Smuggler Archive
Thread: Top 5 responses from SOE
OK TH, since you want to know what I as a player would like to see as the smuggler class...
I am basing these ideas on the two most well-know smuggler types in the official SW universe - Han Solo and Lando Calrissian.
Basically, most smugglers dabble in business and transport, sometimes legally and sometimes not. Smugglers should be able to arrange and carry out gray-area business dealings. This means the manufacture and sales of spice (which is in the game now), but with consequences if caught by imperial patrols with over a certain amount of the stuff. This could be in the form of TEFs, although I'm not sure how you would code the "detection" of spice by imperials. Possibly the same way Jedi are detected when using their powers? I honestly don't know how this is implemented and could be related back to smuggling spice. Also, a similar system should be set up upon release of the space expansion to smuggle spice between planets and planetary locations. To facilitate this avenue of character development, spice should be illegal as far as Bazaar sales (this also meshes well with SW cannon). Since spice offers such large boosts to character stats, I think this could be very popular with the profession. There should be more risk with this activity.
Smugglers also are good at jury-rigging and improving vehicles/ships. With the space expansion, I would like to see smugglers with the ability to "buff" ships and vehicles by either producing or acquiring special components or possibly producing power-ups for vehicles/ships. I would like to see a limited time way of improving vehicles as a smuggler rather than just slicing them. If you decide to slice rather than power-up vehicles, it should cause big improvements (either speed, HAM, terrain negotiation) but have large costs as far as repair cost or decay rate.
Another useful skill for smugglers it to, well, smuggle. I would love to see abilities, especially in the space expansion, of smugglers to quietly transport some not so well liked citizens of the galaxy as far as the empire is concerned, and vice versa. If a skill similar to the scout's "mask scent" could be developed that gives the smuggler a percent chance of masking TEFs or aligned players from the other side temporarily, this could be a very unique feature for the class. I realize this would have to be very carefully balanced and limited to keep from causing serious harm to the GCW, but I think some uses of this could be a cool game addition. For example, maybe the smuggler can only shield a few players in his ship for a few minutes at a space dock with an increasing chance of detection as time went by. This would provide for the ability of limited sneak attacks to be launched at areas close to spaceports. Smuggling of humans as it were. I would also like to see smugglers able to create missions with other players for delivery of goods, legal or otherwise. This would be especially useful for the space expansion. This of course requires the player created mission system the Devs promised they would be working on after they got player cities, mounts, and vehicles out of the way. 
I still find the requirement of unarmed as a little weird for smugglers. Pistol is a natural fit going by the movies and other extended literature. I rarely see anything about unarmed combat. However, smugglers currently manufacture and alter other goods. It makes much more sense that the engineering tree of Artisan meshes more with the current skills of smuggler. Also, business sense should be very important to smugglers and this also has its roots in Artisan.
TH wrote:
Both San and I agree that you guys need more of an answer and here it is. The smuggler isn't going to be just "fixed". Its in re-development. Smuggler is an important profession and needs more than a little attention.
Here is what I need from you folks. Since Smuggler is "In Development", I hope you folks can work together to put together some reasonable ideas togetherfor the types of directions you would like to see the Smuggler profession change/develop. Thats why San is posting a lot of broad questions.
Then San and I want to collect the very best of your ideas and San will email them to me. I've set up a special email box for this type of correspondence.From there, I will take that information to the producers so that your desires and ideas can be accounted for when the development process moves to the next stage.
The best recommendation I can make is to keep your ideas realistic. Come up with ideas using the system as you know it as opposed to inventing things from a "blue sky" approach.
I very much look forward to seeing your input.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
With all due respect, the smuggler community has been waiting with baited breath since release, now we find we as a profession (and SWG as a game itself) is in re-development? It is apparent that the Devs hear (or read and interpret) what they what to hear. Most of us have been saying since prior to release ( aye I was in beta also), what some of the most drastic problems are bugs and lack of content if you will.
TH you yourself have been requesting info from us and all professions and we have given you that information as best we could, time and time again. We wait for your responses week after week. Only to hear the same empty vague promises or business lingo every time. This is not an insult or personal attack towards you, however, do you not think that we are tired of the same DOUBLE TALK time, after time?
You may be doing your best, and I do not doubt it. I also agree that each MMORPG goes thru these phases of cleaning up and making their game the best they can be ( I have played all of them including 4+ years in EQ, 1 year in AO including the disastorous 1st 6 months, DAOC, AC, etc, etc etc.) Now as being a (mature, heheh hopefully ) adult of 40is years with a family, this is my escape to a fantasy world. One that I truely love, my wife enjoys it immensly also. But there comes a time when one says enough is enough. I paid in advance for 1 year (even though I played in beta and knew more or less what was to come), for once PLEASE I Beg you, tell the Devs to give us players a little bit of the truth instead of business doulble talk. If given a truthful response at least every once in awhile, we in the player community (well, hmm I mean myself and I cannot speak for all of us 
) will be more than willing to give you the time needed to make this game great.
Respectfully
Soyel Hodon
toons on Ahazia and Kettemoor
After searching and dabbling in many, many professions, I've come to like the looks, sounds and potential of Smuggler the most. Hearing the profession is in re-development gives me great hope and I'll appreciate any attention the profession gets.
A couple suggestions I've had in mind were made above and I'm going to repeat them here because I think they're important and addsome comments to each one:
1) The Force is truly with droidhunter with his suggestion of keeping "underworld" on hold until the SE arrives. A significant portion of smuggler lore throughout the EU fiction is spaceflight-based and it would only be right to have at least one tree affect a smuggler's abilities in space.
2) A couple people above have recommended slicing vehicles, which I think is very, very important but with a couple added suggestions. We know that vehicles possess a certain top speed and a certain acceleration influenced by terrain. Making "max speed" and "acceleration" slicable, ground-based vehicle attributes would significantly open up the possibilities for races, etc. Applying the same ideasto the SE would open up possibilities for "tinkering" on the ship to more securely hide smuggler compartments, to more effectively avoid Imp scans, to increase smuggler compartment space, etc.
I'm only 0.4.2.4 in the smuggler tree so I don't have a real good basis on which to make comments regarding combat. A smuggler-only weapon, craftable by Master WS would be great but I think limiting Smugglers to pistols is a good thing.
For now, that's it. Looking forward to watching this re-development.
Stall tactics.
Adding stuff is all well and good, but I also do not want to lose anything. I like the +100 language, buying FP, the last box of spices, and the big discount on faction stuff.
Maybe I just don't think big, but what would I like to see?
No cap on buying FP (500 pool my ass)
Ability to choose what to slice
Quality of material mattering in slices, AND the quality of tools to be shown (Mainly on WUK/AUK since I don't make them)
Some type of smuggler missions. People more inventive than I have already given many idea on this.
And along with this, maybe some interaction with the BH profession.
People post pages upon pages of ideas, they get filtered discussed by the community and edited and forwarded by the correspondant. This has been going on for a few month and in various professions.
And every time a dev pops up and posts something along the lines TH did, which kinda strongly indicates that everything the community did prior went directly to the paper basket
That is slightly discourageing imo.
But perhaps TH you can clear up what the dev crew was thinking when they implemented the smugglers that can't smuggle and what their vision was that would help i think ...
We need to get higher mission levels when we get our specials, it's absurd that a master smuggler can run only lvl 10 missions on starting planets. I can kill something difficoult than a nuna, you don't need to make me travel to endor everytime i want to run a mission of decent lvl i can easily accomplish (bordoks missions are just easy for my char, even merek ones)
Thunderheart wrote:
Actually, I want to know what you WANT so we can include it in the planning - - we want the community involved. The problem here is now that I've said this, I need the help of the community to understand that this is not going to happen over night. Work on your ideas, get your ideas to me and then I can get it into the development process. To do that, San and I work closely and I've set up an email account for the correspondents to pipe this information in to me directly to save time and effort.
It's funny how every single top-5-related post that TH makes basically amounts to "We're eager to help you, but you need to do this delay-riddledthing first so we can do other stuff that we'd really rather be doing in the mean time."
He's been doing it for months now and so far it's been pretty successful for him.
Obviously if the master box is empty doenst that cause a problem??? We get nothing shouldn't that one little fact be a red flag? I am very upset about the devs priorities. They wanted vehicles out by christmas so they could sell more copies but in return they leave us broke since day 1. Nothing in the master smug box is unacceptable. Nothing in the underworld tree that is worth anything is unacceptable. Do the devs ever look at the skill trees? Obviously not, they are going deeper and deeper into a black hole with no light and are so far down they can't see anything.
I think if one of the devs actually played the game they could find out what was broke in about 2 seconds with the professions.
Here is a recommendation I posted on Stratics once
"I hope for another patch, the DEVs will make smugglers smuggle stuff, and have an entirely different branch for Spice Production. I can't understand why smugglers have to do the whole spice manufacturing bit, since that wasn't what I was expecting when I first heard of the profession.
I believe that 'illegal' items should not be able to be placed in the bazaar, and that's where smugglers come in. There should be a 'black market' terminal in every city. The seller would first designate a smuggler, and after the auction is complete, the smuggler would have to travel to the bidder to deliver the item. This would work like PC bounty hunter missions.
During their smuggling trip, the smugglers have to use stealth to avoid faction police and local thugs, as they would be attackable by each in the meantime. This is where the spice production replacement in a smuggler's branch comes in. There could be a stealth branch, or disguises branch, or both.
If the mission is completed successfully, the smuggler would be paid in full. If not, both seller and buyer would then have the chance to post a bounty on the smuggler in question.
And coming back to spices, that should be made by another class completely, and would serve as an example of the 'illegal' items. Another would be sliced weapons (illegal modifications), as well as weapons that have been stated in manuals as being illegal for civillian possesion."
*no edit button*
And here is another postI maderegarding the Underworld Skillset in particular:
"IMO, they oughta change it so that you can actually have underworld connections.
It would be cool if at the bottom tier, you could get the basic NPC street thugs to work for you (sort of like Stormtroopers in Imperial Faction), and at the top of the tree, you could 'hire' high level NPC thugs for you.
Something along those lines. Or maybe make special NPC thug quests available only to those with the underworld skill set."
And it would be also interesting if criminal faction played a larger role for Smugglers. A higher faction would get more criminals willing to give you static, but interesting quests (possibility for ton of fun content to be had here!), and I ain't talking about the generic "Go here and bring me swoop bike etchings" type missions. I guess you could even make them heralds if you want.
However, lower faction points will get you criminals only willing to cooperate for a price.
And me back for hopefully the last time of the day. I just remembered an idea I suggested a while back, not sure if it was on stratics or not...
You should be able to run 'delivery' missions of illegal goods for Jabba, Borva, Valarian (you know, the Underworld sort of guys!). These would work pretty much like Bounty Hunter missions do, except the complete inverse of them.
Instead of hunting down targets, targets come hunting you. Here, you would get the choice to fight or flee. I'd recommend having Stormtroopers and Rebel Soldiers (all NPC of course) who will attack you on sight during the duration of the mission, as well as a timer (just to add that sense of urgency, and also to remind you that you have a TEF on NPCs). In case you are wondering, stormies would be hostile because the very nature of your work isn't exaclty benefitting the Empire, and Rebels will attack you because either they don't approve of your work, or they want the cargo to supply their Rebellion.
Throw in a sprinkling of NPC Bounty Hunters hot on your tail to complete that Star Wars feel.
Now I suggest that Bounty Hunters would be there after you run quite a number of 'smuggling' missions, and their presence can be explained by the rival crime lord (assuming there is one) just not wanting the cargo delivered.
Perhaps this would all work in a vertical tree on the smuggler skillset? Under something like 'Cargo Delivery'. First tier would have you running basic goods, and nothing too eye catching. But as you go higher, the cargo's quality and content does so too. And you might be tempted to run off with the goods, and risk getting a permenant bounty by your employee!
Of course, no vertical tree is complete without abilities. So to fill that gaping yawn, some skills to help out there would work nicely. Maybe for second tier, you get a camouflague ability, in which hostile mission NPCs don't recognize you until you are 30m or closer to them. Basically mask scent, except specific to smugglers. And for third tier, you get stealth, which makes you unrecognizable up to 15m, but to offset this, you'll get tougher bounty hunters after you who ignore stealth and camouflague.
Finally, if after you get to the top, and earn the title 'Errand Boy' or whatever (basically reach 'Cargo Delivery IV), you will get occasional emails from NPCs like Jabba or Lady Valarian... or evena Skywalkerasking for your help specifically to smuggle contents to them. This would add an extra layer to that Star Warsiness, after all, a smuggler this good will get clients BEGGING him or her to peddle some goods, right? Han Solo sure had his suitors!
Or maybe instead (or in addition) of Emails, perhaps have dynamic NPCs spawn to beg you to help them smuggle content. Maybe to their son or lovers on battlefronts. Maybe to their friends in need. You get the picture. And with each successful completion of a mission for a particular static NPC, he treats you with more friendliness much like Jabba did with Han. Well, these ideas should get the bloods a pumpin' in anticipation. I know I sure would be excited!
Well, I think I've said quite enough. That's my two cents at any rate
Thunderheart wrote:
Both San and I agree that you guys need more of an answer and here it is. The smuggler isn't going to be just "fixed". Its in re-development. Smuggler is an important profession and needs more than a little attention.
Here is what I need from you folks. Since Smuggler is "In Development", I hope you folks can work together to put together some reasonable ideas togetherfor the types of directions you would like to see the Smuggler profession change/develop. Thats why San is posting a lot of broad questions.
Then San and I want to collect the very best of your ideas and San will email them to me. I've set up a special email box for this type of correspondence.From there, I will take that information to the producers so that your desires and ideas can be accounted for when the development process moves to the next stage.
The best recommendation I can make is to keep your ideas realistic. Come up with ideas using the system as you know it as opposed to inventing things from a "blue sky" approach.
I very much look forward to seeing your input.
Entire character classes arebeing returned to "in development." Core systems (creature mounts, player cities, and vehicles) just now going live (bugs to be worked out later). The next phases of updates promise to focus on content.
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that this game is still in beta? This game discarded the cocoon of Beta and went live in the summer of 2003. It is now the winter of 2003, and there are still know issues from launch that are not resolved. Is this the winter of our discontent?
I realize that once a MMO game goes live, it can not go back to beta (even if it was launched "still-in-beta).I trulyhopethis game endures through these initial growing pains and matures into something resembling it's initial vision (this is Star Wars, but I can't pilot an X-Wing???). I would hopethat the early players are rewarded for there seemingly unlimited tolerance for a game that is still "in development."
MMO games evolution is to be expected, but this is ridiculous.