So Grumpy logs in to find out his 3 stores sold over 200k of furniture and deeds the night before. Many architects would be excited, Grumpy is annoyed; now all those vendors will have to be restocked. Grumpy wanted to go fishing sometime this week.
Grumpy has a pretty large operation, 3 store locations, 40 lots to manage and an army of young punk architects and other ne'er-do-wells doing the dirty work.
To make matters worse, two of the ne'er-do-wells were already out hustling Grumpy's waypoints at the busy starports, so the stores were full of customers needing Grumpy's attention. Sometimes Grumpy hides in his workshop, sometimes Grumpy pretends to be afk. Some days, neither of those tricks work.
Grumpy's first problem, ore, steel, copper and ore. Did Grumpy mention the ore problem already? Grumpy's miners claim there is no steel or ore to be had on Corellia, Grumpy knows this can't be true. Grumpy addignores all the miners. Grumpy thinks Corellia is a sick joke, geographically speaking, that the Sony developers decided to play on the architects and miners anyways.
Grumpy's second problem, tells from shoppers that think they know more about architect pricing than Grumpy does. Grumpy knows this isn't true, either. Grumpy hates shoppers that want high-BER mines for little more than resource cost. Grumpy ALWAYS addignores them.
Grumpy isn't fond of noob guild halls either, especially when they think Grumpy will consider it a privilege to outfit their hall with 50 sofa chairs, Master Architect marble furniture and large beds for every member. Grumpy offers 75% of store price on large furniture orders, but noob guilds want it at cost, or less. Grumpy wonders if they are high. Grumpy is running out of room on his addignore list.
Grumpy's next problem, a punk architect that wants to make components for Grumpy's stores. Grumpy likes the young punks even though they will try to cut Grumpy's throat later with their 2cpu pricing. Altho, Grumpy likes to buy their products at 2cpu and resell them at 5cpu OR MORE! Grumpy enjoys that almost as much as fishing. Which he still hadn't had a chance to do yet that night.
This particular punk was very amusing though. He wanted to make wall modules for Grumpy; Grumpy pays 9k per wall, as much or as little as the punks want to make, and Grumpy always pays them the same day. Grumpy thinks this is fair, he likes to encourage them to get on their feet as architects. But this punk wanted Grumpy to provide the resources to build the walls AND pay 9k each for them. Grumpy thinks there is entirely too much spice being hustled nowadays.
Grumpy's favorite shopper of the night is someone desperate for a heavy mineral deed. He lectures Grumpy on how over-priced his mines are at 5cpu (OR MORE, depending on how annoying it is for Grumpy to make the deeds). Grumpy tells his store managers to ban this shopper for cursing at Grumpy. It will be very funny later to get the tells with even more cursing when the shopper goes to get the “over-priced” deed because all the punk architects are sold out. Grumpy could hardly wait.
Grumpy decides to go check out some of the competition. Grumpy always goes “No Title” when he does this because, well, he may find a bargain. Grumpy thinks it's rude when the competition bans him from their stores. Grumpy just sends an alt, but he is annoyed all the same to have to run another character out to see their wares.
If there were any wares, that is. Grumpy wonders why some shopkeepers never have any stock. Grumpy wonders why they don't decorate their shops even just a little. Or put a nice sign on the shop other than “LeEt DeWdz DeEdZ”. Grumpy figures if he wasn't an architect, he would wonder **edit** a “DeEdZ” waz. He knowz what a deEdZ iz tho, it'z future stock for Grumpy'z storez.
Grumpy thinks he better go check on the starport hustlers. Grumpy can tell when store traffic drops off that the hustlers on Grumpy's payroll are in the Cantinas kissing the dancers gently on the lips instead of hustling the waypoints. Grumpy reminds the hustlers that they are easily replaced with mouse droids and kicks them back out to spam shouts.
Grumpy thinks he can go fishing now and starports over to Moenia to pick out a quiet puddle. Grumpy thinks stores near Moenia are funny. Grumpy figures only the spice junkies would bother swimming through 34,809 puddles to get to some far-off waypoint with no stock.
There are days when Grumpy envies the Moenia merchants. No tells, no punks, no customers, no “You have new mail” every 2 minutes and plenty of fishing holes sure sounds appealing.
Grumpy puts up his favorite afkmessage “6cpu and they all require lots of u, you do the math” and pulls a dozen fish out of the pond. He heads back to the workshops after prime time is over, reloads the vendors and PRAYS no one buys them out overnight. (Grumpy thinks the European and Asian players should do their shopping during prime time like everyone else. This would work much better for Grumpy's schedule.)
Grumpy didn't used to refer to himself in the third person, Grumpy thinks it was the ore fields that did it to him.
The Grumpy Master Architect ©