Smuggler Archive

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Saabotage wrote:

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electricnomad wrote:

This will be the third and final volume of Great Threads in Smuggler History. But in fact, this is the opposite of the original premise- it is Smuggler history, as it has been written by the Devs.

For Volume III, I will presenta compilation of all the significant posts the Devs have made concerning Smugglers in SWG, allowing you to trace the progress of the profession since launch. I'll primarily let the threads speak for themselves, though I'll provide context wherever I think it might be useful to readers.

Please refer newer Smugglers to this thread if they'd like to get an in-depth understanding of the way in which Devs and Smugglers have interacted since launch.

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26 August 2003 - Devs make their first detailed promise to overhaul the profession

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Blair wrote:

Smuggler
We are going to look at and probably revise the Underworld skill set.
We'll fix bugs with slicing 4.
Spices will get experimentation values (for withdrawals, etc).
Feign death causing the player to take too much damage and to be unusable when moving will be fixed.
We'll add more stuff to the master box. (Probably additional slicing features)
The bug with not being able to eat spice will be fixed.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=417746&highlight=smuggler#M417746

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9 September 2003 - Devs promise action aftera 1,010-post filibuster by Smugglers on the old SWG Discussion Forum

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Holocron wrote:

On his way out the door, he tossed this over his shoulder:

1. Underworld Branch

- I think we are going to try and replace most of these skill boxes with something more usable, since these just aren't very fun. The main issue is finding the time on the schedule to implement some new smuggler skills.

2. Slicing

- We'd like to add slicing code to more types of terminals.

- The problem with weapon slicing giving better results than advanced weapon slicing has been fixed. Slicing 2 had a bonus that Slicing 4 was supposed to have.

3. Dirty Fighting

- Some unarmed moves would be good to add and probably fairly easy. We will look into it.

- We will look into adding combat bonuses to this tree.

- We'll fix last ditch to be balanced with similar moves and we'll look into the other smuggler moves to improve their usability.

4. Spices

- Experimentation never had any impact on spices, so the UI stubs for these were removed. Adding experimentation systems to crafted items takes time, but we'd like to add one to spicing at some point.

- The effects of spices still need to be balanced to other buff consumables. Also, effects like burst run, etc, can be added, but require more development time.

5. Master

- 25% off faction perks is very very useful to any smuggler in PvP, but we will look into possibly adding nonPvP bonuses to this box.

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=19942&highlight=smuggler#M19942

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16 September 2003 - Smugglers are distinguished as needing the most love

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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

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6 November 2003 - Devs tell Smugglersthat the profession willbe "augmented" "immediately"

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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]

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5 December 2003 - Devs state that "Smugglers are getting some attention soon."

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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

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20 December 2003 - Devs state that Smugglers will be overhauled, and that the community should offer some ideas on what we want

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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

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23 December 2003 - Devssay thatcontraband scans are too tough to implement

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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

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21 January 2004 - Devs promise revamp post within the week

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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

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27 January 2004 - Devs institutecontraband scan ideathat had beendismissedas impossible 5 weeks prior

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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

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3 February 2004 & 11 February 2004 - Devs thank the Smuggler community for endorsing a system whereby Imperials move contraband better than Smugglers despite the fact that there was no such endorsement on a community level

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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

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7 March 2004 - Devs institute Fred Sanford minigame so Smugglers can sell trash

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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

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8 March 2004 - Devs reiterate the idea that selling trash counts as "smuggler stuff"

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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

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8 March 2004 - Devs promise a"pretty high visibility" revamp plan that incorporates the Smuggler Correspondent and the community

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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

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TO BE CONTINUED...

Message Edited by electricnomad on 11-11-2004 03:46 AM

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Jan 03 2005

SOE_Tyrant wrote:

Smuggler revamp / non-combat profession upgrades
The smuggler revamp is important and detailed design work starts on it and several other of the non-combat professions in January. We need the context of the Combat Upgrade to be finished though before revamping the non-combat professions completely. This doesn't mean we are not going to address critical bugs and issues with professions, see the next item….

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Empty space just in case the Feign Death nerf goes LIVE!

P.S. Ive added the only GOOD thing to the thread EVER for Smugglers. Now im waiting for our hardest NERF EVER!