Image Designer Archive

Ok Soon and I have already spoken, which she mentioned on a differend thread. I'd like to mention the jist of the converstion here and get some opinions.....

Right now there are several Master Image Designers and a few more "Master Stylists". There are however very few Master Anything elses. This means we are producing The end all hairstyles etc. when a someone who uses a rifle can barely find a weapon qualified for a Rifle II trained person. WE ARE GIVING THESE STYLES AWAY! A mission, as far as I've seen can give you up to 2k a piece. You can get 2 at a time.... thats 4k in less then 15 minutes. We are selling the best we can do for less then 15mins of work. even the newbie missions are 1k a piece... that means someone right off the boat or ship or whatever can purchase our hard earned work in under an hour from generation to style. Thats not right. How much do you think a Master's final armour would cost right now if it were available? Well over 100k easily. Not only that armour degrades so eventually that client comes back. You give someone the best style there is for 2k and you'll probably never see them again unless they REALLY care about fashion. I'm assuming more Image Design styles are low on the Dev list considering how many bugs are in the game. Basically what I'm getting at is we need to be charging 10k at least for the last 4 or 5 styles. This has several reasons. Number one is status... people know how expensive this is so it shows.. status wise. Number two. The people who are fashion conscious don't have to worry about 1000 other people running around looking just like them when the whole idea behind our profession is accentuating induviduality. Pretty soon everyone is going to have the Hair in the face cut. Charging 10k reduces the amout of people and serves as a protection on the investment that others make. For a good make over it takes me at least 15 minutes to half an hour minimum. Plus not to mention the chatting and explaining the bugs. Now I love doing what I do and adding flair, however as is I can make more money doing missions.

We need to seriously iron out prices as a couple designers can trash the entire economy of several cities for us. No one wants to look the same... so lets benefit from it and give back to the people willing to pay for our talents. After all those crafters, dancers and RP'ers are the ones who care and will repeat buisness.

We ned a tier system. 2k for basic cut changes.. I charge 1k if its a "starting style". 3k for the middle cuts and 5k for the 5 or 6 cuts before the masters. I will starting tonight charge 10k for the end game cuts. I also raise prices for particular "popular" styles. Men seem to love the "Pirate" style. That is now more expensive.

There is no reason for us to compete with each other like the rest of the professions. There are so few of us that we can really work together. I'm willing to for the time being set up certain towns that we work so there is no competition. Anyways lets hear what you all think

what you say makes sense, however, you must take into account a few relevant issues as it relates to the stylist.

As an example, on my server there are 2 designers that i know of, me and one other. The other person is below my level in everything except body design(which she will be getting rid of). We have seen eachother exactly 2 times. So now we have to figure out how to pay for our training.

As I rise in level i have an asking price of 500 for a haircut and a dye(mind you im only at hairstyle 3). If i get on avg say 10 people a day, for the 4 hours i play, that would be 5k. Most of the time they want a few other mods at 500 a piece so lets say i make 10k in 1 day of playing at these prices. thats enough to train one level.

But now lets say that i take these prices and skyrocket them(remember im not done training). if i charge 3000 for a hair cut then i would only need 4 people. however, the player economy right now, and the mind set of people who do tip entertainers, is still on the low end. So most likely it would take me 2 to 3 days to raise that amount and also cause me to lose alot of my stable customers.

Now your idea for the "Masters" is valid. I agree with you here. Masters should charge out the hinny as they are the one that should be saught out.

Just my thoughts, but if your going to develop a reasonable price list, remember to keep the lower level, low ID population on servers in mind.

I agree with you to an extent. I think designers really high up in their craft should definitly be charging more. but you have to take into account of what people will actually pay. I'm just starting out. I'm almost done with image des 3 and charge nothing because it's just basic stuff and i know there are other higher designers that will train me no problem at this lvl ..pretty much anyone just going for master entertainer. But once i start going for the elite prof then i may start asking for tips, because so far i've only seen one high highish lvl des and i'm sure she paid for most of her skills so i know i most likely will be forced to use the npc on this one. And you need to build a rep first. You can't just start out charging out the ear, you need to build a base and get referrals in this prof. And, though yes missions make a good amount of money, alot of people don't really have too much right now since most are just starting out. I can see in a couple monthes Des getting paid top dollar for what they can do, but atm, it's not as big of a priority to most adv. compared to spending their money on armor and weapons. Personally i think your biggest client focas will be entertainers who's looks are half of their career..at least the dancers.

I hadn't responded to the price list thread as I've still been tossing it all around in my head, along with what I'm going to be charging for clothing (I'm also working on Tailoring). I never did get around to setting a price scheme in beta, I just asked for tips, and as the servers are young I've been doing the same post release. I just tell people I'm taking donations and that based on those I will figure out my prices. Well both dancer (I also dance some) and image designer tips have decreased post release. I'm imagining as people begin to gather more monies that will change. For now an ID modification or two nets me a tip of 400-1000 credits. Though someone gave me 25 credits once I definitely agree that prices should increase with complexity of hairstyle and difficulty of change (that is apair of torsoimplants should be more expensive than a lip collagen implant). Something in the range of 7-10k sounds reasonable to me for a complex hairstyle. Spending a great deal on something you love makes it all that more delicious. Of course you run into the potential problem that people that would otherwise want a great hairstyle won't bother with it because of cost, or find someone that will do it for a donation (of 500 credits or whatever).

Example:

In real life,I've been wanting to splurge on a professional hair coloring for ages but it's been a low priority expense. Lots of other things my family wants/needs. I'm going to get it soon and when I do it will feel much more exciting than if I could afford to have it done once a month But I've been talking about it for a couple of years and not done it yet...

Kwee

Misery has a great idea, and if IDs as a whole band together, this is not going to be a problem. I only charge 2K for all styles, but I have had people tip me as much as 19K. Sure they were dying for the look they had in beta, but still.

My fear is though, that by charging these kind of prices, we'll drasticly reduce our client base. There are other things folks can buy, like armour, weapons or even housing that really enhance the ease of play for them, getting a cool haircut or a few extra inches added to their height may not seem worth it, when they really want to save up for that Chitin armour. Money is easy to come by though, even by doing no risk delivery missions. The main thing we need to remember is that we have to stay united on this. We also need a complete image of all availble styles for all availble sexes and races so that we can set prices. Then factor in PA alliegences. I'm sorry, but my PA comes first, they have given me free weapons, armour, droids, housing, large hunting groups, credits to train, healing, ect. There's no way I'm charging them for an ID, and I'm sure you other PA ID's feel the same way. As there are 72 goons at last count... well the market could be saturated, but then agian with the option for free IDs, a number of my PA-mates change their appearance every couple of days.

I fully support Misery, and I hope our efforts to organize works out, but in order for this to happen, we need your full support. At least on the Lowca server. Hair styles aside I think my price list could stand as is, with an increase in costs for pattern changes (zabs, mons, wookies) and colors (zabs and mons). Facial features, aside from eye and lip color should be at a minimal cost, below our lowest hair style, as the changes made are really only noticable to the player, unless someone else really zooms in on them. Below I'll post my current cross species price list and we can disect it, and decide what to change.

Hair (human, bothan, rodian, zabrak) 2K

Ridges (Trandoshians) 1K

Lekku Style (twileks) 1K

Hair color (H B R Z) 1K

Eye color (all) 500

Lip color (human, twilekand zabrak females) 500

Nose color (R) 500

All other facial features except for Mon Calamari head size 250

Mon head size 10K (master ability my 800 mind bar needs to be full before I'm allowed toa ttempt)

Tattoo pattern or color (Z) 1K

Mon spots 3K

spot color 1K

Frill tips 1K

Wookie fur or marking color 2K

Wookie pattern change 3K

Bothan fur color 5K

Skin Color (all but bothan and wookie)5K

Lekku Pattern change and color change 2K

Height 5K

Weight 5K

Muscle mass (all but wookies) 1K

Wookie Muscle 5K

Torso (breasted females) 10K

Age 10K

I'm pretty sure I hit everything, but going from memory, I may have forgotten something. So discuss, lets see what we can do about getting some uniform prices!

-Soon Mot Master Image Designer

Lowca

Oh one more note: yet another annoying real life comparison... Not all professions can expect to earn the same amount. I'm betting a full suit of armor irl is way more expensive than a luxe haircut. I was reading in Good Housekeeping last night that one of the most famous hairstylists makes $500 a cut in Hollywood. But I bet that's still way under the cost of a full set ofarmor. Orthe cost of a factory.

In our world, all Master ID's will be able to do exactly the same thing as the other Master ID's. Especially since nothing in ID requires any type of crafting much less rare or hard to obtain items. If they made torso implants require Rori tree rubber for example, it would make the service much harder to obtain and therefore more valuable... There will be Master ID's out there that just take tips for their services, and will flood the world with cool hairstyles to the detriment of those trying to roleplay ID as a viable profession. Basically the profession needs more variety and complexity to it. Ifhigher level goodies(hopefully ones not already found in char creation, such as body tattoos) required crafting and rare ingredients, they would be harder to find, and less people would be willing to do them. I don't know about the other planets, but I think there arealready at leastone or two Novice/Master Image Designersin every city of Naboo, Starsider I went intomy local cantina the other day looking forsome entertainers to give clothes away to, and found a fellow Novice Tailor already giving clothes away, three other Novice Tailors standing around, and two other Image Designers heh.

Hands off, that's MY entertainer! Lol.

Kwee

Great feedback!

I for one loves Soon's price break down. However I'd suggest a few things. Hairstyles need a price break down.

I said before I was going to charge 10k for the master cuts. Last night I logged into Lowca and immediately started receiving /tells and emails so I dillegently went to work. 5k seems to hardly phase people. They may bat an eye at first but a quick explanation on how this is the pinacle of out Styling talents usually is well received. People do understand. 5k is pocket change for anyone willing to do a small bit of work. 1 hour of gaming time at the most for a style most people might just wear for the rest of their game time is nothing. Even on the low population servers this shouldn't be an issue. Low population servers still have the same mission pay ratio... money is very easy to come by. That being said none of this is really about money. Dancers, Artisans,Entertainers and Image Designers... we all tend to be more role play oriented. The development team did a great job giving us things to work with to make the game fun for different types of players. What we are talking about is limiting the amount of very pretty but popular styles so everyone and thier mother isn't roaming around with the same cut. Hair is important to us, Its what I do in this game and "look" in general is important to many others. I'm trying not to be elitist here but if a dancer wants a break on price I feel somewhat inclined to give it to her... now if CheewBicca or Haun Solow wants that same style... you bet i'm going to charge more. Its about giving the people who don't enjoy some of the other parts in the game a way to have something "Special" other then the best armour or rifle in game. Some people never leave the city, these people distingush themselves through clothes and hair, fashion over all just as warriors use armour, weapons, and rare drops. Well clothes rifles and armor drop of MOBS however clothes and eyeshadow do not. Once the market is flooded with our styles thats it... no more special cuts.

Now obviously no matter what we do no one can control the market. Im sugesting to you other Designers and future Designers, lets make the master styles very expensive, or be selective about who you sell them too. You want to give dancers and tailors cheap prices on the "Nice" ones go ahead. I'm saying we should be a bit selective.

Now on that note There is a correspondant position opening up... check the ID main page. Everyone sign up and see if we can get some better options and really make this class shine!

Good points Misery! Now all we need are those screen shots so we can start pricing.

-Soon Mot

Has anyone said they would do it? I'll try to get them but no reason if its covered already.

Hi, I'm working on this project. I'm going to put all the ID only hairstyles up on Warcry. Oofnish (Ceza in game) is helping me to get screenshots of many of the hairstyles, so far we have done human males and zabrak females. It's slow going since she plays on Radiant which is VERY high population and I can only create one char during her playtime a day. If anyone else would also be willing to style my various Kwee and Kweeguy characters' hairplease let me know I still have to do zabrak male, bothan male and female, lekku arrangements, human female, and rodian frills (I think these were also restricted). I can prob get someone on my server to do Kwee's hair for the human female though

Kwee

PS. I'm also going to put down at which level of ID each hairstyle is granted to help with pricing and requesting. If you can help fill out any of this info please add to the thread called "Need help naming hairstyles" or some such.

Kwee

I'd be very interested to see some form of standardized pricing. Currently I am following the pricing guide set up by China on Wanderhome. That is, 100-200-300-400 for the basic 4 levels of Image Design, then 2000-3000-4000-5000 for the next 4 in the Image Design tree.

I honestly don't even know which styles I got at which levels, so I just took the 40 hair styles and divided them amongs the 8 price levels (5 at each) which totally ignores the Novice skill and whatever styles were gained there.

So yeah, I'd be very interested in some sort of list of everything that comes at each level, since I haven't been paying close enough attention *l*

Then I have something handy I can just print out and refer to

Thats actually not a bad way of doing things..... A little complicated at the lower levels. I'd set the minimum cap at 1k. The only thing I would add is some general dynamic pricing... I charge as much for the long haired pony tail for human males as I do more difficult styles.. its just so popular.