Smuggler Archive
Thread: Why we lost the Battle of the Crackdown
Well tough go cry to your mothers becuase no one cares. "
o_O
THAT is what we had for a correspondent??? Well, better finding out too late than never.
From what I've been reading, both from San and the Smuggler community, I think what happened is this - word reached the Smugglers that, as part of the Imperial Crackdown, smugglers were going to recieve a bonus to evade the Imperial scans. Now, many many many smugglers somehow perceieved this as the long awaited "Smuggler Content".
The fact of the matter is, the Smuggler Scan Evasion bonus is anything but Smuggler Content. It's just a small little perk given to us to enhance what little functionality we enjoy. And nothing more.
Now that the Smuggler community has realized that the Imperial Crackdown really has nothing to do with Smugglers, people are disappointed and angry. And when that happens, people look for where to lay the blame. SanTsu, the Dev Team, Droid Engineers, Imperials all have had their turn as "Smuggler Whipping Boy" and personally I think it needs to stop. The Smuggler community has traditionally been one of the few professions to not succumb to flame wars and whining. We're better than that.
The Imperial Crackdown was a publish geared mainly to the Chef revamp, and geared towards providing a deeper level of immersion to everyone. It is not the Smuggler Revamp. We haven't lost a thing. And it's time to stop pointing the finger and time to get back to providing ideas for ways to fix what's broken, idea's for new content specifically for us. Don't let this latest disappointment tear us apart.
And I'm not sure why I going to bother to respond san, but some of us WERE sticking up for you as well as trying to temper the heated, trying to get them to realize its not the end of the world (in both this forum and others) even though I UNDERSTOOD what their complaint was and sympathised and agreed to an extent. (Bunches more in my history and gone forever in deleted threads, but you probably couldn't care less).
Sorry you weren't around or whatever to notice it.
Good bye.
Katryana wrote:
From what I've been reading, both from San and the Smuggler community, I think what happened is this - word reached the Smugglers that, as part of the Imperial Crackdown, smugglers were going to recieve a bonus to evade the Imperial scans. Now, many many many smugglers somehow perceieved this as the long awaited "Smuggler Content".
Noone perceived this as being our smugglers content. We weren't even supposed to get anything at all. In the end we did get a perk (though an entirely useless one). We all know that our time will come only in the revamp which is planned (whenever that may be). So no, there weren't 'many many many smugglers' who perceived this as being our content.
The fact of the matter is, the Smuggler Scan Evasion bonus is anything but Smuggler Content. It's just a small little perk given to us to enhance what little functionality we enjoy. And nothing more.
Very true. Sadly, with the whole contraband system being as toothless as it is, this perk is quite pointless.
Now that the Smuggler community has realized that the Imperial Crackdown really has nothing to do with Smugglers, people are disappointed and angry. And when that happens, people look for where to lay the blame. SanTsu, the Dev Team, Droid Engineers, Imperials all have had their turn as "Smuggler Whipping Boy" and personally I think it needs to stop. The Smuggler community has traditionally been one of the few professions to not succumb to flame wars and whining. We're better than that.
The crackdown was always going to be a sham. Anybody who followed the TC test of the thing could tell that nothing was really going on. Caylin and MaxSteel for example specially tried to get scanned as much as possible but nothing really happened. All that translated into the current system we see in live.
No, our problem from the onset was with the negative precedent being set when Imperials were give no penalties. It wasn't in relation to the crackdown but what it would mean when we actually got to smuggle as the devs would have to work around that. It's nothing something they would be willing to change as Loden said about, they already said that they are reluctant to change that. We were against it from the start when Imperials (i'm one myself btw) started whinning all over the GCW boards asking for immunity. We tried to get our voices heard through SanTsu but he jsut dismissed it as 'fantasies' and when it came to voicing our concern to the devs, he barely did anything at all - even going as far as saying that he didn't see why we were 'crying' so much about it.Point is, it doesn't matter what he thinks when giving our opinions and by posting something like that it set an extrememly negative precedent against all our complaints regarding the issue.
The Imperial Crackdown was a publish geared mainly to the Chef revamp, and geared towards providing a deeper level of immersion to everyone. It is not the Smuggler Revamp. We haven't lost a thing. And it's time to stop pointing the finger and time to get back to providing ideas for ways to fix what's broken, idea's for new content specifically for us. Don't let this latest disappointment tear us apart.
True, the crackdown was meant to provide immersion for everyone. The fact that ti turned into the joke it currently is is another issue entirely. No, we didn't lose anything. But the precedent set with the lack of Imperial penalties will be very ahrd to work around. As for providing idea, we've been doing it since Beta and have been repeating it over and over and over again. Atleast now with new and unspiteful correspondent, we have a better chance of doing it.
Well San I've never publically or privately blasted you or your views in anyway. I'm one of those so-called kids who got their panties in a wad. To be labeled as such when all I tried to do was voice my concern for what would happen. We knew the devs weren't going to change anything after this patch went through and it even strengthened my beliefs that they wouldn't change it when they decided to put it in early.
Dev1: "Hey if we can get this done now instead of hearing them give us sensible reasons why we shouldn't do this, we can shut them up."
SanTsu wrote:
I dont really care. Where were you when these butt licks attacked my work as correspondent.
Where were you when they decided to turn what was the best forum on the boards into a
whinefest about there desires with no clue as to what a game like this entails.
Where were you? It is not the position of the community to defend your decisions or actions, it is your responsibility. I came into these boards and asked a very simple question during the middle of this debate, and that was why are you guys so upset? I posted my view, I had civil and productive discussion with those you seem to say are "bashing" and I realized their opinion. I payed close attention afterwards, and their opinion was not felt by only those few, it was felt by what I estimate to be at least a third of the community if not more.
Again I ask, where were you?
You want me to care about your respect then you need to be more then just a peace nic
with a fear of confrontation.
Fear of confrontation..... See above. Where were you?
If you don't care about the respect of those you are supposed to represent you should never have been in that position. Simple.
EDIT:
I want to make one thing clear. I had no opinion of San prior to this. I have no clue what he did or did not do for the community. However, something like the quote above to come from someone who was in that position is not something that any type of leader, representative, even person should resort to in any way, shape, fashion, or form. I have not been on one side or the other, and I had no interest in choosing a side (nor do I now) but this quote (and one calling people "babies with their panties in a wad" or something along those lines) are inexcusable. Whatever good San may have achieved I will never view it that way due to the lack of courtesy and respectfulness shown in this thread alone.
Others may have done the same in their own way, but I have not read a post that has irritated me like this one has in a long time.
San, Good luck to you. I won't be missing you at all after reading this.
Message Edited by Ryutek on 02-19-2004 12:03 PM
Message Edited by DarthMyers on 02-19-2004 08:52 AM
Feels good to get it out doesn't it San 
What people are/were reading on the cor/dev forum was San at the end of his life. He was burnt out by then. After a year of "No. Later. We're on it in a few months." looped on autoreply how energetic would you be.
The crackdown has done absolutely nothing to us. Nothing good, nothing bad. It's a null point aside from having some cool looking mobs running around and some destroyers over Bestine.
Will the crackdown set the tone for our revamp? Nope. It' can't. A complete dev of the smuggler profession means that (should actual smuggling be included) it won't be a set of 5 'plusses' to 'smuggling'. There will be skill mods, specials, equipment, etc.
You did what you could San and picked your fights. I agree that the IC was not worth fighting over. At least you got us the mods we did get from it!
it has however, been repeatedly pointed out by the Four Horseman (dunno about you, but i'm glad we're lucky enough to have people like these four spearheading our concerns) that it affects our future, especially with regard to future imperial "privilege".
these points have been repeatedly hammered in, spelled out and rinsed through, i'm saying nothing new at all in this post, yet an alarming number of people still don't seem to get it, including, disappointingly, our former correspondent.
it's a shame to see things hash out this way.
Not with a bang but a whimper - TSE
TH raised an important point ... one worth noting again. The developers are somewhat reluctant to change the crackdown now (as far as we're concerned) because of the upcoming smuggler revamp.
Our rally point has to be this upcoming revamp, whenever it may be. Being able to show a unified front on a series of smuggler essential issues will make it more likely that the revamp (whenever it comes) will be palatable to most of us.
________________
Lodek Dall
/endquote
Aside from who sucks and who doesn't, let's put our focus in this direction. Given the feedback we have recieved, this should be our tactical strike. We have ranted and flamed eachother and gotten it outta us. Let's research what can be possibly coded in a game like this (i.e. scanning everyone who goes through a starport for contraband is too much load on a server), and what ideas we can work into the computer structure that we have.
Like Lodek said in his bandwagon post, let's get one person to head up each of the ideas that we want. I personally think the spices and contraband/smuggling content need it the most. Coagulate our ideas in threads. This is a terrific opportunity for us to construct a clear, focused system that we would like to implement, and we finally have a correspondent to really beef up the goods to the devs.
Let's kick some a$$
Katryana wrote:
Now that the Smuggler community has realized that the Imperial Crackdown really has nothing to do with Smugglers, people are disappointed and angry. And when that happens, people look for where to lay the blame. SanTsu, the Dev Team, Droid Engineers, Imperials all have had their turn as "Smuggler Whipping Boy" and personally I think it needs to stop. The Smuggler community has traditionally been one of the few professions to not succumb to flame wars and whining. We're better than that.