Clothes / Wardrobe Diversity
Thematic or technical limitation?

Bonus points for saving on overall items in the MOO.

A while ago there was an @idea about some kind of super-closet organizer that might be a luxury item.

i also think most people who get vatted reguarly dont rly pay attention to clothing as much as well, as why put in the effort if ur clothes are immediately lost or damaged. it is a pain having a lot of clothes though, and i would really love a wardrobe organiser feature or something similar if bloat is an issue

adding on to it being themely though, im not so sure - even poor people today have more clothes, whether its because of extremely cheap fast fashion, thrifting or otherwise. ive often actually tailored well-worn things then said ive thrifted them because i think it makes more sense IC than buying them outright, and i wish more mixers would do stuff like this. i also think that itd be themely for corpies to be buyiing and throwing out clothes regularly that somehow end up in red, to be worn by mixers

-Clothes are expensive, and in the mix, you'll definitely lose them.

-Tailoring can be tiring to some players.

-There's limitations on how truly custom something can be, since you can't actually write messaging for a specific person, which defeats the entire point imo.

I posted about this before, but I think two things would be very beneficial if we want people wearing more diverse threads. And before I forget, the argument that people in the mix are too poor to afford more than one is... Not good. Both IC and OOC. People in the mix do have money, and remember, clothes doesn't necessarily mean diamondweave. Depot clothes are a thing. People are buying candy for thousands but can't afford a 100 chyen shirt? Anyway, two changes:

1: Tailored items should be fitted to the PERSON. I had a thread on this before that I'm lazy to find, but essentially, a command with skillcheck to 'fit x' to get someone's measurements. Once you have that, you can write an additional set of messages when tailoring items, @cworn, @cwear, etc, and those would be added to the item to only show when the person you fitted before is wearing it. Yes, yet more messages to write, but it's optional and incredibly freeing in how you can write.

2: Retail clothing should be a much, much bigger thing, and even a coded job. We don't want everyone splurging on custom clothes, unless they're balling. A lot of the playerbase should, theoretically, be wearing retail clothing. But they don't because one, the difference in cost is minimal, so they'll just get custom clothes, and two, there isn't enough variety.

So... One, retail clothes, especially in red and gold, should be SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper. I'm talking like, 50-500 chyen price range. A good like... 80% of the retail clothes out there, I've NEVER seen people wear. Keep one or two stores expensive/elite, but the rest should be way down. Slight exception for clothes with stat buffs.

Two, let players MAKE retail clothing. This should be the coded path for tailors. I know this can already be done in case by case, but it should be mostly automated. Tailor a set of clothes, go to a shop, use some kind of interface or NPC command to hand them in. Staff reviews the items, checks the creator's skills, and decides whether or not to add them to the shop's rotation. Then there's a fancy equation based on units sold, the quality of the items, and the shop they're selling at, which decides on a weekly pay the tailor can go and pick up. Staff can puppet an NPC to announce a new line when they accept one if they feel like it, but otherwise, making sure the line sells is up to the player, all the marketing and networking. After a few months or whatever, staff can review how successful a line was, and make a note regarding that player. If they did well, maybe staff will be receptive to letting them make a line for a better shop for more moneys. If it sold poorly, they'll have to try again and keep at it.

I know it sounds like a lot of work for staff, but it really wouldn't be. Just checking over some clothing items whenever a new line is made and saying yes or no. Basically no more work than requisitions.

So now, tailors don't feel like they have to constantly take custom work and burn out, and they can coast a little off of retail lines. Sure, they'd make more money with custom orders, but I literally see almost every single tailor burn out from constantly writing clothes, even though tailors generally make crazy good money. Now people can have a bunch of outfits, and truly custom clothing for when they want to spend some real money and something that is TRULY made only for them.

Because of the entire point of the thread? Diversity? I also don't see how only custom, hand-tailored items are one's only mean of expression. Someone wearing a NLM Icons tee in the mix expresses more about that character than a fancy custom shirt would, most of the time. There are also many characters who can't make their own clothing, or players like me, who dislike clothing items being massive walls of text, and that's a really awkward thing to convey to a tailor IC or find a nice balance.

Ironically, in only/mainly wearing tailored clothes, people are doing the opposite of what you're saying, they're expressing less than they would if they had more generic clothes, because they're always wearing the same one or two outfits. And again, retail clothing doesn't automatically mean generic. I'd love for eventually, stores having enough of a pool that you can actually go to shops and... Shop. See if you find cool stuff. Yes, you can do this with markets, but there we run into the previous issue, clothes being ill-fitting/having conflicting messaging.

But all that aside, to drive the economy and keep tailors sane. And have fashion be an actual thing, with trends and marketing, etc, rather than everyone just silently making super custom clothes for themselves that they'll wear to their grave.

Still there has been a lot of work by players to drive their own brands, even when it can be a nightmare. Just out of the ones that fall under 'old enough for OOC' there is like Fairchild, MixxMuse, CF, YC, NKO, Mix-Ops, Metric, Tantra, Wildfire, and probably five or six more I'm embarrassingly forgetting, and then the 5-10 more in the recent past.

This dynamic gives characters plenty of options to step up from depot clothes without breaking the bank...

It doesn't, though. On average, I'd say newer tailors will charge generally somewhere between 1-3k per piece, plus materials. I'd also say that a lot of these mid-tier, non-depot clothes will generally cost around 1-3k per piece. I don't think there's enough difference there to justify not getting tailored clothes, which is my point. I can either pay the same amount of money (or close), get interaction with another player and get unique clothes, or I can pay the same amount of money to get no interaction and generic clothes. It's no surprise most people pick tailored clothes.

This isn't all bad. Tailors getting RP is good. I by no means wish to automate all of this, but again, there is disproportionate burnout in this field, there is an abundance of clothes and stores not being used, and there is a lack of meaningful RP around tailoring and brands, in general. The brands 0x1mm mentioned, for example. How many of them are sold retail still? How many of them do players even know who made them? When was the last time you saw a TV or SICad for a player clothing brand?

I think both economically, RP-wise, and variety-wise, the game would be much better served if retail prices were lowered significantly, and tailoring/mat prices were significantly raised. You want to upgrade the depot clothes, go shop at some mid-range stores. Make some money? Maybe you can afford something nice from somewhere in Green. Made senior, promoted to LT? Get a tailor to whip you up something fancy, just for you and nobody else. Let tailors spend their time actually growing a brand and their character, instead of just making (honestly, most of the time) generic custom outfits over and over until they say no despite all the money they're making. Yes, I said generic custom. A big number of items tailors make basically have no reason to exist, it's the same dress or the same shirt that already exists but is written a little differently.

I concede slightly on the point that tailors DO make a lot of money, though, and they would make more money with these changes, but only if they're actually putting themselves out there and pushing their brand. I think that's more involved, interesting and honestly, more risky than simply being a tailor that makes everyone their new boots whenever they get vatted and lose them, and not nearly as boring, either.

As for mid-tier retail clothing variety, unless I missed something, I mostly said there isn't much variety in general, but in my replies to 0x1mm I already stated I think the crux of the issue is pricing, not variety. More variety would be nice, regardless.

You said it yourself, the only decision to be made between getting retail or tailored clothes currently is 'do I have the patience to wait for tailored clothes' and that's really shallow. Especially when brands are meant to be a massive part of cyberpunk.

I think that Butako has already offered to search through trashed clothes and try to recover some of them. Doing that will expand the brands available.