Smuggler Archive
Thread: Smuggler missions and why we need them?
- Why do we need smuggling missions?
- What should they involve?
- What would it add to the SWG universe?
- Why did you become a smuggler?
- What does the lack of smuggling content do to the smuggling profession?
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'll come back later and articulate further some more ideas.
Nezodon wrote:
I just thought it would be interesting to do a nice polite questionaire and get some views which hopefully the devs would take on board when it comes to smuggling missions:
- Why do we need smuggling missions?
Because we're smugglers, and it would be good to have content to back that up.
- What should they involve?
Smuggling goods from point a to point b... there are many threads that articulate it
- What would it add to the SWG universe?
Real smugglers. more work for Bounty Hunters and more space content.
- Why did you become a smuggler?
One word: Han
- What does the lack of smuggling content do to the smuggling profession?
Makes us constantly want more out of this game. We see the potential but we're frustrated.
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.
Nezodon wrote:
- Why do we need smuggling missions?
Not to be facetious, but because we're Smugglers. We've debated this as a community since launch, and these missions have been regarded as the easiest and most viable way to introduce Smuggling to the game. It's imperative that we have content that is intrinsic to defining our profession. It's like a chef not being able to make food, or a pistoleer not being able to use a pistol. It's a fundamental cornerstone of our profession that should not be missing. And it'd be fun!
- What should they involve?
If they hadn't deleted them, the In Concept documents pretty much nailed what I'd have liked them to be. If anyone still has a copy, post it. They should also be the ONLY way to get illegal spice - it shouldn't be crafted, mined, spawned or anything else, except skimmed from Smuggling missions or handed out as an alternative to cash for completing them.
- What would it add to the SWG universe?
The beginnings of a 'legitimate' Underworld. A shady alternative '3rd faction' is lacking in the game, and this would be a start. And it'd be cool content. Plus it would finally provide a more palatable usefulness in the wider playerbase for the Smuggler community beyond the 'Slice Monkey' that we have been in the past. As it stands, there are so many things about the potential services we can offer that are broken: Pilots can farm fp and sell it much cheaper than Smugglers. High quality Slicing items are out of the reach of most Smugglers, and all but 2 of our spices are out-performed by chef food.
- Why did you become a smuggler?
It's one of the most iconic professions in the whole Star Wars Universe. Han Solo was a cool 3 dimensional character, and Smuggling and cutting deals to try and make your fortune is an appealing way of life in game for people who want to work for their success rather than be handed it on a plate.
- What does the lack of smuggling content do to the smuggling profession?
Castrates it, frankly. We're half a profession, lost in the wilderness. The embodiment of wasted potential. The coolest part of the Star Wars Universe has been left at the side of the road, cap in hand, living off scraps, when we should be the proudest example of the diversity, maturity and pure classines of the playerbase. Smugglers rule, and we need out shiny hat and content to prove it.
because this game is supposed to be a simulated exsistence in the Star Wars universe. it needs to immerse you in Star Wars so that you actually feel you're in that universe. a large part of that universe was the underground criminal activities, and Smuggling was the most prominent of those criminal activities.
we need Smuggling missions because there is no naturally occuring reason to Smuggle for other Players.
so if the game is not set up so that Players need us to Smuggle for them, then we need a system of NPC missions.
otherwise we're not actually Smugglers, and this virtual Star Wars universe is lacking a large part of its story.
2 - What should they involve?
they should involve risk and reward. missions ranging from dangerous to suicidal, with appropriately matched rewards. they should be more complicated than a simple delivery mission, but less complicated than a long drawn out quest.
3 - What would it add to the SWG universe?
it would add legitamacy to the SWG universe. a Star Wars universe without a solid criminal underground is hardly the Star Wars we all know and love. it becomes a simplistic 2-Dimensional world with just the good guys vs. the bad guys. there needs to be that 3rd party in the mix to create a grey area and make things interesting.
4 - Why did you become a Smuggler?
because i wanted my character to live out the life of the romanticized outlaw. akin to Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, Talon Karrde, Dash Rendar, Robin Hood, The Great Gatsby.
i wanted to feel the rush of excitement as i risked my neck to break the rules, in return for a handsome reward.
i wanted to feel the urgency of living on the run from the law.
obviously those things are not a good idea to do in real life, so a video game is a more appropriate setting for them.
5 - What does the lack of Smuggling content do to the Smuggling profession?
lack of Smuggling content leaves the Smuggler profession incomplete. it malforms it into something other than Smuggler. it not only does this to the Smuggler profession, but also to the game as a whole.
it leaves out an important part of the Star Wars story.
Well what would you think of the chef profession if they couldn't cook anything, or pilots who couldn't fly, marksman who can't shoot weapons...Am I painting a picture here?
I can say that we can't really give any specifics
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.
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.
JFreeman,
No smuggler re-vamp, yes, we know. But can you do me a favor? When you do put in something for smuggler in the future, can you at least engage the smuggler community (via at least the correspondent) such that we avoid another debacle like the horrible slicing system?
If only a little content is coming and it's going to be slow in coming, lets at least make it good, and lets at least test it, right?
Message Edited by GoldMemberBria on 08-12-2005 10:35 AM
In the ball park?
Nezodon wrote:
I just thought it would be interesting to do a nice polite questionaire and get some views which hopefully the devs would take on board when it comes to smuggling missions:
- Why do we need smuggling missions?
It will give Smugglers the fealing that we aren't just a mix of everything and nothing all together, and will make non-factioned Smugglers more useful, when now we are only really useful in combinations with other peoples as a buffer... You can't take spice alone, but WITH chef food... We aren't great in PvE alone, but really only shine AROUND others... We can enhance weapons and armor, but NOT as much as a weaponsmith and armorsmith could... We can sell faction well IF we are high enough rank, and factioned (which Smugglers by definition shouldn't be)
- What should they involve?
They should ultimately involve choices, and risks on those choices.... Basically a gamble. All of our moves are a gamble in some way or another, so why fight it? Make it so that we have many different "paths" to go though... Be in choosing space or land, Starport or Shuttle, Shuttle or Speeder, or even paths in conversations... Maybe you could try to swindle your way out, with varying levels of choices... Some may be good odds in getting away, but with a high risk if you fail (more attackers), whilst others may have a low success rate with not too bad odds (combat-wise) if you should fail. You may want to quit while your ahead, start shooting, and not worry about back-up (therefore its 100% chance for combat, butbetter than average odds you'll survive).Smuggler is all about the gamble, and the more choices you have, the more interesting things will get.
- What would it add to the SWG universe?
It will add a real underworld to the game. It would make it so someone could ask you if you had any Muon Gold and you could say, "No, but give me about twenty minutes... I'll smuggle some for you... The more you want, the more its going to cost you..."
- Why did you become a smuggler?
Because Han was just so damned cool. Smuggler was the third proffession I mastered. First was Master Pilot (Smugglers' Alliance, because I wanted the YT-1300 so damned bad) then it was Master Pistoleer (because I wanted the DE-10 badly) and finaly Smuggler.
- What does the lack of smuggling content do to the smuggling profession?
It makes us pretty useless by ourselves. We have no real forte alone, and no real money-making as we can't compete with Bounty Hunters loot rates. No one buys spice, and faction selling is useless to the non-factioned.
JFreeman wrote:
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.
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.
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.
JFreeman,
The biggest problem with your entire statement has to do with the changes that have and have not come to this profession. Was the CU good to us, yeah. Is it something we wanted over smuggling, no. Did slicing get fixed, yes. Was it what was proposed or more important to us than smuggling, no.
We're not asking to be enhanced, we're asking to actually work. Although there are some very functional areas of our profession, as Smugglers, we are very non functional. You bring up Bounty Hunters, but they have been hunting bounties since launch. We have been waiting to smuggle for even longer. Not only that, but you have overhauled their system a couple times with the implementation of Jedi bounties, and the newest changes, but we still wait for our initial system (I'm not hating on BHs here, just providing an example).
I appreciate you coming, but we still have a problem with how you view things versus how we view things. Not being able to smuggle is the biggest joke in this game (aside from certain profession populations). You view it as adding content, we view it as a HUGE bug. So where do we go from here? We may not have to convince you that we need these missions, but we do have to convince you that this is game breaking for us. It's game breaking to the point that we have lost many long time members of this community and stand to lose even more.
You could toss out every other thing we had if we actually got to smuggle. Our combat skills on their own do not stand very well. They're great for what they should be designed for and that's evation. Take the slicing and give it to someone, anyone else. We don't want it if it means we get to smuggle.
We want our profession, not an enhancement of it. Anything short of smuggling leaves this profession in a state that only a few other professions can equate with.
Hopefully your post is a good first step to us coming to an understanding of Smuggler and SWG.
We need Smuggling CONTENT
No one wants to talk to informant A or go to terminal B and take a mission and "smuggle" something past a patrol at C.
Give us some story driven content. Utilize space and the ground. Make the situations dynamic. Make us think. Make us smuggle. Make us choose where we hide the goods. Be it a pants pocket, a droid, or behind the hyperdrive.
Think along the lines outside of the ones we have.