Ok im gonna use the apartment smugglers as my prime example when i suggest this idea but as i sit and think about it this concept should totally apply to ALL of the vendors/faction traders etc.
I realise that with the advent of nc2 smugglers were introduced to neocron to make things not so easily accessible and to push people out in to the open world by Reakktor and to get people mingling when it was doy vs nc.
I realise some people might turn around and say oh well thats just stupid when i put forward this idea but believe me its not if you stop.
What about abandoning the smugglers completely. As it is now you have to make the trip once to a smuggler and buy a weapon and then most people blueprint it and never think of it again. Vehicles are bought and then the key activated and unless you need to buy a new one thats it. Thats your whole interaction with the smuggler. He is a place holder in a zone that is visited once and most often he doesnt even appear like he even belongs there. (via rosso 3 anyone?)
So. Instead of the items that the smuggler sells being vended that way why not split them in to relevance and spread them among the faction FSMs.
Tie people to their factions more. Make the immersion more complete for the roleplay aspect of the game. Take for example the apartment smugglers for pepper park. (credit to ivan eres at this point for his discussion on the AB apartments thing which gave me this idea)
Tsunami OWNS pepper park 1. Black Dragon Owns pepper park 2 and Crahn owns pepper park 3 (kinda). Why dont the faction fsms sell the keys for apps in these zones? Dre sells apartments for the via rosso/plaza locales. It would let the players buy and sell stuff to each other. Makes more player trade and encourages a stronger sense of faction loyalty. (Keep up your loyalty and er.... DONT SHOOT GREENS :O)
Next gets a monopoly on vehicles naturally. Tangent i think should sell the weapons systems its known for (TPC etc).
I realise this list is very near unfinished but this is in fact intentional. I have a few other ideas about where stuff should go such as other weapons being sold by CA. (versions of the plasma rifles etc because the copbots use rifles is one idea) All of these are up for debate.
I admit to struggling somewhat with what protopharm gets out of all this and considered perhaps an improved nanite tool of some kind or maybe a beefed up survival kit (higher heals per second or something) or even resist drugs without retarded maluses (who REALLY honestly uses dragon drugs anyway?).
Biotechs good as it has all the imps.
TG should totally have the monopoly on fusion weaponry and the godswish armour so thats a no brainer.
TS has the low tech weaponry perhaps. Flamers, shotguns and low tech rifles?
Dre is good as they have the apartments as mentioned.
Next and TT as above.
I think Crahns good tbh. Add pp3 apartments to the list and be done.
I believe that covers all factions. I would still have one smuggler or two but put them out in the outzone. OZ 1 is perfect. OZ mall even more so with vendors out there that can be used to provide for the Runners who make a home out there. (probably need to move the ncpd run from there if its to be a long term home) Alternatively there is good old outzone station (which should be a non safe zone too ) like there used to be. Here is where the smugglers fit perfectly. (thanks to William Antrim for this idea. You know where i took it from bro :P)
So. Constructive feedback on this please.