Texturing variety?

I think that making the bulk of Arkadian clothes non-customisable was a mistake as it discourages use of texturing.

 

hard to find a buyer for textures, i usually tt the textures i craft.

 

I'm starting to have multiple Ark texture BPs and I'm skilling on some of them to bring the QRs and Success rates up. But like harmony said, it's hard to find a texture buyers right now so I mostly tt what I craft. Also, I usually need the peds pretty quick to go back out hunting so I don't have time to wait that much and place at auction.

I'm happy about Snapes comment on what "might" be coming up with Ark clothing and textures. Would be nice to see more of those around.

Cheers and keep it up.

-Wolf

 

In the past I used to create, color+texture and sell over 200 pieces of clothing per month.
Through the auction and in my clothing shop in Genesis on Calypso. (No shop here yet)

With the introduction of pre-colored clothes like the Arkadia ones and the (very low TT value) next island clothes the demand for colored/textured clothes has dropped significantly.
My sales are still going very well, but the market has shifted: I have jungle shorts, island shirts, shades, trailblazer boots, etc. flying out of my shop at TT+1 now.
The Arkadian Desert, Arctic and Jungle ACA/IFN clothes are very popular as well, but the customized versions (because of the added coloring/texturing costs on top of the crafting costs & higher TT) are selling a lot slower.

One other thing that is boosting the pre-colored clothes sales is the displayed MU, a lot of players are clueless when it comes to coloring/texturing costs and clothes MU. They see a customized shirt they like, check the MU and either 1. think it’s overpriced because it’s above the avg MU and don’t buy it or 2. still have no idea if it’s a good deal or not.
With the pre-colored clothes the MU has meaning, making buying decisions easier. An unusually large proportion of the sales in my shop are Arkadia & NI clothes, because players are actually noticing the low prices on them. I’ve been giving the same good deals on my colored/textured clothes there for years but it just doesn’t have the same effect on the sales.


I used to color/texture everything, but now 50%+ of my sales are not customized anymore.
As a result, I went from using 100.000+ nice textures per month to around 40.000, and I stopped blowing up my entire pedcard on actively skilling it up…. And I believe I’m one of the only nutcases that skilled up coloring/texturing 100% naturally lol.
Compared to previous years, I’m not even buying 10% of the amount of textures that I used to. I still do the occasional smaller skilling up runs, as I love my profession and I really enjoy creating new things, but most of my ped goes elsewhere now (crafting & hunting mostly).

With the developments in the fashion area the last year... we now have cheap pre-colored clothes, low TT clothes, dresses for a few ped, (black!) pre-colored vehicles, dark blue/purplish paints with rec. lvl 0, colorful textures with low level requirements, etc.
With the way things are going I’m expecting it won’t be that long until some planet introduces cheap pre-colored black clothes, coats with 5ped TT, near black/burgundy paint substitutes with low level requirements, etc. etc.
So I think the demand for (higher level) coloring/texturing will decrease even more in the future as more alternatives become available. It’s a real pity, but overall fashion is becoming more affordable for a lot of players and that is a good thing.

 

for a while I was bringing texture to calypso at the beginning and doing great sales but pirates have ended that for good

 

I see several reasons why cloths sales are not as fast paced in sales department.

First is the textures tehmselves. All be it they are awesome in and of themselves some simply do not go together, some combinations can be hidious, specially when colors have been applied over them as well. Certain crafters might want to rethink the profession they have chosen as one or two may actually be color blind. Now add to that the pricing on alot of this stuff and that instantly turns people away no matter how good something looks.

The problem I see in the crafting profession is that it is the only one in game that thinks it should automaticly make a profit on everything.
Every other profession takes their losses skilling up, they take their losses trying to sell their returns. I have yet to hear a crafter tell me they set thier prices for the cost of their individual items. They price to make up for the loss to make several to many of the item. If the pricing were set more to a reasonable inbetween I am sure alot more of it would sell.

I understand everyone would like to be making money but even the most greedy people in the real world of sales and marketing understand there is a limit and a distinct line where things will sell or wont sell. Try thinking like your customers. YOU may have the money to put in game and invest in a crafting profession and maybe even a shop or 6. Most people that play are from countries NOT yours and live by many different standards. Some value money alot and are thrifty. Other may not have very much at all that they can buy items in a video game. Still others may have that money and look at the value they are getting for the cost and walk away laughing as some of these prices for an set of pixels is insane to be honest. So maybe step back and look at who your customer base will be that you wish to target. If you wish to have high end clothing out at high crazy prices.. dont craft tons of it. If you wish to make steady income become JC penny and mass produce many duplicate items and price them to sell in volume. That way you get skill AND a stable return.


Guns, armor, and faps are a necessity to a profession in game.. tools are a necessity to many professions in game.... Clothing is an option in game.. there fore FAR less demand to have it.

 

The discussion is about why certain textures sales are slowing down/not selling, not about slower clothes sales. Clothing sales (at least from my experience) have not slowed down at all.

I’m not sure why you believe crafters are greedy and make a profit on everything? Just like hunters and miners, the crafters also take their losses. You already have two crafters in this thread confirming they are TT-ing their results, how much money do you think they’re making?
Crafters do not set a price to cover all the losses, we are bound by the avg MU just like everyone else is. And usually, that means selling at a loss.

Now, if you meant to say texturers/colorers are greedy and make profit on everything:
You’re just misinformed, they are the most expensive professions out there.
Most players do not realize what goes on behind the scenes: As a colorer/texturer, you need to gain levels to unlock new colors. Often several levels are in between new unlocks, and to skill up there are two options: do large skilling runs and lose 10%TT+full markup of the materials (fixed TT return in ped so no markup from loot at all, just a very small chance to loot 1 enhancer), or chip in which is a bit cheaper.
Without doing either and only offering service & selling what we make, we’d be stuck at the lower levels forever. There simply isn’t enough demand for it to advance far without throwing large amounts of ped at it. Those are the skilling costs most players do not see:

I’m lvl 18.9 in coloring atm and I’m looking forward to unlocking navy paint at lvl 19 which will take me lvl 23.4 to max out to be able to apply it perfectly for others. The price for me to chip in those few levels to offer navy applications: 5000ped+, and it’s even more expensive to skill it up naturally (clicking away materials & TTing the results, which I am doing. I estimate I’ll be using over 1.000.000 high TT paint cans to reach it, or 10x that amount if I use low TT paints as they give less skill).
And that’s just a few levels, not even very high in the profession… from my current level, chipping in (the cheapest way, but not that many skills are for sale so these are low cost estimates): 15K+ to reach pink, 110K+ for burgundy, 1200K+ for black.

So if you visit a colorer/texturer and they’re asking you to supply all the materials (returning 90% of TT - a small fee/tip)… it’s not greed, it’s not cost covering…. It’s usually just a very friendly person with an expensive hobby trying to help you out.

Now, let me clarify… I’m not complaining about the costs at all, I knew about them when I started. And I know I will never reach the top levels because I simply can't afford it. But I love creating things (+hunting) and I believe that in this universe we should be spending our peds on doing the things we like =)
But if you think all crafters are greedy & making profit, I suggest you try it for yourself.


P.S. Sorry to derail your topic Bjorn.

 

I have been crafting and selling for awhile now and I thought this way at first also and it does seem like great logic. I would have a good crafting run and put items in my shop for 1 ped over tt that normally was 125% plus because I thought this was a great approach, I already made my ped so share a bit and offer cheap items.

That's where things went wrong however. One person came in bought my stock I had on shelf out. so I restocked saying cool he is planning some long runs playing, couple days later same guy bought me out again. I thought this was wierd because the items he bought should have lasted at least week or two unless he played 48 hours a day. So I went to look in auctions and guess what, he was selling the stuff in there for 2% lower then the normal markup.

So lesson learned never offer less then 2% below Market Value or else you just find people skimming some profits and reselling your stuff you could just as easily sold for that price.

Now to topic, I do believe the influx of nice looking low value clothing has effected the color and texturing market but there still is a market for texturers and colorers. Now there is a good point that the new items should not use the colors that require uber skills to achieve because those people worked hard or spent a lot to get that skill and it is being made more worthless for them, as the example was stated why are black clothing and the like being introduced at such low costs? It makes no sense IMHO, sure it looks nice but it does make it pointless to get to that level to color your clothing black when you can just buy black stuff on a whim from a broker.

That Ark Urban clothing looks awesome but I do think it should not have been black but a lower level color, or should have cost a lot more.

But I still buy clothing from the colorers and texturers now and then because some of their creations really look nice, I just bought an item from Dessy off auction not more then a week ago.