Image Designer Archive
Thread: ID Top Ten Concerns Runesabre Answers Inside :)
Kisedd
Thu May 13, 2004 9:08 am
#144
I think I've changed my stats one time on one of my characters. If I was contantly tweaking my stats every time I did anything, then perhaps the changes would be a big deal. I think this is a great thing to give ID's. I have to interact with all kinds of professions to do things from Healing to Buffs to buying equipment.
I did work with ID to gain master entertainer. I found the entire process not very enjoyable. I was able to do a few hair styles, but the things people want changed or the things that I'm able to change just were not going to get me any kind of business in a casual play type setting. Like many of the other artisan professions I was pretty much required to grind out some boxes before I could do anything that people actually wanted. I'd certainly tweak the exp for the ID profession or give them a way to progress in a more fun way.
Gyopi
Thu May 13, 2004 10:20 am
#145
Masen wrote:
To keep armorsmiths and tailors in the loop, require IDs to buy Alteration kits, similar to a smuggler's slicing tools, or a droid coloring kit. Just a thought that popped up after reading Kwee's post, and thinking about my own mismatched wardrobe, lol.
Asa tailor as well as an image designer, I can tell you that this kind of change would make most of the tailors quit! Choosing colors is one of the most fun parts of the job!
Deckard_the_Smuggler
Thu May 13, 2004 1:16 pm
#146
Actually, the Fax machine was invented in 1843 by British man named Alexander Bain...
...but, I get your point 
Deckard
Corbantis
Master Smuggler
Master Commando
Nahualli
Thu May 13, 2004 1:53 pm
#147
Deckard_the_Smuggler wrote:
Actually, the Fax machine was invented in 1843 by British man named Alexander Bain...
...but, I get your point
Deckard
Corbantis
Master Smuggler
Master Commando
Yeah bad example.. I actually meant to say 56k not sure why I tossed in fax machine at the last minute 
-Nah-
Manuvian
Thu May 13, 2004 2:35 pm
#148
NotWorm wrote:
SWG-Runesabre wrote:
That concludes today's Q&A session. I have enjoyed my time today in the Image Designer forum and hope you have found the answers I've given informative and helpful.
You should all be proud of your correspondent. Kwee works very hard for you all and has been a wonderful Correspondent to work with and help out with the Image Designer changes.
Nice work, Kwee, your efforts are greatly appreciated!
Your answers to the stat migration issue were rediculous at best. Why not actually answer the simple question of why you had to remove non-ID stat migration entirely, instead of putting in the faster method and seeing if players responded to it? Speaking as a player, I'd've been happy to hunt down an ID for fast migration every time I got a new weapon and needed to tweak my secondaries, no need to force me. As it stands, you have nerfed the ENTIRE PLAYER BASE OF THIS GAME when you could have added the same ID ability and made people happy at there being a better way.
Congratulations, btw, to the image designers for getting some really cool new content to play with. Sorry it had to come at a price...
/agreed.
Put the slower version EVERYONE could do BACK IN, and let it be a secondary option for ALL players to have, should they wish to do it that way. Adding the ability for I.D.'s to do it, much quicker, is fine. But, not at the COST of taking the previous, slowerability AWAY from EVERYONE, that they had HAD, ALREADY. Crap like this happening is NOT fun. People are NOT wanting it. STOP DOING IT.
Axia_Euxine
Thu May 13, 2004 3:03 pm
#149
I have been with this game since day 1. I was even in beta 3 so I have been with since before day 1. Never has this game worked in the way it should, never. I have posted very little to these forums and I dont think I have openly complained about the game despite its myriad of problems. I can no longer be silent. I have not been playing regularly for weeks, and since I got City of Heroes I havent played at all. But the recent Image designer revamp has broken my silence. Except for the hair color change bug it was a largely bug free profession and fun. Now each change on a person takes anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes. Have any of you devs actually played this profession. Its hard enough to get people to decide what they want without each change taking a minimum of 2 minutes. And are people supposed to grind this profession with those timeers in place? No did this profession before when it could be mastered in a day and now it takes 60 hours of gameplay under ideal circumstances! No one is going to do this. And the fact that IDers cant sta migrate themselves is just silly! Make it a Master ID skill and you wont have to worry about everyone getting Novice ID to stat migrate themselves. I dont even use Stat Migration that often but not letting me do it to myself kind of defeats the purpose of having a skill dont you think? These arent even the biggest issues. (not to me at least since I already mastered Image designer) The biggest issues is the fact that we didnt get any new hairstyles, tattoos or scars like everyone wanted. No they give us holo-emotes, what the crap is that?
hey devs, go play city of heroes, you may be confused at first becuase its balanced, smooth and largely bug free but you'll get used to it. By the way the strange feeling you have while playing City of Heroes is called fun.
Axia_Euxine
Thu May 13, 2004 3:04 pm
#150
I have been with this game since day 1. I was even in beta 3 so I have been with since before day 1. Never has this game worked in the way it should, never. I have posted very little to these forums and I dont think I have openly complained about the game despite its myriad of problems. I can no longer be silent. I have not been playing regularly for weeks, and since I got City of Heroes I havent played at all. But the recent Image designer revamp has broken my silence. Except for the hair color change bug it was a largely bug free profession and fun. Now each change on a person takes anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes. Have any of you devs actually played this profession. Its hard enough to get people to decide what they want without each change taking a minimum of 2 minutes. And are people supposed to grind this profession with those timeers in place? No did this profession before when it could be mastered in a day and now it takes 60 hours of gameplay under ideal circumstances! No one is going to do this. And the fact that IDers cant sta migrate themselves is just silly! Make it a Master ID skill and you wont have to worry about everyone getting Novice ID to stat migrate themselves. I dont even use Stat Migration that often but not letting me do it to myself kind of defeats the purpose of having a skill dont you think? These arent even the biggest issues. (not to me at least since I already mastered Image designer) The biggest issues is the fact that we didnt get any new hairstyles, tattoos or scars like everyone wanted. No they give us holo-emotes, what the crap is that?
hey devs, go play city of heroes, you may be confused at first becuase its balanced, smooth and largely bug free but you'll get used to it. By the way the strange feeling you have while playing City of Heroes is called fun.
Manuvian
Thu May 13, 2004 3:21 pm
#151
Strikke wrote:
SWG-Runesabre wrote:
In order to preserve the market for Image Design services as well as create a valuable service that even Novice Image Designers could provide to all players and profit from while they are learning their profession, it was imperative that Image Designers could not stat migrate themselves. Allowing Image Designers to migrate their own stats would immediately give all players seeking stat migration a means to perform the task themselves and avoid bothering with the services of those players playing the Image Designer profession. Considering you only need Novice Image Designer to migrate your stats, the demand for Image Designer services would have been greatly reduced from the get-go as many players would decide to augment their characters to migrate their own stats and the whole point of giving a game function such as stat migration to Image Designers would become largely moot.
As Lead Designer, it is one of my most important goals to stimulate and encourage player interaction and set the stage for players to form lasting relationships and dependencies with each other. Player interaction is what MMOs are all about. Self-sufficiency is my greatest nemesis in striving for this goal and it is human nature to try to become as self-sufficient as possible. In my6 years as an MMO developer I've seen the extremes players will go to in trying to avoid interacting with other players. In many cases, it is these same self-sufficient players that later quit because they got bored with the game. If you ask any veteran gamer of an MMO as to why they still play their chosen game after many months (or even years!) invariably the answer is "because of the people I know in the game and play with". I made a design decision to disallow Image Designers from migrating their own stats to preserve the social environment of this game and ensure the Image Designer profession can't be reduced invalue and damage the appeal of the profession much like AFK macoring has done to Dancers and Musicians.
IMO, if you had made the change so that IDs could do it in 10 minutes, but everyone else could do the normal 'wait a week for the stats to migrate' method, you would have accomplished your goal.
There is a hugedifference in the ID/Stat Migration'as a carrot' method (ie, near instantaneous, but with a slower option) versus the ID/Stat Migration 'as a stick' method (ie, near instantaneous, butwhat are you going to do - there is no where else to go).
Instead of having people coming to IDs saying, "Wow, you can migrate my stats in 10 minutes?!? Cool!!!", they'll be saying, "I've got to waste 10 freakin' minutes with you and pay 50k? This bites and so do you."
Carrot = Happy, praisingcustomers
Stick = POed, complaining customers
See the difference?
Message Edited by Strikke on 05-12-2004 02:47 PM
I agree with all, but the very last line: This bites, and so do you.
I personally wouldn't feel that way towards the I.D. themself. So, I'd word it more like....
This bites, and so does the person responsible for creating this situation.
SWG-Runesabre wrote:
5/ ID’s Cannot Migrate Their Own Stats
Other than the three Entertainer professions, all other professions benefit from every single one of their abilities.
a) Why was the decision made to not allow Image Designers to migrate their own stats?
b) What is the difference between Image Designers, Dancers, and Musicians (who will now all have an ability they cannot use on themselves) and other professions who get the full benefit of all of the skills they worked hard for?
In order to preserve the market for Image Design services as well as create a valuable service that even Novice Image Designers could provide to all players and profit from while they are learning their profession, it was imperative that Image Designers could not stat migrate themselves. Allowing Image Designers to migrate their own stats would immediately give all players seeking stat migration a means to perform the task themselves and avoid bothering with the services of those players playing the Image Designer profession. Considering you only need Novice Image Designer to migrate your stats, the demand for Image Designer services would have been greatly reduced from the get-go as many players would decide to augment their characters to migrate their own stats and the whole point of giving a game function such as stat migration to Image Designers would become largely moot.
As Lead Designer, it is one of my most important goals to stimulate and encourage player interaction and set the stage for players to form lasting relationships and dependencies with each other. Player interaction is what MMOs are all about. Self-sufficiency is my greatest nemesis in striving for this goal and it is human nature to try to become as self-sufficient as possible. In my6 years as an MMO developer I've seen the extremes players will go to in trying to avoid interacting with other players. In many cases, it is these same self-sufficient players that later quit because they got bored with the game. If you ask any veteran gamer of an MMO as to why they still play their chosen game after many months (or even years!) invariably the answer is "because of the people I know in the game and play with". I made a design decision to disallow Image Designers from migrating their own stats to preserve the social environment of this game and ensure the Image Designer profession can't be reduced invalue and damage the appeal of the profession much like AFK macoring has done to Dancers and Musicians.
You know, I argued against a wording for this question that sounded like asking for doctors to be nerfed. Given this answer, I'm retracting that suggestion. Doctors should not be able to buff or heal themselves. Nor should medics. Nor entertainers. Nor image designers ID themselves. Nor weaponsmiths with backup weapons skills use their own weapons. Nor armorsmiths use their own armor.
The more of these answers I read, the more convinced I am you spent no time in thinking through these changes. For shame. Your rationales are shaky at best, and other options that would have created far less resentment and inconvenience have been continually suggested since before this revamp was even begun. Further, you are displaying an extreme ignorance of the systems you've had implemented, and the playstyles of the players you implemented them for. It is now next to impossible to gain Novice Image Designer, and those that are longstanding image designers are IDs because they enjoy social interaction. To Implement a system which you feel would change the tenor of the profession to such a degree that a pre-emptive nerf was required is criminally negligent.
Edit: By the way, this system totally fails to address the "mule" problem faced by many playing-professionals when faced with attempting to compete service-wise with guilds that provide "buffbot" alts for guild use. In other words, you were worried about the wrong thing, and you only ended up inconveniencing real IDs while not affecting the "mules" at all.
The answers and so-calledreasoning behind them just keep getting more redundant and lamer each time. Not to mention, it's not going to do anything to really change how people go about things in general, but instead, just make them find a different way to do the same thing...
Or just find a different "place" to do it, entirely.
People generally want choices. Want to keep people to stay, give them (add)MORE, instead of taking them away and leaving them LESS.
Putting in the ability for I.D.'s to do Stat migration on players, in 10 minutes, is Fine, and a good thing to ADD. It WOULD have given players MORE Choices. But it DIDN'T, since you took ALSO took AWAY the slower ability Everyone ALREADY had the CHOICE to so themselves, and even made it LESS, because now the only way is thru someone else, IF someone is around. IF someone has the money for it. IF they can know for sure they have to only do it one time (In case the changes would need to be better expirimented and tested outa bit several times, as example, one stat setup may not be as good as another with slightly different values). Only choices added there are perhaps Aggrevation, resentment, fustration, should someone find they need to have their stats changed a few times to get the best setting. Real "wonderful" choices, there....
You had theRIGHT idea in giving I.D.'s the ability to do the stat migration, and providing playerswith an extra CHOICE to have it donemuch faster than normal. However you had aWRONG idea with taking the slower, several day over time method EVERYONE had the CHOICE to do themsleves. PUT IT BACK IN. Make it a bit slower if you have to, even. but, PUT IT BACK IN!!!
SrinKnorei
Thu May 13, 2004 3:32 pm
#152
SWG-Runesabre wrote:
10/ New Art Content
Getting new color palettes and holo-emotes of course has brought on floods of questions about whether and when the most requested art content might be added. Extended color palettes were one of the top five wish list items for new art content (as voted on by ID’ers). The remaining four are: new hairstyles, tattoos (and scars), hip/rump sliders for female characters, and 3D facial hair (for all male species, but most often requested by Bothans).
a) Are any of these under consideration for the future?
b) How soon might we see any of these features?
I have talked a lot with the Art Director about about new hairstyles, tattoos and scars, hip/rump slider and facial hair. I don't have very high hopes for the hip/rump slider for female characters. That change requires a re-export of every female model and most likley many many wearable changes that would result in a very large patch download and take literally months to accomplish.
it would so be worth the wait! 
'm sure plenty of us ladies would agree.
'm sure plenty of us ladies would agree.
neelong
Thu May 13, 2004 5:53 pm
#155
I think everyone is used to mastering a profession in a day syndrome. This is an mmorpg and it should take time to reach a master in anything. With the Jedi revamp coming out there really isnt any sense in grinding out a profession in 35 minutes ( like it used to take to do ID ) Can the average gamer get to level 65 in EQ in less than 30 minutes? I think not.. I think the other classes need to be looked at and take longer to achieve so people actually take pride in the game again...
Message Edited by neelong on 05-13-2004 09:38 PM
Nahualli
Fri May 14, 2004 12:13 am
#156
SWG-Runesabre wrote:
Finally, while it wasn't a major rationale, I felt the residual gain with the 10 min timer is players will perhaps decide to check out other things that the Image Designer could do for them and hopefully stimulate more business and interaction for the Image Designers.
Surprisingly this is one of the biggest benefits I have found while doing stat migrations. Many people still don't know that an MID can change your height or musculature. It's incredible how much you can educate others.
Can people please stop griping over the 10 minute time for stat migration? If you can't stand there and chat with your client for 10 minutes you don't need to be a stat migrator. Many of you are opposed to it anyways. For the most part I feel this community is largely too forgiving and too full of"thank-you-sir-may-I-have-another" strain of docility but for once, the devs had it right. 10 minutes is NOT a lot of time considering stat migration before used to take HOURS. It's like people who harp about fax machines being too slow... talk about spoiled.. you're sending data over a farkin phone line.. that's like a major technological feat that required weeks before. Chances are if you're an MID and nothing else you probably don't have a terribly full schedule anyways.. what's with the bellyaching? You're gonna make a ton of cash off it, and if you don't want to do stat migs you have the option to simply (gasp!) not do them.. what's the problem again?
-Nah-