Tailor Archive
Thread: Guilds? A rant and a question
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ArthurDentOnBria
Tue Jul 06, 2004 1:58 pm
#14
Well, actually, those that know me in-game, know that I'm a big-time hunter. My alt is a former master-ranger who is now a BH/CH/ranger (100% combat and scout). And I spend a lot of time, well, hunting and exploring. My enjoyment of this stuff is primarily why I "downsized" my clothing and BE business last winter. But this is actually not something I miss at all from the guild, because they really never "hunted". They got missions and they killed things, they repetitively bonked many many quenkers and jantas on the head and pulled the cash register lever many many times, but that's really about the scope of it aside from the very occasional and generally poorly attended group hunt of a krayt or some such. One of the real problems with a PVP guild is that often times you can't hunt even when you want to because you have to babysit the base.
Songe wrote:
My situation is a bit different though because I also enjoy hunting
Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 07-06-2004 02:16 PM
NJ62
Tue Jul 06, 2004 2:10 pm
#15
Don't get me wrong. I've done the gunbunny thing (I have a master doc/master swordswoman). The great thing about gunbunnies is that you can just put them into hibernation when you don't have time for them. But yeah, uh... what was my point again? Oh yeah, I like hunting. I like big group hunting trips that involve "strategery" and not just "buff me and I'll just spam." Well actually I leveled my doctor without a tumbler at all (recently, not "back in the day") and mostly leveled sword without buffs... it's not only the crafting professions that have been trivialized by the grind.
So... because I'm rambling today...
So... because I'm rambling today...
- not all gunbunnies are smacktards
- it's easier for a smacktard to be a gunbunny because it's a no-commitment career
- I'm not surprised that mature tailor types would be more interested in an organized hunt than mindless bash-for-cash
- I'm not surprised that tailor-hunters are more mindful of organic resources as a goal in itself, even if the payouts are not necessarily as uber
Songe
Tue Jul 06, 2004 2:35 pm
#16
Hehe I totally agree with the gunbunny part, it's wonderful to be able to leave on vacations without worrying about missing a good resource spawn or getting a hundred mails when coming back lol. But it must be pretty boring.
UniformMarshal
Tue Jul 06, 2004 2:57 pm
#17
I found an rp guild and now I make them costumes for the soap operas
ArthurDentOnBria
Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:15 am
#18
I joined a guild a few months back, my first, and it was mainly gun-bunnies who were trying to get serious about putting together a crafting community. I bought into that, and tried pretty hard to make it work. But in the end there were too many problems to overcome and I eventually gave up and quit the guild.
a) Nobody actually bought clothing. Well, a bit of an overstatement, but essentially true. It's composite for all, and if you weren't wearing composite or couldn't afford it, you wore ubese.
b) Crafters were not appreciated at all, even ones that were vital to the success of the guild like armorsmiths and weaponsmiths. "non-combat" artisans were bitched at for not defending the precious base, bitched at for not having a template with uber combat skills, and in general not supported at all. People would demand a discount, and even when grinding their combat and killing herds of creatures, would not even think to harvest what they kill and bring it to a crafter. If there was a group hunt, it always was sold and put into the coffers, none of it went to the crafters. I had one guy suggest that I make him a set of clothing for free, and travel from Dantooine (where our city was) to Dathomir to deliver it to him "so he didn't have to interrupt is combat grind". We also had a problem with people actually bad-mouthing crafters in guild chat, and running off planet to buy their goods and encouraging others to do the same if they could find a lower price or something of better quality. You could pretty much count on there being a running dialog like "oooh, I just found some composite at xxx shop that is 81% kinetic, much better than the crappy 78% kinetic we have in our guild store, how many people want some? want me to send you the wp?" and that sort of thing, right in front of the crafters of the guild.
After I'd only been there a week or two, but had still managed to stock my clothing vendor full to about 300-400 clothing items, and a decent selection of bio enhanced stuff, one guy announced on guild chat "I need to find a place to buy good clothing, not **edit**ty stuff like we have at our guild hall". And this was actually one of the high ranking guild officials. owch.
c) Many of the crafters were "alts" to a "primary" gun-bunny template. You know the type. TKA/pistol/whatever who buys a second account, is given a million credits worth or resources and a crafting macro, other crafters are asked to support them, then achieves master a fort night later, then scratches his head and wonders what to do with the master title since he is too lazy to harvest or run factories. He then creates a vendor named something like "everything you could possibly want" proudly puts it in a very prominent location within the mall, and there it sits empty while he goes back to working on the "next combat template".
I think the common thread and connection between these things is that in general the combat pvp crowd tends to be your least mature players, and the crafters tend to be your most mature players, and the two just don't mix very well. Oil and water sort of thing.
I just joined another guild, and we'll see how that goes. Absolutely no pvp, or so I'm promised and we're also trying to be a little more selective in admissions, trying to avoid another "romper room" type of situation, but we'll see, my expecations are low. Hopefully just some people that like to do things together casually is what I'm hoping. My houses and shop stays where they are. Under no circumstances will those move. So we'll see...
Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 07-06-2004 02:04 PM
NJ62
Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:53 am
#19
ArthurDentOnBria wrote:
stuff...
Great bitterness I sense in this one...
No, seriously, this is exactly the problem with attitudes of the gunbunnies in this game. I think the holocron system was intended (but had an opposite effect) to address this to a certain extent - by causing the gunbunnies to walk a mile in our shoes. The fact is all of my best clients have been crafters at some point, or have a crafter alt somewhere (and doctors count as crafters).
Is there a way to remedy this? Well the first thing is that you have to remember that you don't NEED a guild or a support structure to have a successful shop or custom order business. My shop has always been independent of my guild. Banding together with other crafters can be highly beneficial...
Well I guess I'll tell y'all a bit more about my guild/town situation. As I mentioned above, my two non-tailor characters are guilded (and my tailor character probably would be too, if not for the correspondent PA requirement). However, after running a shop there, I realized that I needed to move out of the guild town. It was primarily an entertainer town, and while the entertainers love having clothes, there was a lack of serious crafters. I'm talking tons of empty vendors that just barked incessantly. There were no stocked vendors in the "communal tent area" and I had refused to put up a vendor there precisely because of the lack of others' stocking. Although I was making money, I wanted my goods to be in an environment where there were other serious crafters - and by serious crafters I mean well stocked vendors, maintained a few times a week. It wasn't a matter of business or traffic, it was a matter of legitimacy - I wanted to be part of an operation that had a reputation for excellence.
That was right about the time I teamed up with Syzygy. We agreed to move the shop to a neighboring city, and raised our prices... a lot
Of course now I'm breaking my own rules about stocking - what with studying and other RL issues (more on that later) I've only got about 300 items now. That's the advantage of a partnership I suppose We still haven't bought into the communal "shopping area" aspect. We have a large house decorated really nicely, because we wanted to have a salon (for ID *shakes fist at tents*) and displays (hawtpants), and we're working on a basement spa. The town was okay with the "alternative vendor arrangement" given the unique status of tailoring stock (we each have 6 vendors, 12 vendors total, due to concerns about future vendor limit/nerfs that have been unmentioned for 6 months, but are on all of our minds)
Uh, well what was my point? Oh yeah, guilds and businesses don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. You can be in a guild and also separate your guild from your business, by geography or by rules.
So to recap a few simple rules:
- avoid smacktards
- avoid smacktards
- run your business how you want to
- it's a game and not a job
- avoid smacktards
Message Edited by NJ62 on 07-06-2004 12:53 PM
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