Smuggler Archive

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true_Kieran wrote:

I canceled a while ago and didn't buy JTL because not even the ground game really works yet. But I'm afraid many people start to accept their fate as smugglers. I mean still many are around who have been smugglers for ages now, and, no offence guys, but I can't really imagine after all of this you still think we will get our revamp anytime soon or let's say within a year. They will have to fix JTL bugs, then the combat rebalance, new bugs, CR bugs, bugs from the fixes, I'm sure the jedis will ask for something too and there are many more professions out there who need attention just as we need it and by this time the next expansion will sure be on the way to the test center.

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1. JTLS bugs...far and few between! nothing serious and PERFECT implementation into the ground game...seamless intergration.


2. combat UPGRADE.....will touch smugglers as much as other people...a small portion of what we need/want in OUR revamp will be addressed here. Such as FD issues....unarmed specials...smuggler being reliant upon pistoleer or BH'er. Our revamp will address content!! and as much as smuggler want their revamp regulat players should want this revamp as well for our revamp will have a huge effect on other players.


3. CR issues are a different department and do not take away from resources devoted to game programming


4. Jedi are done for except for a mini tweaking in CU beta.


5. kthxbye

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WookieBounty wrote:

1. JTLS bugs...far and few between! nothing serious and PERFECT implementation into the ground game...seamless intergration.


2. combat UPGRADE.....will touch smugglers as much as other people...a small portion of what we need/want in OUR revamp will be addressed here. Such as FD issues....unarmed specials...smuggler being reliant upon pistoleer or BH'er. Our revamp will address content!! and as much as smuggler want their revamp regulat players should want this revamp as well for our revamp will have a huge effect on other players.


3. CR issues are a different department and do not take away from resources devoted to game programming


4. Jedi are done for except for a mini tweaking in CU beta.

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true_Kieran wrote:

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WookieBounty wrote:

1. JTLS bugs...far and few between! nothing serious and PERFECT implementation into the ground game...seamless intergration.


2. combat UPGRADE.....will touch smugglers as much as other people...a small portion of what we need/want in OUR revamp will be addressed here. Such as FD issues....unarmed specials...smuggler being reliant upon pistoleer or BH'er. Our revamp will address content!! and as much as smuggler want their revamp regulat players should want this revamp as well for our revamp will have a huge effect on other players.


3. CR issues are a different department and do not take away from resources devoted to game programming


4. Jedi are done for except for a mini tweaking in CU beta.

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If you say so...

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Solo4114 wrote:

With Caylin's announcement that player smuggling will not be implemented at all in this revamp, I have made the decision to cancel my subscription. I'm going to explain why I'm doing this, rather than simply lighting up my flamethrower and hosing down SOE indiscriminately. I hope that other smugglers will seriously consider what I have to say here and possibly decide to make the same choice I've made. I'll explain why that is as well.

To begin with, I am, of course, disappointed in the surface issue -- that we will not be smuggling. As I feared, we will end up running mini-game missions which will likely grow tiresome within a week of playing with the new content. To pacify us, the devs may throw us a few bones in the forms of extra special moves (unarmed moves) and/or new spice content. Regardless, this only serves to highlight the fact that we are not smuggling and may never smuggle. The notion that, if we just hang on until the Space Expansion, we will be smuggling for players is, frankly, a pipe dream at the moment. There is no evidence to me that "the system" will be able to handle contraband any easier in the future than it can now. Maybe instanced dungeons are the silver bullet to solve this issue, but I highly doubt I will return to the SE to find out. Some of you may be wondering why, even if they did bring player smuggling into the game, I would be reluctant to return. It's quite simple, really. I don't like being led on by anyone, especially someone to whom I pay money on a regular basis.

Make no mistake. SOE has led us on. Did they lie to us? No. No one ever said "Smugglers will smuggle for other players in the revamp" while knowing that this was impossible. But in some ways, what they did do was almost as bad. For almost a year now, smugglers have had the same complaint. And through that entire time period, SOE has been made aware of this complaint. Put simply, we wanted one thing: to smuggle for other players. The instant that SOE determined this was technically infeasible or impossible, we should have been informed. This was our banner issue. This was the Alamo for many smugglers. After all, if we're not actually smuggling, what purpose does a Smuggler have in the game world? Again, this has been our key problem since launch.

What I have realized through this experience is that SOE cannot be trusted to be honest and forthcoming with paying customers. Whether this is the fault of the devs themselves, whether it is the fault of the marketing department, or whether the fault lies with the corporate officers in charge of all of this, SOMEONE gave the order NOT to divulge this information until recently. And yet, consider the following.

This issue has been at the forefront for our profession since launch. I expect that, even prior to launch, the developers may have wanted to introduce a truly interactive version of smuggling into the game. Somewhere along the line, they realized that such a system, to be done properly, was just going to put too much technological strain on the network infrastructure to be done well. Maybe they realized this before launch. Maybe they realized it three months into the game, after the servers had been "load tested." Maybe they realized it after the abyssmal failure of the Imperial Crackdown. Regardless, somewhere along the line, prior to today, they knew. SOMEONE knew that this system just wasn't going to happen, certainly before the Space Expansion.

At that point, the first people to know should've been the players. Especially given the fact that this was THE issue around which many of us had rallied. What SOE did, rather than be up front and inform us of the truth, was to simply say nothing and keep us waiting for information. We kept getting vague promises that "you'll be fixed next" or "we've assigned a special developer to you." Nothing ever materialized. What certainly did not materialize was any up-front explanation of why this system could not work, what WAS possible instead, and that players could make their own choices accordingly. Now, maybe you're not bothered by this, but I feel as if I was stolen from. SOE must have known for some time now that player to player smuggling was THE issue that we cared about, and that it was NOT going to be possible. And yet, they refused to divulge that information. They KNEW that it would affect the decision to remain in the game for many players, and yet, they said nothing. Instead, they continued to take our money, knowing all the while that when the information was finally released, a number of us would quit. As I said, maybe that doesn't bother you, but consider the following.

What if it had been the Jedi profession? What if, after all the marketing bonanza subsided, after all the hype, the developers realized that there was just no way to ever actually put Jedi into the game. Oh, sure, you could put laser swords in, and yes, you could also put brown desert robes and give players certain enhanced swordsmanship skills. But what if, as a result of technological limitations, there was no way to implement force powers? What if you couldn't "force push" someone or "force lightning" someone else? And yet, what if, for almost a year, SOE received constant questions of "When can Jedi use the force" and still said nothing? What if, during all that time, they KNEW they'd never be able to put the Force into the game, and still kept taking players' money nonetheless? And what if they KNEW that players would quit the instant that they said "Well, the force is technologically impossible to implement currently, but we're going to make lightsabres shine brighter for your revamp"? How do you think players would react then?

Put simply, SOE has misled us since, basically, day one. Smugglers were advertised in much of the pre-release materials, as well as on the box, etc. Why were smugglers ever put into the game when a meaningful smuggling system was never going to be possible? It's simple. Marketing. Money. OUR money. They knew we'd want to play as smugglers. They knew, at least somewhere along the line, that it wasn't going to happen. And yet, they kept on taking our money, knowing the whole time that that was what we wanted the most, and that a smuggler who doesn't smuggle really has no purpose in the game world. They strung us along for almost a year now, and only NOW does this information surface.

And what makes it all the more disheartening is the fact that no developers could even take the time to come tell us. Did Holo or Q show up to break the bad news? Did GreenMarine? Did the dev with whom Caylin has been corresponding? No. Rather than do the stand-up thing, SOE sent one of our own to tell us the bad news. Maybe in the hopes that it'd soften the blow. Maybe because none of them could spare the time. Maybe because they didn't want to deal with the obvious flames that people would post. Regardless, sending Caylin to tell us the bad news is like a doctor who botches an operation sending another patientto tell you your loved one died on the table.

So, for those of you who are on the fence about staying in this game, or for those of you who are even firmly convinced that you will stay, ask yourself the following questions:

1.) How long do you think SOE KNEW that player to player smuggling wasn't technologically workable?

2.) For how long after THAT do you think they accepted money from players whom they knew would likely quit if told the truth?

3.) For how long did they NOT tell those players the truth?

4.) Can you really trust a company that engages in this kind of behavior?

Those of you who think that the space expansion may prove to be the solution here, ask yourself the following:

1.) Will the technology really change that much between here and there?

2.) Will SOE devote the necessary resources to developing that technology and applying it to smuggling?

3.) In the event that it later proves unworkable again, how long do you think it will take SOE to tell you the news?

4.) If smuggling doesn't show up in the space expansion, for whatever reason, will you THEN feel that you've been misled?

5.) And again, can you really trust a company that, based on your own and others' prior experience, behaves in this manner to tell you the truth and be honest, up-front, and forthcoming with you?

Maybe the space expansion will solve all of our smuggler problems. Maybe it'll be a blast. I, however, do not trust SOE after this. I do not believe that, if technology ends up not permitting them to do certain things that players want, that they will tell the players in a timely fashion. I expect that they will delay the release of such information, that they will continue to squeeze every penny out of you that they can until they realize it doesn't matter and that you'll quit whether you get the information or not, and only THEN will they say "Yep, you were right. It's not happening." I, for one, do not intend to contribute to such business practices any longer. I am cancelling my account, effective tonight, and won't be looking back. Maybe I'll play another MMORPG. Maybe I'll get a netflix account. Maybe I'll put my money in a Roth IRA. Maybe I'll give it to charity. But that charity will DEFINITELY not be SOE. I don't expect I'll ever buy another SOE game again, either, and that's as a direct result of their atrocious customer service throughout this entire experience.

SOE, you guys dropped the ball with this. Someone should've told us sooner. And that someone should NOT have been Caylin. You OWED us better. We DESERVED better. And that you'd take this long to tell us the bad news, that you'd keep taking our money all along, and that you'd then not even send one of your own to break the information to us just proves to me that whoever's running the show couldn't give a good god damn about the paying customers. I for one pay for both the product AND service, REGARDLESS of whatI buy, and you guys have let me down on both.

/cancel.

I encourage all of you to do the same.

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WOW...... All this and he smacked the nail on the head. JTL has NO smuggler things at all, A ship big deal. All missions can be played by any profession and they made no changes to JTL or SWG to add substance for smuggler. Not to mention they won't revamp us now. Soon as WoW opens up to public I'm out. -30 bucks a month for my 2 account. +30 more for my bros since he will most likely quit + his 8 friends who live near him who play because he does. + most likely a bunch of people I play with everyday who already beta trest WoW and say its 4 times what this game is.

I don't think anyone could have said it better. I would bet if he sued them in court he could actually get some of his money back by this aguement.

DEV suck as bad a SOE decision makers (ironic since decisions require thought)

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korvass wrote:

The problem with smuggling for players is that it contains an element that simply cannot be coded into a computer-based system: thinking, feeling human beings.

The logical answer, in my opinion, is therefore to give players the incentive to require our services. Taking the next logical step, that means that the price for failing contraband scans needs to be so hard-hitting to the player owning the illegal items that they would consider calling one of us to carry their item somewhere for them so as to avoid these penalties. There's a lot of detail involved in this of course. This kind of system creates hassle for some who just want to get on and enjoy a quick game, for example. There's a lot of arguments, for and against.

Another system, which is more intrusive, is to simply disallow a play from travelling to certain places if they are carrying contraband items. Our own airlines don't let people onboard with a weapon, why would standard imperial shuttle services allow people onboard with crates of spice and sliced military hardware? This system, is heavily intrusive, but has been done by SOE before. Not being able to attack other's mission targets in space is one example. Terrible suspension of disbelief, but obviously cuts down on some grief. This system would require people to use their own ships to circumvent regular civilian transport routes, or a player would again need out services as - shock, horror - smugglers. Again, this system creates a lot of hassle for players, especially players who have limited time and just want a little fun for an hour.

An idea that just popped into my head was a kind of network of special NPCs, that act like vendors. Players could upload items they need smuggling to the vendor, with the price they're willing to pay to have it delivered, and a menu list of locations for a drop off point. A smuggler could access the vendor and take the job, the items, and deliver them to the location designated, like a mission. I haven't thought this idea through, but I can immediately see several pros and cons to a system like this.

The real problem at the moment is that, as it stands now, there is ZERO incentive for players to use smugglers for actual smuggling. The only people that ever really have any real hassle from scans are rebels, as they are often turned overt and attacked (and forced into pvp). Others have to pay a paultry fine that - if you can afford a sliced suit of composite - is pocket change at most. Apart from that, scans are a joke. We smugglers are simply not needed.

I must confess that I am skeptical about ever being able to smuggle for players. It's a hard thing to code, because of the human element involved. For player smuggling to work, there needs to be the incentive for players to need us. How do you do that, how do you balance it? I don't think it will ever happen to be honest. I know what I'd like, but what I'd like is rather irrelevant, compared to what is possible, or what SOE can be bothered to invest man-hours into.

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Now, that's the Solo4114 I remember! Where's EN at...we need yall back

Anywho, the only thing I disagree on is that if you're not happy with the current state or possibility of a reavamp you should simply quit. Now, if that's what you're playing the game for and all that's keeping you in the game...I say press the big red button and drop. Simply because, your character keeps for 6 months and you can still read the forums to keep track of things. As far as if the revamp ever happens or takes longer than six months...well, if it does and you come back you can level through the new system and it might actually be fun and if they never revamp us then you just saved yourself a lot of money.

However, I myself continue to play this game because I have friends that play and it's fun to hang out sometimes and the occasionally hunt ain't bad. I recently went on a break for a while from Smuggler and SWG to clear my head and stuff. Was good

Solo4114, I totally agree with you and I honestly don't think we'll receive a new "onion" at all and no"revamp"until March/April at the earliest. I think what it'll come down to is Smuggling mission NPCs that let us bringnew spices into the economy, slicing will be made "experimental", we'll receive a weapon cert, and a couple other things that enhance the current botched "skill onion".

But I'm just hanging around cause I like doing what I do on here...which ain't much even if I think that way about the revamp. I just hope I'm seriously wrong