Smuggler Archive

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TomoRainer wrote:
To retroactively impose such a strict system on something the playerbase considers a right and not a privilege, on the other hand, isn't going to fly. I don't think it will, anyway, it just seems counter to the direction the game is going.

And that doesn't rule out the possibility of making spice and sliced stuff modestly illegal.. pulling them off vendors, or stiffening the fines on them, or whatever.. but smuggling them? Mmm, I wish, but I'm really not seeing it.

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Well, when you take a look at the wishes of the majority of the playerbase, nothing that doesn't make them either being able to teleport, levitate, or shoot force lightning out of their... umm, eyes... yes, eyes, is going to fly... I'm really not concerned with how to please the majority of the playerbase, and I'd rather push for something that would create a quality game with a well-developed and starwarsy game world instead of pleasing the kids who will end up in WoW anyway since it has prettier colours.

Ok, couple examples on WHY the playerbase deserves to be inconvenienced:

First, as people have already stated, I can't get buffed without a Doc, I can't get mind healed without an Entertainer, and I can't get weapons without a Weaponsmith. I am required to find out these professions to get what i want.

Beyond that, however, look at how inconvenienced SMUGGLERS have been in order to do our own jobs. I can't even make the tools i need to accomplish what little skills i have. I am required to utilize a Weaponsmith and an Armorsmith for the WUKs and AUKs so I can slice (which, it seems, is the only interaction the Devs believe Smugglers should have with another player). Without these necessary tools, the only "slicing" i could do would be terminals and containers, and only slicing containers is a social experience since group members don't receive benefits from sliced terminals.

Second, the devs didn't mind taking away the playerbase's divine rights a few months ago when Image Designers became the only people who could mitigate a player's stats. It was deemed then that, in order to make IDs a social, important profession to the general populace, they needed to offer them a skill players had taken for granted. Who's more iconic: Leia's hairsylist, or Han and Lando?

The fact is, there are ways to impliment Player-Smuggling in a manner consistent with the current development. If mass-market spices are entering the game through Smuggler missions, why can't other resources/loot also enter the game in the same manner. Let players search us out, contract us to take those same NPC missions for whatever "illegal" items they happen to need. Let us be the gateway for these "illegal" items to enter into circulation.

It's not much, but at least I feel like i'm doing something for another player, instead of continuing my role as the proverbial slice-monkey. I may not be moving another player's weapons, armor or spices, but i'm moving Something past Someone for Someone Else finally.

(plus, i thought my NPC Fence idea was cool )

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NickHeel wrote:

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TomoRainer wrote:
By the way, can I just reiterate that I love this place? I'm saying stuff that I know a bunch of people are going to disagree 100% with me on, but I'm five-starred. An internet forum where people actually respect each others' opinions, it's like Bizarro World.

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Sea Lab rules.

Now, back on topic. Yeah, screw the playerbase...I want to Smugglers. Devs are unimaginative! ROAR!

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QFE

RRRAAARRR!

Man...that really sucks.
PC to PC smuggling is the only real smuggling. I don't like more NPC Mission. I want to smuggle stuff for Players!

Why can't they just declare several things as illegal (just check out the SW Universe...there is lot of forbidden stuff).

When you got scanned and caught with illegal stuff...the troops should keep the illegal items.
So the supa-dupa-BH with his Krayt-mega-one-hit-kill-Disruptor got to look out for smuggler service, to transfer his stuff safley to his target location.

or maybe ressources. like radioactive or some wooly hide. Make illegal things...but i think the Devs are just afrraid of the crying community "buhuhu...that sucks...i quit. i can't transport my (illegal) mega-1337-Blaster on my own without a risk...buhuhu...SOE sucks"

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riotcontrol wrote:

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TomoRainer wrote:
To retroactively impose such a strict system on something the playerbase considers a right and not a privilege, on the other hand, isn't going to fly. I don't think it will, anyway, it just seems counter to the direction the game is going.

And that doesn't rule out the possibility of making spice and sliced stuff modestly illegal.. pulling them off vendors, or stiffening the fines on them, or whatever.. but smuggling them? Mmm, I wish, but I'm really not seeing it.

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Well, when you take a look at the wishes of the majority of the playerbase, nothing that doesn't make them either being able to teleport, levitate, or shoot force lightning out of their... umm, eyes... yes, eyes, is going to fly... I'm really not concerned with how to please the majority of the playerbase, and I'd rather push for something that would create a quality game with a well-developed and starwarsy game world instead of pleasing the kids who will end up in WoW anyway since it has prettier colours.

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Well, I'd rather push for something I think has a whelk's chance in a supernova of ever going live. I just don't see how we could ever smuggle something as ubiquitous as sliced gear or (once the CU hits and it gets popular) spice for other players. For one thing, they're used to running around with that stuff scot free, and for another, if there were any meaningful crackdown on this type of contraband, like scanners at starports, the entire structure of the game is changed.

You have to go to a weaponsmith to get a gun, but you only need a new gun every few weeks--maybe every day or two if you're grinding your ass off. You have to go to an image designer to adjust your stats, but you only have to do that every few months. You have to go to a doc for buffs, but even with them you get 3-4 hours of use before you need to return for their services.

If you needed a smuggler to get your sliced weapons through a starport, we'd be needed constantly. Multiple times an hour for some people. We'd practically be pets. And I don't know who in their right mind would pay us the fee we'd need to make it worth our while when they're passing through starports a dozen times a day. I can't see a way to make illegal yet everyday items require player smuggling without causing far more damage to the game than I could conscionably support.

Player smuggling, I think, needs to be based around rare items and possibly of people who need to sneak through enemy territory. It needs to be fairly uncommonplace to work. The sort of thing a person might even need daily--but not every 30 minutes. That's too much to ask of the playerbase. Furthermore, if it's at all likely to be brought to the game, it either needs to come in the form of completely new abilities (sneaking Jedi through Coronet, or combatants behind enemy lines) or at the same time as new illegal items are added to the game: military-grade factional equipment, rare classes of space resources, Jedi artifacts, whatever. Stuff that not everyone needs to transport on an hourly basis, but that when the need arises to move these goods, a player won't feel put out by having to spend some time and money to hire a smuggler to help him through customs. That, I think, is the kind of system we could expect and deserve to see in our list of skills. But I don't think there's a place for the smuggling of everyday goods. I'm all for interdependency and I'm all for player smuggling, but I believe that would create far too great a need for our services just so a player could complete the simplest of tasks.

When looking at the dev time that would be needed to implement a well working player to player smuggling system it's quite obvious this won't happen any time soon, the "rare ressource" development time is needed by more than just the smugglers, and more urgently by some other professions.

Message Edited by dlc3007 on 03-17-2005 08:48 AM

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TomoRainer wrote:
(snip) What a lot of the player-to-player smuggling suggestions have focused on is taking something that players have had for nearly two years without the slightest problem and suddenly requiring them to find one of us to be able to continue to use them. (snip)

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They had no problem taking away Stat Migration and giving it to Image Designers so why not do the same with Smugglers? /shrug .

Message Edited by Atteke on 03-17-2005 04:27 PM