Smuggler Archive
Thread: Why we lost the Battle of the Crackdown
Gah...
*pops more popcorn and gives the wookie his own tub*
Now...keep your hairy paws out of our's...
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse! 
Wow! Just....WOW! I had no idea there was so much hostility lurking around here. I mean really folks, lets put the blame where it belongs..on the shoulders of the developers. I've watched several professions for the past few months and none of them are getting anything close to what they ask for or think they are going to get in "their" patch. Unless we get actual players writing the code, you have to know that we are never going to get what we ask for. There are examples all over the place.
The tailor correspondent was told that experimentation would be "fixed." Dev "fix" actually means experimentation is taken away. Correspondent quits.
The chef correspondent is told about all the wonderful new food they will have and how it will actually work. Every experienced chef I know has quit because all food is now generic. The chefs I've spoken to tell me that they may as well have no experimentation asa noob that bought their way to Chef has no problem making stuff just as good as somebody that was a chef from the beginning. Experienced chefs quit.
Droid Engineers are told about the wonderful new droids they will be able to make. Then they find out that nobody will be able to use them (read "Droid Handler" profession). DEs drop like flies.
These are just a couple examples. SWG is gonna do what they are gonna do regardless of what we say. Who knows where theinformation gets lost. They surely don't actually read any of the forums. Even a casual read would let them know that they aren't evengetting close on anything that they are doing. SanTsu was just the messenger. Don't kill the guy. I can completely understand how frustration would kill any enthusiasm he had for the correspondent position.
There are all sorts of well thought out arguments in all the forums. Nothing is ever implemented. Get used to it. Learn to live with it or move on. But please, lets remain civil.
I am going to explain why your dreams for the imp crackdown have been and always
will be the pipe dreams of the ignorant in the hopes that something will enter the dim recesses
of your minds.
The answer is basicly 3 fold.
First off the kind of scanning that would be neccisary to make your ignorant dreams come true
Would take up way to much processor time and would seriously degrade server performance.
Your talking about a a multi step database query and calculation everytime someone is scanned.
These systems are run at close to there limit as it is with the number of players that
are on at any one time and adding that kind of processor load would most likely cause lag
like you wouldnt believe. So from a hard warepoint of view its not really possible.
("If your curious how i might know this I have worked for 12 years as a unix and systems adminstrator
working in large production and development enviroments)
Secondly from a marketing point of view you are asking 90% of the player base to suffer for your fun.
Most players dont want to have a smuggler around to use a spice or to carry around a sliced weapon.
SOE is not going to loss players from the 90% group to support the 10% group its simple economics
you please the larger group becuase they pay more.
Thirdly by creating such a bottle neck on smuggler goods you will decrease the sales of smuggler good infact hurting smugglers far more then the pleasure they might get from the idea.
And lastly although not a main reason still a reason is the fact that all you are really asking for is delievery missions. The only real difference is you want players to pay for it rather then mission terminals.
So all in all your idea is not physically possible, Its not economically sound, and in the end would hurt smugglers more then help them.
OH, and for the record...
I'd like to note a prediction many of us made that DID come true.
People would argue that smugglers had nothing and now we have something, because people could group with us to evade the scans. I said that because the scans are random and immediate and unpredictable no one would group with us because it'd mean having a smuggler grouped with you in the cantina all the time. Hey look! No one has grouped with us to evade the contraband scan! That's ONE prediction right so far. I certainly hope the rest of mine ARE wrong.
SanTsu wrote:
Ok dimwit and the popinjays
I am going to explain why your dreams for the imp crackdown have been and always
will be the pipe dreams of the ignorant in the hopes that something will enter the dim recesses
of your minds.
The answer is basicly 3 fold.
First off the kind of scanning that would be neccisary to make your ignorant dreams come true
Would take up way to much processor time and would seriously degrade server performance.
Your talking about a a multi step database query and calculation everytime someone is scanned.
These systems are run at close to there limit as it is with the number of players that
are on at any one time and adding that kind of processor load would most likely cause lag
like you wouldnt believe. So from a hard warepoint of view its not really possible.
("If your curious how i might know this I have worked for 12 years as a unix and systems adminstrator
working in large production and development enviroments)
Secondly from a marketing point of view you are asking 90% of the player base to suffer for your fun.
Most players dont want to have a smuggler around to use a spice or to carry around a sliced weapon.
SOE is not going to loss players from the 90% group to support the 10% group its simple economics
you please the larger group becuase they pay more.
Thirdly by creating such a bottle neck on smuggler goods you will decrease the sales of smuggler good infact hurting smugglers far more then the pleasure they might get from the idea.
And lastly although not a main reason still a reason is the fact that all you are really asking for is delievery missions. The only real difference is you want players to pay for it rather then mission terminals.
So all in all your idea is not physically possible, Its not economically sound, and in the end would hurt smugglers more then help them.
Umm..... still no responses to my questions. I guess that means you don't plan to answer them. Tell ya what, I'll repost it after this just to make sure it is easily found. One sec....
The repost. Just in case.
SanTsu wrote:
I dont really care. Where were you when these butt licks attacked my work as correspondent.
Where were you when they decided to turn what was the best forum on the boards into a
whinefest about there desires with no clue as to what a game like this entails.
Where were you? It is not the position of the community to defend your decisions or actions, it is your responsibility. I came into these boards and asked a very simple question during the middle of this debate, and that was why are you guys so upset? I posted my view, I had civil and productive discussion with those you seem to say are "bashing" and I realized their opinion. I payed close attention afterwards, and their opinion was not felt by only those few, it was felt by what I estimate to be at least a third of the community if not more.
Again I ask, where were you?
You want me to care about your respect then you need to be more then just a peace nic
with a fear of confrontation.
Fear of confrontation..... See above. Where were you?
If you don't care about the respect of those you are supposed to represent you should never have been in that position. Simple.
EDIT:
I want to make one thing clear. I had no opinion of San prior to this. I have no clue what he did or did not do for the community. However, something like the quote above to come from someone who was in that position is not something that any type of leader, representative, even person should resort to in any way, shape, fashion, or form. I have not been on one side or the other, and I had no interest in choosing a side (nor do I now) but this quote (and one calling people "babies with their panties in a wad" or something along those lines) are inexcusable. Whatever good San may have achieved I will never view it that way due to the lack of courtesy and respectfulness shown in this thread alone.
Others may have done the same in their own way, but I have not read a post that has irritated me like this one has in a long time.
San, Good luck to you. I won't be missing you at all after reading this.
Message Edited by Ryutek on 02-19-2004 12:03 PM
Hardware wise we already HAVE inventory scans, so I guess it IS possible. Also I disagree that the technical hurdle now is the scans. I would be more inclined to say it's the problems they've had initiating Player Given mission systems.
That's why we wanted to **edit** the contraband thing in the bud NOW. That's why we wanted stuff made illegal all the way back to BETA. What's the point of something even BEING "illegal" if there ARE no consequences? We never wanted to move someone's stash of spice. Ever. Or their gun. But we didn't want those things to be a given either. You can't tell me there IS no middle ground here. To automatically write it off because it's "hard" would be to negate the whole purpose of these forums. We've offered systems, solutions and ideas to try and implement this to strike a middle ground.
To address your THIRD concern, a lot of smugglers have said they WOULD take the hit to the pocket book if it meant actually smuggling for people.
Wow, I felt bad for you San, when you stepped down....
Now all I can say is thank you. You never bothered to try and understand where we were and are coming from.
You are an unpleasant suprise.
to my last post and even caylin basic ignored everything except what might possible
effect him which is what i would expect from him.