Smuggler Archive
Thread: Revamp Discussion: Contraband/Missions PART 2 (Solutions)
I am in orange
First, sorry for not being on the forums last couple of days... my job at times gets very busy and takes up alot of my time In the last 3 days I got a totaly of 12 hours of sleep I think lol
Ternque01 wrote:
I am in sun yellow.
silversaber wrote:
HOTDOG wrote:
I wrote:
"3) Are you thinking of banning contrabrand from the bazaar/vendors? If so (and we do hope so) would you replace them with black market vendors/NPCs or not replace them at all?"
Silversaber responded:
Wonderful, lets not only make sliced weapons unappealing to most of the players, but also reduce/eliminate the markets where we can sell them. Wow, that will help the Smugglers economically. Yea.
My response:
This would in NO WAY eliminate the sliced weapon market it might reduce it but I HIGHLY doubt it. All it would accomplish is that sliced weapons would not be available on legitimate vendors- as they should not be. Example: You can go to K-Mart and buy a gun because it is legal to own a gun- but you cannot go to K-Mart and by a silencer (kinda like a power up, no?
This has been discussed positively by the community on these forums for a while now. Personally I disagree with not allowing contrabrand to be sold on vendors at all (having black market vendors/NPCs in cantinas or the like is the answer to me) but some smugglers felt we should only be able to deal these things hand to hand so that is why I asked the question in the manner that I did.
Sounds all well and shady, and adds to the illegal feel, but its still not practical. Do you really think a Smuggler is just going to stand around selling spice or sliced items while everyone else is just stocking thier venders? Its one of those sounds great-but-works horrably features. having black market venders in cantinas would sound good, that is if you had access to a Cantina to put a Vender in. That would work well for those Smugglers in a PA City, but the ones not in a PA would be kinda screwed.
No matter what you do to prevent the sale of illegal items people will find a way around it if they want them- example: People will buy silencer kits and put them together since Selling silencers is illegal and not the PARTS to make one.
I highlighted "if they want them" because that is the main key here. If GM follows through with people being penalized for carrying sliced items, and you put making them almost impossible to find on top of that, those items must really be ultra good stuff, or people just wont bother. Alota good that will do us then.
Listen man, you are correct in that it would be a pain to get spices off of only smugglers or other players, but if a player needed some spice and decided to scan every place he went for a "shady" character to buy them from, that is 1000 X's cooler than going to a vending machine. Pretty soon only merchants will be able to own vendors. Merchants will soon be operating "stores", selling goods for other players. At the very least, illegal goods shouldn't be sellable on the bazaar or in "respectable" merchant stores. I like the idea of going to a cantina and buying them off criminal vendor NPC's.
Perhaps we could add some of these "shady" bazaar terminals in "shaddy" places like Jabba's palace or some reclusive NPC cities. Although I do like this idea of keeping them off all vendor's... specially presliced weapons as I believe that hurts the smuggler profession more then helps. I am just concerned what it might do for the economics of the game.... I am by no means an expert in that area.
We just ask for this because it aids immersion.
Immersion is great....untill it sucks the fun out of the game and players find ways around the restrictive rules that enforced immersion. The Devs found that out the hard way with Jedi.
I see your point, but spices on the public bazaar during a time of harsh imperial oppression?
Playing the devils advocate, wouldnt this be about the same as having overt rebels running thru clearly imperial controlled cities without even so much as a squadran of highly trained stromtroops breaking them up? I mean you look up into the sky, you see the imperial ships, you are walking in a clearly occupied territory and yet..... no imperial troops fighting back. That really kills imersion.
But, yes, I do think being able to just buy illegal items off of any bazaar terminal is kinda imersion killing... maybe make it so you could only buy them off of Mos Eisley terms
Silversaber wrote:
Um, do you know what TEF stands for? It stands for Temporary Enemy Flag. It is used ONLY in the GCW for making Coverts attackable by Overts temporarily. Now, you may have ment to say, make the Guards aggro us when we slice something (not have Overt GCW players attack us), I still disagree with this. Having to go out into the boondocks every time I slice something would become tedius very quickly, especially if I aggro a guard passing my house. It will NOT get rid of your irritation of Smugglers spamming in a city, since they will continue to do so, and then run a short way out of the city with thier customer to do the slice. Real fun.
My response:
Yes. I do know what TEF stands for, I did mean Aggro, thanks.
I know you would love to be able to stand in the open and shout that you are slicing and then slice a whole set of armor right there in front of a squad of Troopers. It's very convienient- But it is HARDLY immersive and you can't tell me you feel like you are doing something illegal when you do it that way.
Whoa, I never said I did that! And im not defending those that do! I am just saying, putting this"feature" in just to try to cut down of the players that do spam, would be ineffective and end up as another useless annoyance in the game for us. You want to have the Guards aggro on those that Yell these services, fine by me. But making it so that I have to run outa the city just so I can slice, that is an annoyance I can do without thank ye.
I think a smuggler could modify a weapon in public without being noticed. If a smuggler were to shout that he'll break the law for money... um.. yea.. that's not cool. Even if we had NPC cops that started a scan when they hear the words spice, sliced, etc., the player base would make up new names for them, lol. Where did the words spice and and slice come from in the first place?
I like that idea, make ya hide before you slice
We are trying to add some thrill to our profession and since there is nothing we can do about you advertising your services in the open I was asking if something could be done when you are CAUGHT IN THE ACT OF BREAKING THE LAW. I happen to think having to run outside the city not to get caught breaking the law is immersive AND fun. Perhaps we disagree but isn't making contrabrand FEEL like it's really illegal a big part of what this revamp is about?
Might be immersive and fun for you, but im betting that after a month of having this in, practically every Smuggler playing thier trade in the game would like to meet you just to kick your nuts in for suggesting this. It would end up to be a very irritating annoyance that would just stack with all the other irritating annoyances in the game put in for "Immersion".
I wrote:
"All these things kinda fall under the contrabrand discussion so I thought I would ask- especially since the PvP/PvE discussion seems to be somewhat resolved-"
Silversaber wrote:
Resolved? heck no. Argued until blue in the face, and finally giving up because its a no-win situation? Yes.
Idunno- I think we have met a healthy middle- We will have Infamy and Visibility to seperate PvE from PvP- We have agreed that Loots will be the same (so you don't have to perform a PvP mission to get needed components) but in smaller increments for the PvE missions. There will also be a Cash increase for the PvP missions because PvP is harder (NOT BETTER) than PvE. We have even had the suggestion that the PvP missions might have loot that would most likely suit a PvPer and vice versa for PvE'ers.
It all sounds good to me.
Sigh. Whatever.
silversaber wrote:
Ternque01 wrote:
How about this idea to resolve public sale on illegal contraband?
Remove illegal items from the public bazaar and normal player vendors. In their place put a special public bazaar in major city cantinas and special player vendors in player city cantinas/casinos. These would sell sliced gear and spices.
Also institue a rise in smuggler Infamy for slicing or trading spices in public. The exception would be in cantinas and other "shady" areas.
Don't ban public sale of illegal items, just drag it to where it belongs.
Overall, I do see implementing this ideas to be a pain in the butt, and I think the player base has alot of "time sinks" as it is. I think I might have to back up not implementing them. However, it would be nice that when aplayer goes to a cantina for a dance or music that they can pick up "a few essentials", lol.
Hmm. I have no realobjections on this. It is mearly moving the activity to its proper places, not trying to restrict altogether. In fact, I truely like this proposal. Those wanting to sell ther slicing skill would not have to shout since those that need the service would be in the same room. It would add to cantinas usefullness too.
Message Edited by silversaber on 06-24-2004 03:50 PM
Duckfat wrote:
Ternque01 wrote:
How about this idea to resolve public sale on illegal contraband?
Remove illegal items from the public bazaar and normal player vendors. In their place put a special public bazaar in major city cantinas and special player vendors in player city cantinas/casinos. These would sell sliced gear and spices.
Also institue a rise in smuggler Infamy for slicing or trading spices in public. The exception would be in cantinas and other "shady" areas.
Don't ban public sale of illegal items, just drag it to where it belongs.
Overall, I do see implementing this ideas to be a pain in the butt, and I think the player base has alot of "time sinks" as it is. I think I might have to back up not implementing them. However, it would be nice that when aplayer goes to a cantina for a dance or music that they can pick up "a few essentials", lol.
Then what will happen to my unadvertised way out of the way black market vendors in my house?
Vampirerobot wrote:
About Contraband on Vendors:
I don't really like the idea of Smugglers leaving their banned/illegal goods in a vendor for just anybody to pick up, and I've been in favor of preventing contraband from being placed on the bazaar or vendors and instead having it be an in-person only exchange.
However, I was thinking about the Sidekick that GM brought up. What if we could stock our Sidekick with contraband to sell, and have them sell it for us? It would be a lot like the Merchant Barking Droids, except they could serve as portable vendors. I would only allow them to be on when you are logged in, but it would be very cool to tell your sidekick to wait in the Cantina and do some business while you went to take care of something. It would also maintain immersion as it is a trusted associate that is selling some of your stock rather than a vending machine.
Merchants shouldn't be able to sell shady goods, that is our territory. But at the same time we shouldn't be stepping on their toes and getting permanent vendors as part of our profession.
SpinningCloud wrote:
JTGAlpha,
The problem with steps 1-3 is that it's just plain boring and involves no skill or creative thinking on the players part.
You might as well just be told you're going to pass or fail when you take a mission since the entire process is chance each step of the way.
There needs to be some way for the player to actually affect the success/failure of the mission otherwise you might as well accumulate all your server-side rolls at the beginning and not waste your time on the rest.
Message Edited by JWing on 06-27-2004 06:51 PM
Mackle wrote:
It is hard for me to believe thateven current posts regarding PvP vs. PvE somehow manage to bring Caella into them.
Me and Cae never agreed on alot (and we still don't) but in this she had a point. A PvP'ers playstyle is not adverse to doing PvE content whereas the reverse is not true.
So I'd say to GM that if he wants to exclude PvE'ers from certain content, and by his own admission he is (because he know they're playstyle is not compatable), then can he tell us what content he is going to exclude from PvP'ers and the method by which he is going to do it.
Imo no proffession should be made that excludes one playstyle or another from any of its content. Whilecertain playstyles may graviatate towards certain professions that doesn't mean theyshould be designed to exclude one playstyle or another (one of my biggest gripes with ranger actually). To clarify designing a skillset that will appeal to certain playstyles is one thing - designing asystem that excludes playstyles isa bad idea.