Architect Archive
Thread: A letter Architects unite.
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Mastodon
Tue Oct 12, 2004 4:26 pm
#1
The eternal architect price discussion, anyways this is a letter sent from an architect to another architect:
" Hi xxxx,
you probably don't know me, i'm master architect almost sinceserver launch and own a couple of shops with much success.
For almost one year, i've been always 'checkin' other architects' shops, and arguing with many of 'em about prices. By now almost all architects i knew quit the game or simply quit the profession. Believe me, we are a few working, and even less when JTL be launched.
The main focus in this typings is about your prices. You sell cheap (100k a ber13). I didn't lie you nor i won't, I'm selling ber13 minerals for 165k right now. And believe me, last weekend i've sold around 30 of them , 30 floras, 20 chemicals, 10 moistures, and 20 fusions. All about 150-170k. And didn't sell even more cuz i went out of stock.
You will learn soon that, the most important for an architect shop is to keep it well stocked; the price is 'irrelevant'. Reason is obvious: A ber13 mineral above a 80% Ofiliium (last duralloy spawn) harvests 16k per day, which can be sold in auctions for 12 cpu (check current farstar auctions ,many ofilium auct there). In other words, a customer who buys you 10 ber13 harvies will recover their cost in a single day.
In the other hand, as soon JTL is launched, forget about those ore suppliers you may have, probablythey will all harvest new resources (if existant) so ore will be very scarce in the market (as is now due to every1harvesting hq kamris, duralloy, etc -last mothhas been crazy in our server- ) so, as we can't crafthundreds ofharviesper day and/cause ore is real scarce, why to sell so cheap?
Let me point, i also sell cheap! All of us sell cheap! WE all should raise the ber13 to 250k and i'm sure we all sell steadly as we do now. But is a hard matter as 150k-160k for a ber13 is the common price for all Swg servers so it will be hard to change it.
I'm sure you will consider my words, and raise the prices. I convinced a well-known architect to do it so, he did, and his sales are fine as always! As i told him a month ago i tell you too : " you can always try to raise the prices and check if sales stills good as ever ".
Thanks,
Mastodon."
Mastodon."
Doctors in Farstar agreed to raise buff prices to 20k, and many of 'em are complying the agreement. When will architects agreedeed prices?
What about 30k a wall? i mean, mineral ber13 is 7 walls, 210k... fusion is 5= 150k ( current price i'm selling 'em). floras, chem 180k. Gas, cough ,150k. moisture... cough.. 100k. Factories and ber10 at your own choice. Large houses 300k. City Halls 600k. Guild halls round 450-490k. Medium houses 150k, etc.. 30k a wall.
I /sign
Let's unite all! Is just senseless people are paying 3 milions for a 90% base composite (i'm just comparing, no way to flame As) which will spoil in a future and only 150k for a harver which will bring infinite credit incomes. In financial terms, our harvies haveinfinite pricein a infinite timeline.
Thanks,
Mastodon
Message Edited by Mastodon on 10-13-2004 01:32 AM
Pawlin
Tue Oct 12, 2004 5:08 pm
#2
So you are proposing price fixing across all servers?
How do you get everyone to join in? All it would really take is 1-2 people with well stocked vendors that don't agree to the prices for a price fixing scheme to fail. And there will be people who will not join in price fixing.
If you want to propose it then you'd have better luck I think attempting it on a server by server basis. You might have better luck on some servers than others. If you have get enough people using the same prices then it will hit a critical mass and could work, ala OPEC.
I don't think it would work on my server. I don't think we could get 2 of us to agree on prices much less ALL of us.
Bandola
Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:06 pm
#3
No thanks, I want to keep my prices as MY prices, I want competition in varying forms, the 'churn 'em out cheap', the 'large-hopper-large-price tag', the 'I'm a newbie, I need business', 'the 'part-time one a weeker', the 'undercutter', the 'niche market supplier', the 'well stocked fair price' ALL these have a place in the game, ALL these provide variety and interest for me to compete against.
If we all fix our prices the same then the ONLY thing that will differentiate each of us from each other will be location, location, location.
Elyssa
Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:15 pm
#4
You say that like it's a bad thing?
Bandola wrote:
the ONLY thing that will differentiate each of us from each other will be location, location, location.
GummiShooter
Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:19 pm
#5
In light of the future release of JTL I'm already increasing the prices of my harvesters and structures. Ore is already rather scarce, but just like that Architect said in the letter, it will become even more so when JTL hits the street. I believe I can only get my Ore from my own harvesters for the first weeks. But despite all this, I'm not going to fix prices, because I don't think that's fair towards the customers. I'm just going to price my items the way I think it's fair.
Bandola
Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:45 pm
#6
Elyssa wrote:
You say that like it's a bad thing?
Bandola wrote:
the ONLY thing that will differentiate each of us from each other will be location, location, location.
I really do believe that would be a bad thing. have quite a good location, but I certainly do not believe that sales should merely depend upon location. What incentive would there be to compete ? IMO competition is the only thing that keeps it interesting..
Lochran
Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:35 am
#7
Just buy all those cheap harvs and sell them for you own price. If he bans you get a friend bying them for you ... You will see him struggling very fast as he tries to keep up his stock. And if he should really be able to restock fast enough for this price, well, then you have a nice supplier that eases your work
And I don´t think prices need to be much higher than they are, I sell fusions for 160k and heavies for 150k, I make good money with this, things sell well. I have the best stocked furniture/lights/deluxe furniture shop on the whole server. People always buy more than they intended in the first when seeing my full vendors
So, I could raise prices, and people would still buy, but I don´t see any reason to make more money than I do. I earn enough to buy crappy resources for the walls, and everything else I can harvest myself. And since Ore can never be bought for 1.5 cpu I never buy it, I always harvest it on my own. Of course, you need more than 10 lots for this, that is true. If I had fewer lots (managing it with 40, would say from 30 on you are ok) I would not be architect, it would be too hard to have a stocked shop.
But when I see the ease I make money with my Med Shop on Infinity I sometimes think about retireing .... Architect is one of the most time consuming crafter professions.
And I don´t think prices need to be much higher than they are, I sell fusions for 160k and heavies for 150k, I make good money with this, things sell well. I have the best stocked furniture/lights/deluxe furniture shop on the whole server. People always buy more than they intended in the first when seeing my full vendors
So, I could raise prices, and people would still buy, but I don´t see any reason to make more money than I do. I earn enough to buy crappy resources for the walls, and everything else I can harvest myself. And since Ore can never be bought for 1.5 cpu I never buy it, I always harvest it on my own. Of course, you need more than 10 lots for this, that is true. If I had fewer lots (managing it with 40, would say from 30 on you are ok) I would not be architect, it would be too hard to have a stocked shop.
But when I see the ease I make money with my Med Shop on Infinity I sometimes think about retireing .... Architect is one of the most time consuming crafter professions.
Mastodon
Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:41 am
#8
Pawlin wrote:
So you are proposing price fixing across all servers?
30k per wall.
How do you get everyone to join in? All it would really take is 1-2 people with well stocked vendors that don't agree to the prices for a price fixing scheme to fail. And there will be people who will not join in price fixing.
Every architect complying the 30k/wall rule can show a sign with " AR-Compliant". If an architect doesn't join the rule, you can simply BUY all his wares and resell them in your shop.
Also notice, if we raise our prices we can pay a bit higher the ore than the 'cheap architects' do.
Cherokaa
Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:40 pm
#9
Sorry, but no. I understand you have the best of intentions with this, but price fixing just doesn't work in an economy like ours. A few people will buck the trend, market themselves as not being associated with price fixing, people will flock to them, and they will make more money with the increase in sales. In short, it just won't work.
Mastodon
Thu Oct 14, 2004 6:41 am
#10
Cherokaa wrote:
Sorry, but no. I understand you have the best of intentions with this, but price fixing just doesn't work in an economy like ours. A few people will buck the trend, market themselves as not being associated with price fixing, people will flock to them, and they will make more money with the increase in sales. In short, it just won't work.
Unless associated architects empty their vendors. When customers find the empty vendors, they'll come to us. Also, let me point, i'm still sellin 150-170k the ber13 and is a hard work to keep the vendor stocked.
d0qtrX
Thu Oct 14, 2004 7:18 am
#11
Well, it is my opinion that architects sold themselves critically short in the beginning of player housing. Now we have a situation where we can't sell houses at 4cpu if we tried. People would laugh in my face if I tried to sell them a medium house for 600k.For an item that ney will NEVER need to EVER purchase again if the pay maintenance, or don't move to a different planet.
The same people will pay twice that for a scythe blade or a geonosian pistolthat will last them, what, a few months? Something that can totally break on repair?
The same people will pay twice that on a suit of eff sliced 40%stun armor that will get ripped up and likely fail to repair. And even decay 5% when the decay gods decide that your insurance is no good.
And here we sit, so far beyond the point of no return it's sad. Architects are harvester-makers now. And even then most everyone already has em. Just a few people expanding their farms with cross-server lot trades.
Architect is a dead-end profession. It's a cool one, and I love being able to supply myself with structures. But there is so much that is wrong, it's not really even worth it anymore.
That's why I will be converting to ShipWright, and I intend to do whatever I can to make certain Shipwrights do not make the same mistakes we Architects did.
Lochran
Fri Oct 15, 2004 4:08 am
#12
Um, 600k = 4 cpu for a medium house, d0qtrX? A medium Naboo House needs 20600 units of resources. 20600*4 = 82,400, not 600k. Even if you take into account the extra units for the schematics you will not end up at 600k when charging 4cpu.
I sell them for 80k, and they are bought. That is nearly 4cpu, and since I insert materials i either self-extracted or bought for 1.5 cpu that is a fine profit.
---
Isrem on FarStar.
I sell them for 80k, and they are bought. That is nearly 4cpu, and since I insert materials i either self-extracted or bought for 1.5 cpu that is a fine profit.
---
Isrem on FarStar.
Pawlin
Fri Oct 15, 2004 9:52 am
#13
d0qtrX wrote:
Well, it is my opinion that architects sold themselves critically short in the beginning of player housing. ...
I don't think architects should be blamed for the economy working the way it did. People competed based on price because thats the main differentiator for our products. Architects generally did not cut prices on high rating crafting stations which we can compete based on quality.
The same people will pay twice that for a scythe blade or a geonosian pistolthat will last them, what, a few months? Something that can totally break on repair?
The same people will pay twice that on a suit of eff sliced 40%stun armor that will get ripped up and likely fail to repair. And even decay 5% when the decay gods decide that your insurance is no good.
If more money can be made doing something else then doing that other thing is a viable option. But that does not in itself increase the cost of our products. Supply and demand dictate our prices. e.g. baseball bats last forever, but just because tennis shoes cost more and wear out doesn't mean you should charge more for baseball bats.
And here we sit, so far beyond the point of no return it's sad. Architects are harvester-makers now. And even then most everyone already has em. Just a few people expanding their farms with cross-server lot trades.
Architect is a dead-end profession. It's a cool one, and I love being able to supply myself with structures. But there is so much that is wrong, it's not really even worth it anymore.
In general, I agree with you above. The demand for our products right now is not sufficient to sustain a full profession. Its only enough to support a handful of people. We really need some sort of boost to our profession to keep it viable for more than a few people and make it attractive and to new players.
That's why I will be converting to ShipWright, and I intend to do whatever I can to make certain Shipwrights do not make the same mistakes we Architects did.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the economy after JTL comes out. Shipwright will have some interesting things affecting it. For one I think a lot of people have been planning on grinding it quick once JTL is out so I think we might see a large supply of ships. Also I think there are quite a few people who have been hording resources for months in order to make ships. Its hard to say what demand will be though. So if demand is pretty high then prices might stay up, but if supply is more than demand...
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