Smuggler Archive
Thread: Dev's and TH why do you guys hate us so much.
I have been the SWG boards since longBEFORE SWG Beta came out. I even was one of the peeps argueing in favor of origional Outcasting Rules befor they were scrapped for the current ones.
I have also participated in the Beta of this game, since Shuttle 4 of Beta 1.
And Ihave to say that I havenever seen a Profession toobe as jacked as the Smuggler in this game by the Devs.
From the BEGINNING the Smugglers have gotten the short end of the stick, resource wise. Smugglers were never even introduced into the game until just before Beta 4was opened.
All throughout Beta 1-3, we have constantly asked, where was the Smuggler profession? And we never got a decent reply back.
In fact I had to confront Holo on these boards before we finally were told by himthat yes, all the resoources that was earmarked for the Smuggler profession was beingshifted to the crafting professions, because youkepttotally revamping crafting time and again.
You FINALLY cobbled together the abortion of what we now call Smuggler Profession and introduced itjust before Beta 4, and it NEVER got any decent testing timebefore Publish.
At the time, this was tolerated, because we understood that the Devs were running out of time to get the game to Publish, and we were given the impression that we would be gettin a revamp soon to make up for the lack of attention that was shifted elsewhere during Beta.
Now, we are being told that we are NOT going to be revamped until AFTER the first Expansion?
And all you can say is that your sorry and understand our frustration?
What a crock of BS!!
You Devs have given us the shaft all throughout Beta, and now all throughout the life of theGame, and now your saying Not until aferthe SE is out?
Can youREALLY expect us to be understandingnot to be extremely pissed off at this point?
Can you really expect this from us?
Blair wrote:
Smuggler
We are going to look at and probably revise the Underworld skill set.
We'll fix bugs with slicing 4.
Spices will get experimentation values (for withdrawals, etc).
Feign death causing the player to take too much damage and to be unusable when moving will be fixed.
We'll add more stuff to the master box. (Probably additional slicing features)
The bug with not being able to eat spice will be fixed.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=417746&highlight=smuggler#M417746
9 September 2003 - Devs promise action aftera 1,010-post filibuster by Smugglers on the old SWG Discussion Forum
Holocron wrote:
On his way out the door, he tossed this over his shoulder:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=19942&highlight=smuggler#M19942
1. Underworld Branch
- I think we are going to try and replace most of these skill boxes with something more usable, since these just aren't very fun. The main issue is finding the time on the schedule to implement some new smuggler skills.
2. Slicing
- We'd like to add slicing code to more types of terminals.
- The problem with weapon slicing giving better results than advanced weapon slicing has been fixed. Slicing 2 had a bonus that Slicing 4 was supposed to have.
3. Dirty Fighting
- Some unarmed moves would be good to add and probably fairly easy. We will look into it.
- We will look into adding combat bonuses to this tree.
- We'll fix last ditch to be balanced with similar moves and we'll look into the other smuggler moves to improve their usability.
4. Spices
- Experimentation never had any impact on spices, so the UI stubs for these were removed. Adding experimentation systems to crafted items takes time, but we'd like to add one to spicing at some point.
- The effects of spices still need to be balanced to other buff consumables. Also, effects like burst run, etc, can be added, but require more development time.
5. Master
- 25% off faction perks is very very useful to any smuggler in PvP, but we will look into possibly adding nonPvP bonuses to this box.
Q-3PO wrote:
We're dedicating a designer (Green Marine) next week to looking into fixing some of the bigger issues of the smuggler. (Yes, we are also looking at issues with the other professions, the smuggler just seems to be the one needing the most love at this moment).
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=552985&highlight=smuggler#M552985
JustG wrote:
There is a lot on our plate, and we are regularly going to provide you with as much information as we can about what is going on. Our priorities and tasks feed in from a variety of sources, and there are very many items on the design priority list. We will not be able to get to all of them with the next few pushes, but we want to take on a number of things that will make the game better, immediately. These include:
- Professions Augmentations
Droid Engineer
Smuggler
Merchant
Chef
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/team_comments.jsp?id=59306&page=Team%20Comments[look for Gary Gattis's Letter to the Community" at the bottom of the list]
Thunderheart wrote:
Smugglers are getting some attention soon. Everything is getting more attention now that Player Cities, Mounts and Vehicles have been added.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Developers&message.id=15023&highlight=smuggler#M15023
Thunderheartwrote:
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. . . .
. . .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.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=42882&highlight=smuggler#M42882
Thunderheartwrote:
The thing is that smugglers essentially are a "space based" profession (at least the way we think of it)and giventhe inherent client/server limitations, its atough proposition any way you look at. For instance, lets say Imperials do a search for contraband at starports. Can you imagine the lag if we even did an item check for everything inevery player's inventory as they entered and exited a starport? And then there are the guys that run back and forth across that threshold just to lag things out. This is one tiny piece of a larger puzzle. It has to be a cool game mechanic and work in the game system and in a big MMO environment.
The key here is that while I was in beta and I knew everyone (I actually have almost all of it saved on my hard drive, but doing a search on "smuggler" with 12 gig of materials would be insane). Further still, that was a while ago. I want to hear YOUR ideas and Ive worked with the devs and correspondents to focus communication so that correspondents can get me information and also in a way that I can both share it with the devs AND catalgoue it.
Its all a process and we're working on it and its going to take time. The devs want to make a good game, you and I want to play a fun game and as a community, I believe we can make this whole experience very cool.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=43562&highlight=smuggler#M43562
Thunderheart wrote:
"Smuggling" really is a spacey kind of profession and doing something on the ground really needs to be thought out.
With that being said, Im working on the Smuggler and Squad Leader profession revamp posts this week. Im just taking the time to put together some really nice posts so that the answers that players put forth can be easily handled and used by the dev team.
Currently, people don't say, "hey we're going out hunting, lets make sure we have a smuggler". That shortfall is something that needs to be included in the revamp thread.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=19680&highlight=smuggler#M19680
Thunderheart wrote:
... I pushed very hard (I spent a couple of days pushing this issue) and the devs added bonuses to the Smugler Underworld Tree
A small victory, but you asked and its in. Here's how it works:
1. The system counts up your contraband and does the "scanning roll".
2. If the system "sees" the contraband (having made a successful scan roll), it checks to see if you are a smuggler. Depending on what level of Underworld a smuggler has, they get a progressive chance to "escape the scan". If the smuggler roll succeeds, then the player will get a message that reads, "You have successfully avoided the scan."
So if you want to get spice or sliced armor and weapons from one place to another and not get harassed by the Empire, then smuggle it
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=smuggler&message.id=51541&highlight=smuggler#M51541
Thunderheart wrote:
Based on community input, we have made the following changes to the Imperial Crackdown penalty schema. Thanks go to San Tsu and the Smuggler community and Jester and the Galactic Civil War community.
[Thunderheart then proceeds to describe the system --hugely controversial and now known to Smugglers as "Imperial Immunity" --whereby anyone who invests some Imperial Faction points is able to bypass contraband scans better than a Master Smuggler. I would post it all, but Thunderheart used a strange script and it takes forever to clean it up for posting purposes.]
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=801&highlight=smuggler#M801
Updated on 11 February 2004:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=22484&highlight=smuggler#M22484
Thunderheart wrote:
One neat new addition to Publish 7 is with the Junk Dealers. Smugglers who have underworld can now take their Junk to the Jawa Traders camp and they can sell their junks to the Jawas up there.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=game_guides&message.id=137614&highlight=smuggler#M137614
Thunderheart wrote:
... the change to smuggler's [adding the Fred Sanford Trashman minigame] was a small one. Its just me working with the team to fit smuggler stuff in where we can until the revamp - - thats when the beefy changes will occur.
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=game_guides&message.id=138096&highlight=smuggler#M138096
Thunderheart wrote:
You can expect pretty high visibility from the Smuggler thread. Ill do a takeaway and work with the correspondent and the community when we move to In development with it...
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=dev_archive&message.id=30240&highlight=smuggler#M30240