Architect Archive

I'm an Architect and I give my all to the community and people around me. Last night I was upset after hearing someone tell me that they can purchase medium houses for 30k when I know they cannot. Why are they saying this? To have architects continue to lower housing prices.

A medium house needs roughly 23,000+ resources to put together. Keep in mind that this does not include failures. At the going market rates on the Bazaar you can sell your resources at a 3 credit per 1 cost with not too much difficulty. So, in effect, you could sell those 23,000 resources for 69,000 credits.

Now I charge only 55k for a medium house which I think is a very very good price. I know I had a couple of architects ask me what I was selling em for and I was very honest with them. They said good I'll keep my prices at the same price too. I simply told them that this would be a good idea for a sense of some stability.

Now the biggest problem I'm seeing here is people DO NOT realize how many individual components we have to make and the fact that any one of them (including the major ones) can and sometimes do fail. Just for medium houses, you have to assemble 53 separate components. Take into account that you have to manage the resources, collect the resources, make the components, pay for the upkeep, and then deal with the separate failures when they occur, AND find a buyer, why are we getting shafted in the economy??

It seems to me that more of the renegade architects (these are the 10 year olds thatfailed in math) DO NOT seem to understand what a pricing structure is and would rather lose money (not realizing that they are doing so) to get a product out the door to make the next skill grade. This irritates me and bothers many architects that I know, who like me, are very fair in how they make out their pricing charts.

10k - Small House

55k - Medium House

Large House (still mulling this one over)

These are not bad prices! Now when some potential buyer says to me that another architect is telling them that they will make them a medium house for 30k because they want to earn experience, I think they are either lying to get price competition, or that they are telling the truth and the person selling it to them are "ignorant" of the prices and just don't know any better.

Why am I angry about this? Here is a list of why.

1. Can't sell houses in the Bazaar due to the 5k limitation so we have to shout like street urchins.

2. Competition is tough as it is with the current system. It's only going to get worse and prices are going to get worsebecause ofit.

3. Novice (young) architects are buried in the hole when starting out and are scraping to get money to upkeep their harvesters so they are selling things not realizing the precedent they set for the market. In this case, the buyers believe these are indeed the market prices and are not realizing that this may have been a one time event for the architect to get some much needed money.

A fix for this solution could only be summed up in one way: Architects have to be unselfish with one another. If you screw the market you are doing nothing but screwing yourself. What is sad is that architects who truly do this type of activity are the ones that go out of business fast or lose out on resources fast. Unfortunately, it hurts the rest of us that have put out very fair prices and are already taking a major hit in the buttocks to get houses out to people.

I love being an architect and to sum things up: I've been doing this since day one and have sold approximately 14 houses (11 smalls and 3 mediums) and I still have roughly 65k creds on me and still need to pay more upkeep on my machines. For those non-architects out there that think we are getting rich well think again. The true wealth is being accumulated by Droid Engineers, Weaponsmiths, and Armorsmiths. Their products require much less resources, have less failures, and many of their products are being sold for more than ours.

A full set of Chitin does not even get close to comparison with the amount of resources a medium house needs to have to make and I've been seeing them sell for 30k to 40k. That's 15k to 25k less than what I sell a medium house for. Advanced probots sell for 45k. High end armor sets sell for up to 80 to 85k. All you need to do is look at the second paragraph of this post to see the flaw already: We are working for free. Yes, if we really want to make money and gain no experience all we need to do is sell our resources on the market for 3 credits per resource.

This is sickening to say the least. Please don't flame me for being irritated. I think if you saw some of the tells I received last night and the immaturity of them and the tones, you would truly understand why it is I'm upset today.

Amen brother... Amen.

10K for a small is too little IMO, should be more around 15K.

I havent gotten up to medium yet. I did sell my first house for 10K, mainly cuz I needed a buyer. Also, that house was much easier to make, I'm having tons of troubles finding low grade ore.. So, I will probably raise my prices, probably to 15K. Not sure about furniture. I'll prolly start selling some of that for resources * 3 + 100(its times we built some profit into these items.)

Compared to what I have read I am probably towards the higher end of this spectrum. Smalls 15k, Mediums 75k, Larges 140k, and PA halls greater then 300k. Though I have found it difficult just for me to keep up with my demand. Whenever a player sends me a tell and ask my prices I tell them, sometimes they say I charge to high and I say well, find someone else. Currently I am 10 days out from finishing all of my projects and people are telling me to lower my prices.

As for the Architects that are the bottom dwellers, the majority of them just have no business sense. If they would just look at the potenetial, they would see that they could charge more. It has been stated and it is correct that you can make a decent profit if you sell your structures at 2 credits/resource.

But this just isn't good business practice in my view. I works for a doctors office and would it make sense if when we billed the patients insurance we just told them well I know you will pay us $75 for this but I only want $30. We aren't pushing the economy, we are making it crawl along. What are we going to do when the majority of folks that want a house have them? Are we going to continue to lower our prices? I for one am not. Actually my goals are to finish the Tuskens Bane project (chilastra forum) and then I will finish all of my out standing orders and then explore what else this game has to offer. I will make something if someone really wants it from me and is willing to wait, but I don't need to become WalMart. I will keep my Master Architect skill in hopes that once player cities and vehicles are initiated we can build shuttle ports, banks, cloning facility, and vehicles.

Sorry for my rant and hopefully I said something that makes sense, and this post really isn't aimed at those that read these boards, but why charge 30k when you can easily get 55k and even 75k.

Potnik

on Corbantis, myself and others are actually using the prices listed below, we've set up our market as such, there are those that sell for less, and those that sell for more, but from what Ive seen, Neither myself, or Acolstorm have changed our prices too dramatically from what we've listed.

Its a shamed that building structures are not currently priced correctly, but given time they will be. Alot of folks are selling for less to raise skill, but all that does isskill them fast for a day, to only slow them up in the end due to end cost on their part. Large PA's can sell for less due to an over abundance of material to create their wares but all that does is lower the cost that they really should be selling for and making them work twice as hard as the average architect.

But heres our list, mine is the second part.

I hope Acolstorm doesnt kill me, I cut and pasted without permission, but I told him I was going to do so, anyways, hope seeing what the normal sales costs on Corbantis helps you figure things out.

Master Architect

Y'lese Que

________________________________VV

Hi, I am an architect based near Mos Eisley and below are my rates, Please send tell or leave email to Acolstorm if you are interested in any of the below.

Housing at 3.5credits/resources

Small house - 3388 - 12Kcredits

Medium house - 20600 - 72Kcredits

Factories at 3.5credits/resource

Factory - 13550 - 47Kcredits

Harvesters at 3.5-5.5credits/resource

Personal Harvesters - 250 - 1.3Kcredits

Medium Mineral harvesters - 3607 - 20Kcredits

Medium Chemical and Gas harvesters - 12115 - 45Kcredits

Medium Flora harvesters - 21070 - 73Kcredits

High Capacity Flora Farms - 24400 - 85Kcredits

Large Chemical Harvesters - 24490 - 93Kcredits

Large Mineral Harvesters - 27770 - 100Kcredits

Large Gas Harvesters - 22495 - 90Kcredits

Moisture vaparator - 3985 - 12Kcredits

High efficiency moisture vaparator - 7990 - 30Kcredits

Power Generators at 4credits/resource

Wind generator - 260 - 1Kcredits

Solar generator - 4430 - 20Kcredits

Fusion Generator - 26065 - 100Kcredits

Will accept trade of metals, ore, fibreplast, reactive gas, hide, bone or wood at 3credits/resource.

______________________________VV

Small Houses Price: 10,000
no half payments of resources accepted on these nice cozy structures.

Medium Houses Price: 60,000 to 70,000
Half payment of Ore and or steel (7,900 low grade ore / 3,175 steel) would drop the price down to 40,000 to 50,000

Large Houses Price: 130,000 to 160,000
Half payment of Ore and steel (12,500 low grade ore / 4,900 steel) would drop the price to 90,000 to 110,000

Personal Harvesters Price: 1,500
no half payments of resources accepted for these fine machines

Medium Mineral Harvesters Price: 30,000
no half payments of resources accepted for these fine machines

Automated Flora Farm Price: 45,000
Half payment of Ore and steel (6,500 low grade ore / 2,600 steel) would drop the price to 30,000

Chemical Extractor Price: 45,000
Half payment of Ore and steel (3,375 low grade ore / 1,530 steel) would drop the price to 30,000

Solar Generators Price: 40,000
no half payments of resources accepted for these fine machines

Heavy Mineral Mining Installation Price: 80,000 to 100,000
Half payment of Ore and steel (7,700 low grade ore / 4,500 steel) would drop the price to 60,000 to 80,000

PA Hall Price: 500,000 to 1,000,000
no half payments of resources accepted, but will accept to speed up process, and discount from possible failures

The Price range from said point to said point is dependant on critical failures, but not
to exceed stated price.

These are just guidelines of my prices, I am always willing to banter and trade and make deals and negotiations.

Kawakami and Dalhurak, you can have a 25% discount on all my architectual creations

thanks again

Y'lese

Y'lese

I completely agree Potnik. I have people telling me I'm charging too much for my large houses at 125k, but more times than not they come back and order one. We need to charge enough to make it worth our while, else there is no point. I'm just afraid that these "bottom dwelling" architects, as you so eloquently put it, will ruin the market completely and we will have to hope for future expansions and add-ons to fix our plight.

If people stop wanting to pay reasonable prices for our deeds, than I'll just load up my vendor with resources instead and make more money than I would lowering my prices.

It is interesting to see people use such phrases as

"DO NOT seem to understand what a pricing structure is"

"the person selling it to them are "ignorant" of the prices"

"building structures are not currently priced correctly"

Prices are based on what the seller is willing to sell for, and what the buyer is willing to buy for.

There is no 'correct' price. Is 10K the correct price for a small house? It is one possible price based, it seems, on what resources are selling for at the bazaar. If prices dropped to 1 cred per resource, would a house built from harvested resources be worth less?

A single architect has a number of harvesters that cost maintenance, maybe he needs to buy a few resources. Maybe he wanders about sampling. He sets a price that he thinks is fair. Let's say 10K

Now there is an Architect with three friends, who are all running missions for cash to give to the architect, who cranks out houses for the xp, so he can one day make large houses because he believes that in a few weeks, everyone will want a large house. He doesn't need to make a profit at this stage, but would still like to sellthe houses he makes to get a solid customer base, ready for when everyone wants to upgrade. He sells his small houses for 3K.

These 3K houses does the first architectout of business. When everyone wants large houses, the second architect is the only one left with the ability to make them, and has many customers.

SWG is fascinating because of this player driven economy. When there is competition, someone wins, and someone loses. It seems that a lot of the losers are also whiners.

You can't just coast along as an artisan. It is a cutthroat business, and not for the faint of heart.

Personally, I am like the first architect. I build up resources slowly and can't compete on price. So I switched to furniture because no-one else seemed to concentrate on that, so the market was ready for me to dominate.

Well, While its very true that the market determines price, due to supply and demand, doing stuff like you say is exactly(selling things below their cost) why the dotcoms died by and large. In any event, I'm able to afford my harvesters due to the simple fact that by selling em, I make more profit on those than I do on selling a house. While the market ebs and flows in those, it is somewhat lucrative.. I also can run missions if I have to, I don't especially like to do so, but it does allow me to avoid having to sell my product. Also in your scenario, you're assuming things will go your way which is not always going to be the case. If he cant sell mediums, then not only is he screwed, but his friends that helped him are also screwed(I assume they didn't do it as their good deed for the day, the expected some kind of kick back.)

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Padashar wrote:

A medium house needs roughly 23,000+ resources to put together. Keep in mind that this does not include failures. At the going market rates on the Bazaar you can sell your resources at a 3 credit per 1 cost with not too much difficulty. So, in effect, you could sell those 23,000 resources for 69,000 credits.

Now I charge only 55k for a medium house which I think is a very very good price. A full set of Chitin does not even get close to comparison with the amount of resources a medium house needs to have to make and I've been seeing them sell for 30k to 40k. That's 15k to 25k less than what I sell a medium house for. Advanced probots sell for 45k. High end armor sets sell for up to 80 to 85k. All you need to do is look at the second paragraph of this post to see the flaw already: We are working for free. Yes, if we really want to make money and gain no experience all we need to do is sell our resources on the market for 3 credits per resource.

This is sickening to say the least. Please don't flame me for being irritated. I think if you saw some of the tells I received last night and the immaturity of them and the tones, you would truly understand why it is I'm upset today.

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Personally I feel you're part of the problem. That guy in no way could get that medium for 30K. You shouldn't be selling for 55K especially considering that you could sell the resources for 69K. Consider this, you'd have a hell of a lot more money if you'd sell at legitimate prices. Think 100Kish for that medium house, and you'd only have to sell 1 instead of 3.

I feel ya, the house market is a joke

which is why I don't wear the architect tag above my head anymore. when I did all I'd get were tells begging me to build factories, medium-large houses, and other things that would take me a day or more to make (and that's only if I didn't crit fail on at the end). the thing is, because of undercutting, non-architects really don't understand how many resources are used in structures and how many chances to crit fail there are. they think it's easy as making a survey device and treat you like it. when you're trying to scrounge up resources, they tell you they have a lot of resources saved up and give you 3 or 4k ore like it's supposed to mean something.

I like the free-market, people should be able to charge whatever they want, but too many architects are pricing low because they think it'll give them a reputation. truth is nobody really cares who the house is from, all they care is that they own one, and this is because unlike other crafts, experimentation here does nothing. The house I make works the same as the one you make. in the end, all the undercutting is doing is making the undercutters broke and making buyers think that it's normal for a house to cost less than a gun

12,500 for Smalls (unfortunately my neighbor who I was on good relations with just advertised he will sell for 8K 10K and he will deliver it to whatever planet you are on)

75,000 for Mediums

I am thinking 125,000-150,00 for Large but since I just got the cert and have not built one yet I am not certain on that price,

Keep in mind that people make things to advance, and then have a tough tinme getting rid of them/

If I really need 35k and I am carrying a medoium house around I'm not going to eat it in some sense of solidarity with other architects.

IMHO do not judge the market when manypeople are still grinding to get xp, judge it later.

I am also an architect............

So Now that you all know that I will tell you what I think about player run economy and how it is working.

1. Player run economy = Lots of money for me. Why?

Why? Well for one all those people that are selling houses and all those mining equipment for what I think are unreasonable prices are doing one thing that is making my prices seem cheap so I make a killing on houses and all the other thing we archs can make. Why does it seem I sell low? because I am selling everything for a price I find reasonable for the work I do. Which believe it or not is not a lot of work to build a house no matter how many architects tell you it is. If you architects that can't make money out there You own fault.

Scenario 1

IF you had all the supplies before hand you could master architect in a day. Easy! cause 5 small houses and you can have enuff exps to take one level one skill. or 20 houses and you can do them all and you see my point easy easy. Even if a weaponsmith or armorsmith had all the supplies he needs to get to master he couldn't do it in a day cause he end up in the emergency room with torn hand muscles from clicking so darn much. As architects we have to use more resources yes but a lot less clicking.

Player Run Economy = Competition.

Of yes this is important. I have to put this in cause if it isn't then player run economy means jack. So how do I out sell the competition? Easy low prices. You may say low pirces mean I run outta stock quicker. True I do but almost everyone is willing to wait for a big deal difference :-) Most anyone who need to sell a small hosue for anythign between 10k and 20k is well in my opinion a semi gredy person.

To end this I jut want to say I love comeptition and I hope you all make a great lvigin in architecture cause I know I am. I didn't want o hurt anyone feelings or make them feel I was pointing fingers but you greedy folks know who you are.

Havea nice day and may the Prices of ore be with you.

Uller / Chalistra Server

Cheapest Architect on the market.

Low Low Low Prices everyday.

P.S. I have no PA behind me getting me everythign I need :-)
I am just a great business man.

Something tells me that Uller has no qualms about running missions everyday to make up for his losses.

I personally feel that when I have to resort to running missions, I am basically doing it for all the players that get their small houses for 5k. I am basically paying them to take one for that price.

Yup.. have fun running those missions fan boy.