Image Designer Archive
Thread: Image Designer RIP-OFF
FuschiaD wrote:
What she said.
Drat, and here I was expecting a dramtic and entertaining few paragraphs to read. Really, you have to try harder next time.
*wide toothy grin*
NJ62 wrote:
Okay, I'll make this short.
We mostly didn't want this ability.
We mostly don't like doing it.
The Devs made a decision. It has impact on the economy, and we have 2 choices:
1) Players pay, ID's get fairly compensated for their time, Players are unfairly treated because they used to have this ability for free OR
2) Players don't pay, because it's not fair for them to have to pay, and ID's are forced into servitude to make up for the "unfairness" of the devs' design decision.
So ultimately someone suffers. Should it be the guy who has a full suit of composite and a full bank account? Or should it be the ID who has been eeking by on tips?
Can you honestly say that you have the right to dictate the price for ten minutes of my time on the basis that the devs did something unfair to you? Am I supposed to inconvenience myself without compensation because the system itself inconveniences you?
Nope.
This is my last post in this thread. It is going no where.
*Waves goodbye*
Syzygy-Gorath wrote:
Bravoda wrote:
I understand that opportunity costs. My argument is one player's opportunity costs are different from another's. For example, 10 minutes of my time as a beginner TKA might be 5k. 10 minutes of my time as a Master Pikeman might be 10k. Its all relative. What I am suggesting is that you don't assume everyone falls into the latter category and therefore can easily pay what you demand.
Obviously you do not understand opportunity costs. Doing stat migrations is an inconvenience for me. It is not fun. If I am going to do it at all—which is incredibly unlikely—you are going to have to make it worth my time. Why? Because I don't need you. You need me. I don't care if you used to be able to do it for yourself and now you can't—guess what? I can't do it for myself either. And if I want to migrate my stats I'm going to have to make it worth that other Image Designer's time, same as you have to make it worth mine. 10 minutes of my time is worth 15-60K depending on what I do with it. End of story.
Let's be realistic, shall we?
The factis that you are not doing stat migration out of the kindness of your own heart.
You are not doing itto helpme. You are not doing it for anyone else. You are doing it becauseyou can make a profit and you can get experience for it. If that wasn't the case, why would you put yourself through spending 10 minutes with stubborn insouciants like myself?
Unfortunately, in order to get these two things, you do need me. Or someone else.
Thats the reality.
EDIT: To make this abundantly clear, opportunity costs have nothing to do with what you can make in that time, they have to do with how much profit I'm NOT making because I'm staring at a blue UI to help you.
Oh, and thanks for putting that in large font. It really helps me understand yourpoint when you do that.
Message Edited by Syzygy-Gorath on 06-02-2004 11:50 PM
Reiella wrote:
Not quite Bravoda, and I think his point makes it abundantly clear.
To make profit in 10 minutes, he doesn't need someone to ply his ID trade on, so unless ya want to make it worth his while; you're the one with the impetus to offer him or another ID what they want.
If he can make more than what's offered in the same time frame, then why would he need to be bothered with helping someone else out [as you decided to phrase it] in search of sub-optimal profit?
Bravoda wrote:
Syzygy-Gorath wrote:
Bravoda wrote:
I understand that opportunity costs. My argument is one player's opportunity costs are different from another's. For example, 10 minutes of my time as a beginner TKA might be 5k. 10 minutes of my time as a Master Pikeman might be 10k. Its all relative. What I am suggesting is that you don't assume everyone falls into the latter category and therefore can easily pay what you demand.
Obviously you do not understand opportunity costs. Doing stat migrations is an inconvenience for me. It is not fun. If I am going to do it at all—which is incredibly unlikely—you are going to have to make it worth my time. Why? Because I don't need you. You need me. I don't care if you used to be able to do it for yourself and now you can't—guess what? I can't do it for myself either. And if I want to migrate my stats I'm going to have to make it worth that other Image Designer's time, same as you have to make it worth mine. 10 minutes of my time is worth 15-60K depending on what I do with it. End of story.
Let's be realistic, shall we?
The factis that you are not doing stat migration out of the kindness of your own heart.
You are not doing itto helpme. You are not doing it for anyone else. You are doing it becauseyou can make a profit and you can get experience for it. If that wasn't the case, why would you put yourself through spending 10 minutes with stubborn insouciants like myself?
Unfortunately, in order to get these two things, you do need me. Or someone else.
Thats the reality.
EDIT: To make this abundantly clear, opportunity costs have nothing to do with what you can make in that time, they have to do with how much profit I'm NOT making because I'm staring at a blue UI to help you.
Oh, and thanks for putting that in large font. It really helps me understand yourpoint when you do that.
Message Edited by Syzygy-Gorath on 06-02-2004 11:50 PM
Bravoda wrote:
NJ62 wrote:
Okay, I'll make this short.
We mostly didn't want this ability.
We mostly don't like doing it.
The Devs made a decision. It has impact on the economy, and we have 2 choices:
1) Players pay, ID's get fairly compensated for their time, Players are unfairly treated because they used to have this ability for free OR
2) Players don't pay, because it's not fair for them to have to pay, and ID's are forced into servitude to make up for the "unfairness" of the devs' design decision.
So ultimately someone suffers. Should it be the guy who has a full suit of composite and a full bank account? Or should it be the ID who has been eeking by on tips?
Can you honestly say that you have the right to dictate the price for ten minutes of my time on the basis that the devs did something unfair to you? Am I supposed to inconvenience myself without compensation because the system itself inconveniences you?
Nope.
I have never contended that IDs should do stat migration for free. That would be extremely unfair on IDs.
Iam also not contending that I have the right to set theprice for your time. Only you can do that.
All I am asking, and havebeen asking since I joinedthis discussion, is that IDs be sensitive to their customers who feel quite put outthat noone can migrate their own stats anymore, something we all used to take for granted. I certainly did.What thismight translate to is being more reasonable about your prices, not just saying "my time is worth x, so thats what you will pay," with x being anywhere between 10-100k.
So, basically, my contentions fit in with your first option above, but I am trying to see if there is a way to limit the suffering all round.
The system is frustrating foreveryone. It is frustrating for theplayers who have to track down an ID in a select city and pay for something they used to get for free, although much slower. Its frustrating for the IDs to sit ina tent for hours on end, hardly getting any XP (although that is set to change) in order to shift around the stats of someone that doesn't even talk to them, or is rude to them. No need tomake it more frustrating by fixing a high price.
*blinks* Are you serious? You're saying in the same breath that I should make it easier on customers that ignore me or, worse yet, are rude to me? Bwahahahahaha!
As far as I know, migrating stats doesn't allow you to slip in and out of composite armour without buffs anyway. In my original example, I was refering to Ubese armour.
It does. In fact, I'm waiting for stat migration to be fixed on TestCenter so I can migrate to 550 secondaries to be able to don my full 80% Kinetic compo sans buffs. (There are some very good crafters on TestCenter.)
Now that's a fundamental flaw to your argument—you see, most of the IDs you're talking to are already masters. Why? Because the grind has become so painful there there aren't very many non-masters left. They've given up. As it stands, one of the folks replying to you is a novice; and she told you flat out that she didn't have a set fee and ended up getting 2800cr per migration after 65 migrations. Not only that, she got abused in the process. No music or XP makes up for that sort of mistreatment. This system is terrible, and the devs need to come out and admit that they messed up, instead of trying to kludge a system that will not work in actual practice. But until they do, chances are we like this system even less than you do. Why? It goes back to something I said before—there are a lot of you, and not many us. And as frustrating as not being able to migrate your own stats is, or trying to find an image designer to migrate them is, being harassed, reviled, and talked down to is even less fun. As JuJu said, cash on the barrelhead.
Bravoda wrote:
Reiella wrote:
Not quite Bravoda, and I think his point makes it abundantly clear.
To make profit in 10 minutes, he doesn't need someone to ply his ID trade on, so unless ya want to make it worth his while; you're the one with the impetus to offer him or another ID what they want.
If he can make more than what's offered in the same time frame, then why would he need to be bothered with helping someone else out [as you decided to phrase it] in search of sub-optimal profit?
My understanding was that IDs have to spend time in the tent to get certain kind of XP, but it looks like I am mistaken.
If I am mistaken, that means that players are in aneven weaker position bargaining position than I first thought.
Indeed, why would you bother doing a stat migration for 10k, when you think your time is worth 20k? You can always get your XP some other, less painful way.
So basically it comes down to this: unless the stat migration experience becomes less unpleasant for IDs (soothing music in the tents might not cut it) or is worth more XP, the cost will always have to offset the unpleasantness of the entire experience.
What a strange formula.
Yes, well.. remember when you ask an ID in the tent for Stat Migrations.. they are loosing out on XP to do them, especially if they currently have a person to practice one, and even if they don't.
Stat Migrations last 10 minutes.. 600 seconds. The XP reward is only 600 XP. That's 1 XP/second.
Eye color changes require only 2 and a half minutes, or 150 seconds in the tent. For that they give 150 XP if done on self, or 300 XP if done on someone else. This is 1-2 XP/second.
Stat Migrations have the downside of taking ten minutes to finish, and usually longer if the recipient AFK's and comes back 15 minutes later... not that that's happened 5 times yesterday in Coronet on my server, oranything.
RyadhiMakkar wrote:
To help new players along with the new system I haven't set prices for stat migrations and when asked "How much do I owe you?", I've replied with "Whatever you think is fair". I'm not going to charge new players 10-15k for a migration. I've been receiveing anywhere from 3-30k and have been very pleased with the results. I also do not charge members of my faction and ususally throw in a set of holos. I do however set prices for griefers, charging up to 80k. I should master this by June 6th, having been working solid for a little over 3 weeks. I'm happy to see the increase in xp, but the devs should have thought of this much sooner. This has been one of the most poorly thought over revamps I've seen.
I was doing the same thing. Be careful with that stance.
NJ62 is correct
A Few fun Facts:
-Before the ID change I was in debt to over 300k to Non-IDers...some crafters, some combat professions.
-I have done many Stat migrates for cheap prices,free, it all depends on the customers attitude with me, if they are Imperial I give them a discount, previous customer, and N00bles are usually always free...and I throw in ALL of the holo-emotes for free.
-People say my price of 20k is very good deal, some customers have payed more than 20k when that is all I asked for
- I never once asked for stat migrations and I am my number one ID Customer, I hide my Master ID Title a lot...I used to only use ID for RP purposes and to change my own look at any time I wanted.
- The ENTIRE ID Commuinty Agrees with you on the issue that stat migrations were a free service and arent now, but we do spend our time...just as dancers, doctors, and crafters do...to migrate your stats, and we do use resources to ID our customers. The Most Important resource in my opiniion since I am a casual Gamer...TIME.