Smuggler Archive
Thread: Depending On Smugglers
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse! 
Dont sticky this Caylin, people will still create new threads along the same lines, they have done that before and they will continue to do it for the forseeable future.
Indeed. This thread is crap. I wish it wuold die, to be honest. If you ask me, I think it's full of trolls and people that don't care a bit about us: I want you smugglers to haeva great revamp......just don't have it effect me in any way shape or form especially if it's taking away my ability to carry around illegal stuff I paid 3k for.
Let this thread die...jeez. I absolutely hate it. Trolls....I'd club them like baby seals if I could.
I like entertainers. I like going to have my bf healed by them.Oh yeah. I remember when all the "female" entertainers danced around huggin' kissin' and lickin' each other. IT was awesome.
I'm sorry. I'm glad entertainers have to be in cantinas. The point of that was to make down time centers to encourage socializing, and to give "social" players a needed role in game. Ditch that and alienate a good chunk of your playerbase. The role playing player base that actually MAKES a lot of our communities.
Besides, crowded cantinas are as much a part of Star Wars as, well....smugglers.
JTGAlpha wrote:
Oh yeah. I remember when all the "female" entertainers danced around huggin' kissin' and lickin' each other. IT was awesome.
I'm sorry. I'm glad entertainers have to be in cantinas. The point of that was to make down time centers to encourage socializing, and to give "social" players a needed role in game. Ditch that and alienate a good chunk of your playerbase. The role playing player base that actually MAKES a lot of our communities.
Dork
StGabriel wrote:
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah .
obijkenob1 wrote:
Vimes, I was wondering, are you a smuggler now or just helping us out? If its the latter, thanks
I imagine Vimes finished with the Chef revamp and thought "My work here is done - hi yo Silver, awaaaaaaaay!"
But now the next revamp is Smuggler, and he's ridden into townto help us out. Like he says, he's a wannabe developer.
And I'm all for having his help.
Vampirerobot wrote:
One interesting point brought up was about what kind of service Smugglers are meant to provide. There are three types that I can identify:
1) Crafted products, like Weaponsmiths and Tailors. This service is a one time created item that the customer buys and keeps. This generally requires no face to face contact, and can be provided via a vendor. Slicing is currently kind of like this, since once you slice an item, it never needs it again, and sliced items can be sold on vendors without ever meeting the Smuggler face to face.
2) Inconvenience-avoiding service, like Medics and Entertainers. This service is to counter some kind of game-imposed inconvenience like Battle Fatigue or Wounds. We don't currently do anything like this, with the exception of grouping with players to help them avoid scans. But we don't really do that oftenas it isn't practical or necessary.
3) Buff/Bonus services, like Doctor/Musician Buffs and Chef food. These are services that you don't NEED, but most players WANT. The interesting example that I'd like to look into is the Doctor. A Doctor cannot sell their buffs on a vendor, and so players seek out Doctors in order to gain their services. A Chef doesn't get many tells asking for service, they just sell it all on their vendor. But the Doctor is a partial-crafting profession (like Smuggler) that does all their work face to face.
I think the 'style' of Smugglers lends itself more towards option 3, particularly the Doctor example. I'd like to see us as a profession that other players seek out in order to get their hands on the illegal stuff, the contraband. And I'd like to see that kind of interaction happen face to face. Slicing works like this currently, at least insofar as slicing personal weapons is concerned. I think vendors selling pre-sliced weapons and armor cut into the special quality of this service though, and I'd like to see vendors taken out of the equation. Spice is pretty much exclusively sold on vendors, and with the revamp I think it would be very cool if Spice had to be bought personally from a Smuggler. It would be fantastic if Spice couldn't be traded unless a Smuggler was one of the traders (I would add sliced weapons and armor in there too, but that would make repairs a hassle).
While Inconvenience avoidind services are part of the game, I don't think we need to add another one (and thereby create another inconvenience). The rest of the players would likely resist that. But I don't think they can justly complain if we simply made our own products and services more our own.
The one problem with that is that you can't actually be a smuggler without there being an addition of inconveniences in the game. Smuggling, by definition, involves going to someone to AVOID an inconvenience (namely, being arrested and/or taxed). Without that, we're not acutally smugglers. We're just pushers or the guy you go to to have your AR-15 modified to full-auto from semi-auto. Neither of those are actually smuggling.
Now, based on what we're CURRENTLY doing, I'd say that our existing skills could be focused more into option 3, and that'd be fine. But as far as actually getting us smuggling, there's no other way to do it but option 2. You can't buff a player to the point where THEY can smuggle. That defies logic and the very purpose of HAVING smugglers in the game.
If we're to be anything more than window dressing in the game, we HAVE to have option 2 as part of who we are and what we do. Players should be inconvenienced. Not FORCED into it, mind you, but their options should be limited so that if they CHOOSE to participate in the taxed-goods or contraband system, they have to pay the price. Don't want to participate? Fine and dandy. But you won't get the high end benefits. That may be an "inconvenience" for some of the players currently, but you won't find me crying for them. Players have been living high on the hog for a looooooong time in this game, and it's about time the devs said, "Hmm...maybe we need to reintroduce consequences and meaningful choices into the game...."
Electronicnomad is right. Without serious consequences for your actions, this game is nothing more than a Star Wars amusement park and a graphical chatroom. When I was playing the game on a semi-regular basis, I really didn't see any risk aside from the minor inconvenience of being jumped and killed if I ran to my harvester without a vehicle. If I WANTED to go to Lok or something, I could choose to do so, but I'd have to accept the risk that I'd get my ass kicked since, asa smuggler, I sucked at offensive fighting abilities.
Other players, however, are reluctant to accept the concept of "either/or." Either you can use sliced weapons and run the risk of being fined or shot at, or you can not use them and run the risk of tangling with someone who chose to use them. As long as both choices are generally balanced, it's up to the player's particular playstyle to decide which is better for them. right now, players have the best of both worlds. Not only can they gain the benefit of sliced weapons and armor, but they also have no worries about any consequences for their choices. That's why guys like St. Gabriel are so resistant to any system that'd make smugglers useful. They want it all with no consequences. And they couch any consequence as a "nerf" or "grief" because that language makes devs pay attention.
Essentially "nerf/grief" is defined as "Anything that makes me not as powerful as I am now, even if it would materially make the game more fun. Anything that makes me less powerful or imposes a consequence upon my choices is, by definition, not fun to me. My fun consists only of risk-free gaming." Well here's a suggestion folks. Go play The Sims Online. Or maybe tiddlywinks. No, wait. You could LOSE at tiddlywinks. My bad. How about...hmm....chuts 'n' ladders. Can you lose at that? I don't remember. I would suggest Candyland, too, but then you might get stuck in the Chocolate Taffy Swamps and complain that this somehow infringed upon your "fun" as well because the game FORCED you to go there when you rolled a five.