Architect Archive
Thread: PLEASE READ THIS ONCE, IT IS WORTH YOUR TIME!
Please, hear me out. I believe that it is worth your time to know this information, that you may already know, but I am presenting it in a different light and compounding it in one area.
One (not, this is ONLY ONE)BER 10medium mineral harvester on, say, a low end 50% steel concentration.
So thats 5.0kg/hr or 500 resources per hour.
That makes 12,000 resources per day from that ONE harvester.
Say, we take our harvester, and run it for one week on that spot.
That makes 84,000 steel.
Lets venture that this is poor quality steel that we can sell for grinding at 2:1.
Thats 168,000 CREDITS for running your harvester for ONE WEEK.
Even if we subrtract perhaps the 9-10k you would pay in maintenence, and the other 9-10k in power,
Thats a profit of 148,000 credits in ONE WEEK. That harvester will run forever. Also, please consider that
that is the LOWEST END possible. What if we had a 75% concentration of good steel going for 4 or 5:1?
And what do they go for right now? 50k? 65k some servers?
The value of the harvester is not in what its made out of. That person will never see what its made of.
Modern values like quality do not apply, as every BER10 is exactly the same in this game.
Architects would find it hard to level prices across the board as there will always be some one who will sell a few K cheaper and sell loads
ber 10's mineral sell for 28-35k on my server but resoucre price is from 1.5-3cpu for architects (atleast for me)
Lets be generous here and say that 40% of the architects in game read this board *AND* agree with you. In truth, it's probably more like 20%, as SOE has said that only about 30% of people in game read the forums at *all*.
Mediums on my server go for 20k-25k with a bit of shopping.
Double that, and you've got 40k-50k per BER10 medium mineral harvester.
Now, who in their right mind would buy from the 40% of the architects that charge 50k per harvester, versus the 60% that charge 25k per harvester? Think about it, if you were looking to get some harvesters, would *YOU* buy them at double the cost? Heck no! We can *TRY* to raise prices, but I know nobody in my guild will buy them at that price point, and probably nobody that knows better will either. There's an architect 6k away from my house that sells them at 22k, he's visible on the map and he occasionally advertizes in the cities. Nobody in their right mind would buy them from me at 40k and take a 18k loss, it's just silly.
In the end, yeah, it's a nice idea. But it won't work.
Nataku Valentine - The Aura of ChanceMining is a good way to make money?? You mean those guys that buy dozens of expensive harvesters from me and who I give all my money back to to buy ore are actually doing well for themselves? Huh.
Hey ya know that people can sell a good crate of Stim-B's for 100k or a nice FWG5 for 20k. How long does it take them to make that in a factory? It probably takes 2 hours to recoup the cost of an equipment factory by a weaponsmith. Should we start charging 4 million for a factory?
I understand the "but its worth more" argument for higher pricing but its meaningless in the face of the brutal free market economies that rule our servers. The harvesters are worth more than a lot of us charge, but worth has nothing to do with it. Whats a holocron worth?
But as others have pointed out, translating that theoritical economic insight into practice is frought with problems:
1. Enough people *don't* think this way that they look at it and say "it costs me 30K to build and I sell it for 110K - 80K profit is way cool" that you won't sell any at a lot higher prices.
2. That payback period is 10 days, which seems miniscul in the physical world, but in the game world seems like a long time. The whole game experience compresses time quite a bit - talking with someone about making an investment now that will break even in 2-3 months would be an exercise in futility. Most people out there aren't sure what their character will be doing tomorrow, much less 2 months from now.
Honestly, while I appreciate your comments, they are nothing that hasn't been said about a zillion times before in this forum. A number of people (myself included) understand what you are saying and go out and kinda "wing it" - it IS a game after all.
FlashBewin wrote:
Its easy for you Architects to say that your undercharging for Harvesters...
Please don't think that most of us have anything in common with the original poster but our profession. Personally, I charge a flat 3cpu +10% for everything I make, regardless of quality. The only exception is the harvesters, because yes, people are willing to pay more for them depending on the quality. I don't jack people though, charging an outrageous 250k for a BER13 or some such. I do mediums at 6k per BER and heavies at 10k per BER... not out of the ordinary, and there's no way in hel-, um, hades, that I'd double that. I'd put myself out of business.
For the Architect who thinks s/he can make money by buying resources and selling goods, you're doing it all wrong. You have 10 lots. Mine your own resources. If you have no survey skills, find an artisan who does.
-Z