Architect Archive
Thread: So there you have it
Rheet you have to look beyond the short term.
Yes people will want to upgrade to a harvester that pulls resources faster and cheaper and lasts forever. So what do you end up with? The exact same situation we were getting to before, everyone that wants one will have one and don’t need any more.
On top of that the extractors they have will pull resources even faster and more quickly saturates the market with things that last forever.
In 3 months we will be in the same boat we were before, except it will be worse, as we will be making products even faster that there are very few customers for.
All this change has done is
Increase demand in the short term ( until high productivity harvesters are widespread ) and then drop back to zero
Increase supply in the long term ( because all harvesters will then be pulling resources even faster )
That will drive prices down even faster than before, and more quickly saturate the market with things that last forever and never need to be replaced.
More products is not the answer, that is always a short term fix, we need a long term fix, the only way to create a recuring need for what Architects make is some form of decay.
With the same respect you gave me,
Player cities will equal exactly 6 times the number of planets that players can build on, once again buying things that last forever, Player cities will create a spike once again, but not a long term one, just a short spike.
The space expansion will not add that many more players to the game, the Architect products we make that last forever will not get a big spike there, the resources might, but not really houses and extractors.
Architects will not be building spaceships ( I am pretty sure of that ). That will be a new class.
More products is not the answer, more people that need our products help but still is not a long term answer as we are just going to saturate them faster with our new harvesters too. The answer is a recurring need for the products we make. Which was what the intent was since long before the first beta.
Dalyn whats with all the negativity...the sky is not falling. The devs just proved all of your doom and gloom wrong with one small improvement to architecture. What makes you so sure that come 4 months from now something else will not come in and start the next big wave?
In fact based on what I have seen that next wave will start a lot sooner than 4 months. Player cities are just around the corner as are vehicles. Not to mention the new combat droids that are likely gonna suck up resources like no ones business. Even now changes to other professions like BE being able to use factories has created a mini-boom for me.
Thank you though. I know you mean well in your glass half empty way by warning all of us short sighted fools. Maybe you are right, maybe next time for sure the sky will fall. Personally I am not gonna waste too much thought on that, I am gonna be too busy trying to build my small part of those 190,000+ extractors that need replacing before the requests for player city components start rolling in.
I dont think you understand it, doubt I can get you to see it. Short term everything is great, but long term this is not good news.
Everything you described is not a long term fix, but a short term spike. The faster you pull resources the faster architects will saturate the market with things that last forever.
I am not all doom and gloom, I am enjoying the changes, it is nice to have variety, but I am no fool. I realize what faster and more efficient harvesters will mean in the long term.
That every problem we have in regards to people no longer needing what we make will be accelerated by this change in the long run.
You talk in short terms of being months away?? Well if the player city BOOM lasts 4-6 months , and the SE , which Im sure regardless of who builds the ships , will put more people or new things for us to build . That lasts another 4-6 months . Well theres almost a year , I dont know about you but thats as long as i PLAN TO PLAY...
The gamewill not last decades , short term fix's will be fine for us , Its better than nothing at all ...
Im sure we will see a lot more furniture , maybe once there database is fixed we will see colors ... Imagine coloring a house or the furniture ....Hell maybe someone will even buy those Pink harvs i've been dreaming of ...LOL hhmm i say that outloud eek ..
Dayln is right.
The Medical and Weaponsmith markets are alive and well thanks to decay and recurring business. The use of resources constantly and the someone limited resource supply make logistics important in those professions. It allows those crafts persons to differentiate themselves and makes things interesting. That is a decay/expendible item market system. If there becomes to much supply in this market, resource production/material production slow down, but only temporarily. Eventually, supply dewindles and with a constant demand the market is renewed as prices go up.
In EQ items didn't and still don'tdecay. When a new item is introduced in EQthere is a short term spurt of demand, then eventually within a matterof a few short weeksthe prices fallout of the market and crafts peopleare left to wait until new itemsare introduced. The crafts business in EQ is often complained about for this very reason. There is no recurring market in EQ, supply only goes up, not down. Prices drop and the market is for all intents and purposes never renewed. It does not make for constant and enjoyable game play for persons wanting to focus on crafting.
Dayln has a point when he focuses on long term. What architects truelly need is some form of recurring market (as the Medical/Weapons markets are). The only think making new harvestors will do is cause people to sell their old ones cheaplyenough thatnew players/new resource interested peeps can easily enter the resource market and start supplying resources. Not only that, without knowing what the extraction rates will be, a 10 rate harvestor is currently producing almost 50% more resources than the old 7 rate harvestors. It won't take long to saturate (ie, supply of harvestors will exceed demand) the market, prices will drop and architects will be in the same boat they are now, and with the over supply medical and weaponsmiths markets might suffer from oversupply as well (ie, every medical provider and weaponsmith with the same resources will be producing effectively the same items).
Just to restate, I love the experimentation, I love the variety. There is, however, a better way to handle the architect market than present.
Rotane,
Corbantis
For the record, I hate the no edit feature <sigh> I type to fast.
Rotane
Assembly should be adjusted shortly as well. The devs are aware of the issue and will be looking into that as well as critical failures.
No info on weather they will actually DO something about it, but they are studying it.
Dayln wrote:
I am glad for the information, but without decay this is not really good news.
I am not sure, I think this is better then decay. It gives people a reason to upgrade. I would rather re-sell a harvestor to every person on the server, making 60k for an extraction rate 7 medium that took 3400 resources to make then remake a harvestor for people and still only make about 16k
_-ArchAngel-_ wrote:
Assembly should be adjusted shortly as well. The devs are aware of the issue and will be looking into that as well as critical failures.
No info on weather they will actually DO something about it, but they are studying it.
Thanks AA.
I am glad someone can see it. My concern is not sales for this week or next month or even6 months from now. Without decay the architect profession is doomed to saturation, as much as I love experimentation as it is implemented, it will in the long run saturate the market even faster with things that last forever. In a year there will be no market at all for Architects.
My interest is in making all classes viable long term, the only way to do that is for every craftable item in the game to decay in some fashion. Houses, extractors, clothes, fishing poles, droids, whatever.
I do not support decay what so ever. I PAY a lot of maintenance on my strucutres and equipment as it is to keep them in 100% condition! If maintenance is NOT paid, guess what? The structure or piece of equipment DOES decay and disappears. I have always seen many medium harvesters on fire....and personal harvesters are disposable. Houses just disappear.....would be interesting to see an abandoned house on fire.
Having house decay is just too much. Moving would be a nightmare, especially for shop owners that carry hundreds of items. If there was no maintenance on harvesters or factories, then Imight consider decay as a possibility.
The choice is, Architect is no longer viable as a business, or some form of decay is introduced. Some people are going to be fine with the former, I am not.
Let me tell you what is NOT going to happen. That for the next ten years they keep adding things for arhictects to sell, that involves graphics and tons of programing.
It may be that they let Architect fall as a business, I would rather not see that happen, but it would not surprise me.