Tailor Archive
Thread: decay???
are we building ourselves out of business?
as it is now every item we make is there forever.
this really sucks considering how many tailors there are, we have a limited customer base considering the server only has about 3000 people on it. with more items being made each day it will quickly come a time when crafting clothing will not be needed because there is plenty enough to go around already. yes custom colors will probably still sell okay, but gone will be the days of stocking black and white dusters and doctors dresses adn expecting them to sell. seriously i thought this was just a bug and would be gone soon when i first started tailoring ,its been a few months now and i havnt heard anything about it. so whats the deal on clothing decay?
If you look through the pages you will find this is a topic that has been battered to death over the last few weeks since some poorly written patch notes were released stating that clothing decay wouldnt be implemented due to public demand (or something like that).
What it actually linked to was the devs removing the experimentation ability on tailored clothing due to it having zero purpose.
There was a riot from tailors when this first occured on the swg discussion boards from players correctly pointing out that no clothing decay would result in a flooded market in regards clothing. The devs replied saying they were still considering ways in which to implement clothing decay: one suggestion being that it decayed if you were killed or incapped (most people saw the short fallings of this idea)
Anyway, if you read the post above from our correspondent entitled tailoring wishes, dreams and schemes you will see that the issue of decay is still being pushed to the devs.
Kind Regards,
Tally, Master Tailor
This is not only a tailor issue. As a dancer I've noticed that non-dancers say that because dancing clothes are non-decayingwe never have any ongoing outlays. Thus we are regarded as cheapskates and beggars because we (supposedly)have no expenses and exist on tips. If clothing decayed, they could not say this about us anymore.
I don't know where the developers came up with this fanciful notion that there's a lot of customer demand for no clothing decay. Personally, my experience speaking with people on the forums is the exact opposite. All I know for sure is that no developer ever polled me or anyone I know.
Beery wrote:
This is not only a tailor issue. As a dancer I've noticed that non-dancers say that because dancing clothes are non-decayingwe never have any ongoing outlays. Thus we are regarded as cheapskates and beggars because we (supposedly)have no expenses and exist on tips. If clothing decayed, they could not say this about us anymore.
I don't know where the developers came up with this fanciful notion that there's a lot of customer demand for no clothing decay. Personally, my experience speaking with people on the forums is the exact opposite. All I know for sure is that no developer ever polled me or anyone I know.
Thank you Beery for your support. I know I've met many non-tailors who feel that decay should be implemented.
The dev statement about how customers were against decay was based on how decay was done in beta. In beta, all clothing decayed over time, no matter if you were wearing it or not, and no matter if you were even online or not. We were all against this for pretty obvious reasons. So when they say that they had overwhelming response against decay, they meant that everyone hated the way decay was implemented before. It was a pretty misleading way of putting it...
uhhh - you do realize that nonworn decay happens to stuff in inventory, vendors and bazaar too - right?
Do you REALLY want your clothing depreciating in value as it sits on the vendor to sell?
Stuff that is not sold quicklyshould decay - that's the way it works in real life, so why not in the game? Tailors can reduce the price on stuff that doesn't sell, just like clothes stores do in real life. Anyway, I haven't seen many clothesvendors with much inventory. It's not like this will be a big issue, unless you're filling your warehouse with brown workpants.
Somehow I think certain players have issues with how the physicaluniverseworks - they want to escape from those annoying realities that make their life harder. Part of the reason why gaming exists is to challenge the player - without a challenge there is no game. What challenge is there in being able to produce clothing that never decays? Surely part of the fun is in figuring out what items will sell, and figuring out which ones will not. If you do a poor job of figuring it out, you lose $$. As the game now stands, you have no worries, as a tailor, about decay, so there's no reason for you to act as a real tailor would in regards to inventory and pricing.
We staked that monster in beta - I really don't want to see it return.
With USE - absolutely needed - not being used - nope. Sometime realism has to take a backseat to playability. Folks that only play a few times a week, pure decay over time is bad - very bad for. People resent it and always will - and for good reason.
Just trying to play casual and keep up with maintainance is bad enough, this literally rots the clothes off their backs (and other things like resources too).
Realism and playability oftengo hand-in-hand. Anyway, do you hear the pistoleers complaining that their guns decay over time? No. And decaying guns areone thing that is NOTrealistic - but the feature ADDS playability because of the challenge it creates. Somehow I think a mountain is being made of a molehill here. If players only play once a month or less, then they should expect that their clothes will be severely decayed. It's not like players have hundreds of clothes anyway, and what does a newpair of trousers (or a simple new dress)cost? Many of them go foraminimal amount ofcredits on the bazaars. It's not like this is an enormous or world-shatteringissue - if you need clothes, you can get them. Right now we have galaxies full of impeccably-dressed dandies walking around in perfect clothes simply because, no matter how poor they are, they can always spring for one good-looking (non-decaying) set of clothes.How much fun is it if you make a ton of money as a big businessperson, but you're not able to show off your wealth because the local village idiot is able to buy a suit of clothes as good-looking as yours? Yes, this IS indeed a playability issue, but you're on the wrong side of it. The game would be infinitely MORE playable, and more fun, if clothing decayed.
I think we should try a nicely-implementedclothing decay before we cast judgment on it. It's really easy to be a naysayer when a feature hasn't been implemented - it's possible to bring up many fears that seem reasonable. The problem is, usually 90% of thefears that arise over potential newfeaturesare groundless. One only has to look at the argument over the proposedentertainer '/denyservice' feature to see that.
Beery wrote:
Stuff that is not sold quicklyshould decay - that's the way it works in real life, so why not in the game?
With a halfway decent storage technology, unworn clothing will last for a very long time, especially synthetic clothing. But even with 100% natural fibers, I'veseen clothing from the 1800's that apart from a little dust was perfectly wearable (for a small person, that is -- human size has increased drastically in the past two centuries).
Even without good storage, if you walk into a JC Penneys and ask them how much clothing they throw out each day due to spoilage, they're going to look at you funny.
Clothing does wear out with use, and I went on strike over the decision not to implement some sort of use-based decay like armor and weapons have. But I also strongly protested time-based decay when it was implemented in Beta. It's not fun, and it doesn't make sense at all for durable goods.
Another bad thing about time-based decay is that there are several special non-craftable items in game (things that are rewards, like the rebel endor-style helmet you get from doing a quest) that you can only get once from the rebel theme park.Or the Tusken Raider gear that's loot only. Most people don't wear those, they display them in their houses and PA halls. If their special loot or reward items decayed while sitting on display in their house, they'd lose their special (sometimes irreplaceable) items pretty quickly. This would make almost everyone really upset, because one thing people like to do in games like this is collect items. If they wear their special clothes all the time, they should decay like normal, but if they want to preserve them on display they should be able to do so.
Also, I'd hate clothing decaying on my vendor. It was hard enough for me to come up with a good pricing structure, I don't want to have to make another price list for 80% condition, 50% condition, etc. I could see the headaches coming, angry emails saying things like "why does the blue jacket on your vendor cost only 500cr, but the black one in the same style is 1000? you're ripping me off because I want the black one!" That would be not fun.
If decay is time based, most tailors would also raise their prices. We'd have to be continually replacing decayed vendor stock, so we'd use more resources. And we'd have to pass the cost along to you, our loyal customers. So now customers would have to pay our current prices, plus an upcharge to cover the cost of everything we couldn't sell because it decayed too fast. This vendor decay would also affect selection, most of us would stop stocking less popular schems in less popular colors on our vendors because the less popular things always decay before they get bought. So it would be really inefficient to keep making them, listing them, and watching them rot.
The final reason I don't support time based decay... what happens if you don't play for a week or two? What if you go on vacation, if your computer needs replacing, if you just decide to take a break from the game? Your clothes sit there, happily disappearing, and you log in and they're all gone. Not cool. Sure you can buy more, but you also lost those couple of weeks of income. Unless you've got credits saved up, you could concievably have to run around naked trying to do missions just to buy your old stuff back. If I went on vacation, I could come back to most or all of my vendor stock gone, my clothing displays in my house gone, and my clothing gone as well. I'd have to start completely from scratch.
"Even without good storage, if you walk into a JC Penneys and ask them how much clothing they throw out each day due to spoilage, they're going to look at you funny. "
Is anyone here arguing for a level of decay that would result in clothing being thrown out by vendors on a daily basis? I think not. This is a crude straw man indeed.
"Another bad thing about time-based decay is that there are several special non-craftable items in game (things that are rewards, like the rebel endor-style helmet you get from doing a quest) that you can only get once from the rebel theme park."
Certain items of clothing, specifically armour, should not decay. Taxidermy should not decay. Anything that is extra-durable, or that is treated with long-term preservatives (such as the stuffed fish I've seen on some vendors' walls) should not decay. But we're not talking about those things here. We're talking about tailor-made clothing that is meantto be worn, not displayed.
I think we're running off at a tangent with discussion of trophy armour, etc. Such things need not be affected by decay. It is not hard to make exemptions. To bring such things up as ifdecay isan all-or-nothing proposition is false. It presupposes an almost insane level of myopia on the part of the developers. Each item of clothing needs to be approached individually based on its durability, then it should be assigned alevel of decay, fromno decay(for especially durable clothing) to a level of decay which will destroy the garment in a couple of months (for especially fine clothes such assilk dancing outfits).
"Also, I'd hate clothing decaying on my vendor. It was hard enough for me to come up with a good pricing structure, I don't want to have to make another price list for 80% condition, 50% condition, etc. I could see the headaches coming, angry emails saying things like "why does the blue jacket on your vendor cost only 500cr, but the black one in the same style is 1000?"
Then you get to... horror of horrors... ROLEPLAY!! (oh NO!). You mark up the clothing at first to take into account wastage. Then youmark down old clothing relative to its age. Youtell the customer that the older clothes are 'old stock', 'last year's model', etc. You tell them to look at the quality of the new stuff. All this will ADD to your experience roleplaying your character.
"If decay is time based, most tailors would also raise their prices. We'd have to be continually replacing decayed vendor stock, so we'd use more resources. And we'd have to pass the cost along to you, our loyal customers."
Oh no! Whatever shall we do? Look, if customers can't afford clothes, they won't buy them, and maybe we'd find tailors keeping their stock in house for a bit longer. Time after time I go to tailors and they have nothing in stock that I want, despite the fact that I have plenty of $$ to pay for it. Why is this - because demand outstrips supply. You seem to bearguingto keepa market imbalance that causes the game to be frustrating.
"The final reason I don't support time based decay... what happens if you don't play for a week or two? What if you go on vacation, if your computer needs replacing, if you just decide to take a break from the game? Your clothes sit there, happily disappearing, and you log in and they're all gone."
How much time are you taking for vacation??? 3 months??? We're not talking about a 100% decay rate every two weeks. Why must these discussions be beset by straw men and outright fabrications which are used to instill fear in the reader by assuming that the developers will alter the game to a ridiculous degree. No one is suggesting a decay rate that would make your clothes disappear at the rate you seem to be suggesting. Sure, if you taqke a 6 month trip down the Congo in a canoe, your character'sclothes may not be there when you get back. Let's try to keep some perspective here, and not assume that any change will bring the sky falling down on our heads. If some aspect of clothing decay is found not to work, guess what - the developers can change it back. This is not a life-or-death decision that can't be reversed.
I get the impression that many players are only interested in what they can get out of the game in terms of credits or experience. Well what you get out of it is proportional to the depth and care you put into it. Clothing decay will make your characteract more like a real person in a real world. Without clothing decay, you're missing out on a lot of depth and making the game shallower all round. Who wants that??? I don't know of any game that sells itself based on a 'shallow gameplaying experience'.