Image Designer Archive

I did a few stat migrations at the beginning and stopped. I will no longer do them except for friends. I get abuse for this, but I'd rather get that abuse than stare at a full screen clock while my customer goes AFK for 10-20 minutes and then doesn't even have the decency to say thank you 75% of the time.

As for players having the ability to stat migrate themselves more slowly... yes, please, today if not sooner.

I do like it, when i come in the tent, i know that it ll be my principal work.. So now i ask to be paid for that.

If some goes afk while waiting, well, i don't care, but i tell em that if they re late, iwon't wait.

No problem with that actually

Torash Id'Nel, Hairstylist for VIP ladies
Kauri, Shiloh / Coronet

Personally I would like to see players have the ability to migrate their own stats, perhaps a bit slower even than before, but they should be able to do it themselves if they are opposed to the current method. Might help a bit with the attitude some have to ID now, and might get a few more MID to put their title back on

I dont think theres anything wrong with it. Seriously. This has been a wonderful income boost for me, and I really dont have a set price .Sure ten mintes can be a little uncomfortable sometimes if there isnt any socializing , but ya know what? Sometimes EVERYONE has to get up away from the keyboard...I am a master dancer and master entertainer also and with the onslaught of the buffbots my income from buffs has just about vanished. I am very grateful that within 5 minutes of logging in I am being sought out .Yes, not everyone is a wonderful experience but those are the type of players that wont be around for long so i say "Feh" to them. My only wish for Image designers? That they spruce the tents up a bit..get rid of those useless terminals..make it a place where people wont mind sitting in. Add some tables and chairs and even those cool gambling machines to keep players busy while the wait. Just my thoughts.

Zizz Nitch

Wanderhome

Ok, now that I've been Novice ID for a little bit, I feel like I can contribute to this thread.

A little background (I know, I know...my posts are always too long):

I'm primarily a social profession. They are my favorites to play. I usually mix in at least one elite combat profession so I can participate in the other enjoyable parts of SWG. But, beyond that I usually am only mixing and matching entertainer profs on my avatars. Until recently, except for the 4 entertainer ID boxes, it's only been various incarnations of dancer and musician, which I really enjoy.

Now, despite being social and entertainer oriented, I'm a huge advocate of having the skills that we acquire as entertainers be useful in the economy...not just performing and changing hair, but buffing, and yes, stat migrations. I want and need to feel useful as far as game mechanics are concerned as well. That's a huge part of the appeal for me.

At any rate, I decided to give ID a go over on Tarquinas. Another thing I need to mention is how different servers are. For example, on Kettemoor, as a dancer, I have absolutely no problem selling mind buffs. All of the buffbots there relegate themselves to low traffic areas such as player cities. It's unthinkable to run a buffbot in Theed or Coronet in Kettemoor. On the other hand, on Tarquinas, it's very common to see 3 buffbots at a time spamming and giving away buffs for free. Since I've been Master Dancer on Tarquinas, I have not been able to sell even *one* dancer mind buff. It's been extremely frustrating and maddening because on this server, the buffbots truly *do* take away my business. I paid lip service to this possibility when I was on Kettemoor, but never really felt the full effects of this until playing on Tarquinas. It's absolutely insane over there.

Ok, so what does this have to do with ID and stat migrations? Well, I'm a relative newbie on Tarquinas. I have (or had rather) virtually no money whatsoever. I picked up a few tips from dancing, but spent the vast majority of it on training because everyone and their mother is always afk. So, being this was my first human avatar, I wanted to give ID a go because I thought it would be fun to be able to change my hair allatime.

So, after many, many, MANY hours of boredom and grinding, I finally reached Novice Image Designer. And, boy, have I started raking in the dough. Yes, a *lot* of it was due to stat migrating. But, over 50% of my stat migration customers have also been interested in holoemotes, hair styles, and hair colors. I've given a lot of people new 'dos recently, which of course, is the most fun. I doubt I would have had these customerstrying out new hairstyles/colorsor made as much money if I wasn't doing stat migrations.

When I'm working with a customer, the timer doesn't bother me. When I'm working with a customer, I don't mind doing stat migrations at all. I haven't had anyone complain about my price. Even the newbies don't complain. They may say they can't afford it, but then I offer them a lower price. One newbie even said, "let me go do some more missions." And, I said, "nah, come on over, I'll give you my newbie discount."

I don't know what it was like before the patch. But, I like being able to do stat migrations. I like the interaction I've had with people. I've had a lot of roleplaying opportunities and interesting conversations during the wait. I like having a skill that is "needed" by the general population in order to make money. Something that I seem to have completely lost being a dancer on Tarquinas. I'm really really liking all aspects of this profession. (well except the timer when I'm ID'ing myself). In order to have room for my one elite combat profession, I've even considered dropping the completely useless Master Dancer on Tarquinas and going Master ID instead. My original plan was just to go up hairstyles and face because that's all I had the skill points for.

Now, if we were to go back to everybody being able to migrate themselves at a much slower rate, I wouldn't really complain. But, having finally experience this myself from the viewpoint of an ID, I honestly believe that I have been given lots of wonderful opportunities and interaction due to being the only profession that can stat migrate. I know that a lot of ID's don't like it. Personally, though, I love that this happened. I believe it's made this profession extra enjoyable for me. I really don't think I would have had as much opportunity to do people's hair if I couldn't stat migrate.

So, to sum up my rather long winded explanation. I have come to believe that being the only profession that can stat migrate has done more good for me than bad. I'm glad we have it. I won't be upset if the players can do it themselves again at a lower rate, but I'm more than happy to have it stay like it is. I might be in the minority, but that's how I feel.

Now, as to the negatives? The timer...well, 10 minutes usually goes by pretty fast with some conversation and other ID work. It could be shorter, but it really doesn't bother me too much when I have someone to work on. A nice compromise might be 5 minutes, but 10 doesn't bother me.

Also, as always, I long for the entertainers as a whole to be able to use our skills on ourselves. I believe I *should* be able to and *deserve* to be able to use my skills on myself. It makes me quite angry that I can't. So, that's really the biggest and only negative that I can see. I want to be able to migrate myself. And please, for the love of God, *never* allow this to be afk'able or it's going to be just like all the dancer and musician buffbots that cause me such consternation and make me feel useless.

Araalla Amnaas
Master Designer of Heart & Mind

Hello all! *waves*

Thought I'd give my opinion...

I've been a master ID since early March, and thus far really enjoy the revamp. I've only really had 2 problems with stat migrations.

Personally I was somewhat annoyed to find out that novice ID's could do stat migrations. There are a couple novices I know who will send tells to my customers and offer to do them for free. So I've been sitting there for 8 minutes, and the customer will cancel out on me and go to the Novice to save the 35k that I charge. It got so bad, that I've started making customer who want migrations pay via tip upfront.

The only other problem I've really had is doing migrations for Overt customers. I dont mind it, regardless of what faction they are. It would be nice though if they could make the ID tents a comabt free zone...or somthing along those line. One afternoon I was doing a migration for a very nice overt rebel, we were just sitting chit chatting waiting on the timer when he was attacked...in the ID tent....with 20 seconds left (sigh). Being the proffessional that I am, I sat and wait for him to return. Slight problem...he couldnt. The imp who'd attacked him was camped at the door to the ID tent with a couple of friends waiting for this guy to return.

Ok...storytime is over...bottom line. The revamp is great, I dont even really mind the 10 minutes for stat migration...i just wish we could do it away from the city tents (player city tents, droids, whatever).

Lyndria Nyte- Master ID, Master Teras kasi
Dai'en Nyte-Master Tailor, Master Merchant
Mistress of Ceremonies, Wrath of Ages

Excellent replies, thank you so much everyone I've sent this thread to our dev and Runesabre.

Kwee Glitterwing of Starsider
Ex Image Designer Correspondent ~ Elder Tailor
& Kwee-kwee ~ Master Image Designer
Gamer Girl Columnist ~ swg.warcry.com
Ivory & Topaz of TC ~ Elder Dancers, IDs, Musicians

I didn't really get a chance to reply because I wanted to spend some time writing the best post I could and I haven't had time. Anyway, just in case any of the devs continue to read this thread, I don't really mind being able to do stat migration, but I have pretty much entirely stopped doing them, even for people in my guild. While it *is* a nice source of income, when this became the primary job of image designers it completely changed the nature of image design. Whether it was intended or not, image design *has* become another buffing class. I became an image designer because I love the social and creative aspects of it, and stat migration almost never fulfills either of those aspects. Anything that can be done to shift the focus back to our original purpose would be wonderful! Stat migration should have been an extra little job we can do along with our main job, which is making people's characters look the way they wanted them to. Traditional image design should never take a back seat to stat migration as our primary purpose.

I created a novice ID to gain some new perspective.

My thoughts:

There is definately a greater chance for resentment in a forced interaction versus a voluntary one. When you see a lot of IDs unwilling to even do stat migrates, you have to wonder what exactly is wrong. Re-instate the ability for players to do their own stat migrates. This will eliminate a vast majority of any possible resentment by making the choice a voluntary one,give newbies a cost-free alternative, and provide some relief on servers and in areas where ID's might not exist in abundance.

The timer needs to either be reduced, or apply only to the client. Really, this is a punative time sink for the ID. If people are capable of making good conversation, then the 10 minutes goes by fairly quick. If they arent, or they just go AFK on ya, well it kinda leaves you wondering why you even persued this profession to begin with. Just to give people a chance,I'd set the timer on the ID side at 3 1/2 minutes, and leave the timer on the player side at 10 minutes.

Theres nothing enjoyable about doing stat migrates, other than the potential for conversation when you have two people holed up togetherand basiclylack the choice to leave. Kinda like being stuck in an elevator. But the occassional good momments this may produce just isnt enough to outweight the bad or boring momments inbetween.

VCMAV Blog

To overcome the intelligent by folly is contrary to the natural order of things; to overcome the foolish by intelligence is in accord with the natural order. To overcome the intelligent by intelligence, however, is a matter of opportunity. There are three avenues of opportunity: events, trends, and conditions.

I think at this point we should keep Migrations ID only.

I honestly don't think most people would bother with ID's if they didn't absolutely have to.

I would, however, like to see them able to be performed outside of Salons, and possibly faster.

The timer is not there just to stop IDs from grinding too fast but also to prevent people from changing their stats too often and rightly so I think. The new stat migration system is a huge improvement for non-IDs even if some of them don't realize that.

But it is keeping the IDs locked up in their tent. The idea for a client-only timer is therefore much better. You could possibly still keep a timer so that the ID couldn't stat migrate people for a while, but it would at least get him out of the tent for a few minutes to run some errands or do whatever.

If it would put a less demand on IDer's time, prices might very well go down, something the rest of the world desperately wants.

Thewt of Infinity

I really don't have a problem with stat migrations as long as the customer talks with me!

It can be so frustrating to have them say to youbrb and go afk for 10mins... very annoying.

Ido think that the old system needs to be running to give people a choice. It would need to take longer - 14days to complete a migration without seeing an ID. This would still give us a "game critical" function and a reason for players to come and see us. Granted most of my ID work now tends to be stat migration and very little else.

ATLANTISS
ElderCreatureHandler
PsychopathicCommando