Chef Archive
Thread: On The Chef Community...Some Ramblings
The Star Wars Galaxies beta was done in stages. It started with 100 people, and then every week or few weeks or few days they would add more people.
I was one of the first 100, and it was a very cool. It was a small community (100 people were invited, about 75 people accepted, about 50 people posted regularly.) It was a lot of fun. We would discuss game issues civilly. Then they would add new people. The old people were…upset that that their community was changing and the new people would upset because they took the old people being upset personally. It was never personal. It was the change the old people were upset about, not the new people individually.
Things would settle down, new people would arrive and the old and really old people would get upset together that the community was changing. It was interesting watching the whole process from a social aspect.
And I am seeing a little bit of that here. For those who new here, please understand that a few weeks ago I asked people what people liked about being a chef, and I was pleased to see how many people said that it was the community on these boards. We had a very cool community. That is changing, which can be a bit sad. We have seen some very cool people leave for various reason, people like Vishna, Branr, Saitek….seeing them leave is very sad and I wish they wouldn’t. But change is life. People come and people go, and we all move on. So if some of the older people seem a bit hostile, don’t take it personally.
And we are getting new people! Welcome! How ya doing? And right now things are hectic with a lot of people wandering around. I am pretty sure things will calm down, though. Things come and go in cycles, but in the larger picture I think chefs are fated to be a very small community. 
And it is true we are loosing really cool people, we will probably end up with some really cool new people.
Ok, just had to get that off my chest.
SirVimes wrote:
And we are getting new people! Welcome! How ya doing? And right now things are hectic with a lot of people wandering around. I am pretty sure things will calm down, though. Things come and go in cycles, but in the larger picture I think chefs are fated to be a very small community.
Ok, just had to get that off my chest.
I don't know about this. I've been tossing around the idea of dropping chef because of the sheer number of chefs on my server now. Top PvPers rerolling to "cash in" on the new market. I know it's been discussed before, but I think a lot more people are going to hold on and flood the market. It saddens me to see the chef forums become like every other board here since the new foods arrived. It's a Zerg Rush of the crowd that wants it all, and wants to be the profession that drives the game. I remember when the Chefs were just happy to get their food fixed, and we were content. Sucks that it's gone away w/ the Chef changes.
While I'm quite excited about the changes, and loving the sense of discovery in making something truely awesome, I'm frustrated. I had an annoying guy on my server tell me he was going to undercut my prices when he mastered. It's this kind of crap that pisses me off more than anything else. Being one of the 5 chefs on my server was cool. Now its about 1 of 100, more than half being the greedy money seekers.
Jerecki wrote:
While I'm quite excited about the changes, and loving the sense of discovery in making something truely awesome, I'm frustrated. I had an annoying guy on my server tell me he was going to undercut my prices when he mastered. It's this kind of crap that pisses me off more than anything else. Being one of the 5 chefs on my server was cool. Now its about 1 of 100, more than half being the greedy money seekers.
I would not worry too much in the long term. Although I havent been a chef for long (3 months) I have been a merchant since launch and have sold allot of things. It is my experience that people who undercut you eventually get tired and move onto another profession. Making food is hard work and the people who are undercutting you are only doing themselves the damage because they are not getting paid for the amount of work they do. Eventually, they will figure that out and either raise prices or stop.
As for the money greedy people... same thing happen with Master Artisan on Publish 5 when everyone and their grandmother was a Master Artisan. Eventually itwill all even out and everyone goes back to their places. They dont call this sort of stuff flavor of the month for nothing.
I'm fairly new to posting on the chef boards, but have had my chef account for at least 4 months and slowly worked my way up the trees. And I really only got into it to help out PA members and stuff, but now with the new food, chef is a lot of fun and I have been working harder on my Chef then my silent holo'd character since the patch.
Plus my best friend has been getting into AS so I have been following resources for her and really getting back into Chef over the past month and a half.
I'm also here for the long hall I just don't post much until I have trolled for more then a few months.
In fact I just changed my sig yesterday to include my second acct char's name.
He has also worn his Master Chef tag since he made master and my other best friend made me a Chef Outfit!! It's cool to be running around in it on Dath avoiding Rancor's and getting choked out by FS Nightsisters, lol.
Now Skhee is the Mayor of ShadowStone so my 2nd alt got promoted to being Chef... So far I'm enjoying the whole thing immensely. The huge diversity of the resources and stats on the food & drink we can make is first class.I keep hearing that all of a sudden Chef is a big money maker.
Funny, so it wasn't before? All the old masters are all multimillionaires. Yet, we had very few people before a couple weeks ago wanting to be chefs though, because chefs sucked, right? And now we rock now, right? Its all silly. Nothing really changed. So now we sell Brandy instead of Fishak. Chef has always made money. No more now than ever before. And you know what, if thats the only motivation to be a chef is money, you won't last a month.
Most of us didn't do it because of the money, we did it because we enjoyed doing it. All those people with the bad attitudes and the greed in thier eyes will be gone soon. I give it a month, tops. Then we'll be here by ourselves again and things will get back to normal.
I started my original character a week after launch with the intention of being a chef, just because I liked the idea. Now I am the cook for a large PA and don't have time for my own sales (lately I make all my money doing survey missions) so I guess I fall into the PA chef category. I'm having a blast, eventually I will get my own vendor back up, but for now, it feels good to have my guildmates compliment me on my uber food.
I have always thought the chef board was the nicest one. It takes it a certain person to stick it out through all the bugs we have put up with since launch.
Not to play devil's advocate here, but many of the old timers are probably quitting because of what the community has become, not necessarily because of the actual revamp itself. Unfortunately, there isn't anything that can be done for eitehr side.
There is a part of me that does not want to be a Chef anymore as well, because the perception of our profession has changed so much.We intentionally shy away from the "uber l33t" FOTM professions, only to have it imposed upon us.
Quite frustrating.
Understand, this has nothing to do with new vs old chefs, and SirVimes is correct to assume (imho) that you get both the good and bad apples with any major change. Its just there are SO many people picking up Chef, its overwhelming...and discouraging for so many of us who stuck with it.
Its like your city's pro football team (if you have one). Did you still support them when they sucked? And if you did, did the fair weather fans piss you off? Sure...not a damn thing anyone can do about it, but its still there.
Cyene