Image Designer Archive

Harking back to my earlier comments on the matter, lower-level IDs need more fun, artistic content that players want in order for them to play rather than grind. That means adding a bunch of new content to the top-tier boxes and shifting everything else down. Given the timeframes we've been told for hairstyles, tattoos, et cetera, I don't see this happenning anytime soon.

Want to "encourage" people to play, not grind? Make XP gain higher/faster, but limit the amount you can get off a particular client each day. So, you get a friend who wants a chin-job. And you keep doing other changes too, while you're at it...

A.001: 250 xp - chin alteration

A.002: 350 xp - cheeks?

A.003: 500 xp - eye shape/size

A.004: 750 xp - chin again (not happy with it)

A.005: 900 xp - height

A.006: 1000 - weight

A.007: 1000 - chin AGAIN...

A.008: 1000 - cheeks again.

B.001: 1250 - New player asks for a chin-job

A.010: 1500 - Player A comes back the next day and gets ANOTHER chin alteration...

The drawback is the vast amount of book-keeping required for something like this would probably bog down the servers much worse than they already are. But it would encourage people to go find CLIENTS, not just an agreeable friend who likes clicking the same button over and over. And then there wouldn't be any need for timers because you'd have the daily cap to contend with.

-V

In my opinion non Master Image Designer= No fun and No customers. If someone is going to spend the 92 skillpoints to become a master ID, and they want to burn throught it in record time, let them.

I really believe that there are two kinds of people out there-

1. Image Designers


2. People that want to get it out of the way (hologrinders)

There are subcategories of each type. Youre either a good Image Designer or a bad one. You either drop ID and move on to the next profession when hologrinding, or you keep is as a few people have. Hologrinders really dont care about the profession, so its not like theyre going to take away any funbucks from the true Image Designers out there. Theyre going to drop the professionand move on to the next.

I really feel that we need to look at what Image Design is and ask ourselves if its REALLY that important that people be limited as to how fast they can master it. Master Doctor can be made (from novice medic) in two days, ive seen it happen. While going after master doc, you really only need one commando with a flamethrower and a ch with a high ham pet. Everyone involved can be semi-afk. With ID (especially with the new UI) you have to be there, they have to click... and now its going to take a VERY long time.

Anyway, your post wasnt "Lets hear Marinha rant and rave" it was how to make people actually PLAY ID instead of just grinding it. Thats a tough one. The profession is simply no fun at all until master. There is no real way to make money at it early on, willing victims are hard to come by unless they are hologrinding.

So how do we make it FUN? (work with me on this) NPC pets that autoaccept all ID changes. If we had NPC pets that we could image design (and get full xp for) we would have a willing victim, and it would be FUN. With an NPC we would have someone that we could do whatever we want to without worrying about messing them up. This NPC client could be given at Novice Image Designer. Upon getting novice, the Image Designer could have a deed. The deed could generate a male or female of whatever race the ID'er desires. This would be fun and would solve so many of the problems young Image Designers face when trying to play the profession.

And hey, we could make twins or short little versions of ourselves and call them kids

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE an Image Designer pet! Way back when, when I had position in the GCW, I picked up troops just so I could have them follow me around. Which ones did I pick? I picked Twi'lek ones. Did I care that they weren't the best pets to have? No, I just wanted a group of Twi'lek fighters to follow me around. Too bad I couldn't change them and put dresses on them instead of having them in that awful armor. Anyways, I think that'd be a really fun way to play ID. Have a personal assistant, or hire a model to work on. At Master you should have a couple of them, that way you could show what you could do on different species. Of course, you could only use one at a time. Or maybe you could have one and when you called them, you could select what species and race. It'd generate a new name for them each time. I think that'd be really fun!

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MarinhaTiga wrote:

I really feel that we need to look at what Image Design is and ask ourselves if its REALLY that important that people be limited as to how fast they can master it. Master Doctor can be made (from novice medic) in two days, ive seen it happen. While going after master doc, you really only need one commando with a flamethrower and a ch with a high ham pet. Everyone involved can be semi-afk. With ID (especially with the new UI) you have to be there, they have to click... and now its going to take a VERY long time.

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This is not correct. Medics, docs, and CMs must all do craftng trees and even macroingrequires clicking in the resources. Yes, it can be done in two days, but ID was a two hour grind. And that was because of the app not the xp. Perhaps the new rules will make ID be a profession thattakesmore thanbit of work to get.

Mirii

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. Who doesn't want a lackey you can practice on all day long?

Ok, just for kicks, I think you should be able to dress them. I'm not going to show off my latest hair styles with my model walking around in starter clothes. It'll be a worthwhile money sink for Image Designers and Tailors. Make them like merchant underlings where you can give them clothes to wear.

Only problem I see with this is at what levelcould yoube able to use the model? Novice entertainer? Novice Image Designer? I think Novice Image Designershould be able to hire the model. It cuts down on every entertainer having one. Oooh, and maybe they have to hire them from the ID trainer or something.

They should work like a droid, maybe giving them simple instructions like stay and follow.

/wookieeblush

I ground out ID over the past week with help from a lovely, wonderful, incredibly generous MID named Ashinay on Wanderhome. I haven't been brave enough to ID anyone else yet - on another server I got hit with the nose protrusion slide to zero bug and on Wanderhome I hit MYSELF with the nose protrusion slider to zero bug quickly followed by the outstanding offer bug. I am scared to try my skills on anyone else before I experience the full range of bugs and how to fix them.

I ground out ID for two reasons.
1. I always intended on being an ID on that character and was up to Ent. ID III just from changing my own lipstick.
2. I am a very casual player and this is not my primary character. I started this character in July and Ent. ID 3 is as far as I had gone. I figured once the new system came out I might as well wave bye-bye to the hope of doing anything interesting in the next 3 years.

Now that that is out of the way I can post my story without shame. I DO have little models that follow me around. Lucky for me my husband has two accounts. I created two Wanderhome characters. I am making them look the best/most funky I possibly can, and it is loads of fun. I agree with Vohla that this would be a great feature. Or even the ability to access a character-creation-like program from the terminals. You could play and make "templates" that you could sell (or just take screenies and post them for customer ideas).

I LOVE the character creation program. Thanks to multiple accounts (and the TC three-character limit) I have a female of each species and am now branching out into the males (if you spot an overly cheerful guy running around it may be me). It would be great if IDs could access this to play around whenever they want. Then I wouldnt have to log off in order to mess with it! I easily spend 10% of my playtime just making new templates on the character generator. I also take screenies of good designs I have seen in game and try to recreate them in the character generator.

So maybe I have been "playing" ID, even though I haven't actually picked up the profession on my main.

Anyway, I think Volha has a great idea. Hehe.

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yosGalen wrote:

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MarinhaTiga wrote:

I really feel that we need to look at what Image Design is and ask ourselves if its REALLY that important that people be limited as to how fast they can master it. Master Doctor can be made (from novice medic) in two days, ive seen it happen. While going after master doc, you really only need one commando with a flamethrower and a ch with a high ham pet. Everyone involved can be semi-afk. With ID (especially with the new UI) you have to be there, they have to click... and now its going to take a VERY long time.

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This is not correct. Medics, docs, and CMs must all do craftng trees and even macroingrequires clicking in the resources. Yes, it can be done in two days, but ID was a two hour grind. And that was because of the app not the xp. Perhaps the new rules will make ID be a profession thattakesmore thanbit of work to get.

Mirii

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Some of us mastered image design before Vasarian Brandy, it wasnt a two hour grind for me. Even with muon gold it still took awhile.

And what i said earlier is correct, the crafting portion of medic can be done in little more than two hours (ive done it) while you macro /healdamage. I have a guildmate that did the crafting portion in doctor while she healed wounds on a pet. I said semi-afk because you dont need to spend time with the individual that youre healing (since its a pet). If you chose to craft during this time thats your choice but even the doctor portion of crafting can be done in a matte of hours.

It was actually Marinha's idea, I just loved it so much!