Smuggler Archive

---

Hurlobacca wrote:

I'm not here to vote, this poll is meaningless, it's the equivalent of going to the Doc forum andasking if doctors shouldbe able to buff. I'm hear to bust some myths.

1. Smugglers need a ban on vendors selling contraband in order to indulge their RP fantasies - There will always be some players who want to roleplay, and some who just want to play the game. If you want to sit in the cantina and do shady smuggling deals that's great but there's no need to cram it down everyone else's throat. Find like-minded players and play out your fantasies but leave the rest of us out of it. As for the lack of realism of contraband being sold openly, look at med/mind/food buffs, players soloing krayts, snipers firing once per second, shuttles appearing every sixty seconds and a hundred other ways in which the game doesn't follow the script. There are many things in the game that work incorrectly or unrealistically. But just because they exist doesn't mean thats how it should be. Need I remind you this is an MMORPG? see those letters RP? yeah. I understand some people don't want to be involved in RP, and thats fine, but that is a lame argument for why sliced objects should be on vendors.

2. Weaponsmiths/Armorsmiths are hurting our business - All weapons/armor are sliced by smugglers already, so it's impossible to increase your 100% market share of this business. Like it or not, we have a free-market economy in this game (well, sorta) and such markets gravitate towards efficiency. It's simply more efficient for me to pay a slicer to slice several hundred weapons at a time and offer them for sale so players can pick the slice they want rather than having to force the players to buy multiple weapons hoping to get a decent slice. It's also far more efficient for the slicers I hire to slice for me rather than standing outside the starport in cnet having to trade and collect payment from every player wanting a slice. If a smuggler's idea of immersion is having the equivalent of a buff line that's what you're gonna get. Smuggler immersion would certainly not be standing around cnet with our master title up. The whole persona of being a smuggler is to be a shady character, completely different from doctors. Just because there are a few smugglers out there who value credits over immersion does not mean the majority of us appreciate it when crafters assume we will be their slice wh*res.

3. Contraband shouldn't be sold openly on vendors- I can see the argument for sliced weapons not being available on the bazaar since it's a public forum, but I wouldn't support that as it would mainly hurt the noobs who are the main buyers of weapons off the bazaar. As for vendors in player-owned houses, that's private property. I can restrict access to my property and vendorsand only allow players I know are ok with the fact that illegal good are being sold there. Also, I don't have vending machines sell my sliced weapons, I have NPC vendors that sell my banned goods. That's my contribution to immersion. I'm not Wal-mart or 7-11, I'm an idependent businessman who seeks business opportunity, legal or illegal. I don't really care if I'm breaking the law as long as there's a buck to be made. I'm a merchant and I value commerce before the law, something I have in common with many of my RL counterparts. This is how I roleplay and it's every bit as valid as how you chose to roleplay. The only difference is I'm not the one trying to tell you how to play the game. First off, a vendor house is not "private property". try to set your house with a vendor in it to "private", u of course know it will not let you. Ok, first you knock RP and now u use it to your support. "I have NPC vendors sell my sliced goods." Please. The only difference in those and the other kind is that the NPC ones can wear clothes and talk. You want to seek illegal business opportunity? It should not be so easy. Go ahead and open up a shop on Pennsylvania Avenue selling black market weapons with no seriel numbers. and tell the officers when u get arrested "But it's private property!"

4. A ban on vendor items will work/solve all smugglers problems - I rely on selling sliced weapons for my swg living. No change in vendor operations is going tostop that. I know from personal experience that players will pay for the convenience of being able to purchase the type of slice they want and that's not going to change either so stop kidding yourselves. There are several ways I can work around a ban on selling sliced weapons from vendors and it would be a major hassle that would wind up increasing the cost to the players but as long as the market demands sliced weapons I will be there to meet that demand. I hear smugglers complain about wanting more smuggling content, but it sounds like what you want is to be transformed into a profession of slice-monkeys. I dont know who said or where u got the text in yellow, but thats simply not true. Hurlo you are a multi-millionaire. If all of a sudden sliced items on vendors became illegal, you would not suffer, as every other crafter would be in that same boat with you. Right, we get paid 3k a pop for slicing your bulk weapons, while you make 500k more off of a 30% damage slice we get. thats fair? As for the text in red, no. thats what we are now, and you take advantage of that.

5. Smugglers should get vendors to sell sliced weapons/spice/slicing tools - This is the argument I love the most. Those who hold this view want to take a skill away from a class that has already invested their skill points on those abilities (Artisan/Merchant) and be given the ability to place vendors without investing any skill points. Yeah right. Keep dreaming. I don't want a vendor to sell my wares, that's not the smuggler way.

I'm sure there are lots of other ways to incorparate a richer gameplay experience for Smugglers, but these are just a couple that would be alternatives to the lame idea of ending contraband vendor sales. There's got to be more brainpower on this forum than this poll would indicate so prove my assumption wrong and come up with some ways to improve your game experience without taking away from somebody else's because next time it might be some other profession crying that Smugglers shouldn't be able to do ___________ and if they get their way I'd say that's karma for you. Yet it is perfectly acceptable for jedi and BH to misuse FD and further ruin our profession? It's perfectly acceptable for a WS to assume that just because I am a smuggler I would be more than willing to slice his300 weapons at only 3k a pop?? plz, i make more than that on the street, like a real smuggler.

---

---

JTGAlpha wrote:

No one is gonna want to have to hunt down a smuggler to get a crate of muon. Most will say, "scew it I can live without it". Lets face it, muon isn't neccisary like a doc buff is, most will fight without it if they can't find it.

QFE

Spice would have to become an absolute NECESSITY, which I'm doubting it will, no matter what they do with it, for it to be worth the hassel to the customer, even assuming a revamp of any kind.

---

Message Edited by 01201986 on 02-19-2005 05:40 PM

---

Hurlobacca wrote:

I'm not here to vote, this poll is meaningless, it's the equivalent of going to the Doc forum andasking if doctors shouldbe able to buff. I'm hear to bust some myths.

1. Smugglers need a ban on vendors selling contraband in order to indulge their RP fantasies - There will always be some players who want to roleplay, and some who just want to play the game. If you want to sit in the cantina and do shady smuggling deals that's great but there's no need to cram it down everyone else's throat. Find like-minded players and play out your fantasies but leave the rest of us out of it. As for the lack of realism of contraband being sold openly, look at med/mind/food buffs, players soloing krayts, snipers firing once per second, shuttles appearing every sixty seconds and a hundred other ways in which the game doesn't follow the script.

2. Weaponsmiths/Armorsmiths are hurting our business - All weapons/armor are sliced by smugglers already, so it's impossible to increase your 100% market share of this business. Like it or not, we have a free-market economy in this game (well, sorta) and such markets gravitate towards efficiency. It's simply more efficient for me to pay a slicer to slice several hundred weapons at a time and offer them for sale so players can pick the slice they want rather than having to force the players to buy multiple weapons hoping to get a decent slice. It's also far more efficient for the slicers I hire to slice for me rather than standing outside the starport in cnet having to trade and collect payment from every player wanting a slice. If a smuggler's idea of immersion is having the equivalent of a buff line that's what you're gonna get.

3. Contraband shouldn't be sold openly on vendors- I can see the argument for sliced weapons not being available on the bazaar since it's a public forum, but I wouldn't support that as it would mainly hurt the noobs who are the main buyers of weapons off the bazaar. As for vendors in player-owned houses, that's private property. I can restrict access to my property and vendorsand only allow players I know are ok with the fact that illegal good are being sold there. Also, I don't have vending machines sell my sliced weapons, I have NPC vendors that sell my banned goods. That's my contribution to immersion. I'm not Wal-mart or 7-11, I'm an idependent businessman who seeks business opportunity, legal or illegal. I don't really care if I'm breaking the law as long as there's a buck to be made. I'm a merchant and I value commerce before the law, something I have in common with many of my RL counterparts. This is how I roleplay and it's every bit as valid as how you chose to roleplay. The only difference is I'm not the one trying to tell you how to play the game.

4. A ban on vendor items will work/solve all smugglers problems - I rely on selling sliced weapons for my swg living. No change in vendor operations is going tostop that. I know from personal experience that players will pay for the convenience of being able to purchase the type of slice they want and that's not going to change either so stop kidding yourselves. There are several ways I can work around a ban on selling sliced weapons from vendors and it would be a major hassle that would wind up increasing the cost to the players but as long as the market demands sliced weapons I will be there to meet that demand. I hear smugglers complain about wanting more smuggling content, but it sounds like what you want is to be transformed into a profession of slice-monkeys.

5. Smugglers should get vendors to sell sliced weapons/spice/slicing tools - This is the argument I love the most. Those who hold this view want to take a skill away from a class that has already invested their skill points on those abilities (Artisan/Merchant) and be given the ability to place vendors without investing any skill points. Yeah right. Keep dreaming.

Here's what I'm in favor of:

1. Smugglers are member of the underworld and should be capable of extorting protection money from merchants who sell illegal goods. Once a merchant has paid off a smuggler, the smuggler then bribes Imperial officials to overlook the contraband on that merchant's vendors, thereby saving the merchant the risk of a hefty fine proportionate to the number of contraband items listed.

2. Just yesterday I was transporting over 100 sliced weapons to my vendors from my workshop as they are in different cities. I was stopped by a probot, who curiously found nothing. If I could hire a smuggler to escort me so he could talk his way out of my being scanned, that's something I would consider doing, especially if being probed meant being caught and db'd by the probot, which it probably should, at least some of the time.

I'm sure there are lots of other ways to incorparate a richer gameplay experience for Smugglers, but these are just a couple that would be alternatives to the lame idea of ending contraband vendor sales. There's got to be more brainpower on this forum than this poll would indicate so prove my assumption wrong and come up with some ways to improve your game experience without taking away from somebody else's because next time it might be some other profession crying that Smugglers shouldn't be able to do ___________ and if they get their way I'd say that's karma for you.

---

---

neofghtr816 wrote:

I agree with this guy, Its just so much easier, not just for the crafter, but for the customer too

---

---

JTGAlpha wrote:

But I want to sell spices. Not a crate or two here and there but lots of them. I don't want to have to make sure I'm online and they're online and then go carting to them for every run of spices I make. I'm a smuggler merchant for a reason, so I can sell the things I make.

---