Smuggler Archive

Mentski's got it right.

Make smuggling part of an actual criminal/underworld portion of the game and you're talking about content for everyone. Not only that, but a lot of the things in this game are meaningless without it.

I mean, come on, who is Jabba in this game? He certainly isn't a crime boss since there's no laws to break, hence commiting a crime.

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Dromag67 wrote:

You smugglers pounce like h3ll, and I thought we were bad when all of our BH content was broken and bugged for a year.

/roll eyes

Message Edited by Dromag67 on 08-12-200502:08 PM

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How much more broken can you get than it doesn't work because it's not there? Have you ever not been able to hunt bounties? I know they were buggy, but you've always been able to do it.

Go roll your eyes at someone else.

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Mentski wrote:

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JFreeman wrote:

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SmugglinZane wrote:

I appreciate you coming, but we still have a problem with how you view things versus how we view things.

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I don't think we're viewing things all that differently. As I said, we agree you need smuggling missions.

I don't see that as a "profession revamp", though. I see that more as "Adding a smuggling mission system so that smugglers can, somehow, smuggle."

Is that how you see it, or is there more to it than that?

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Oh by golly theres more to it than that, J.

let's start with the most glaring problem, in the simplest of terms...

THE CURRENT LAW/CONTRABAND SYSTEM IN THE GAME IS A JOKE.

Before ANYTHING should be done, that really needs a-fixing, man.

No-one is ever going to be happy with a bunch of random missions, not unlike current delivery missions, that you just "happen" to be a Smuggler to do. We need a law to avoid. We need SKILLS to avoid them, not just that native skill to avoid a contraband check, but skills we can use to negate the chance of EVER being noticed in the first place, stealth.Skills that can be used in other parts of the game to help other players. Ways to mask hostility, etc, ways for us to smuggle not only items, but people, other players.

Ever seen the game "Elite" or any of its sequals? Each planet woul'd have a list of items that were illegal to bring into the planet, we need those type of lists in the game. Yes, I'm sure that would take some big database overhaul but you really should of thought of that shouldn't you? Anything else is tame in comparision. Risk/Reward, Law/Punishment....Stop pandering to the people that want things so easy, man.

Some of this stuff should be in the core systems... applicable to everyone. A reason to be a Smuggler, areason to NEED a Smuggler.

Then you can put some missions in.

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Message Edited by gassygunslinger on 08-12-2005 11:21 AM

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JFreeman wrote:

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Nezodon wrote:
Lets try and keep it to the questions and make it as constructive as possible so its easier for anyone reading he post to digest so hopefuly we can encourage a red name down to pop in and say something/anything about smuggling and their plans.

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I can say that we can't really give any specifics about our plans, other than we plan to stop promising a smuggler revamp that we never seem to get around to delivering.

It's very unlikely we'd ever do a full profession revamp for smugglers anyway. Instead we're focusing on incremental changes, enhancements, updates.

The Combat Upgrade itself was a change to the Smuggler profession, and the recent slicing changes was another. We're still planning on reviewing the spices: probably not a full fledges "spice revamp", but rather fixes and upgrades to improve the line.

We agree that you need Smuggling Missions. So, you don't need to convince us of that!

In the past, our approach to this has been to design with an eye toward content-driven delivery mechanisms. Now I think we've come to the realization that creating hand-crafted content requires more resources than we can devote to a single profession. So we need a plan-B.

In the same way that Bounty Hunters have a systems-driven source of activity, we've got to look at ways of systemically delivering "smuggler missions" to you.

But I still can't give any details as to when we could deliver this or how it might work.

Enhancing the Smuggler profession is high on our list of priorities.

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Gen00b wrote:
What happened to GreenMarine anyway, I thought he was responsible for those In Concepts posted some time ago.

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gassygunslinger wrote:

But
could you at least keep us up to date at what you are thinking about
adding, even if it isn't definate? If you continue to leave us in the
dark, we will continue to feel ignored, and people will continue to
quit. Even if you don't add it in, it will still let us know it is
being worked on.

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Mentski wrote:

No-one is ever going to be happy with a bunch of random missions, not unlike current delivery missions, that you just "happen" to be a Smuggler to do. We need a law to avoid. We need SKILLS to avoid them, not just that native skill to avoid a contraband check, but skills we can use to negate the chance of EVER being noticed in the first place, stealth.Skills that can be used in other parts of the game to help other players. Ways to mask hostility, etc, ways for us to smuggle not only items, but people, other players.

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Honestly, I would be happy with a bunch of random missions, if they are done well. One way that I thought would have been easy to code but really fun to play would be to (yes, I know I'm repeating ideas we've seen a dozen times before):

1. Get mission from contact.

2. Proceed to waypoint for further instructions.

3. Proceed to dropoff.

Three steps. Sounds boring, right? You take a huge random encounter table and throw them in at randomized intervals throughout the steps 1-3. And I mean really randomized. Some missions you may have no interference, some missions may end up spawning endless waves of Tier 5 TIEs to interdict you.

The second step could be to pick up additional cargo (you've still got space in that cargo hold? Good. We've got a transport with a shipment of Wookiees for the core systems that's been coming under fire) and may be chained with more step 2s. Every extra pickup adds a bonus to your take if successfully delivered, but adds extra (you start getting chased by Wookiee freedom fighters in addition to the imperials and rival smugglers) random encounter tables to the mix.

Such a system could create situations that take ten minutes or two hours to complete, it would be totally different every time, and... it would be fun. To me. Even without an improved contraband system, this could be a blast.

Not that I have much hope to see anything like this in my lifetime.

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JFreeman wrote:

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Nezodon wrote:
Lets try and keep it to the questions and make it as constructive as possible so its easier for anyone reading he post to digest so hopefuly we can encourage a red name down to pop in and say something/anything about smuggling and their plans.

---

I can say that we can't really give any specifics about our plans, other than we plan to stop promising a smuggler revamp that we never seem to get around to delivering.

It's very unlikely we'd ever do a full profession revamp for smugglers anyway. Instead we're focusing on incremental changes, enhancements, updates.

The Combat Upgrade itself was a change to the Smuggler profession, and the recent slicing changes was another. We're still planning on reviewing the spices: probably not a full fledges "spice revamp", but rather fixes and upgrades to improve the line.

We agree that you need Smuggling Missions. So, you don't need to convince us of that!

In the past, our approach to this has been to design with an eye toward content-driven delivery mechanisms. Now I think we've come to the realization that creating hand-crafted content requires more resources than we can devote to a single profession. So we need a plan-B.

In the same way that Bounty Hunters have a systems-driven source of activity, we've got to look at ways of systemically delivering "smuggler missions" to you.

But I still can't give any details as to when we could deliver this or how it might work.

Enhancing the Smuggler profession is high on our list of priorities.

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JFreeman wrote:

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gassygunslinger wrote:

But could you at least keep us up to date at what you are thinking about adding, even if it isn't definate? If you continue to leave us in the dark, we will continue to feel ignored, and people will continue to quit. Even if you don't add it in, it will still let us know it is being worked on.

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We're evaluating the work that has been done toward "revamping the Smuggler profession". This includes enhancing, fixing and updating the things that have already been delivered (Combat skills, the slicing system, spices) as well as evaluating the Smuggling mission system that has not been completed, let alone delivered.

The smuggling system is the more important part of the work that has been done - and we hear you when you say that you'd rather have it than any of the other stuff. It is difficult to prioritize fixes to a system that isn't in-game, over fixes to functionality that is in game. And even with a higher priority, you're still likely to see fixes to the in-game systems before you see anything else.

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JFreeman wrote:

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gassygunslinger wrote:

But could you at least keep us up to date at what you are thinking about adding, even if it isn't definate? If you continue to leave us in the dark, we will continue to feel ignored, and people will continue to quit. Even if you don't add it in, it will still let us know it is being worked on.

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We're evaluating the work that has been done toward "revamping the Smuggler profession". This includes enhancing, fixing and updating the things that have already been delivered (Combat skills, the slicing system, spices) as well as evaluating the Smuggling mission system that has not been completed, let alone delivered.

The smuggling system is the more important part of the work that has been done - and we hear you when you say that you'd rather have it than any of the other stuff. It is difficult to prioritize fixes to a system that isn't in-game, over fixes to functionality that is in game. And even with a higher priority, you're still likely to see fixes to the in-game systems before you see anything else.

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JFreeman wrote:

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SmugglinZane wrote:

I appreciate you coming, but we still have a problem with how you view things versus how we view things.

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I don't think we're viewing things all that differently. As I said, we agree you need smuggling missions.
That's good to know
I don't see that as a "profession revamp", though. I see that more as "Adding a smuggling mission system so that smugglers can, somehow, smuggle."


Is that how you see it, or is there more to it than that?

I think (at least the way I interpret it and indeed feel) that the desire for Smuggling has two tiers; The first is to have a system not too disimilar to the BH's mission system, allowing Smugglers to actually Smuggle.

The second, which requires the first in order to be developed, is involving others in that Smuggling system, just as the BH mission system has been extended to include Jedi and has the potential to be extended to others. This can take many forms, be it including others in the missions themselves (such as Artisans mining spice/spice ore, Rangers clearing an area for a drop off/landing place, and obviously a whole host of other ideas), or players actually having a need, hopefully desire, for us to Smuggle something for them.

There is a third tier that people would want, but in order to reach that complexity and amount of development required, an Underworld expansion that includes many things not just for Smugglers would be needed.

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JFreeman wrote:

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gassygunslinger wrote:

But could you at least keep us up to date at what you are thinking about adding, even if it isn't definate? If you continue to leave us in the dark, we will continue to feel ignored, and people will continue to quit. Even if you don't add it in, it will still let us know it is being worked on.

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We're evaluating the work that has been done toward "revamping the Smuggler profession". This includes enhancing, fixing and updating the things that have already been delivered (Combat skills, the slicing system, spices) as well as evaluating the Smuggling mission system that has not been completed, let alone delivered.

The smuggling system is the more important part of the work that has been done - and we hear you when you say that you'd rather have it than any of the other stuff. It is difficult to prioritize fixes to a system that isn't in-game, over fixes to functionality that is in game. And even with a higher priority, you're still likely to see fixes to the in-game systems before you see anything else.

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