Architect Archive
Thread: Price Killing our Profession
GummiShooter
Mon Sep 20, 2004 9:50 am
#14
Bazalan wrote:
The only solution is for more people to drop Architect. It's a free market economy so if you want to make more money go into a more lucrative profession. Basic supply vs demand.
I honestly can't believe people do Architect anymore. It must make you sick knowing a new Weaponsmith can charge 100-500cpu when you have trouble getting 4cpu. You're better off just harvesting the mega resources and selling them for 10+ cpu.
If I were in this for the money, then yes, I would've given up Architect after a few weeks already. But imagine this... I actually like being an Architect, because it's just plain fun. Houses, harvesters, furniture, paintings, looted decorative items, there are so many things you can sell. And the challenge is to keep everything stocked. Who cares if I don't make millions everyday? I make enough to buy some nice things that come along, and that's good enough for me.
Cybst0rm
Mon Sep 20, 2004 12:01 pm
#15
Hehe, I too have stopped making harvestors. Why make harvestors that are a pain to make a small amount of money when I can craft furniture (much more interesting) and sell it as 10cpu?
Tempus_Blackthorn
Mon Sep 20, 2004 4:37 pm
#16
Pawlin, having read the rest of your articles, and your FAQs, maybe you could do an average price guide? I know that I'm an 'undercutter', but I didn't do it on purpose. People stopped me before I got Master, and asked:"How much for *******?" And I was sputtering and just threw a price out. A few days later, I start getting tells like:"You sold ****** to my friend for ***, can you do the same for me?" Since I always made everything myself, not knowing the going prices, I just agreed.
And now I'm almost stuck since I wanna keep my clientele. 
But hey, I can still run missions on Dant as a master Swordsman!
Decay would be nice, and also annoying. We would have to change our own haverters!
BTW, I'm on Intrepid, and my 'clientele' is mostly my guild and the citizens(around 60 of them). Almost build the whole damn city!
FOR FREE!!!
Pawlin
Mon Sep 20, 2004 4:59 pm
#17
Tempus_Blackthorn wrote:
Pawlin, having read the rest of your articles, and your FAQs, maybe you could do an average price guide?...
I've actually thought about doing it. But wasn't sure if it would really help or if it might acutally hurt.
Setting a price guide for our products has all sorts of potential pitfalls.
The problem is that the range of "normal market prices" for our servers vary enough that it would be hard to have a one size fits all guide that would be useful across servers.
e.g. On Kettemoor 85-125k for a heavy is probably normal prices. I think that would be considered very low by most other server markets. And on the other hand if another server prices range 120-180k then that range would be too high for Kettemoor.
If I said 85k - 180k then people would be too broad to be of much use. Whatever low number I pick people will whine about it beeing too low and setting a bad example.
Or we'd have customers see that 85k at the bottom end and then expect 85k anywhere and everywhere and accuse anyone higher as being greedy gougers.
If I set price ranges too high then its unrealistic and could be seen as price fixing.
If I set the prices all by myself everyone will attack me for getting it wrong. If I ask everyone to agree on prices then we simply won't agree.
I had seriously thought about proposing the idea of a price guide with a range of prices but then I thought about everything I say above.
KatMandu
Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:51 pm
#18
Pawlin, I do apologize to you and the rest of the thread. I meant no offense. BUT, having said that...pricing is...ECONOMICS 101. In the real world, its the folks who can't compete who want the Devs (read "Government") to take the nerf bat to everyone else, but not THEM. The idea of reducing the number of architects is fine...but WHO decides? Does the one complaining get to eliminate everyone ELSE so they can still make a profit? Make a good product at a good price, advertise, build a clientele and the profits will come. I still don't understand the attitude of some of the posters here that "architect stinks and is broken; everyone ELSE should quit." Don't we have too much of that already in the Jedi forum?
Pawlin
Mon Sep 20, 2004 9:04 pm
#19
No offense taken.
And I certainly don't think the solution is to reduce the number of architects. In fact thats more of the problem than not in my opinion. My preference would be to have the number of architects increase.
Fact of the matter is that the number of architects has gone down a lot already and the only reason the few of us remaining can make a living is that everyone else has already left. More of the same as far as that goes isn't good.
yodachaos
Mon Sep 20, 2004 9:20 pm
#20
i personally sell most of my harvies for 100k and 105k. i usually have around 20million in the bank. now thats on eclipse. i get spurts every so often but i generally dont sell much each day. i just mine some of my own resources and then just the big contracts. that come along.
Pawlin
Tue Sep 21, 2004 12:00 am
#21
KatMandu wrote:
...Sounds like more of the typical sour grapes to me...
No. No it isn't.
We don't doubt that it is possible to make money as an architect. Thats certainly true. I'm sure most of us have more money than we know what to do with (literally). But with the price levels we've currently got, and the demand level as it is, the problem is how many architects can the system actually support? And what is the long term viability of our profession with this situation?
Thankfully our products are still useful and there is still demand. But there isn't much. The pricing system and demand level we have can only support so many architects. It makes it difficult for new architects to join the profession and it can befrustrating for existing architects.
8M is not chump change certainly. But you have to consider how long it took to make that much and how much could be made in the same time frame if doing other things. Now I don't know what your wifes prices are. They could be higher or lower than mine or the other architects in this thread. But I doubt your wife will really like it when someone else undercuts her by 25-50%. I say 'when' because it is simply a matter of time, trust me... thats how our profession works.
Tempus_Blackthorn
Tue Sep 21, 2004 8:20 am
#22
You're right Pawlin, it would be all those things. Some people would understand, others wouldn't. But just the prices for the heavies tells me one thing: I'm way under. I will build my clientele slowly, as the city grows,then I will slightly increase my prices. I'll admit I want my prices to be lower then my 'competitors', but not to low as to 'ruin' me.
I supposeindustrial espionage will help me set my price range.
amevil2
Tue Sep 21, 2004 8:49 am
#23
me thinks we should set a price list fore all of our whares , post it here with a sticky and encourage all old and new Arch'ys to floow the guide so we can control our own market. Selling our stuff by cpu is retarded. when is the lst time you when to the store and bought a lamp broken down by how much material went into the making of it?
Erillion
Thu Sep 23, 2004 5:17 am
#24
When JtL comes about 60 % of the architects will switch over to shipwright. With MUCH less architects available and no need to do the profession during hologrind and no incentive to do it as a way to get FS XP (at 35:1) - which means the number of temporary lowballer architects falling to almost zero - the remaining architects will have the golden opportunity to adjust the current low prices to a more convenient 10:1 range.
I did and enjoyed architect for over a year - but I did join the game to build ships ... and finally I will get that chance. Although I prospered as an architect and have been voted "Best Architect Naritus 2004" its time to move on and leave the field to the die-hard architects, which hopefully will get improvements, especially in the GCW field.
Have fun
Novarider
Pawlin
Thu Sep 23, 2004 10:08 am
#25
JTL will also cause more demand for resources which in turn will increase demand for our harvesters. We had very good demand during the hologrind and I think at least initially aft er JTL launch we'll see a nice increase in demand. Add that to some architects leaving and we might see some scarcity for our goods, with that scarcity shoudl come increased prices.
cosno
Fri Sep 24, 2004 1:44 am
#26
Go look at the Intrepid Trade forum - an architect had a customer that ordered and did not pick up.
He is now selling BER13 and BER14's for 50k.
50k - can you belleve that?