Tailor Archive
Thread: Tailor Nerf? Colorization for all?
For example, if the tailor who created the item recolored it, in the same menu we'd get an option to change the item name. And if a different tailor recolored it, the item name would automagically revert to its schematic name. A new field could be added to the examine window called "colored by:" and it would list the name of the last person to re-color the item.
That way we could change the names of our own things that we altered, no one's brand would be left on an ugly item, and the customer would know who was responsible for the nasty dye job.
donnah42 wrote:
Just playing devil's advocate here, because this is an interesting discussion. But for those who are against this idea because of branding issues, how would you feel if the system addressed that?
For example, if the tailor who created the item recolored it, in the same menu we'd get an option to change the item name. And if a different tailor recolored it, the item name would automagically revert to its schematic name. A new field could be added to the examine window called "colored by:" and it would list the name of the last person to re-color the item.
That way we could change the names of our own things that we altered, no one's brand would be left on an ugly item, and the customer would know who was responsible for the nasty dye job.
An interesting idea but it'll never happen. Lately all we hear about is the database spaceproblems - they'll never add another field to a zillion items of clothing to track who did the dye job on it.
For me, it's not just branding.. it's that colorization is the one way we can differentiate ourselves. It's also the only true form of decay out there.. the customer gets tired of a blue oufit, wants a green one, and has to buy a whole new outfit. Not simply flag down a tailor at the starport to give them a new look for some small amount of money, if there is any charge at all.
Ri'a
Anabelle wrote:
Avaleena, there was a problem with the color palette for composite armor that came up in the last patch. Many people's colors went wonky. In order to fix it the devs made it so that anyone can change the color of their composite armor for a two week period.
That's what got this discussion started.
Doh! My bad *bonks* herself on the head. I misunderstood
Eh oh. I would hazard a guess that this "feature" will be pointing in our direction soon. The current discussions of maybe -- depending on who gets it andat what level, etc.,and ain't never gonna happen might be turning over into simply -- When.
Friday Feature
In our next major publish (6), we will allow Master Artisans to craft a Vehicle Customization Tool. Any player will be able to use this tool to custom hue the body and the trim of their vehicles. Simply target your vehicle (or one you have been given permission by the owner to customize) and use the tool. Each individual color customization takes a "charge" off the tool.
Beware, these colorsmay change over time. You may need to get periodic touch ups to keep your vehicle's custom color.
Additionally, characters will soon be able to own three vehicles in their datapadsinstead of just one.
Wekai wrote:
I'm a noob (non-holo) tailor, but I don't think this would be the end of the world at all. I can see a very cool system where clothing dye packs are available from tailors. You get a new schematic with different levels of experimentation, and each dye pack has exactlyONE use, with a slight chance of catastrophic failure ( resulting in either a random color or item destruction ).
Pause. Time-out. Wait. Unless you are a Droid Engineer or have the foresight to envision how this will affect your steady business, don't say this is a close to a good idea. It will drastically change our business for the worse.
I have customers that buy clothes when they want to change the colour pattern of their outfit, I have customers that want a few different colours of the exact same outfit for different occasions. How many of us have sold 12 Fleshwraps to a dancer that will use the smoke effect and change clothes macro to appear in a rainbow of colours? How many have customers that take 4 grand ball gowns because the colour choices are so good?
If I was a Droid Engineer, I would cringe at all the tells they must get per day:
- gUy6T9: Dood!
- DE: *thinking* Lord, give me strength
- gUy6T9: Hey, yo dood! I got ur bot n it needs piant, **edit** fix now111!!!
- DE: *cries*
With this fix going in, I might actually consider taking my profession tag off. I have never done this, and enjoy the rapidfire tell-hell I get every now and then. It adds to the enjoyment to suddenly be in a flurry of activity.
Dex1138 wrote:
Well, if it does go through for clothes, we can always choose not to do it
Yes, but we have no control over other people changing our items. Unless it is implemented to be the creator only.
Ri'a
No need to worry about Image Designers. There was little interest generated, and most of it was negative (as in, not interested in dyeing clothing or painting armor).
As for the dyeing of clothing by Tailors, I would support it only if it were limited to dyeing clothing you have made yourself, and of course limited to colors you qualify for.
Pros? This would serve three purposes:
- It would help with custom order booboos. When the color is off. And really sometimes an item I make doesn't come out the way I expect (e.g. leather can take color badly sometimes).
- For those who would like to make factory runs of popular items and dye them out of the crate.
- For the times you decide to get creative and make a piece of clothing in an ugly color noone wants.
Cons? Many tailors have signature colors and put their brand names on their clothing. They might not like having their clothing brought back for a redye. People might buy a *insert item* and bring it back annoyingly often for redyeing.
tsuya wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the correspondents are supposed to be our representatives? I would certainly like to think that if it came down to it, they would put aside their personal feelings on the issue and and fairly present the opinions of the tailors they represent. If the majority was clearly saying "No, we don't want this" then I would hope the correspondents would tell the devs "No, the majority do not want this".
I wouldn't worry about that. After all the time and effort all of the correspondants who are also tailors have put in on behalf of tailors, I think it's actually a little insulting to suggest that they'd push for something that they liked but we all hated. We've been lucky that we've had very good correspondants, so they deserve nothing but respect and confidence from us.
Last time I checked the poll, the "colorization by customers" was universally hated, but "colorization by tailors" was only losing by a few votes. So I also wouldn't say that almost all of the non-correspondant tailors are completely against any kind of colorization.
And I bet that almost all of us can agree that we would never want to push for a new system like this over important things like new schematics and experimentation.
donnah42 wrote:
tsuya wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the correspondents are supposed to be our representatives? I would certainly like to think that if it came down to it, they would put aside their personal feelings on the issue and and fairly present the opinions of the tailors they represent. If the majority was clearly saying "No, we don't want this" then I would hope the correspondents would tell the devs "No, the majority do not want this".
I wouldn't worry about that. After all the time and effort all of the correspondants who are also tailors have put in on behalf of tailors, I think it's actually a little insulting to suggest that they'd push for something that they liked but we all hated. We've been lucky that we've had very good correspondants, so they deserve nothing but respect and confidence from us.
Just to clarify, what I said was in response to someone else's question. AnitaSWG had asked "Please tell me this isn't something being considered seriously for tailors (since we now have two correspondents who supportthe idea)?" My answer was trying to discount that, and if I in any way insulted any of the correspondents, that wasn't my intention, rather I was trying to point out to her that this was most likely NOT the case.
As for Kwee's post, I think if this HAS to go through, this would be the most acceptable method of implementing it. I could live with that. It leaves me the option of saying no if I really don't wish to do it, and knowing that my clothes would not go to someone else to be recolored, nor would someone else's clothes come to me. It also would keep the colors limited according to one's level of ability, and that makes it a bit easier to swallow as well.
"Part of the reason people come to me is because I have an eye for color and can usually get what they want the first try. I'd hate to see that circumvented, personally--as it is, it's one of the things that distinguishes tailors one from another."
/agree. Well said.
"This is the one thing that would make me leave tailoring. I do not want to just be some sort of terminal where a customer walks up, designs clothes and I hit OK to make it in the end or anything like that. Not even those occasional customers who make me want to set my computer on fire and then go off and cry somewhere would make me want this."
/agree again.
"The day some other tailor can recolor something I made is the day I quit tailoring. It's that simple."
/nodsnodsnods
"Please tell me this isn't something being considered seriously for tailors (since we now have two correspondents who support the idea)?"
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the correspondents are supposed to be our representatives? I would certainly like to think that if it came down to it, they would put aside their personal feelings on the issue and and fairly present the opinions of the tailors they represent. If the majority was clearly saying "No, we don't want this" then I would hope the correspondents would tell the devs "No, the majority do not want this".
"This is depending on weather or not I want to clutter my house with hmm... 200+ shirts?
Sorry, but no."
I found a simple enough solution to that issue. I make sure the clothing I have on display is in a good variety of the basic and popular colors, as well as having a display of simple shirts in the colors of the rainbow +2 (red, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, gold and silver-the basic colors). When someone says I want "Red" I point to the red shirt and ask, "like that"? They can then respond with a yes or a no. If no, then the next question is, "lighter or darker than that one?" WIth a bit of patience and a few questions I can narrow it down to 3 shades or less generally. Then I simply go with the "up the middle" one. Once in awhile it takes me a few tries to get the right shade, but often I hit it on the first try, with minimal amount of wasted time or resources. Besides, even if it's a high-end combine and it's wrong, it's not like I can't just put it on the vendor-Someone else is likely to find it just "perfect". If you are reluctant to waste resources on a high end combine to get to the right shade, use a low end example. When done right it should never take more than a few tries to get it right. As to the color matching issue, I make sure I name my colors something I will recognize, and even write down the numbers for colors I use consistantly. For example when filling orders for such-and-such guild, I make a list noting what shade I used for each color, so next time they won't be coming back asking why the gold is lighter this order than it was the last. Matching another tailor's colors can be harder, but usually I just ask the customer to allow me to "see" the item I'm matching. (I have them pass it to me). I find this a much easier way to match it, although it still may take a try or two due to differences in shade from item to item. Like others have pointed out, it's my eye for color and ability to color-match that set me apart from some of the other tailors. It's also the time and effort I am willing to put into making each customer happy.
"So whats the difference between say a player coming to you with a miss-matched set of clothes that he bought and asked you to change the color? "
Very simple answer to that. If the customer did not have the option of changing the color and he was coming to me, he'd be buying MY clothes instead. And after having to grind my way up the Tailoring tree to have all those pretty colors that the lower level tailor hasn't got yet, I'd rather quit tailoring then be recoloring 800 novice items in bright red. It goes against my personal businesspolicy. I will not ever for any reason buy any item with another tailor's name on it, why would I want to be coloring some other tailor's clothing? Sure, you say charge a big fee...but of course some holo tailor will start charging 20c for the same service and there goes more business out the window. Plain and simple, adding the ability to recolor clothing post-manufacturing will hurt sales and further cut into our profits just at a time when our expenses look like they are about to go up. We are given the colors we have in a carefully thought out manner, that limits the desirable colors to the higher end tailors for a reason. This is one of the things that sets a Master Tailor apart from a novice, and it's the way it should be.
"Since when is tailoring just about making money? I have no desire to recolor cheap bazaar junk and NPC dropped items. I also have no desire to recolor stuff made by the tailor 300m away from my shop who offers only one shade of red on her vendors, and has "conveniently" priced all of her items 150cr less than mine. I'm also not going to recolor items made by the tailor who sells all master items on the bazaar for 3K.
Oh, won't that be nice combined with the new 6K cap on the bazaar? Customers can buy any ugly thing at any price, and have their local tailor turn it into something attractive.
Is that what master tailors really want? To spend time recoloring miscellanous items of clothing that a customer has been carrying around in their pack? It has no appeal to me at all.
As for funky colored stuff that doesn't sell.. well.. as I said earlier, my items are usually made in standard colors that are attractive. If a customer asks for something unattractive and then I have to remake it again, I destroy the first one. I don't put it on my vendor. /shrug"
Again - well said. For me it's not all about making money. It's about running my virtual business in a professional manner, meeting new people, using my talent, etc. Most of my customers are repeat customers. I don't have the lowest prices, nor do I aspire to, yet they gladly pay without question. Why? It's not just about price for them either, it's about quality and level of service. Ask any of them how often they find me in my shop to personally greet them and ask if there's anything they need help with. I am very busy as such, and about the last thing I need is the line of customers and inevitable /tell hell that this change would create. This is not what I went into tailoring for. And with all the business I do, I find that the customer that requests the "funky" colored stuff is really pretty rare, so the few times I do have to deal with that it's really not that big a deal. I do the same thing, I just destroy any that come out wrong. I have very little loss as a result of having items in colors that won't sell, simply because I make a point of keeping up with the trends on my server and make most of my vendor items only in the popular colors. If someone wants something "funky" they have to custom order it.
"I'm a noob (non-holo) tailor, but I don't think this would be the end of the world at all."
No offense, but grind your way to Master and see if you feel differently. You have a LONG way to go.
In closing, no matter how you look at this subject, if you really stop and think about it the serious tailors in this game will lose. Whether it means loss of business, having our name associated with something that is altered by someone else, the further devaluation of Mastery of tailoring, or just the pure headache created by such a change. I see nothing positive coming out of it. First the vendor nerf, now this. I really hope this does not become a reality as I cannot see it as anything but another slap in the face to tailors.
My answer was trying to discount that, and if I in any way insulted any of the correspondents, that wasn't my intention, rather I was trying to point out to her that this was most likely NOT the case.
That washow I read your post. And I appriciate you all sticking up for us. I'm always glad I'm a tailor, as this community is definately a pleasure to be a part of.
Message Edited by Anabelle on 01-18-2004 07:19 AM