Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: Retirement is where every Master Craftsperson is headed
I did. Couple of days ago. 85% of the people were great and very understanding. The other 15% were boneheads. That aside, it felt too much like work to me.
As masters leave, You’ll have a few come up and take over for a while and then they too will look at the millions of credits siting around, scratch their heads and say "And what exactly am I going to spend this on?"
They too will ask, why would I need to be insulted by the masses because a given crafted piece offers 1% less protection or 1% less damage then they have now. People are so happy to put a comparison in the trade window to show you how craptastic your crafted item is (Just a note: There’s a lot of chance when it comes to crafting. Not every crafted piece is perfect. Id like to tell some marksman "You missed that tusken raider! Everyone else hit it, you’re the worse marksman in the group. Here look at the log! Joe_marksman hit it for 600! And right above that you missed! You stink.")
They too will be hit with 50 tells an hour. To the point you have to be rude to some people and not respond. They will remember fondly how nice the "/R" command was, because they wont be able to use it again
Guys better enjoy the master crafted stuff. Because if things happen the way I think they will. You wont have many on the servers in 3-4 months. Just a guess but think about it .. there is way too much money, there is no advancement left for the master craftsperson. What is the incentive to stay in business? To continue crafting? Whats the differnce between 10 million and 100 million when upkeep costs are couple thousand a day?
There is none. None at all. Make nice with your armor smith or weapon smith, soon it’ll be only the crafters friends that get the good stuff. I tell you weapons will become so freaking rare that you’ll all have to become Teras Kasi masters.
Customer service....What the hell is that? Players want "good customer service"? When did I become a employee of Sony? Craftspeople are playing a game! Not punching a clock. I didn't think by playing a game I owed anyone my best possible customer service. Dont get me wrong, Im not saying be rude, but why do they expect us to stop everything that we're doing to help them? (If it were only one or two...no big deal, it just try helping 10 of them at once)
The money thing...."I'll Make it worth your time" or "I pay real well" or even "Cut me a deal". Is it just me or did this get real old? First, no players out there have money like master craftsfolk, none of em. That "super generous" offer of 10K that they are offering me to drop everything and go make a weapon for them? I retired with so much cash that my structures are paid for through the next year. You might do it to be nice, but the guy on the other end is always called "L33t_babykiller_48" or something.
Game bugs....I got blamed for them all the time. From items going poof to vendors taking too long. None of us wrote this code...just being held responsible for it. Again, forgot to pick up my paycheck for customer service rep from sony.
Im looking for a laugh, please give me your best story about dealing with the masses. Or tell me what a jerk I'm being, then tell me how long you've had a shop open, and how you deal with all of this 
Ive heard the partner solution before, but you still end up punching into work to fill the vendor. Where's the "game" part of that? (And your name is on the crafted piece, so you get the tell)
I'm not fully understanding the point of this thread; are you trying to deter people from playing weaponsmiths? I understand that it may be difficult to keep everything in order, but coming on these boards and telling everyone that it's going to suck is really saying "Don't become a weaponsmith."
I, for one, have had issues with being a weaponsmith, but generally the people I've had the problems with are very understanding, and I offer to reach a settlement that satisfies them. Most of the time, it's just a simple return, or maybe issuing another piece similar to the one they had before.
Customer service....What the hell is that? Players want "good customer service"? When did I become a employee of Sony? Craftspeople are playing a game! Not punching a clock. I didn't think by playing a game I owed anyone my best possible customer service. Dont get me wrong, Im not saying be rude, but why do they expect us to stop everything that we're doing to help them? (If it were only one or two...no big deal, it just try helping 10 of them at once)
Now I realize you don't want to be rude, but if you DON'T offer customer service, that IS rude. Customer service isn't something you get paid to do; it's a free service you offer your customers to be polite, and to encourage repeat business. If you went into a store and got what you needed at a fair price, but the person helping you was pushing, and obnoxious, and downright annoying, would you go back? Perhaps, but you'd hope that particular employee wasn't working at that time. In addition, you might have had a good experience with buying that particular item, but if a game bug DOES destroy it, wouldn't you want something done about it? You should tell everyone who asks to be patient with you, and that you'll work on doing somethingto come to a comprimise, but if they refuse to cooperate, set them to your ignore list. It isn't worth your time to be constantly hassled by someone whowon't listen to you, and isn't going to understand how the problem occurred in the first place.
The point is, though, you should always give them a chance. If after that chance they don't accept what you offer, ignore them, and report them if they become abusive.
I semi retired a few weeks ago after breaking 13 million, and just made big guns on the side, t21s and stuff like that, and broke 14 mil. But even now, after having my shop closed for several weeks, after not selling weapons 90% of the time I'm on, i still get swarmed with tells, and when they see my AFK stating im not making weapons, they think they'll be clever and send me an email with what they want. Then they send me a tell later on asking if their weapons are ready. Talk about obnoxious. Its just far too much hassle for no real purpose anymore. I mean, what the hell am i gonna spend over 14 million on? A whole lotta nothin, thats what.
If it werent for the fact that Im pretty much the only one on my server who can make Flamethrowers, I would stop making weapons entirely, except for me and a handful of other folks. Oh well, hopefully the required resources will appear again, or at the very least launcher pistols will start giving heavy weapons xp soon.
Ace can't ever retire. He's my mentor! Every time I think I am going to pull outmy last strand of hair in frustrationdue to the complete and utter stupidity of somefolks,I just send him a tell:
"Hey Ace, my friend, how's your day going"
Then I get a story like the one above, and I know there is someone dealing with people far dumber than I ever imagined - so I feel better.
The problem is one of design. It was poorly thought out, which is surprising as much as I admire Holo. Basically fighters, and their weapon needs, advance much faster than the ability of weaponsmiths to craft the weapon. Once you hit novice carabineer, you can use all the carbines in the game. But a weaponsmith can't make them all until he gets to master. So there is a dramatic demand for weapons that only a few can make.
The other problem is that as a master, you can always make better weapons than anyone below you. So even though I can make a DLT20a, no one would buy it if they can badger you into making one that does twice as much damage. I stand by my claim in beta that schematic revocation was necesary. I suspect people imagining themselves as masters complained because they wanted to be able to be "self-sufficient." This is the dark side of self-sufficiency. If you could report back that you can't make that weapon because you are a master and had lost the anbility, your life would be much easier.
Starlin wrote:
So, Ace - in reply to your really funny post (and it's funny because, I'm sure, it's too true)...
Does this mean that you will stay a Master Weaponsmith for the 'long haul'?
I'm curious because I just got Fire 1 + 2 experimentals and money is still an issue for me (I understand that at my 3rd experimental it'll be better)...
I'm reading all of the people who grinded or sold TONS of stuff up their way to Master - and that's really kool - congrats. But for us who aren't that dedicated, or whatever, we don't have a chance in *edit*.
If, however, all of you masters start to retire...that's good news to us 'newbs'
Honestly, I was mostly joking a bit in my post, not everyone is a total moron. You will find far more complete idiots in this game and intelligent, enjoyable people are far and few between. But they are out there, and they do keep me going. Just even one discussion with a new customer, who is intelligent and very willing to listen to my opinion about various guns and damage-types, and thanks me and shows his appreciation for my time, that can make my day. Lower-tier Weaponsmiths have just as much problems, if not worse, instead of being constantly asked about stock, you have jerks harassing you about your guns not being as good as a Master's, or constantly asking when you're getting the next tier in firearms, yada yada.
There are other things that do keep me going, potential changes to our profession help a lot. I'm very optimistic about that. And resources, when they are worked out and shifts are reasonable, they're sometimes pretty rewarding. I mean, it might be pretty irritating stockpiling Gallinorian gemstones and other nonsense while I wait for the elusive Alantium Carbonite Ore to show up just to make that T21. But when I finally make it and really wow my customers and see their excitement, it's really rewarding, it's not always about the money.
And there's always lots of testing to be done, lots of new things to learn about our profession, that can eventually benefit us and show us that hey, maybe we're not that unbalanced, maybe these things have pretty easy fixes and maybe some of them weren't even that bad in the first place. Things like first seeing how effective the DX2 Pistol was against Chitin, so much more than the Scout, that gave me my first beacon of hope that this profession isn't as gated as it might have seemed. So I want to see the changes.
But above all, I have been blessed with some of the most level-headed, reasonable and educated Master Weaponsmiths on my server, who made it possible for me to continue selling my guns at a decent price even though I wasn't the first Master. And they continue to make it possible for me now that I am a Master, and I don't have to worry about trying to peddle my Master-level Scouts for pennies by next week. Most of them support the greater good of the Weaponsmith community, and have more things on their minds than just dollar signs.
And I try to keep that system going, as Kalladin99 here considers me his mentor, and I watched his character Nadis go all the way up to Master. There are a lot of things I couldn't have done without other Weaponsmiths on my server, like those first few weeks after release, when Jennai and I spent hours trying to figure out how to use final schematics in factories, and another smith, Kammi, was nice enough to forget about the whole "spiteful towards competition" thing and showed us that we couldn't load crates in factories. 
So, yeah, while I may be morejaded towards customers as a whole, I still don't regret it, it's still a lot of fun and I still plan to play a lot more. Sorry doll, you're still gonna see Ace's Fine Quality Firearms 'round your parts, I won't be driven out that easily.
"It will give all the non-factory bug weaponsmiths time to make some money off of all that grinding (including myself). "
Get over it. You're not that special. Attaining Master Weaponsmith is possible without the factory exploit. If you're that concerned, get off your lazy arse,and grind up. I did.
Having said that...
Seriously, why not just specialize? As in, only make Carbines...or only make Tier 4 Firearms...etc. etc. etc. You still have plenty of market.
Plus, why not coddle some apprentices? Yeah, that's right, take some Novice Weaponsmith and help him by sharing some resources, or even dump some credits on him. That'll make his day. Heck, give him access to your factories...or loan him some Harvesters. There are PLENTY of ways to help out an up-and-comming Weaponsmith.
Now that everyone can get all but the hardest guns in Marksman (with the exception of Commando and BH)and the last ones at novice specialist... eveyone "NEEDS" the biggest guns.
As a Rp thing, my wookie weaponcrafter speaks 'a rare dialect' of wookie ( I can never spell the real name right). I type "OOorr aaggh ooowwwrrr". a lot, and people leave me alone.
Switching of f the tags doesn't work in the long run.. your name is on every gun you ever made... soem players are smaer enough to look. I've sold enough DLL44's ,scouts and DLT 20's to almost get the crafting 1 box. I get tells daily for DX-2's, and I have no tag on at all. Of course my AFK message is "roooo grrraaaahhh rooo, ooowwwr."
Which causes them to group up and check to see if their languages are broken... I'm sure I'm responsible for at least 1 bug report. heh heh.
-T
Well I have to agree with the post, I had tells al the time to make stuff so much so, I couldn't just do a simple mission without tells about stuff I am not even close to being able to make yet. So after only having the title of Novice Weaponsmith for a week I dropped it for Sharpshooter, and now am only getting tells from customers I already had.
/rant on
I never got into Weaponsmithing just for the money, I did it so I could make my own weapons and weapons for my friends. I am sticking to that too, selling stuff is nice for the cash, but I will not let someone give me crap over it, you dont like it, go somewhere else, cause I really don't give a crap! That is my attitude. If they want to buy my stuff buy it, there it is. Other wise you are wasting my time. That's right, I have 0 customer service attitude, cause this is a game, it is my time, and I will play and have fun with it, not play customer service butt boy for abunch of greedy little kids. I have done enough of that customer is always right in the real world. I will show the d*mn customer were he can stick it, that is for sure.
/rant off
That was fun. So any how, I know that crafting will totally suck in this game, So why base your whole experince on it. I meanI didn't know anyone in EQ that always just crafted stuff all the time, You went out and fought, in groups and guilds, out after there quest and next adventure, hit places you have never been before, killing big stuff, and on and on. That is what makes these games fun. and my goal is to be there doing that. Not sitting around making and selling guns all day to all those people who are doing that.
I think this is a fairly common and inaccurate misconception. There are a lot of lazy people out there, who are perfectly willing to buy sucky weapons at low prices from the bazaar, instead of going and hunting down a master weaponsmith. The "casual player", as most people call them, would generally rather buy any old scout blaster and shoot nurns or whatever, than find a shop or commission a master weaponsmith.
I should know, as I sell tons of crappy stuff at sub-1000 prices. It fills a niche in the market, and lets me come close to break even while I work on technique. The trick is to get Pistols 1 first, THEN work on technique.
(On the other hand, I have a backpack full of "Aardustry 22-84d Sword" crates, from which I drop 3 on the bazaar of any town or planet I visit for 400-800cr, and it gives me a nice background "living" income for the necessities.)
Ace/Logix:
That was, quite possibly, the best reply to one of my posts in ANY FORUM EVER.
Thank you for your thoughtfulness and your obvious time spent on the note. So there _are_ intelligent people out there... 
As I've mentioned (and have read) throughout the WS specific forum (plus some galaxy specific ones) it's kind-of tough for the up and commers. Barring resources, the masters do have the ability to make anything that we can make, at a much better quality due to the fact of the better experimentation.
If a guys gets novice marksman and he sees two guns for sale, 1 by a master, 1 not by a master, and he has the capabilities to use both guns ('cause certificates are out of whack) he's obviously going to buy the masters' one. It will be better.
Someone had mentioned something along the lines of a schematic loss - pretty good idea. So when I have the ability to make D20s, I lose the ability to make D19s. This still allows the novice to still make some sort of money (if the D19 is decent). Others have mentioned that there be an 'elite' class of WS. After master, you pick 1 tree - Carbine, Rifle, Pistol, Unarmed, whatever. And you stick with it (you can, of course, un train it like all of the others - but at some sort of penalty).
That's a good idea also, because it'll then get rid of the cookie-cutter weaponsmiths (I think I might have mentioned that in another post).
But, to get back to the original topic, how much money is enough? Once you have x million credits in the bank, who cares anymore? I guess there will be people who stick with weaponsmithing just to get the best bang for the buck (with minerals and/or experimentation). I _hope_ to be one of them.
I just hope that I don't go broke en route...
Star Lin - Flurry.