Musician Archive
Thread: Making Money, some pointers
I often hear of entertainers saying they are broke or don't make enough money. Frankly, I think we've all learned that tips are an unreliable source of income. They are better than the first week, but still not enough to prevent us from finding other sources of income.
I'm sure everyone knows about doing Delivery Missions and Gigs. I've personally never bothered with Gigs, they sound like they take too long.
If you want to make some good credits, enough to buy new cloths, training, instruments etc. do delivery missions and do them on Naboo or Corellia, no other planet.
Personally, I do all my delivery missions between Bela Vistal and Kor Vella on Corellia.
At the mission terminal, continue to refresh the listing until you find missions that pay between 700 and 800 credits per mission.
Accept two missions and make sure the destination of the missionsare within 300 meters of each other. To much more than that and the destination may not be within the city. Don't be affraid to abort a mission that you accepted if you can't find another one close to it. If this happens, it will probably have a destination point in the middle of some place an entertainer has no business going to.
Head to the closest Shuttleport, the tickets between cities range from 115 to 125 credits generally. You should earn between 1200 and 1400 credits per trip, so the ticket is just a minor cost really.
Note: Be very very careful waiting around at the Kor Vella shuttleport, the pesky NPCs there will attack anyone. Most of the time there are plenty of people around to protect us wussy entertainers, but I have found myself flat on my back a few times. No deaths as of yet, but flat on my back is still very un-nerving.
I normally do these missions over and over again until I have 10k credits, only about 9 to 10 trips. Then I return to the Cornet City Cantina and play music or exp grind in Image Design.
Oh, by the way, I start out with missions that take me from Coronet to Bela Vistal and when I'm done, I also take missions back to Coronet, it's just a little bit more credits that I don't mind putting in my pocket.
I agree, missions are easy and take no time. But on top of that, the only thing most entertainers need money for anymore is clothes. Maybe instruments, but get some friends, you can get those cheap. Who pays for skills anymore? If you aren't 1 or 2 steps from master by now there is someone higher than you that you could/should be learning from.
But if see some clothes you just have to have... then missions are a quick fix for those in bad-tipping cities. 
I always pay people I learn from, period. I don't care if someone taught them the skill for free. For musician skills I always pay 1500 credits to the one teaching me. For Image Design, half of what they paid at the NPC trainer. There are so few Image Designers out there that most of them did go to the NPC trainer to learn and that's very costly. Besides, when you pay people for your training they will jump on it the next time you need training. How often have you seen entertainers ask over and over again to be training in entertainment healing IV, for example. If that person, said they would donate, there would be a rush of people wanting to train that person instead of them askingmultiple times for it.
I always pay for my instruments and I buy them off the bazaar. I have all of them that I can currently play, Slitherhorn, Fizz, Fanfar, Kloo Horn, Mandoviol, Trazz, and Bandfill. Paid between 1k and 2.5k for each of them except Slitherhorn which I got at startup and Fizz was a gift.
I always pay full price for my cloths and do not ask for discounts. Currently, I have 12 dresses, 9 pants, 7 shirts, 8 jackets, 2 vests, 5 skirts, 2 pairs ofshoesand a hat I can't even wear.
It's so easy to make money through missions that there's no reason for me to not pay people when I can.
I'm not bragging here, I just want people to know that you can make the money to get the things you want by doing Delivery Missions.
SadaraSWG wrote:I'm not bragging here, I just want people to know that you can make the money to get the things you want by doing Delivery Missions.
Sure..sure..
I've been running missions everywhere I go and then some since the game came out. I'm low on cash right now, since I had to buy some skills, but its a good way to make some cash and see the world, or the cities at least
If you are on Tat, the best route I've found is Mos Espa to Mos Eisley.
Oh and with some of that extra cash, give a little to the hard working medics that come in and heal us, they need cash too-and I bet you get your heals first after that as well.
thanks sadara, thats a good tip. also for a change of pace, destroy missions are an option too as long as you get them for bunnies. they are called different things in different areas, squalls, durnis, maybe something else on other planets. find out what the bunnies are in your area. bunnies are sloooow so you can kite them around while you blast up the nest. if they start healing you might have to take out a few of them, but many times i don't kill a single bunny on a mission, and you can do this with just Novice Marksman.
I have no clue if it helps me get any extra tips, but what I like to do is tip some of the more beat up customers about 20c and tell them to have a drink on me. I like to do the same thing for regulars.
-Dizzie Jay, Valcyn
"Mos Eisley! Are you ready to ROCK?!?"
So Reisa, that's where you have been going.
I found delivery missions to be a decent source of income when I was starting out. I did mine between Coronet and Bela Vistal, staying away from Kor Vela because of the red con agressives there. However, I stopped doing missions when I made novice musician. Since then, everythingI make is in tips. I made enough in tips to purchase training and instruments (which is quite a bit , since I was one of the first master musicians on Coronet). I don't have a lot of clothes, but I am making enough to start buying more.
Honestly I've taken up to destroy missions. They aren't THAT hard if you do a tiny bit of stat migration for a little more health.
On tattoine you can get 2 gorg missions right next to each other for 1500+ credits each. Thats more than twice as much as you get for 2 deliveries (assuming you get good ones for 800 or so)
I've actually had so much fun doing missions that I've decided to take up a combat form for self-defence and protection of the fellow entertainers in the cantinas. (Us male entertainers seem to get challenged alot by the "real men" fighters out there) Maybe after a few of them get defeated a few times they might start to think with their heads and not fists.
Guys,
I have been experimenting on my server with an advertising service. I am finishing week one and I am making 5k/h playing in the cantina. Now, I am a master musician, but I prefer to play than hunt. What I did is made a few posts on my server forum and on some crafter sites basically offering my service. They can contact me in game or through my own forum. (http://www.the-endless.org/swg/html/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum&f=5) Most use the ingame email, but I have started recording all future jobs on the personal forum.
Now, it's just not as easy as putting out a shout "Buy so-n-so's weapons! /waypoint x,y" I found the best way was to be creative about it. So for each client, right now 3, maybe 4 by the weekend. I come up w/ a slogan, and gimmics to help them sell.
Some of my old material was, "/sly Tired of getting beat up by bullies? By a <NAME> <Weapon> best and town and show those bullies how to eat lead! /tell for Waypoint"
The key to being successful is being creative. No one wants to hear the same stuff spouted over and over. And DON'T macro your performance... If I come accross someone AFK Macroing an Advertisement I will report them to the vendor and under bid them.
Well, like I was saying, if your making 5k an hour advertising theirs no need to "/shout Tip me pweasssse.. I'm a loser..." because your already being paid to perform.
If you would like me to be your agent on Chilastria, I am now getting enough work that I can start to outsource it. I will only outsource to Composer's or higher though due to the quality of service I promise my clients.
Little side note, even though most of your clients can't play instruments, they have Very big houses cause they are usually wealthy.... If you want to make sure they remain loyal to you, gifting them a naralgon or omni box is an affordable way to win them over after they hire you a couple times.
Chaple Starfox
Master Musician Extraordinaire!
Sing a lil song, tap a lil dance, and smile!
Bleh... Delivery missions aren't sufficient for me. Right now the only source of income i've got is destroy missions. Fortunately I'm a pistoleer and planning to be a smuggler.
However the thing is, I own the Tusken's Bane cantina. I manage the freakin' place. I pay the people that work there. Let me tell you, my dancers/musicians are the most underpaid people in the world. The freaky part is they enjoy playing music. I try to pay them at least 1K every day. I'm working towards getting into the harvesting industry so I can make a steady net gain of at least 10K a day. I was actually donated 50K a while ago, and now I have about 60K in the bank. I use 20K-30K as a safety cushion. Usually I go out and do a pair of missions and make 10K every few pairs. Then I go run off to the furniture store across the street and spend it all on luxury furniture. Since I don't have merchant skills, I can't set a cover charge, NOR can I set up a vendor. Hopefully when they fix the admin bugs my good chef can set up a vendor and peddle her quality foodstuffs.
And.. that's my story...
Mr. Monkey,
I respect your opinion, but it is quite an ignorant opinion and only hurts you to be honest. How many times have you been looking for a specific item and not know where to find it? Better yet, how many times have you traveled across the universe to go to someone store only to find that they either haven't stocked it or their prices are outrageous? Or, better yet, gone into a cantina, just to be spammed every minute with a beg for a tip?
My routine before running advertising is:
First, I check ever vendor I advertise for to confirm their integrity and pricing.
Second, I troll the message boards to insure their not thieves
Third, they pay me to play, so I have no need for tips and I never ask for them.
Finally, all my advertisements are done with proper role-playing etiquette, never will you see “Joe’s Armor Store /waypoint X,Y.” It is always creative and unique, I run 3-4 different short sentences so you have to be in the cantina for over 36 minutes to see the same ad twice.
So, in my opinion, it's better to see a short 1 sentence ad every 6 minutes (Get a watch out and time 6 minutes, it's a long time) than to see some entertainer spamming every 30 seconds (Yes, I have timed it) that, "Welcome blah blah blah... please tip me..."
In closing, I do respect your opinion, and everyone has a right to one, but before you state blatantly this or that, one should look into the details of the service. If you also troll some of my postings you will see that I have gotten rave reviews, and most people cantina visitors appreciate the information.
Chaple Starfox
Master Musician Extraordinaire!
Sing a lil song, tap a lil dance, and smile!