Overwhelmed!

[Zoiya]

Kyskie, Wynthor and I are very happy that our services are so well liked and requested by the player base. However, the person behind these merchants and a few other NPC's is having some real-life issues and will be cutting back until things get better. So in order to facilitate this, we're going to be setting a limit on how many items you can get worked on.

From this day forth, you can submit an item to be restrung ONCE per month. This goes for both merchants. Don't submit an item to Kyskie and then two days later send another to Wynthor. Pick one.

If you are a new player and you need an outfit made, send a letter to Kyskie. We'll still provide these services but I'll only be working on new player outfits on Sundays.

My spring clothing collection will be out after the festival closes. We don't want to overshadow the excellent items that have been put out for purchase.

Any questions, please post here so we can address them!

Thank you!

[Avedri]

Is this retroactive for requests as well?

[Zoiya]

No, I'm going to try to finish the current requests in the next few days. Keep in mind that I'm doing this while I schedule for surgery and other not fun things...as well as fighting the common cold. You'll get the requests already submitted.

[Kent]

I guess the suggestion that one GM be in charge of Kyskie, and a different GM take charge of Wynthor, has already been bantered about and declined?

(Until recently, I believed that it was a different GM in charge of each - I spent time pondering to which of the two I should send my vambraces.)

[Kent]

[quote=Zoiya]

If you are a new player and you need an outfit made, send a letter to Kyskie. We'll still provide these services but I'll only be working on new player outfits on Sundays.

Any questions, please post here so we can address them!

[/quote]


My character (a Viali) auto-started with a pretty interesting designer outfit (thank you), much of which I still wear. Do some races not auto-start with one?

[Zoiya]

All races start with outfits. Some more grand than others.

Alterations and customizations are a great perk that we love to offer, but it takes time to take care of the requests. The GM's are quite busy. This is the best solution.

[Rias]

I think one per month is plenty, even if we did have the manpower to do more than one (and in fact we do, technically - I could be doing custom requests myself - we just prefer to use that manpower on other projects). A lot of effort has gone into shops that sell various clothes "off-the-shelf", some of them even customizable via the automated custom system, and it's been sad to see these often go ignored due to people knowing they can just send in custom mail requests and get something that way.

If you can't find the style you're looking for in existing shops, feel free to make suggestions for additions. It's nice to put things in stores where more than one person can take advantage of the creativity that went into it. I also enjoy the idea of having to travel to find things of different styles. I'll add that suggestions, like those Avedri has given, for instance, make it a lot easier for us to add more shops so everyone can then enjoy more variety. While I'd prefer to move to more purchasing from regular shops and less custom mail-ordering, that doesn't mean we can't add more shops.

[Avedri]

[quote=Rias]I think one per month is plenty.[/quote]

I dunno about that!

But really, one of the things that makes this game great is you can customize your character almost as soon as you roll up. And as the season changes and we have events such as River’s Solstice party, it’s nice to have the option to know, “Oh, I can just get an outfit from Kyskie!”

I’ve tried not to abuse the outfit requests (Zoiya may feel otherwise) but I would hope that even with the one-per month limit that when GMs are feeling froggy they would pop up ala wandering merchants and offer services for one or two description changes. At least until Avedri has the ability to make all the things.

[Rithiel]

One of the reasons merchants no longer show up (like Simon, Herrick, Flint, and Miu) is that nobody really needs them to show up because Kyskie is so much awesomer. With this constraint it's likely that the traveling merchants will show up more often.

It's also possible that this will push us along to think more about tailoring and expanding leatherworking (but no promises). It just means you'll have to prioritize and think up that one piece that will accent an otherwise store-bought outfit. I think it will also make outfits more impressive if you had to do more than simply ask Kyskie for something cool (yes, I know some people tell her exactly what they want but a lot don't).

[Eraene]

I never buy any sort of fancy equipment because I prefer not to read a mile long description of what it is every time I look at my character. But for the record, I very much prefer the shop customization and do use it when I buy something for my characters, more often than not. It's the first time I've ever seen such a system and it's very nice to use. More options regarding those would be much preferrable over any other method of purchasing items.

[Rias]

Just to clarify, I didn't mean one alter (or "restring") per month, period. I'm just talking about mail-in orders that you can do by the seat of your pants whenever you want.

Like Rithiel was talking about, I'm planning on bringing some of my own merchants back around to do custom work now and then. We all got a bit lazy when Zoiya came around, and ended up pretty much leaving everything merchant/alter-related to her. Sorry Zoiya! I also think that the unlimited opportunities made people take it too much for granted, and some people seemed to have a new request at least once a week. Making alters/restrings a little rarer will, I think, make them more special.

Lastly, as far as I can tell, Zoiya really enjoys doing the custom work. When her life is a bit less insane I'd guess she'll be bringing custom merchants by fairly often. We're just limiting the lazy, effortless, mail-in request stuff.

[Rias]

[quote=Avedri]And as the season changes and we have events such as River’s Solstice party, it’s nice to have the option to know, “Oh, I can just get an outfit from Kyskie!”[/quote]

I think it's safe to say we'll be more than happy to accommodate for special occasions when they come up. For the Solstice party before last, which is the one I was much more involved in, I loved bringing by merchants and designing custom outfits and gifts for people. It's a blast helping people get all geared up for events like that.

[Kent]

I understand, for the sake of quality control, there has to be a hurdle in place before adjectives can be added.

But how about making it easy to take adjectives off? Something like this needn't burden Zoiya and other GMs.

I was just now thinking of suggesting that the GM's recruit a volunteer to assist the GM's in the simpler alterations, eg removal of adjectives.

Then I had another idea, the proposed UNSTRING command, which could remove permanently an adjective from the item in your right hand.

For example, Kent holds a pair of pleated black wool trousers in his right hand

He then types in UNSTRING WOOL

Kent now holds a pair of pleated black trousers in his right hand. When examined, they are still made mainly of wool. Kent, if he wants, can take the colour off with UNSTRING BLACK, and so on.

If Kent makes a mistake, too bad, he buys another pair and tries again.

[Avedri]

One of my favorite merchant services has been "Just one thing" - which allows you to personalize off-the-shelf items just a bit.

For example if a shop sells a pair of drawstring trousers crafted from pale violet silk - you could change them to be a pair of drawstring trousers crafted from vivid orange silk or crafted from pale violet organza.

[Acarin]

Zoiya, I do appreciate all your hard work although I have as of yet to mail you a request (both objects I've had you make, I've asked Kyskie for in person).

I think one item a month is more than fair, and I'm personally looking forward to seeing more merchants come around due to this change. One of the best things about having items worked on is often the interaction with the merchant and I feel like this has been lost to some extent or at least become a lot less frequent.

I wish you the best in your upcoming surgery and hope your real life issues resolve both quickly and favorably.