Tailor Archive
Thread: Logged in... bombarded with tells... logged out
Heh, I had a weekend like that too. You have my sympathies. I don't do BE clothes just yet, (just moved location and still setting up and gathering supplies to do so) and I get this tell hell on loading thing. I mean, really, what's up with that? Trying to push to the front of the line? Think you'll catch me in my shop and make me feel obligated to sit and wait there till you fly in from Yavin 4 before I run off to take care of my stuff? Umm, nope. I answer friend tells first, the requisite guild hello and then I juggle customer tells. But gee, let me finish loading please? LOL, Master Tailor = TEF. /Tell on first sight!
We're Tailors. Not Armor or Weapon smiths. Since when are boots and a shirt an emergency? Your armor broke on Lok at the Kimogilla village. You need new armor now. *points* There's the armorer's merchant tent right there, outside the village. Boy howdy was that guy thinking ahead or what? *scans the horizon* A Tailor merchant tent in sight? Umm, nope. If you deleted your boots and extra shirt to make room in your inventory, I am not hopping a shuttle from Tatooine, to Corellia, to Lok, to the Kimo village to make you a new pair of boots. The Kimo doesn't care if you are barefoot. You will be just as tasty and juicy with or without those boots.
I tried something new today. I had logged out sitting inside my crafting station. I had No Title on. I hit /afk > enter soon as I could. I ignored the tells coming in. I paled at the long listing of You have new mail on the chat window. I reset the /afk message to: I am out working on Pistol xps today. Please send all requests by mail and I will reply soon as I can. Thank you.
Every tell I got after that, was followed with an email ding. No repeat tells checking to see if I was really afk. I answered the mails inbetween shooting sprees while healing in camp. (Yes, I really, really was out working on my pistol xps. With a very hunky sweetie MCM who kept me alive long enough to get some xps. Besides, he's a pleasure to look at. Heh.) I advised a scout to offer his hides to my vendor. I sold several crates of RFPs to be picked up later. I arranged appointments for later custom orders. I referred folks to Tailors I knew kept BE clothes in stock. Etc. I never answered a single tell.
It was nice. I had fun today. I crafted not a single item of clothing. *tosses hair aside like Scarlett O'Hara* I will think about that tomorrow.
So what was the trick? Combat types respecting the combat xp grind? Or what?
Yep, I get that all the time too which is why I almost always leave my AFK message on.
It tells them to go to a website and choose their order and then e-mail it to me.
I send people to www.sheylara.com even though her prices are a bit low. Anyone have a better website I could send people to without the low pricing.
I am now overcharging to try and force people to go elsewhere. I have 10 million in my account and really just do stuff for my guildmates these days. Granted there are over 350 people in my guild and I am the only master tailor.
BTW I made all my money from vehicles, not clothing. Tailors undercharge so much that your can't even make a decent living as a master tailor without having PVP L33t boys saying I am ripping people off.
I just want city warn back so I can just shoot people that say I am ripping them off with my master rifleman skills. 
That was what it was like for me when I left in August (the tells didn't do it, it was the double hit of factories not working for weeks and decay and experimentation being removed) and now I've been back a few days.
Let me tell you one thing, it's a lot better to be bombarded with tells when you log in than to go back to scrambling for customers! I've been reduced to hawking dusters on the bazaar. (And just like real life, if you're not busy you end up going out and spending!I do have a pretty new droid though.)
My afk is on alot too, my latest one says " I am either in DND (do not disturb) or AFK mode right now. Please mail all orders/inquiries. TLC Mall (coords)." Of course I also had someone who apparently could not read, and still sent me a tell like clockwork every 5 min. I figure if the person is too stupid to actually read, they are not really someone I want to deal with anyway. Also, I do not answer tells received within 5 min of logging in, I simply ignore them and pretend I didn't see them!!!! That gives me plenty of time to get my afk up and running. I have two tricks. When I log out at night I change my title to something that won't result in tell-hell, like novice swordsman. When I log in I wait until i feel I'm ready to handle tells and then switch back to tailor, immediately putting up my /afk which says something like "I'm out of the shop or afk right now, please email all custom orders." I have also found that putting a rule in place for myself that I will take orders by email only and not tells helps me keep my sanity. I enforce it by politely telling anyone that sends me a tell asking if Ican "make them some clothes" that this is my policy and I will get to their order asap, and suggesting they browse the vendors in the meantime, followed up by emailing my waypoint. Most of my regulars are now pretty much used to it and email right off so I only have a few random tells to deal with most days.
N'Jessi had a really good post on this and other subjects, I hope she doesn't mind my linking it here
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=tailor&message.id=23927
It sucks when it seems as though you cannot escape the demand of attentionthat this profession can sometimes suffocateuswith...kinda like the chokehold of ole' vader...lol 
And let them know that sometimes you can't be there for them, because you come first! the /afk while loading tip is priceless. my current afk message says, "there is no such thing as a clothing/image design emergency. please email me your question/request. thank you"
if people can't respect the afk message then they should be /addignored
I know the guilt feeling from not replying to every single /tell sent my way, but I decided that if i wanted to continue to enjoy the game i had to get over it 
I pretty much have just stopped playing at night, and only play now during the daytime. Lots of good advice. The thing is I love making BE clothing and investing in the best tissues I can find. You can imagine how excited I was to buy 125 active bio-sensors at once, so I really enjoyed stocking my vendor full. The only problem is getting out of the shop! I wish I could load vendors remotely.
Avaleena, I really love doing weddings and that is my secret real profession in SWG. However I went from doing 2 or 3 a month to none in the past 3 weeks! But, like everything, I'm sure it will pick back up again in the near future.
I think it must be common for crafters to get burned out, which is why tailors (and other crafting professions)seem to come and go so quickly.
Although I have one faithful customer that grabs me when I log on.
. The only problem about having novice artisan title is the number of people who ask if they can train me as they are after AP .
Unfortunately changing my title wouldn't help in the least bit. Everyone already knows me and knows I am a tailor. LOL
Part of the problem is the continual questions about BE items, I repeat myself so much but I suppose not everyone reads the boards. Then there is one guy that keep asking me to make him a Shaolin Monk outfit... now what the heck is that?