Chef Archive

Hey all,

Many (if not all) of the non-player cantinas now have Bartenders. The main purpose of these Bartenders is to give out rumors, but they also sell drinks. Some of the drinks they sell I have never seen in the game before (hot chocolate?!?!). However, none of the drinks sold by the bartender have any buffs whatsoever. They are pure fluff, have no benefits and only have one charge.

A couple of people have told me they are upset about these bartenders. They are not upset about the selling of the drinks, but that they love to role playing bartenders and this hurts their ability to do this.

My personal opinion: This is not something that really harms us in anyway. I like playing the bartender too, but most bars I go to have two bartenders or more on a busy night. And as long as those foods have no buffs, I don't see it as a threat to us.

However, that is just my opinion and when it comes doing my correspondent duty, it is the opinion on the majority that matters.

So I ask you all.....do you think I should bring this up with the devs? (Along with all the other problems.)

Questions:

-Is there a cost for these bartender food and drinks?

-Do they work to cure wounds on pets?

If there isn't a cost and they cure pet wounds, then I see this as hurting some newer chefs who rely on making pet food to get money to skill up. Of course, no one wants a bag full of single charge items when they could have a crate, but then again some people might go for the no cost over cost.

Do players really prefer interracting with an NPC ? How much are those drinks sold for ? As long as they are stupidly expensive I don't think it's a problem (like 500 a unit, 3k a stack of 6, those kind of prices).

It's weird though to introduce prices in a player run economy. When you think about it, it shouldn't exist. I didn't go check myself, so I'm talking without knowledge of what exactly those bartenders do. Feel free to correct me.

I dont see any harm in it personally.
As long as these drinks don't biff, and cannot be used for pets, they're harmless, and add to the atmosphere.

I have no problem whatsoever with the NPC bartenders. Their drinks are useless as buffs and the players truly looking for quality drinks (and food) will quickly figure that out and come to the REAL bartender!

I spend a lot of time roaming from cantina to cantina roleplaying the Expert Bartender - I enjoy it and have learned to appreciate the (many) times behind the bar when I can "educate" those who ask the typical question of "What do drinks do, anyway?"

When I walk up behind the bar I usually emote "...elbows bartenderx out of the way" and berate him/her as my useless assistant who was watching the bar for me.

As for the NPCs stealing my business - well, I simply don't see it happening.

Take "pet food" (ugh) for example: (I'm guessing on the prices here as the servers are down at the moment).Would you pay 100cr for 1 use of a Bofa Treat for your pet Gurreck (as it seems that everyone has one lately) when you could pay 500 for a 10 use batch that has been experimented to +50 Action? Probably not.

Would you buy a "buffless" drink from a boring old NPC - literally wasting your credits just to interact with the game's AI for a couple of seconds (there's not even a drink animation yet so the only one who sees the "interaction" is you) or would you like to banter with an RL bartender and get a quality drink which will benefit you immensely? Sure, I'm biased but the answer is rather clear.

Anyway, I'm preaching to the choir. Bottom line is: NPC Bartender? No problemo.

Polma Skell
Expert Bartender
Flurry

I have no problem with the bartenders. Their drinks are pretty much drinkable decorations, so they are no threat to chefs

*Tip/Bug* You can order Ithorian Mists from the bartender, and they work as components in schematics (and they have no serial number, so they are identical). You can make BoH on the fly, and your alcohol would be 9cr each and instant! (although the BoH stats are very inferior to good aludium made ones). Pre-Patch it was listed under one of the null strings in the Mos Eisley bartender, don't know if it's still listed.

I think it shows a lack of priorities to be quite honest....

This game is supposed to have a PLAYER driven economy, period. They should be selling PC made food/drink, not NPC made.

If they want to make these npcs useful, they should have an NPC Bartender and and NPC Cook in every cantina that reflect the food and drink category from the bazaar of that city. It would give us a huge boost. Or it could be separate from the bazaar and the number of items you could put on them would be a set number, or even tie into your chef skills somehow.

Everyone has to come to a cantina eventually to get rid of BF, now if they can buy our buffs while they're sitting there waiting... that'd be a very good thing. It would make healing up in the cantina and buying chef buffs part of the ritual of hunting.

I'm not at all surprised that a dev hadn't thought about this.

Might be kind of cool if we could use these NPC bartenders as a bazaar terminal and sell our food and drinks from them like vendors.

It might help some of us young chef's who don't have well known shops yet. (Especially since Food and Drink are buried in the bazaar terminal menu structure...no wonder most new people don't know to be out buying food/drink!)

Yes, let us use them as "food & drink" vendors, preferably allowing for sales over and above what can be placed on the bazaar.

One of the main jobs of the bartender is to stand in as a hook. THe npc can drop hints about certain events in casual conversation, and still be feesable to have in the bar. Its the hook idea that I like.

Would I prefer to be TOLD whatever hints I need? Sure, but why don't I just talk to the bartender, and then tell everyone I know when they ask ME. Honestly, its not that big a deal.

I just wish he didn't stand in my spot >.<

Plus Player Run cities are around the bend, and there may be some options involved there. Maybe greenmarine has an insight on that one SirVimes?

I have a huge problem with it! HUGE, this is why I did anything in chef to be THE bartender. Our class is so messed up rollplaying was all I had left. Add that to the fact that they never asked and no other crafter class has NPCs and I'm just down right hurt and upset.

I say they just give all master chefs (or maybe all Expert Bartenders) a list of all the rumors, and let us give them out

I don't see this as a threat. NPC bartenders have their uses. We can be the sages too, you know. The threat I really see is the way they toy with and perfect the buffing ability of other classes when they seem to have a lack of concern over the buffing ability of the one profession in the game whose ONLY contribution is buffing.


Oh...and I just hit Expert Bartender today. Only have to finish desserts before Master Chef.