Tailor Archive

You probably won't want to hear this, but he/she does have a point, poorly as it may be written. I mostly lurk on these boards, but I've started reading the tailoring forum more often since making the decision to become a BE.

The first day I read this board, I was met with the letting off steam thread, followed by three or four threads of tailors going at each others throats over pricing. After that were a few threads from non-tailors with no responses yet. This combination did not make a good impression. It actually had me wondering if the tailors I'd met in game - who have all been wonderful -were actually the exception and not the rule.

I've been lurking on a lot of the profession boards while I decide what skills to mess with, and this is the only profession that seems to turn against itself and its customers so easily. You might not like how he/she's saying it, but some of you really should give some thought to the basis of what's being said. You're not always making the best impression when these arguments get fired up.

Olioret,

Interestingly, most people DO respect tailors and their profession. Oddly, for you anyway, some folks walk into a tailor's shop and oooo and ahhhh over our creations. A lot of folks sit in my shop, listen to the performers that congregate there and chat while I make their custom orders. They are helpful to me and usually tip me very well after they buy their clothing. This last I have not ever figured out, but it appears they truly like the way they look and they appreciate my efforts and service.

I never have a problem answering questions but frequently I am too busy to sit and answer...what colors does that come in? *stare* Well...ok, let me count the colors. Forget how many colors we have on our major palette...but its usually easier if my customers tell me what color they want and I will try to find it. I'm not about to sit and describe 200 colors to someone in a typed medium. There are other questions that I find odd and difficult to answer as well, that I don't think need to be stated here.

What I will tell you is that I could careless if folks like you respect me or my profession. If you don't, its really your ignorance and your loss. I always think of respect as being earned...I've earned it from so many folks that one person like you doesn't matter to me at all.

Bridget

Smonkey, THAT'S how to post a critical post! Nice job.

I haven't noticed a huge amount of negativity myself, but it's probably mainly because of the type of posts I read (lots of "how do I" posts by novices to pros, which helps me because I'm not even a novice yet).

I think there's a two-fold dynamic in this forum: most people posting are master or very close to it, and most people are posting/reading/responding to intertailor issues. That means simple questions get ignored because everyone thinks someone else will respond. I personally seldom respond because I'm not sure of the answer. So legitimate questions get ignored, which doesn't help.

The other problem is that, unlikethecombat professions, there is an accute sense of competition for limited resources. Perhaps it's most similar to PvP, where one person's win is by its nature anothers' loss. The market for tailors is drying up, so there's a lot of competition for a limited market, and nobody wants to go the way of the architect, selling things under price. That leads to a lot of anti-price wars. It's a shame, but it really can't be helped. At best we could ask people to be civil about their price disputes, but, unless some game dynamics are changed (decay), this will always be a profession of direct, very close competition.

Finally, it's my guess that the average tailor's age is pretty high. This means that it's a field generally devoid of leet types, which means that everyone is unified in either being amused/annoyed by leets and kids. The "blowing off steam" thread is basically taking the piss out of leets and kids, not regular folk, but I can imagine that any kids or leets that wander through would see it as pretty offensive. Personally, I find that thread pretty darn funny, myself.

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kasuta wrote:

I don't agree with this. If you've lurked on the weaponsmith, architect, droid engineer, armorsmith, medic or dancer boards you'll find threads very similar to our 'goofy customer' thread. I can remember one specific weaponsmith thread on the Corbantis general board that sparked about3 pages of angry non-weaponsmith reaction about 'not respecting the customers'.

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I have seen some of those threads. I'm not trying to say that one single thread makes tailors bad or that venting is bad. It was the gestalt. That thread, combined with numerous pricing threads that became downright vicious, along with the unanswered requests for information, all in a row on the first page,are what painted tailors in an unflattering light for my first impression. In the past few days, things aren't nearly as cut-throat, but it doesn't change the fact that I have seen more venom in this forum at one time than in any other crafter-oriented one.

I'm not trying to bad-mouth or insult anyone, but I know that had I not met any tailors in game before coming here, and had only that first day of reading to go by, I would not have been as enthusiastic about choosing a profession that will work hand in hand with them. In truth, I don't really know why I'm bothering, beyond the fact that the future success of tailoring will impact the future success of my own profession, but I was hoping that a calmoutside opinion might cause a few people to take a step back and try to bring some civility back.

I agree with you that it would be a lot nicer if the boards were more positive. That being said, the negativity certainly isn't confined to our profession. If you were turned away from tailoring due to the negative posts you saw, and turned to another profession, I'd be curious as to which profession you settled on after reading their boards. The negativity isn't a Tailor thing, it's a MMORPG thing. This is where people come to gripe and, since we have a free market economy, more often than not they're griping at or about someone else. Andof course you have the people who get their jollies off of ticking everyone else off. I think the boards just draw a lot of negative people--when you're having problems is when you post, it's a way to let off steam. So, I do agree with you, but I just don't see it happening.

Another reason many of the questions posts may go unanswered is that many people post without searching for a previous post about their question.

The same topics and questions come up over and over, and many of the folks whoaremost capable ofanswering the questions are the people who read this board every day and have already seen (and probably answered) those questions repeatedly. I'd say 9 out of every 10 "hey, can someone help with this?" posts are on questions that have been answered many many times already. If I have time, I'll do the forums search for them and post a link to the earlier topics. But many of us get tired typing out answers to the same questions every couple of days.

Frankly, I agree with the comments about the "negativity" of this board - but all profession boards, heck, all MMORPG are the same. What is generally posted is just the opinion of a minority, a very vocal, and often "hardcore" minority, but only a minority. So, to some extent, I understand where hattori is coming from.

But regardless, the "you don't make anything that help us commandos/CH/AT-ST users/whatever blow up stuff fast so you only deserve to be treated like dirt" rhetoric is not really clever either ...