Trade Sill Treasurers in PoK, Fail

[Necro-Tailor]

The TS Treasurer introduced with the latest patch are sorry to say, a severe disapointment :. Lets examine how the new "service" they provide compares and constrasts with the options currently available.

In terms of, Ease of Use, Accessability, and Utliliy(ie how actually useful they are)

Ease of Use 1/10 The one is a courtesy, to recognize that someone actually tried to do something. Beyond that, they offer no ease of use at all. Complete text interface. What is this 1980?. Note only does every operation require a cludgy text for EVERY possible single item, there it no way to easily or smoothly interact with them-unlike a banker or merchant. No graphicall list, log or indication of what you have hidden away on these awkward "storage" npcs is offered. They offer all the benifits of a bank, with absolutely none of the ease of use of one. [edit] Acutally, I think even this is being overly-generous. They are broken down into 3 seperate NPC's that offer a cross-linked grab-bag differnt, hard to use storage options. So I cant really even say they offer all the benifits a bank\guild vault


Utility 2/10 Some trade-skillers may find that transferring 100's of patterns 4 at at time to provide a useful service in terms of freeing up bank space. It is by no means at clear how haveing our patterns "disapear" into a text based void is actually helpful.Before today, yes patterns took up several bags worth of space and there was some loss of utility there, however, this was offset by the fact I can visually SEE and retrive my patterns at any time, any above all easily. I can actually SEE what i have, how many, and I know wherre they are.These new NPCS offer none of that. Regular bank beats these NPCS for utility value hands down. The TSer storage problem could have been fixed far more readily by the simple expedient of adding more regular old-fashioned bank slots.

Accessability. 4/10 Banks-Univesal throughout Norrath, TS treasurer(s), located in one out of the way location in PoK.


Compare this to current or possible methods of storage currently available

Banks, Universal, highest utility value, ease of use

Guild Vault. Good access, large capacity, easy to use, Cannot hold ND items, but great for components, the "other" side of the TS storage problem.

Tavid Dennant in Guild Lobby. An interesting example of the form I was hopeing? the TS storage would take. An easy to use, accessable NPC that can store ND items in a bank\merchant-like format. He is perfect for what he was made for, storeing collection task items from SoD, and TS storage should have used this format, but instead they went with the text-mud hand 100;s of single items to a hard to use out of the way NPC.


After I had handed in most of my venerable patterns, all an examineing what it takes to retrieve them later, I just said f@#k this and left them there. I will make a new bag of venerable patterns and put them back in there old spots. These NPC's are easily the most awkward and user-unfriendly form of storage I have ever seen. Maybe a re-think is in order?

[Sharrien]

Well, that's disappointing.

[Scuzz Zilla]

Tavid Denant style would have been exceptional.
I'm disapointed as well, but enjoing my slowly growing bag space.
I have 3900 individual patterns to turn in. not including my whole books. probably 1200 done. My wrists were not thrilled about this.

[Gorse]

Although more negative than I felt, I would agree with the overall assessment. I am happy that I can clear some space in my bank, even if I am not thrilled with the impelmentation. My excitement after finding and interfacing with the vendors was considerably less than when I logged in 15 minutes earlier.


Gorse

P.S. The vendors are located immediately outside of the library entrace on the opposite side (aka in the alcove North of the library entrance) of the old cultural vendors.

[Kuzko]

Totally agree. Total fail. I have already spent enough of my life working tradeskills, I will not waste an entire day or more handing nearly 14,500 patterns (I have used some) to then have no frame of reference of real stock, besides "a lot of em, over on that guy in the PoK. Handed in 4 to test, then cried a little inside at the prospect of that many clicks, once I remembered how many patterns I have on my account.

I love tradeskills, I got hooked on this game via fishing and baking on roommates toon, of all things. After all that has been done and already mentioned above to make our lives less sad (Tavid for quests, new tradeskill UI, relatively easy skillups, guild banks for our mules) this feels like a slap in the face. And yes, I have slept on this response, and am even more annoyed and upset than yesterday.

Just thought of yet another thing that was touched on in the OP mention of accessibility. These guys are in an inconvenient place in PoK. With a nearly 40% success rate on UF cultural, it means that one would have to take so many "just in cast back up patterns cuz i WILL FAIL A LOT" to our hometown...instead of just going to our own bank. And then, back to PoK library to free up those bags we spent the time transferring out of in the first place.

Again, total fail. /rant of but not using these worthless NPCs.

[Scuzz Zilla]

A note to those with a ton of lesser symbol patterns/armor patterns to turn in: It may definately be better on your wrists to redo the easier quests, for the book, which you can turn in in whole (well ten wholes)
I destroyed my blessed bag o symbols, and will just re-do the quest

[gggrant]

You do realize that Tavid Denant doesn't actually store anything, do you not?

He is a merchant. He functions similar to Old Man Mackenzie who checks what missions you have accomplished before he shows you his inventory. If you haven't completed Z mission OMM will not show you items 1 trough 16. Tavid does the same thing with an additional check to see what you have in inventory and will not show you what you already have. He will sell you any of the quest pieces that you have already earned. You don't have to sell him any of these peices, you can destroy them if you wish. As long as you don't have it and you have earned it, he will show it to you. When you buy one of these items, he creates it out of thin air and hands it to you. When you sell him one of these items, he destroys it. He is not storing anything.

Now I am not saying I like the interface. I am not saying that I like that the NPC's can only be found in the PoK. I am saying that I will work with what I have been given. If you find it more convenient to keep those patterns and molds in your bank, by all means do so. I, personally, am using the NPC's, warts and all.

[Aldier]

Tavid Dennant has 2 different scripts/setups.

The first is what most people were hoping for, the visual merchant style... I sell him 500 patterns, I can go back to him and he will sell me back the 500 patterns I sold him, regardless of what slot/type/level, he would keep track. This is NOT what was used.

What they DID use, is the script part that Tavid Dennant offers for the 20 free culling vortices. The 20 temporal molting cells. The containers to change, add, remove SoD essences. It is also a text based system. You say "cell" and he gives you a temporal molting cell to change a luminessence to an incandessence. He then tells you, you have XX number left. If you ask for the wrong thing and hand it back in, he adds one to your credit and says you have XX left. This is what they copied and modified for the plethora of tradeskill patterns.

Personally, I think I may keep a bag in my bank with my racial armor molds, racial armor patterns and the most current symbol. So 3 bags instead of the 7 I was using. All those lower tier symbols that no one ever wants anymore, I can put on the storage NPC and free up some slots. 99% of all the requests I get for cultural armor combines are for current gear. That may be different for others, but for me I can store away the old stuff that is just taking up space and only need to keep the newer stuff in bank and more easily available. At least this is how I am going to do it based on how the NPCs are acting.

[Shadrok]

Lol ... thanks for posting. I figured tanstaafl and hadn't checked into the new storage NPCs. Now I won't bother.

I long ago felt the space crunch and destroyed all excess symbol patterns after I was done. I even destroyed the armor patterns on my plate/chain wearers and the molds on my silk/leather werers. 2 bags: one for patterns/molds I may use and one for books.

When I did make cultural for sale, I dinnae find it worth the bazaar trader slots and tradeskiller bank space. If someone asks for it, I'll make it, but otherwise, my 4 bazaar mules have better items for their combined 320 sales slots.



There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
(Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress)

[Xerius]

Due to the feedback on the new NPC, I had not bothered to use him until last night, when I made a chestplate for myself, discovering along the way that I was out of chestplate molds.

I fed all my remaining armour molds to the NPC, which was a bit tedious as expected by what I had been hearing, but I liked greatly the option that was given to feed an entire book to the NPC, as I had several books of symbols that I had been refusing to make for people due to my unwillingness to open up yet another bag of patterns, and it was the work of only a couple minutes to feed those to the new NPC too. I assure you, the ninety second trek up to the Library for a pattern is much preferable to having eight bank slots taken up with armour and pattern molds, and simply walking up to the NPC and asking for the pattern I want by name seems a comfortable interface, better for me than scrolling through a list of close to one hundred patterns in a more vendor similar interface.

The new system is admittedly a bit brute force over elegance, but I do not dislike it overall.

[Drazzminius]

I'm totally annoyed with the Tradeskill Treasurers. Between the trek up, the constant feed to put the patterns in and the means to accomplish them both I see them as a hassle. At the very least, I would have imagined that the Treasurers would have been placed at each of the Tradeskill locations to at least make them readily accessible.

Overall - 3 out of 10, in my opinion.

[Ngreth Thergn]

I cannot make it like the Tavid Denat merchant interface. We just do not have the technology in the game at this time to do it that way.

I admit it is convoluted, and painful if you already have your patterns, but it is what was available to do *NOW* without a code solution that is not likely to happen at all.

So the other option I had was nothing at all, which is still your option to do. I.E. not use them.

[Lilandraa]

TS bank ftw, would it be so hard to create a new bank for each person, like an AA or make it something you can purchase. Only items that can be dropped into would have be marked tradeskill or at least give us the ability to buy more bank slots?!?

[Shadrok]

I dunno. Interface is a little clunky, but ...

I recently made some molds and patterns. I'm not going to store them in the bank. So, I gave them all to a treasurer, rather than destroy them. Now, when I next need molds or patterns, will I decide to just make a new set?

[Merlaina]

While it was annoying to place all my patterns on this guy (and I didn't... I placed 100 of each and destroyed the rest) I'm still grateful they are there. It freed up around 16 bank slots for 20 minutes of clicking, and wasn't any worse than making metal bits the old fashioned way. If you ever had to do tradeskills before the new tradeskill UI, this should seem like a pleasant trip down memory lane. I would have preferred a David Tennet style interface, but I'll take what I can get.