Musician Archive
Thread: Instruments need to decay
Making instruments is really the only way we make money. God knows tips are not paying the bills. I am wondering why they don't decay like the majority of player made items? Guns, armor, clothing, etc. all decay over time and as they are used. If I buy a saxophone tomorrow, will it not require any repair or maintenance over the next year? Hardly.
There will reach a point where the market is saturated with permanently-perfect instruments and no one will buy any more. I believe making them "consumable" items makes sense.
Desti Nova
Master Musician - Bria
Destinnova wrote:
Making instruments is really the only way we make money. God knows tips are not paying the bills. I am wondering why they don't decay like the majority of player made items? Guns, armor, clothing, etc. all decay over time and as they are used. If I buy a saxophone tomorrow, will it not require any repair or maintenance over the next year? Hardly.
There will reach a point where the market is saturated with permanently-perfect instruments and no one will buy any more. I believe making them "consumable" items makes sense.
Desti Nova
Master Musician - Bria
Yeah but whos going to by them if every musician can make there own? If your going to sell to a newbe musician and instrument they wouldn't have any money in the first place to by an instrument. Even if they did make them decay they wouldn't be enought business once everyone become Master Musician.
clothing does not decay...armor loses durability, as do weapons but the clothes stays at 1000/1000 for PC'd stuff, and whatever you find on a body of something it stays at that number too. I've been wearin some of the same clothes for 2 weeks fighting in them, I do not wear armor. They're just as is. I think instruments should decay as well as clothing. But I am happy that they currently don't as I get asked to craft instruments from many people and havign to redo it wouldn't be an enjoyable experience for me...of course there are those of you that would love to so I wouldn't hold my joy above your pain (it would be fine with me in other words)
Goin off on a rant here now....
While I feel musicians pain with money, I go out and do something about it instead of complaining about the situation you find yourself in. Do you see medic's complaining about money this much? Because lord knows the healing classes both don't recieve money unless they do it themselves. In real life, if you depended on tips ONLY to keep you goin you'd most likely not be living in a house. Do some delivery missions, do some destroy missions, do some gig missions. Do something other than sit there and talk about how you hate not having money to buy houses or whatever.
I know a dancer/image designer who has so many freakin outfits, and bought probably 90% of them herself. She runs deliveries in her off time, now that she's higher on the ID tree she can make money with that too, and spends most of her time doing that. The point is she didn't sit there and complain. Myself I have taken the aster Entertainer/Master Musician route, and am there now. But I didn't spend every moment of my virtual life in the cantina. I have finally decided to take up TKA so that I can explore safely without need of protection from others. I plan on stayin neutral and doing my music thang wherever I'm requested if I want to.
You wanna get paid for playing music? Do gig's for players, find a PA willing to open their Guild Hall as a Cantina in a good spot. It will take time doin it this way but at least you're workin toward helping yourself instead of complaining about no way to make money. Medics and Doctors have no such luck AND they have to use far mroe skill poitns further gimping themselves (in terms of multi-professioning)than a Musician needs to. We can be at least 1 other elite profession with ME & MM, if you just go MM you can be 2elite in addition to MM.
To put it bluntly, there's so many options that complaining about it instead of doing something ispure laziness to me. I would understand if there were no options, but there are tons.
??? I had a great post all written up, but the board monsters ate it!! 
So, the short version. Master musicians can make their own instruments, so there will not be a great need for instruments. The only ones who will want them are those that decide not to go master and just go up the knowledge tree, but I'm assuming this will be a small number of people. Also, any newbie musicians also, but that isn't a big market either.
In light, I think instrument crafting should be put in the artisan profession. Making instruments decay and putting them in the artisan prof will make them that more sought after. And this is coming from someone who likes to make instruments and sell them. I also think that we should be able to color our instruments. Imagine having a nalargon that was completely different from someone else's! 
Now, taking instrument creation out of the musician line would make the devs come up with something a lot more better for musicians. In a way it doesn't make sense for us to make them, maybe perform maintenance, but not actually produce them.
We are musicians, we are artists. So why do you want us to be part of the materialized univers like Artisans?
We play music and therefore we know how to make great instruments ! Making instruments is a real job by itself so, where do you think it's fit in the artisan tree ?
Do you hear about Stradivarius violins, whose were made in the 16th centuary (or 17th) and violonists still play on it today ? So where is decay rate here?
But if instruments should be put in artisan tree, they should be experimental too, and the should sound from crap to very nice sounds... You fed up with starwars1 Slitherhorn, and what about if they play it on crap instruments?
And to earn money... Try to travel around... There's a lot of empty cantinas/theaters or full with dancers... Make a show there, change songs, change instruments... I earn money that way... Big cantinas are good to improve your skills, not to earn money.
Gaptia Lightwave
I've found that selling Fizzzes can make some pretty good bank. Slitherhorns are too cheap and anything more advanced than Fizzz has a smaller demand.
The trick is to diversify where you sell. Make ten and go all over the galaxy putting 1 in a bazaar in some of the larger cities. Check the stock for competitors prices first. If they are really low, buy ALL of them and resell them (not all in one town) for your price. If they are high, undercut them a little. I sell a few Fizzzes a day now...not rolling in cash, but it's enough to support what little expenditures I have as a musician.
Decay very slow and not to 0. Instruments should not be decaying to 0 in any time frame of this game unless you leave them on the front porch of your house. Especially the horns you make out of metal. Perhaps after 5 years of RL game time we might see one instrument die cause the owner just played the snot out of it. e.g. Willy Nelson's guitar.
The effect of the decay might be less healing ability? or less experience? or both? Scaling the decrease in stats would be difficult perhaps.
This would do two things. It would make experimentation and quality of materials matter in instruments, and it would open up the expansions profession--Instrument Repair (possibly clothing repair for clothes?). I don't know if that would be a full, 4-branch tree or just another 4-box column of entertainer. On second thought I guess it would fall under elite or hybrid professions.
It would be a small number of players taking those skills, but that's not a problem. The decay would be slow and the few that want that skill would have steady business but not overwhelming.