I want to "paint a scene" so to speak, to give an idea of how I would likethe gameplay for Smugglerto look and feel, if I could rub the developers' hidden genie lamp and have whatever I wanted. I'm not a smuggler myself in the game, but I've been reading in the forum and thinking about the game as a whole. So here's my two credits' worth. My hat's off to any of you who've already suggested similar ideas, but I just wanted to share my own thoughts. If it's a rehash, then hopefully it will reinforce the call for such improvements. Let me know what you think....
The smuggler forces himself to breathe normally. Showing fear in this part ofCoronet Citycould be fatal, so he adopts an expression of nonchalant arrogance (/mood arrogant). He passes a few Meatlump Thugs, who give him a dirty look, but nothing more. He breathes easier. He'd spent a lot of time proving his worth to the Hutt, and this was what he wanted. Now that he was here, he was tempted to reconsider the wisdom of the path he had chosen, but he knew he was in it now, for good or ill. He'd seen his likeness on a "Wanted" poster in the Coronet starport when he'd arrived, and felt fortunate that no one had seen through his disguise.
Now deep in the seediest part of the slum, he enters a dirty, run-down shack with large piles of junked droids and speeder chassis out front. The Rodian living there fits his surroundings. He's greasy and unkempt, and he stinks... just the sort of lost soul who could be expected to be found strung-out on spice (a brief blurb attached to the end of the readout generated by an /examine command). But he is reasonably steady at this time.
The smuggler speaks first (using a radial menu, the player picks from one of five choices for the encounter: Persuasive, Threatening, Altruistic, Offer Bribe, and Attack, and chooses "Threatening"). "You're late on your payment to Borvo," he says. The Rodian begins to speak into a translator, and the device relays his words: "Wha... who... I can...No, wait. I need more time to get all the money!" The smuggler frowns (change /mood to angry), and says in annoyance, "No, your time is up."
"Please!" the Rodian cries. "I can give you what I can, plus all the spice I have. It is yours, if you just listen to me. I have something that would be of interest to Borvo... something more valuable than what I owe him. And if you take it to Borvo and he likes what I have, I can probably get more of these for you."
He stops talking, and stares pleadingly at the smuggler. The smuggler considers (/consider) the offer, and while he is thinking, the Rodian begins to shake. It is clear that the stress of the moment has vaporized the chemical residue of the spice in his bloodstream, and he is on the verge of a crash. This Rodian has a well-known reputation as a fast talker. It's apparent that he has a knack for digging himself into a hole, then digging it deeper with his attempts to buy "just a little more time." Still, such an unfortunate soul could be useful to a Hutt, because his weaknesses offer the Hutts control. On the other hand, he could be lying. In which case, he would be better off simply killing the fool, looting his corpse for whatever it is he was alluding to, then searching his hovel for his stash of spice. He'd be taking a risk either way.
He accepts the Rodian's offer. "All right, Rodian," he says."You have more time. How MUCH time, though, depends on what you have."
The Rodian scuttles off his stool, and runs into a back room. The smuggler follows him closely, just to make sure he doesn't try something stupid, like try to escape or grab a weapon. But nothing like that seems to be in the Rodian's mind. He pops open a magsealed container and retrieves a box of spice and a datadisk. "Here," he says. "This is my spice. Take it!" He shudders as the box leaves his grasp, but offers no resistance.
"This datadisk," he says, "is an inventory list for a very special Spice delivery. It seems that a certain high-ranking CorSec officer is actually a crime lord, and this is a shipment from Jabba the Hutt. The implications of this information are clear to you, are they not?"
The smuggler considers his options. He could lie, and say that he didn't need a lecture from the likes of this twerp. Or he could ask the Rodian to explain what was going on. Or he could bluff, and pretend that he was up to speed on the situation, but wants to hear what the Rodian knows in hopes of picking up some useful tidbit. The smuggler chooses to bluff.
"It appears that Jabba is building a network to infiltrate Borvo's territory on Corellia," the Rodian says. I'm not sure what his relationship is with this CorSec officer, but regardless, such a person is undoubtedly a very valuable asset for a hutt like Jabba...."
As the Rodian talks, the smuggler realizes that the little twerp is a gold mine of information!
And so, he takes the data disk and agrees to head back to Naboo to speak with Borvo....
Now, the way I would program this encounter (if I had the skill) would be to make it so that a player's preset moods have an effect on the NPCs he encounters. For example, the player's choice of "/mood arrogant" early in the narrative gives a reduced likelihood that the local thugs would randomly attack him. But the thing is, not all NPC's will react the same way to the emotional state the player chooses. Hence, this adds to the ambiance of the scenario. Some might see the look of arrogance on his face and dismiss him. Others might see it and decide to wipe the filthy smirk off the punk's face.
Next, I would create a changing message board and place it in Starport lobbies. As players rise in underworld-style professions (Bounty Hunter and Smuggler), the players' faces would eventually start popping up on them. When this occurs, there would be an increased likelihood for an aggressive reaction from the local law-enforcement NPCs. This increased chance would be mitigated by the Smuggler's skill level in the art of Disguise. And this would be a skill that features an interface based on the Image Designer's tool, only the effect would be temporary. His disguises would give the player Underworld experience, in a fashion similar to how a Scout's "Mask Scent" gives scouting xp whenever the scout successfully passes an aggressive creature. And the higher the smuggler's notoriety, the more xp he gets for each successful encounter.
Next, we encounter an NPC interface that would be at the heart of a SWG: Underworld game expansion/publish: a variable-response NPC interface. The core system for this expansion would give players a five-option interface for interacting with mission-related NPCs. For each of the five choices, the NPC would tend to react differently. For example, in this situation, if the player had decided to try to Persuade the Rodian to pay up, the Rodian might give a dialogue tree that portrays him as trying to talk or lie his way out, or perhaps to even play dumb or attack the player! Other NPC's might be better handled by the persuasive approach. In other situations, the player might decide to shoot first and ask questions later.
Next, we see how an NPC encounter like this could actually develop into a bona-fide Underworld contact for the player! In this case, the smuggler has "played his cards right," and intimidated the poor fellow into spilling the beans on a very important underworld network. The result is a source of new missions (as indicated by the Rodian's statement, "I can probably get more of these for you"). In effect, I would create NPCs like these that would become a Smuggler's "mission terminal."
In addition to developing his own network of informants, the smuggler would gain Underworld XP directly for discovering these individuals. And it could be that if the player mishandles the information given him, the contact himself could become a target for rival underworld player factions! Like, perhaps the smuggler is ambushed by players from another faction while he has his contact's information on his person: In this case, they could track down the squealer and rub him out, setting their enemy smugglers' factionback considerably! In effect, the discovery and protection or eradication of these informants could become the "hot potato" for a whole newrealm of PvP. But not to worry too much; the nature of these informants is such that their absence would be quickly filled by someone else.
I also hint at the range of choices a player can make all through such encounters. As I indicated, the direct approach (i.e., killing/looting the NPC) is always an option. But what would happen in this scenario, as I described it? Well, let's say the player doesn't follow the NPC into his back room. In that case, the NPC might make a break for it, and essentially de-spawn! Or, perhaps he might re-emerge with a blaster in hand and initiate combat. And that locked magseal container? Perhaps it has a trap on it that if the smuggler attempts to slice it and fails, it releases a cloud of Mind poison.
And finally, the dialogue would contain all sorts of interesting twists and turns, including traps for the smuggler. For example, when the smuggler decides to bluff the Rodian into revealing his secrets, the player would be confronted with a series of dialogue choices. Choose the wrong one, and something adverse happens: Perhaps the Rodian picks up on the smuggler's lack of knowledge and starts feeding him a snow job or even directing him to a very bad situation. And here, the smuggler's Fast Talking modifier would influence the result. (Imagine what would happen in the above example if all this information about a CorSec officer's double life asa Crime Lord were a line of bull!) The player's Fast Talking skill would give him a chance to in effect spin a web of real-sounding details to make him sound to the Rodian like he knew what he was talking about.
But back to my story: This particular scenario could be played in a number of ways. The player could go straight to CorSec and persuade them to launch a major investigation, or he could go to Borvo and let it be known that Jabba was horning in on Borvo's turf; or he could go to Jabba and let it be known that his operation on Corellia had sprung a security leak somewhere. Either way, the player would gain massive faction points with the group he chooses. And I would make sure that allthree of the storyline branches are fully-realized, so that the player is given an immersive story regardless of which faction he chooses to go with.
There is already some content along these lines as far as stories go, and it's a highlight of the game. Basically, my suggestions would flesh out some of the existing content and expand it into a major subsystem. I can imagine any number of bells and whistles that could be a part of the scene, like holographic messages instead of generic data disks. In this case, a player loots or is given a device that, when activated, causes the game to spawn a small, semitransparent NPC. Not a big problem as far as I could see, but a nice immersion detail. And I would also love to see the "underworld" involve Bounty Hunters -- that's my profession. For example, I think it would be fun for there to be chase-type missions that involve both a smuggler and a bounty hunter. Maybe a high-level official or crime lord needs to be taken down, and the two need to utilize both their respective skills to rout him out. Perhaps the mark might be on the lam, requiring the droid-tracking skills of the bounty hunter to locate him in a hidden minifortress. And that hidden retreat might need the smuggler to slice the locked door to allow them to enter and deal with the mark.
Finally, I know all of this is a complex task, both to conceive and to develop. But I don't think any of it would be all that hard. Heck, most of what I describe simply would take existing tools and objects and modify them for re-use in this context. The hard part would probably be just coming up with compelling content that's thought out in all the details. And that's where my final suggestion comes in: Let's have a contest! Let us players create scenario ideas and e-mail them to someone. Good ideas get developed; and at year's end, the developers vote on the year's best idea. Winner gets a statue in his toon's likeness erected in a location of his choosing on his server, and maybe each player-created story has a plaque at the endpoint identifying the adventure as a player-created adventure, with a "Kudos" thread on these forums, so those of us that do the mission/story can publicly /snog the creator.
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Things every player should read....
1. GameSpy's interview with Julio Torres on the negative fan reaction to his earlier interview about the launch of the New Game Environment:
Clicky2. ZDnet's GameSpot.com's reader reviews of the Post-NGE Star Wars: Galaxies Starter Kit:
Clicky No. 23. MMORPG.com's editorial on the ethics of changing an active MMORPG:
Clicky No. 3
