Smuggler Archive

A few thoughts:

1.) Some of what happened may be San, some of it may be a result of him feeling worn out after banging his head against a brick wall. We just don't know, and personally, I didn't get access to the correspondent's forum to look. I DO think that one thing this makes clear is that SOE should open the correspondent's forum for VIEWING, but only for POSTING for correspondents and devs. This process needs to be FAR more transparent than it has been since it was implemented. The "Behind Closed Doors" approach to this only breeds more problems when a community is in an uproar. There may also be a side effect of keeping the correspondent's forum closed off, in that correspondents may not feel any real reason to push particular issues further. Whether or not there was a vocal minority or majority (or an even split, for that matter) on the crackdown issues, seeing what had been going on for months prior and seeing what was going on at that moment would have likely helped to crystalize the community's attitude towards the issue and the representation we were getting. If folks were able to see what was going on in the forum and see how the devs were reacting, they might have shouted down one side or the other, supported one side or the other, or felt that they were or were not being adequately represented. Instead, we were left to flounder around in the dark, which leaves room only for conjecture when it comes to discussions. This, as we can see, can lead to bad blood in the community and I do NOT blame the community for that (at least, not entirely). Consequently, I'd like to propose a suggestion, not for the smuggler community, but for the game community as a whole -- make the correspondent's boards open to public view, but not to public comment. Doing this may help alleviate some of the problems we've seen here and can only help widen the marketplace of ideas.

2.) As far as the crackdown goes and the concerns that some of us had -- (A) I personally was never beating anyone down, insulting anyone, or doing anything that I felt was NOT constructive. I voiced my opinion on an issue, I argued a point, and I stuck to my guns. That's just good old fashioned debate. If people are unable to handle a lively debate and still, at the end of the day, move on with their lives, that's unfortunate, but I won't lose sleep over it. (B) Again, my personal concerns were never that we were being denied smuggler content in the present. We didn't HAVE much (if any) present smuggler content as a result of the crackdown. My issue was always the future. Maybe it's a fantasy, and lately I've come to realize that given the attitudes of players in this game it likely WILL remain a fantasy, but I view it as an entirely attainable goal IF people are willing to make hard choices. Regardless, it wasn't about the now, it was about the concrete of peoples' notions of what smugglers can and should be doing setting permanently by virtue of the crackdown's treatment of illegality in general. (C)No one that I saw ever hijacked a post or trolled. People voiced what they viewed was a legitimate concern. It's easy to dismiss it as trolling if you don't agree with it, but again, I view it as debate. The DE threads were threads on point -- no one hijacked them, they simply voiced their opinions. The crackdown threads were on the crackdown. The effects of the crackdown on the smuggler profession were a legitimate avenue of debate within those threads. Hijacking, at least to my mind, would be going into a thread on slicing and starting up a debate about pistoleer specials. Essentially, one person starts on topic A, and you take it COMPLETELY off base into topic Q. Anyway, that's just me. (D) I have no regrets about the discussions we've had. I view them ALL as productive, even if folks disagreed with me. By discussing the issues, we all benefit. If we stop discussing them and shrug our shoulders, nothing happens and nothing changes.

3.) Rather than have people keep snapping at each other and giving each other crap, I agree that we should move on. The past is the past. We can't undo it, fix it, or change it. What we can do is focus on the future. We have a chance to make some changes now, we have a new correspondent who seems fired up about things, and we have a revamp (supposedly) on the way. It's time to take the heat off of San and put it where it most definitely belongs -- the developers. They need to know where we stand, what we want, what we think they can do about it, and why we're as pissed at this point as we are. They also need to start communicating WITH us. Now, again, as I've said elsewhere, I don't think a lot of this is to be laid at TH's feet. The correspondent selection, maybe. But you know what? Whatever. It doesn't really matter as long as the person in the correspondent position actively funnels info to the devs, is a vibrant and active member of the correspondent section, and sticks up for the profession. It could've been Kav, it could've been Caylin, it could've been ANY of us, as long as the job gets done well. Also, TH is not the reason why nothing is happening. TH is the messenger. Plain and simple. Sometimes he words his messages poorly, but I think a LOT of this is disorganization within the SWG development team, and the fact that we're a problem that is NOT easily solved. As a result, we've likely been put off and put off and put off because, well, they aren't 100% sure how to give us what we want, and they may be realizing that they CAN'T and are trying to figure out a nice "but here's a copy of our home game" solution. Who knows. We will, undoubtedly, find out eventually. But this bickering here really IS pointless. It's one thing to complain about the game world, the game mechanics, dev inaction, etc. It's another thing to give each other sh!t for stuff that no one can do anything about now. Let's just pick up, dust ourselves off, and move the hell on.