Smuggler Archive

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JTGAlpha wrote:

Okay. So what happened with the new system? The system now divides everyone into PvP, PvE, Neutral.

Yes, this poses problems for fence sitting smugglers, and players. Yes, this is a departure from Raph's beautiful evolutionary plan for this game. But could this open the door for us to something new? Maybe.

What if the next expansion is a Crime expansion? This isn't as whacky as it sounds. Long and long ago, before Beta, after the Hutt faction was nixed, the Devs said a crime expansion could be the next expansion after Space. Long shot? You betcha. But really while I agree that this poses the above problems it's not the end of the world, it's not the end of smuggling (what smuggling?) it's not the end of anything. It'll revitalize the GCW a bit until the CU and the GCW Revamp and the profession revamps are done. There will be sweeping changes that none of you guys can imagine. Some good, some great, some crappy beyond all belief (I know, I'm in the sandbox). In short, things will change, life will go on, we'll find new things to gripe about. But I digress.

My point is, this could be the ground work for the adding of a third faction. A crime faction. This would work on two levels:

Criminal faction on an individual level:

You are an unaffiliated free agent, mercenary. You are PvP or PvE. Your PvE levels are correspondent to your faction affiliations NPC and otherwise. You share the enemies of your allies (the enemy of my enemy is my friend). In the GCW, if you are PvP, then you are attackable by both sides. You can get a buy-in to one side by grouping with a factioned person, thus getting you a "truce." Or you can ally yourself (by having +5000 faction points and officially signing on) with an NPC criminal faction, and share their allegiances. For instance, if you were on Talon Karrde's crew you'd be left alone by Rebel, and whatever other NPC's share his allegiances. If you were alligned with CorSec, you'd be left alone by the Empire and whatever other NPC's share allegiances with CorSec.

I like the way this system works, although there'll be a few cases where you won't have an obvious case for enemies, with some underworld/policing factions being either neutral to both, or agressive to both. I also feel that for an Underworld system to work, each additional faction needs to have its own goal and motives. For the GCW factions the Rebels want to overthrow the Empire, while the Empire want to utterly destroy the Rebels. For the most part underworld groups and law enforcement agencies aren't too bothered who's in charge (Black Sun being the exception), one is just interested in making as much money and exerting as much influence behind the scenes as possible, while the other is looking to bust some heads andsend some criminal scum to jail, each obviously with their own personal vendettas against various other underworld factions and perhaps some sub goals that're RP/story driven. An idea from I think one of Ternque01's posts was to have various factions have territories that could be encroached on by each, moving boundries back and forth.

My point is, this "who fights who" system, while good, shouldn't be the crux of what they're all about, merely in addition to.

Criminal Faction on a Guild Level:

This is more fun. There are two factional designations added: Neutral, and Freelance. If you are neutral, you can still have guild members of any and all sides, but they participate without consent of the guild. This option is always open to a guild. If your guild desires they can register as a Imperial, Rebel, or Freelance Guild. Guild members of these guilds are ALWAYS (unless on leave) PvE faction members, and attackable by either of the other two points in the triangle. Freelancers can drop PvE pirate bases. As a side note, I think it'd be cool if the NPCs and the base carried your guild tag. However, Freelance guilds can throw in with one side or another on a temporary basis.

I think it'd be great for PAs to have the ability to do this, especially if several PA faction perks were available.

Mercenary Guilds:

Imperial or Rebel Guilds can go to a Freelance Guild's guildhouse and make an offer to that guild via a terminal. They can offer a certain amount of credits, and the Guild Leader will get an email of the offer to accept or decline. If they accept then that is temporarily aligned(for x amt. of time) with that side of the GCW. Other Imps will see them as allies, including NPC's, and they will be PvP enabled for that side, thus an Imperial or Rebel guild can hire a Mercenary Guild to attack a base with them or for them.

I can see this working, but again I don't think an underworld's main goals should be GCW centric. However, if this were to be implemented, it would be handy if certain ontractscould be drawn up; for example, pay them so much for choosingyour side temporarily, then the rest automatically once a certain number of factional bases are destroyed, for example.

This is just a rough idea, mind you, but I think it's rather simple, and I think it could fit in with the new system, plus a lot of other things, including Caylin's Crime Lord profession. I think this new patch is not the end of the world, and I think that this new simplified system, could make room for other simplified systems, and it is a smaller part of a whole slew of other things, like the CU, the GCW Revamp, and god knows what else. But that's just me.

Any ideas on the idea though?

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Message Edited by WesBelden on 02-06-2005 10:00 AM

Message Edited by JTGAlpha on 02-06-2005 10:11 AM

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JTGAlpha wrote:

Let me reiterate that this is not a complete system, but one you would apply to an entire Crime expansion, after a GCW revamp, CU, and smuggler revamp.So there'd still be spice to make, slices to do, contraband to move, or whatever else gets added to the Underworld.

Also, I'd like to add that in this new model I think that Factioned Guilds harvestors and factories should be added to the destroyable player structures list. It should be a new tactic to be able to kill your enemy where he lives, and cut off his supplies.

Message Edited by JTGAlpha on 02-06-2005 10:11 AM

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I could only dream of war on that scale, i.e. attacking actual production facilities.

The rest of these ideas sound very, very nice. One really good feature is that Freelance guilds can be bought. This is really cool, and it provides a point in diplomacy for GCW players who would depend on Freelancers for victory.

Like Wes calls for a "motivation" for the Freelancers, I say that it should be twofold. Their prime motivation should be money (which your idea directly backs), and their secondary motivation should be territory. There can be an existing "turf war" between police and criminal forces underlying the GCW turf wars. Add a smattering of perks for controlling territory between the policing freelancers and the criminal freelancers, and you have a complete system.

Some suggested "police" territory perks should be the ability to detect crime in their area, the ability to conduct a limited number of contraband scans on other players in that area, and an increased supply of NPC reinforcements/spawns.

Some "criminal" territory perks include the ability to rob credits from NPCs or even actual players (players would not be robbed of more than 1,000 credits and cannot be robbed more than one time every few days or so - robbers gain visibility however - these robbery locationscould be reported to player police for fun! - also, a criminal would have to be overt to rob players), an increase in criminal NPC spawns, etc...