Architect Archive

Just because you and Shila sell to each other for 3 cr per unit does not fix the price for everyone else. ( just an example, nothing personal )

I don’t currently sell for 2 I sell for more than that, however I am prepared to compete at 2 when the market gets there. There IS a level at which I will not compete, that is when I am no longer making a considerable profit. Then I loose and pack my bags and do something else. If there is someone out there that can compete at lower than I can for the 3 customers that will be left ( Anya I could not agree more ) then they will win the last thee sales.

I am not the bad guy here, If one gasoline company reduced the pump price to $1.50 while everyone else stayed at $2.00 even though they couild have sold it to the other gas companies for$1.75would they be the bad guy? Or the ones that wanted to price fix at $2.00

Anya I agree with just about everything you said, except when you sell at a value customers do talk to other potential customers. I know, many of my customers now were referred by former customers.

But something does need to change, the only difference between me and those I argue with is the level we are willing to compete at. We will get to a level where I am not willing to compete. The only thing that can change that is some way of increasing demand without increasing the number of architects.

I don't normally flame anyone but, Dayln, I read through about 3 pages of your utternonsense before I made my post. Selling a product for what it is worth based on the economy is not price fixing, it's basic common sense.....you don't even need business sense to realize that. I remember working my ass off in Asheron's Call to get my first set of GSA, or my first Hoary Mattekar Robe. I spent hours upon hours collecting high value questitems to sell and trade to EARN my ultimate goal item. There were no real money sinks in that game either, the sinks and the economy were created by the players. Say for instance, you charge 500K for a large house, people would actually have to PLAY THE GAME to earn it. (What a concept...) When you can achieve any item in a matter of hours or days....there is no desire to achieve that goal. I see people that say, "Well, I've mastered two professions....now what??" PLAY THE GAME......Have fun and create goals for people to achieve. Whether it's a high quality piece of armor, a nice weapon, a rare looted item, or a LARGE HOUSE.As an architect I have a large house andthe thing is huge, it should be worth a nice million at least.The reason people expect to pay less than 9K for a small house expect it because of people like you. Nobody is talking about price fixing...it's all about common sense and setting tough but, reachable goals. Think about it awhile instead of mindlessly spouting nonsense. Lucasarts/SOE created an incredible virtual world for us to live in, not a game to see who could be the most powerful or have the most money in the shortest time (WHO CARES). Go play Quake or Monopoly if those are your only goals. If you don't have anything to spend your money on, what difference does it make if you follow suit with the rest of us instead of trying to sell everyone in the game a house in a week?Sure, have a sale on one particular item once in awhile or include some maintenance and power on the deed for no extra charge. There is nothing wrong with that. But, selling items at far below what they should be worth based on the market value of resources is destroying the economy, the profession, and eventually, the entire game.

How can I be destroying the economywhile still selling at very large profit margins?

Just not the profit marginyou want to price fix at. That is all that this is about.

I am playing the game, and sucueeding at the goals I set.

Just wanted to toss out the standard "I've given up, Dalyn's still stupid" and laugh at him because I'm selling Composite for over 60 credits/resource.

Dalyn, please start a Weaponsmith. I'd like to buy guns at 500 each. After all, your average gun like a scout blaster takes less than 200 resources to make. At 500 credits, you're getting an AMAZING 900% PROFIT on your work!!!

Weapons are another subject, harder to find resources, experimentation matters , resource quality is key. I have not delved into that market yet, but I have a partner who is planning too. I am sure he will sell a good quality product at a very competitive price. ( what a jerk he must be huh?, I know how much you hate those guys that sell quality products at competitive prices, bunch of lame brains we are )

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Dayln wrote:

That Rath is an entirely different subject. My wine example was about vertical monopoly case and how it does not apply if others have exactly the same access. If we are done with that one and agree that vertical monopoly indeed does not apply we can move on to market value.

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Well at this point Dayln I'm out of new examples. I think you are wrong that a verticle trust does apply here. Since neither of us work for the FTC and can't directly say how the law is interpretated today, we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Furthermore as I said before SWG is a much smaller scale economy and anything we do has a much further reaching impact than your wineries do.

Dayln wrote: Weapons are another subject, harder to find resources, experimentation matters , resource quality is key. I have not delved into that market yet, but I have a partner who is planning too. I am sure he will sell a good quality product at a very competitive price. ( what a jerk he must be huh?, I know how much you hate those guys that sell quality products at competitive prices, bunch of lame brains we are )

I wouldn't go so far as to say lame brains, but surely ignorant of economics. So here comes a crash course.

What is economics?

1) How individuals, firms, governments, and other organizations within our society make choices. 2) How those choices determine how the resources of society are used. All conventional economics is underpinned by the assumption that people act rationally

What are all these folks talking about when they mention that fairy tale 3cr per resource figure?

OPPORTUNITY COST. The precise definition of opportunity cost is; the cost of any activity measured in terms of the benefit from the best alternative forgone. Or the highest valued, next best alternative that must be sacrificed to attain something or to satisfy a want. In our case the opportunity cost of creating a structure is the cost of NOT doing the next best thing with the resources...for most that would be selling the resources outright.

What are all these people talking about when they say you cannot make a profit selling structures for less than you can sell resources for?

Profit in business studies or accountancy is different from profit in economics. In accountancy the term profit is determined by adding up all the financial revenues (money from sales) and subtracting all the costs. (This is what you are doing) In economics we include the opportunity costs of being in business as well as all the other financial costs.A drycleanerrunning his own business might make $15000 dollars financial (accounting) profit, but he might have been able to earn $11,000 as abaker (his next best alternative), thus an economist would calculate his profit as merely $4,000. If he only made $9000 as adrycleaner he would have made a financial profit – but to the economist he would have made a loss.

In the economists view, when rational individuals or businesses make decisions (whether to buy or sell,what to make,where to invest, how much to pay, or how much to sell for) - they take into consideration all of the costs involved, the full oportunity costs, not just the direct expenditures.

You are not doing this. Say whatever else you like but you simply are not. If you were to find a way to sell for a lower price than everyone else while STILL maintaining a profit above your oportunity cost you would not be upsetting the economy.

Class dismissed.

You are the only one that says I am an amazing businessman, all I said is that I am trying to apply real world business values to this artificial environment. I have said that I know more about business than some here, that is obvious. Some here don’t understand that business is a competitive environment, that is pretty elementary.
I have never said I am an amazing businessman.

Sam Walton was an idiot too I guess, too bad he didn’t take advantage of his profit opportunities or he would have been successful huh?

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Dayln wrote:

Sam Walton was an idiot too I guess, too bad he didn’t take advantage of his profit opportunities or he would have been successful huh?

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I can not believe on this sad day that this is what you fill your time with. I've been grieving for a dead man all day, but perhaps there is a bit of room left to grieve for those who never live.

/mourn JRC
/mourn Dayln

Tued the Master Builder

He isnt my hero.... he is just the easiest and most profound example to use when someone says "If you sell for lees than you could sell you are an idiot!". People who say that dont know much about history.

RoadieRik:

Technically you are right, Dayln isn't following rational economic principals when he sells structures for less than what he could sell the raw resources for on the bazaar. However, clearly, rational economics doesn't apply (except in an abstract theoretical sense) because this is a game and credits arenotreal money. If credits were real money, then I'm sure Dayln would sell the resources instead ofmaking structures (or he would charge more for his structures).

Dayln clearly prefers to be an architect rather than a resource seller, presumably because he derives greater satisfaction from it (for whatever reason) than simply selling the resources on the bazaar. So as long as he is making enough money to stay in business and he is enjoying what he is doing (I know it's been said many times before, but it is a game) then he is doing the rational thing (even if it isn't strictly theoretically economically rational - note that I'm making the same distinction between business and economics that you are).

From a business perspective what Dayln is doing is perfectly legimate and rational. He is competing on the basis of price and customer service (of course, presentlythese are the only two ways for architects to compete). If he can harvest his own resources for 0.50 credits/unit and sell them for 2-3 credits/unit, then he is making a huge profit, even after you factor in redeeding costs and the time it takes to craft structures. That's a 400-600% profit on a per resource basis. In real life any company would kill to be able to get a 400% profit margin. Stores like Wal Mart frequently make less than 1% profit for each item they sell, though they still make huge profits through volume selling (of course, volume selling isn't as practical in SWG due to lot and time limitations).

If other architects are not able to acquire the resources they need as cheaply as Dayln can, it does not mean that Dayln is competing unfairly. What it means is Dayln has a competitive advantage over less efficient architects. This is the essence of business, people. You either become a more efficient competitor, or you leave the field. That's it.

There are two ways to increase profits in a declining market: 1) increase prices or 2) decrease costs. With so many architects and a declining market for deeds, which option do you think is the most feasible?

I know a lot of architects are going to flame me now, but that is the way it is whether you like it or not.

Slim Vargo, Corbantis

I will flame ya

For 1 the market as it is now is declining but will not for ever so setting the price for a declining market will only hurt the markets future. If there is fault here it is the devs for not putting a sustainable market in place and allowing for this to happen so early in the game.

For 2 You and others who sell based on the cost to make instead of the market value of the ingrediants required to make the item are by passing the actual "Game" economy all together and are creating a macro economy for a much smaller profit margen then could be accuired.

For 3 In real life a company would look at making a house and selling it for 3k then realize that they could have made 9k by just selling the ingredents to make the house to begin with. Hence never making the house and just selling the resources to the open market like you should if your just out to sell your item for cost.

I really dont think that any one in real life would want to explain to thier investors why they are selling some thing for so cheap when they could have trippled thier profits and greatly reduced the cost of manufacturing the item by just selling the "Home building Kit".

The only reason people make and sell houses in real life is cause they can by the resources in bulk from a whole seller and then mark up the value of the house to its economical value. Who in thier right mind would go out and by all the resources and then sell it for the amount the paid for the resources +400% when they could have sold it for market value? They would have fired that CIO in a heart beat.

For 4 (heh) None of you have to answer to investors I suspect...