Weaponsmith Archive

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Hurlobacca wrote:

A whole lot of stuff

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Message Edited by samijx on 02-15-2005 04:18 PM

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Hurlobacca wrote:

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Smuggler_Caylin wrote:

size=2>Why should illegal items be size=2>permitted on what should be a legitimate
business front? In time, sliced goods and spices could be sold in a
galaxy-wide fashion, depending on how the developers seek to tweak their
bazaar search feature. That shouldn't happen simply as a conceptual idea of
an illegal item being so easily seen and available.

So this is a good time to once again ask about
the 'Vision' for illegal products on the open market. Is it the developers
intention to have these products listed in this way? Or is there the
opportunity to take these illegal items off of vendors across the galaxy? I
think there is and I don't think it's an unreasonable request. Far from it
actually.

By removing these illegal goods from legitimate
businesses, what stands to change?

1. Mass slicing orders will go down, if all
   illegal products have to be sold face to face.




• How does his
  accomplish anything since all weapons are already sliced by
  smugglers?
  
• That ties into what I mentioned in another post
  here in this thread that slicing should never have been a rule but an
  exception.


2. Smugglers who actually sell spice will have
   problems moving their product.




• If sliced weapons and
  armors can't be sold on vendors, neither should spice or slicing tools
  be allowed, since slicing tools have no legal purpose in the
  game.
  
• Sure!


3. We put in a level of reality to the game where
   we aren't selling crank in department stores.




• I remember reading about
  the guy who got busted selling bags of pot from the fast-food restaurant
  drive-thru window. Some of the biggest criminals to be found reside in
  corporate boardrooms.
  
• It doesn't mean he was listing it in the Sunday
  Paper as part of the weekly adds.


4. Merchants who specialize in final products
   (post-slice) will have some real problems.




• Gee, smugglers got hosed
  when chef foods rendered their products obsolete so let's go screw
  someone else over.
  
• The playerbase ishosing over smugglers by
  not letting us smuggle. The idea you can buy illegal products anywhere
  from anyone goes against our existencewhilesimply
  makingit inconvenient for you. It's a two-way
  street.


5. Illegal merchandise will be carried on person
   more often, opening up the chance for more scan detections.




• That's ok with me, goes
  with the territory.
  
• Right on.


6. In the event the bazaar search goes in, all the crafters who sold
   these illegal items will be on even footing as there will not be a line
   between those who have a smuggler working for them and those who do not.
   It evens out the playing field.




• Another example of creating an imaginary problem
  to suit your purposes. I don't have a smuggler working for me, I have
  several and any weaponsmith who wants to sell sliced weapons can find a
  smuggler if they want to.
  
• Not every smuggler has a crafter sponsor. Nor
  does every crafter have a smuggler slave. If they did, the on-street
  slicing would not still exist. It does, I get asked fairly often to
  slice materials on the street.


7. By having sales face to face players will cease taking a smugglers
   skill for granted instead of dismissing it out of hand.




• The only thing I dismiss out of hand is
  the assertion that I'm somehow taking smuggler's skills for granted or
  taking advantage of them. I pay my smugglers well, provide the tools,
  and hook them up with weapons. If you think that all of the smugglers on
  their respective servers can make enough credits to support themselves
  solely through slicing I think you are kidding yourself.
  
• You are not everyone. You also stand to make an
  incredible profit when that smuggler makes a lucky slice. Sometimes
  making the difference in possibly overa million credits on the
  value ofa weapon. You offer insurance against bad slices, but you
  also make millions of credits with a lucky toss of the dice. In the
  event slicing will become more controllable, and that is being pushed
  for, your random slices will not mean that much anymore, nor will your
  insurance.


8. It establishes the concept that illegal materials actually are illegal
   and opens a few doors for smugglers to have a valid profession by doing
   what they were intended to do. Smuggle.




• Be careful what you wish for, you might
  just get it. If we are going to take the immersion aspect to its logical
  conclusion then it has to work both ways. The empire doesn't like
  smugglers but for some reason the developers have not seriously
  incorporated the smuggler's status as criminals into the game. Just like
  a jedi winds up on the terminals for flashing his saber, so should the
  smuggler wind up on the terminals for smuggling activities such as
  slicing. I can envision a scenario where smugglers have players lined up
  waiting for slices like docs with their buff lines when out pops a BH
  who tracked that dirty smuggler down and proceeds to halt that
  smuggler's activities with extreme prejudice, resulting in that
  smuggler's trip to the cloning center.
  
• Bring it.

Smugglers will lose some of the big business
that larger in-game producers have taken advantage of to sell their wares.
Most smugglers I know approve of this change because it would actually add
another perception that our services are based on illegal
items.

• Then you obviously agree
  that the scenario described above would be something you and the smugglers
  you know would approve of.


• Yup!

The merchants who sell these are put in the
position of having a few hundred items they can no longer stock on vendors
and have to find a place for. It's not going to be pleasant for them in the
least.

• That's not important to
  you though because as long as smugglers get what they want how it impacts
  other players is irrrelevant.


• Actually it is, because I've often bought
  pre-sliced equipment as well as been a maker of it. Former weaponsmith
  myself.

What I see here in this thread is a focus on weapons. It should never
have been a focus on weapons but on all illegal materials. We are arguing
against the conceptual flaw that you can buy cocaine and sawed off shotguns
at your local Walmart. With it's prices listed online.

While it certainly does hurt those respective crafters who hired
smugglers and listed those items, many of you fail to understand how it
would hurt the smuggler as well. Few of you have had the experience of being
a real street-side seller of items and the competition that it brings. I've
been there, since launch and I know what it means and I still support the
idea of preventing the market listing of illegal items completely.

• Yawn.


• So our problems are worth a yawn, while yours are
  worth so much more. I love how your value of other professions goes both
  ways.

We could always make sure that illegal items that are on vendors
presently would not be removed automatically when the system could be
changed to allow any further illegal items to be placed on the public
market. That way you would still have a chance to sell your current
merchandise.

• How thoughtful of you. Do us a favor and dont' do
  us any favors.


• Just trying to help you adjust. If you don't want
  it, I could always ask for them to be removed and you can't move worth
  squat because you have to destroy a few hundred items that were previously
  sitting on your vendor. I don't mind either way.

It comes down to whether or not the developers
ever intended for illegal items in this game to seem illegal.

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samijx wrote:

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Hurlobacca wrote:

A whole lot of stuff

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I used to be a master smuggler and master WS. (I'm considering dropping master SW and going back to smuggler), with that said...I think it hurts crafters, smugglers, and the economy in general.... You are right though. it mostly hurts crafters that don't smuggle and smugglers that don't craft. So let's do a little math shall we?

My assumptions, but I think they will be fair:

20% of Armorsmiths are Smugglers.

25% of Weaponsmiths areSmugglers.

30% of smugglers are crafters.

Assume that out of 1000 players there are about 15 Armorsmiths, 25 Weaponsmiths and 100 Smugglers.

The ability to use vendors to sell illegal weapons helps from about 10 - 30 players out of 1000(Depending on which assumption is more accurate). Prohibiting selling of illegal weapons on public vendors helps reduce inflation, reduces the harfull effects on the WS's and AS's that don't slice theirown stuff, and gives the smugglers that don't have designated crafters to slice for....a marketplace for their trade. Thatbasically helps all 1000 out of 1000, but doesharm more than help those 10 - 30 people that smuggle and craft so let's take those out of the 1000.

Conclusion

Allowingillegal items to be sold on vendors helpsapproximately 3% of the population, but hurts 97%.Now it's easy to see that the poster of this thread (and all posters of similar threads) have a legitimate point.

Well, you are right about one thing, I really could use an editor to shorten my posts. I'm all about players having choices in this game. You apparently feel better qualified to make choices for players than the players themselves. In my business we sell sliced weapons and we sell unsliced weapons. Players vote their preference every day with their bank accounts. When they buy from the unsliced vendors I assume that means they want to get their own slice or leave the weapon unsliced. When they buy from the sliced vendor, I assume that means there was a particular type or % slice they were looking for and they found it.

You say that selling sliced weapons only helps 1-3% of players, but I can tell you that several hundred players have bought sliced weapons from my vendors, and that's on a relatively small server. They always had the choice to find the same unsliced version of that weapon but for whatever reason they wanted to buy it already sliced. Unlike you, I don't pretend to know what's good for other players, I simply pay attention to what they tell me but the choice is always theirs. I guess it was silly for me to be so offended by a small group of whiners throwing a tantrum to get their own way. I think if this vocal minority ever got their way you'd find out pretty quickly how wrong you are in your calculations as to who wants to have the choice to buy sliced weapons from vendors.

Message Edited by samijx on 02-15-2005 04:18 PM

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samijx wrote:

/sign

Sliced weapons are supposed to be illegal so why should a legal vendor be able to sell them? That's like going into walmart and buying a rocket launcher and some cocaine. (Not gonna happen)

Perhaps make a master Merchant skill "Sell blackmarket goods"

I agree that WS's and AS's shouldn't have to take the risk of bad slices. They ought to be taken by the customer who chooses to alter their "legal" items.

Message Edited by samijx on 02-15-2005 12:56 PM

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Who said WS's and AS's have to do anything they don't want to do? If you don't want the extra hassle of selling sliced weapons then don't do it, but don't tell other players what type of weapons they should sell just because that's not how you want to do it. This is a game filled with choices for all players, and the idea of one group trying to dictate how another plays should not even be considered, let alone tolerated.

There are two groups that think sliced weapons shouldn't be sold on a vendor. One is Weaponsmith's that either don't want to sell sliced because it requires WS to pay a slicer upfront for slicing weapons (some of which will be ruined by the slice), it takes a lot more time to price, stock and restock sliced weapons, and some of them feel it gives smiths with inferior a chance to compete with their better slices, which I think is a good thing. The person who started this thread is a WS and a slicer, so naturally they don't want sliced weapons on vendors because they'll still be slicing their own weapons and not spreading the wealth around to smugglers they way that smiths like me do.

The second group is smugglers that feel that they are somehow being cut out of the slicing business because of sliced weapons being sold on vendors. This is a silly argument because all weapons are already sliced by smugglers and when you have 100% of a market already it's kind of hard to increase your market share.

I agree that much could be done to improve the lot of the smugglers. The truth is that changes in chef did far more to harm smugglers than WS's selling sliced weapons on vendors, but I'm not in favor of harming one profession when there are better alternatives.

• What if the empire did periodic probes of vendors and fined merchants for violating laws againstthe saleof sliced weapons?


• What if the WS could pay smugglers protection money to jam imperial probe droids so they couldn't scan your vendors or if the jam was unsuccessful the smugglers could "bribe" imperial officials to overlook what as almost assuredly a relatively minor infraction. After all, few thousand sliced weapons are not going to bring down the empire are they?


• What if somone could report you to the empire for selling sliced weapons on your vendors causing the WS's name to show up on BH terms?


• What if your smuggler could take your name off the terms before the bh's come to do the hit?


• What if the smuggler could use his connections to find out who reported you to begin with and could then put a contract out on them on your behalf?
  

Message Edited by Hurlobacca on 02-15-2005 03:19 PM

Sothis is a good time to once again ask about
the 'Vision' for illegal products on the open market. Is it the developers
intention to have these products listed in this way? Or is there the opportunity
to take these illegal items off of vendors across the galaxy? I think there is
and I don't think it's an unreasonable request. Far from it
actually.

By removing these illegal goods from legitimate
businesses, what stands to change?

1. Mass slicing orderswill go down, if all
   illegal products have to be sold face to face.


2. Smugglers who actually sell spice will have
   problems moving their product.


3. We put in a level of reality to the game where we
   aren't selling crank in department stores.


4. Merchants who specialize in final products
   (post-slice) will have some real problems.


5. Illegal merchandise will be carried on person more
   often, opening up the chance for more scan detections.


6. In the event the bazaar search goes in, all the crafters who sold these
   illegal items will be on even footing as there will not be a line between
   those who have a smuggler working for them and those who do not. It evens out
   the playing field.


7. By having sales face to face players will cease taking a smugglers skill
   for granted instead of dismissing it out of hand.


8. It establishes the concept that illegal materials actually are illegal and
   opens a few doors for smugglers to have a valid profession bydoing what
   they were intended to do. Smuggle.

Smugglers will lose some of the big business that
larger in-game producers have taken advantage of to sell their wares. Most
smugglers I know approve of this change because it would actually add another
perception that our services are based on illegal items.

The merchants who sell these are put in the
position of having a few hundred items they can no longer stock on vendors and
have to find a place for. It's not going to be pleasant for them in the
least.

What I see here in this thread is a focus on weapons. It should never have
been a focus on weapons but on all illegal materials. We are arguing against the
conceptual flaw that you can buy cocaine and sawed off shotguns at your local
Walmart. With it's prices listed online.

While it certainly does hurt those respective crafters who hired smugglers
and listed those items, many of you fail to understand how it would hurt the
smuggler as well. Few of you havehad the experience of being a real
street-side seller of items and the competition that it brings. I've been there,
since launch and I know what it means and I still support the idea of preventing
the market listing of illegal items completely.

We could always make sure that illegalitems that are on vendors
presently would not be removed automatically when the system could be changed to
allow any further illegal items to be placed on the public market. That way you
would still have a chance to sell your current merchandise.

Itcomes down to whether or not the developers
ever intended for illegal items in this game to seem
illegal.

The Infamous Caylin Borealis - First Master Smuggler on Bria
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse!
:The Ghost with the Most:

Message Edited by WILDMAN_SOLO on 02-16-2005 03:16 PM

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ana-mo-cara wrote:

There is a huge thread about this on the smuggler forum right now.

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But your an idiot. And an irrational one at that. Thank goodness Caylin came in brought validity to your arguement from the smugglers standpoint. Although I do not agree wtih his language concerning "slave smuggler" and so forth he does put forward a very well created arguement that can be understood by many. I know sliced weapons are illegal, I know that we take away from a certain dimension of the game this way. But look. My master smuggler Tiberus is a business partner, he "owns" half of what him and I have created, and he is an AS. We work well together, and we enjoy working with each other. But until SOE changes it, I will continue to sell sliced weapons. Too bad there are much larger issues in the game to fix other than this, and the smugglers I am sure would rather have some CONTENT as opposed to simply being a crafter that works on other peoples goods. So revamps or changing this because a select handful are unhappy...Which is more important? you decide.

/veto