discourage them from using those items.
So, here is the net sum result. You have smugglers who are trying to sell highly illegal items, and players who wouldn't touch those items with a 10-foot-pole because they don't want to put up with the high annoyance level all night. You are trying to create a smuggling black market, and then destroying the black market at the same time by making smuggling items undesirable to other players.
My advice...keep sliced items, spices, and other common smuggler sellables at the LOWEST contraband level. If you want to have a couple of special really powerful spices or other items that are highly illegal...fine. But if you are making all smuggler products highly illegal you are killing the system before it starts.
The danger should be suffered by those that want and choose the danger of smuggling items. If you set the system up properly, the good smuggler products will be semi-rare as a function of the danger (to the smuggler) of getting them/putting them together. That drives up the price of those items, and serves as a mild discouragement (price) to using them without making it so annoying that players won't bother. If you force pvp and annoyance on everyone, the system will fail from the start...
TroThorns
Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:09 pm
#127
Just stop now if you are actually working on this.... While this all sounds somewhat cool on paper, as I think anyone can tell you, the whole scan/contraband system is just a pain.
Likewise, the BH terminal (player bounty I assume) system sounds cool. but everyone will go nuts if you try to actually implement non-consentual pvp. It will never make it to live (or if it does, the subscription numbers will further plummet).
I think you all (you all being the devs) need to step back and think about who you are designing this game for. The only really good thing about this game that I can think of is the non-combat freedom of houses, decorations, crafting etc.
Lately you have been focusing on hardcore aspects (the jedi system is 90% of dev time right now? for 1% or less of the players (soon to be 50% probably 
) and now this smuggler idea? You guys are probably thinking you will keep the audience that likes the non-combat stuff and pick up hardcore combat types via this effort, right?
I think you are wrong.
ruehs
Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:11 pm
#128
HalasterTheBlack wrote:
majorslappy wrote:
Halaster,
Please keep the name calling out of it (fanboi). I want to slice weapons and armor, but I want them to be illegal. They should be desireable enough to make people want them anyway.
I'm not calling people names. I'm pointing out a mindset that damages the game. I've seen it happen in several other MMOG's. It's happening here in this thread today.
People will NOT want sliced goods if every time they go through a starport they'll be attacked by the authorities and increase their BH visibility. They MIGHT want sliced goods if they have a low chance of being attacked and increasing their BH visibility.
As this proposal stands, it will reduce the interaction that I as a smuggler have with other players and reduce my potential for income. Both of those results come from the same effect - reducing peoples' desire to carry sliced weapons.
This is a BAD IDEA.
Edit: And no, they're not going to go find a PC smuggler and pay 300%+ of normal travel expenses to travel, either. They're just not going to get their stuff sliced.
Message Edited by HalasterTheBlack on 06-16-2004 08:08 PM
So you want everyone to have sliced weapons and armor for you to make money. Forget about all the content and Star Warsy feel, you just want people to pay you to slice stuff so you can make money, never mind the fact that it is illegal to slice, never mind the fact that the PvP'ers will still get slices to give them the edge in PvP. I don't think you fully understand what this will do to the game. It's not going to hurt it, it's going to make it what it was meant to be.
Daker-Naritus
Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:12 pm
#129
Daker-Naritus wrote:
"Old sliced weapons and armor will be converted to have the legality level of “banned.”"
I highly disagree with this, and I think that most other players do as well.
The first problem is that some players are already really pissed about the current contraband system. Some items, like composite armor, cannot be worn or used without buffs or slicing. Although the Devs have talked consistently about nerfing armor and weapons in the combat balance, no one has ever addressed the high (and unreasonable) encumberance penalties. Players are already annoyed that they are forced to slice some items just to use them, yet get attacked for wearing them. Now you want to increase the annoyance level with bounty visibility...I think forcing people into the bounty/pvp system in this way is bad...you should not increase the contraband level of sliced items. People need to keep their choice of engaging in pvp, and this flies in the face of that principle.
The second problem, is that you are gutting the smuggler revamp by the very fixing you are trying to accomplish. Let me explain...
If you are a smuggler, you are choosing the path of a live of crime. You are choosing to do illegal things, you are choosing to be hunted by bounty hunters. You are choosing to suffer the annoyance of inventory checks and BHs chasing you. That is your choice.
However, most non-smugglers will probably want to avoid "contraband." Personally nothing pisses me off more than getting ambushed for carrying contraband, so I have stopped carrying spices and using composite armor (that has to be sliced). If you increase the annoyance level to players who don't want to be annoyed, you are going to discourage them from using those items.
So, here is the net sum result. You have smugglers who are trying to sell highly illegal items, and players who wouldn't touch those items with a 10-foot-pole because they don't want to put up with the high annoyance level all night. You are trying to create a smuggling black market, and then destroying the black market at the same time by making smuggling items undesirable to other players.
My advice...keep sliced items, spices, and other common smuggler sellables at the LOWEST contraband level. If you want to have a couple of special really powerful spices or other items that are highly illegal...fine. But if you are making all smuggler products highly illegal you are killing the system before it starts.
The danger should be suffered by those that want and choose the danger of smuggling items. If you set the system up properly, the good smuggler products will be semi-rare as a function of the danger (to the smuggler) of getting them/putting them together. That drives up the price of those items, and serves as a mild discouragement (price) to using them without making it so annoying that players won't bother. If you force pvp and annoyance on everyone, the system will fail from the start...
By the way....as a side note...
Try asking the Smugglers how their spice sales have been doing....
I will bet 99.9% of them will say they have gone down by 90% or more. If you make this problem worse by making spices even more annoying to use/possess what is the point of having a smuggler?
Jhovial
Wed Jun 16, 2004 5:13 pm
#130
Halaster,
1) Sliced weapon and armor is suppose to be illegal. Check the current description of a sliced item. You will see that this is currently the case. The only problem is, there isnt any legal ramifications. The proposals are to fix such. I think SOE/LA is well aware that some players will complain at suddenly having the rules enforced. But hey, thats the way it was suppose to be...
2) This will be post JTL, if you have bought the expansion fly your own spaceship.
3) Risk vs. Reward. If I take a pitiful gun and make a cannon out of it, but in doing so it becomes illegal, am I going to use it? Yep!
***4) If you need to get illegal items from one planet to another and you arent a smuggler.... GET A SMUGGLER TO SMUGGLE THEM! Im sorry but if that is not the most direct and player "mission" system possible, then jesus please tell me your ideas.
The ONLY concern I would have is that the reward is not worth the risk for players. If the reward is there, then the players will use them.