Image Designer Archive

So yes I mastered ID in about 3 days at the whim of the Holocron Gods. I didn't macro at all. Not becauseI didn't want to, but just becasueI couldn't figure it out. I used Master Muscian and Dancer buffs (when available) as well as liberal amounts of muon and fishak. Incapped about half a dozen times due to bad planning.....Who said IDing wasn't dangerous

I never had a problem with willing guinea pigs. I was a cantina porch monkey the entire 3 days i spent Mastering ID. There were plenty of folks in the cantina in Theed willing to help out. A special thanks to Wykyd for her unselfish help as a guinea pig and Master Dancer.

So, I pretty much agree dead on with the bugs and lack of content issues brought up in the SotP. The bald thing is espially bizarre. One would think thats pretty simple. As is black hair. And how hard can it be to have MORE colors for hair, tattoos, skin color? More hiar styles, tatoo styles, etc. That REALLY disappointed me.

The one thing I noticed as I did the grind was that it didnt always calculate my mind amount correctly. Even the simplest design couldn't be done unless I had around 650 or so mind. Very frustrating. I don't know if that's just me. I'd be curious to know if anyone else had run across this.

The stat enhancement bug was a pain too. Taking stat enhancers screwed up my stats several times making it neccessary to duel someone to kill me and clone to reset them.

In the end, once I made master, I spent a couple days recouping my losses on training (I saw one Master ID the entire time and that was only AFTER I made Master). Master IDs make GREAT money and I'm certain I undercharged and charged nothing for my guildmates and friends.But probably the worst thing was having players say 'it's that one hairstlye thats kinda short and spikey'. Or even WORSE was 'Let's see all your styles.' (or tattoos). Letting customers see their choices would be a VERY good thing.

Is getting Master easy? You bet. Is that a bad thing? Nope. I've seen many a complaint about drive by Masters, like myself, ruining your profession. I think that any damage others (I certainly don't feel I did any) is negligable and temporary and not worth the fuss I've seen on the boards. We grind out ID and move on. I can be pretty certain the 2 days I spent at playing at Master is a record for the 'cronrs in the game. I may have even spent less time but I couldn't get away from the cantina!!! Everyone wanted something changed...LOL. That only proves that only master IDs are in demand as far as I'm concerned.

So I see no need to complain about your progression rate. Those that have made Master should be grateful and be magnanimous enough to let the dedicated novice IDs get their chance too.

I've got more notes somewhere that I made about my thoughts on this highly lucrative profession. I'll find them eventually and add more.

Donner Shadowstalker - Radiant

Former BH 2344 Former Ranger 4040 - Now BH 0122 R0010 and lookin for more holos..........

Thank you for sharing I'd be interested in hearing more of your thoughts on the profession

As to whether or not holocron only ID's can harm our profession? I would say only those that provide services for free. I can't imagine someone mastering an artisan professiontemporarily only to obey a holocron would begin giving awaytheir goodsfor free.Skilling ID uptakes time and money, and as you have probably seen it can be extremely time consuming to ID someone that has no idea what they want. I've personally been victim to would be clients who have received ID services for free their entire playing life. They think it's ludicrous that I would charge for my time, and why shouldn't they if other ID's have been devaluing their own time and profession by working for nothing?

Thanks for a great reply, Donner. The sad thing about this otherwise fun profession, is that we've been complaining about these issues since almost day 1. I've recently returned to the game after a two month hiatus, and aside from a truly wonderful(and much needed)interface update, there's been no new content added to the ID profession. No true black or true red hair colors. No new styles. Nothing. Plus having sunk most of my remaining points in dancer, with only a few left to progress into carbineer, this whole holocron thing has kinda left me cold. I'm sure these things will get fixed eventually, and maybe IDs will have some actual in game effect outside the cosmetic realm, but who knows when.

-Soon Mot

Master Image Designer

Lowca, Naboo, Theed

Thank you for a piece of well-balanced input on our profession.

I don't have any problem with people who are required to master ID in order to achieve their next holocron. Really. Those players are very likely to swoop in, get mastery, and drop ID like a hot potato -- as you point out. Yes, the profession can be lucrative, but for some reason, it is eschewed. Yes, additional players(and admit it, mostly power-gamers) stress-testing the bugs and features of ID is a good thing, so long as they provide input such as yours.

However, most people aren't as reasonable as you.

A lot of these power-gamers feel they have to announce their enslavement to master ID and flex their testosterone, protesting as loudly as possible about how male they are and how (insert slander) it is for anyone to have chosen our profession. Like a stray dog, they are coming into our forum and 'marking' their territory and trying to desperately, feebly establish how d00d-like and masculine and non-(whatever) they are. Their posts are frequently begun with, "I'm a master bounty hunter and..." and get worse from there.

Thank you for not doing that.

Regarding your inability to find someone to train you, and the difficulty in showing various styles to clients: those questions are addressed in many posts on our boards. Many of us have sigs showing on which server we are master ID and few of us charge for training. Also, there are plenty of ID-run websites containing thumbnails of various hairstyles so clients can alt-tab out and browse to their hearts' content. I think you may have missed some of these things because you mastered in such a short period of time. We have presented our requests for a UI change and we hope they will be addressed.

Again, thanks for the post.

Escia

A lot of these power-gamers feel they have to announce their enslavement to master ID and flex their testosterone, protesting as loudly as possible about how male they are and how (insert slander) it is for anyone to have chosen our profession. Like a stray dog, they are coming into our forum and 'marking' their territory and trying to desperately, feebly establish how d00d-like and masculine and non-(whatever) they are. Their posts are frequently begun with, "I'm a master bounty hunter and..." and get worse from there.

--------

Well, yes I did avoid doing that, it's rather lame. BUt truth be told. I did put my 80% comp armor on, take up my krayt LLC and ran out and duelled the first commando I ran across on several occasions....

Anyway I never did find all my notes. Thats disappointing but I'll address some of the issues that have been brought up on this thread so far.

ID's are a profession with its problems, just like every other profession. BEs and Chef's ahve it far worse than anyone else in SWG. They are the most broken professions in a galaxy of broken professions. We have all complained from day one about the problems with our professions. I REALLY, REALLY wish that the devs would stop with all the new feature stuff and concentrate FOR ONE MONTH on corrrecting all the features they have that ARE BROKEN!! (pulls out more hair).

As I said, all my friends and guildmates got free IDg from me, I don't think anyone in a service oriented profession in SWG doesnt do the same. But to simply run around making folks over for free is rather stupid. ID is the best profession for making money. After your intial outlays for training (i got all my training, save for a couple boxes from NPC trainers) its ALLLL profit. that's pretty sweet. So unless you want to set up a boutique outside a city or have need for travel, you're not spending anything to make really good money. I'm sure I was charging less than I should have been (1k per change the cutomer kept).

Lastly I was on the stratics boards and in the ideas den theres a poll on some ID changes. They aren't very good, but I thought I'd point it out.

I think at this point most Id'ers would vote for almost any change unless it was something that added danger.

We havent gotten many changes or "nerfs" at all ( nothing to nerf) ,,and likely as not,,not going to happen soon anyway. So they can poll all they want, maybe it will spark a few necessary changes.