Architect Archive

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Brantoc-Pax wrote:

I tried raising my prices to 140k a couple weeks ago for heavies, and my sales dropped to near nothing.. On Scyllia, if I wanna keep sales up over the 100 unit a week level I MUST sell at 120k or lower.

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ZenDragonMLS wrote:

I'm saying that every crafter needs to figure out how to get the resources to do their job. Some crafters don't need *quantity* so much as they need *quality* or *diversity*. For example, weaponsmiths need a lot of different "named" resources, and they must constantly look for those that are better than the ones they have. Architects typically need quantity above else.

So, in response to their *specific* resource needs, different crafters make individual choices as to how to deal with those needs. Here are *some* avenues that they can pursue:

1. Make agreements with existing or new friends to "use" their lots for things. For example, among my friends on Chilastra it isn't unusual at all for the combat-oriented characters to "hold" some factories or houses for crafters. Notice that this "use" can be static or dynamic. There are times in my guild where a crafter will say "I need some of the new spawn of XX - would one of you guys go put up a harvester on it at waypoint YY?" Many guilds have arrangements like this.

2. Buy a 2nd (3rd, 4th) account so they can *directly* control more lots.

3. Buy resources on the open market or employ "contract" miners to get the material. The distinction that I'd make between #1 and #3 is that #1 is typically over an extended period of time and is quite often based on a "trust" relationship that involves putting people on the admin list for things. I see #3 as strictly a "commercial" interaction.

4. Make agreements with total strangers to "lease" their lots. This can be similar in structure to #1, but it is strictly a commercial arrangement. For example, there are people (#1) where I would trust with my house or my factory, but the #4 people that I'm leasing from I might not trust with anything more expensive than a medium mineral harvester. There have been MANY statements in this forum about people doing this.

5. Same deal as #4 except the characters holding the lots don't play much (if at all) on your server. Because of that distinction, #5 is referred to as "cross-server lot trading".

Which ones of these are "illegal" or "immoral"? Which ones give a crafter an "unfair advantage"? Which ones are more prevalent?

Message Edited by ZenDragonMLS on 06-30-2004 09:35 AM

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Here is the problem... At one time.. there were no lot caps.. no there is more to the reason than just some guy eledgedly crashing the server with all the harvesters he put down....

I am going to explain this as simple as I can... the Balance which is the goal to obtain by limiting lots to 10.. is that within a servers own ACTIVE players a balanced market would be acheived.. meaning that production would be close to demand..

Now lets assume there are only 10 people on the server with there 10 lots.. .. the goal is that out of those 100 lots those ten people would be able to have houses.. ( start a city) and do what ever they want in the game.. the balance is based off of 100 lots.. serving 10 people... but .. 1 guy goes to another server and trades.. now there are 110 lots serving 10 active players.. that guy goes to 10 other servers.. now there are 200 lots serving 10.. it would be fine if these new Ghost Toons actually participated in the world.. ( used guns.. armor.. clothes.. meds... the stuff that helps to consume the supply..) but they arent and that is where the imbalance is growing from..

I have no problem with your list here 1-4.. because even most people that have multiple accounts actually play those other accounts too.. I know alot of crafters have a second to use for fighting.. so they are still active.. The imbalance is from one guy controlling.. 300 lots.. ( harvesters) that is 29 ghost toons.. that is 290 lots worth adding to the Supply .. and there is not a balancing counter part added to consume the extra supply... two months ago this wasnt a problem.. because the balancing counter part was HoloGrinding.. ( buying 1 mil resources to grind away in practice mode was never to be intended as normal) but we are VERY close to seeing the hologrind end..

Does that paint a better picture of the problem?

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FaceGarikLoran wrote:

Well fishchips, its sad that U wont let starter 'serious' architects get a foot in the door the way that I see it when setting up a vendor - instead u decide to buy out any 'worthwhile' stock completely, and then sell it on for u're own jumped-up prices!

Its terrible that we have people who bump up the prices on things - Armoursmiths bumping up armour prices, Docs bumping buffs up, and now this!

My prices, u have so kindly posted are what I was using to get my foot in the door, and offer to legit customers to get some buisness - whos to say I did not inted to move my prices up once I started to get some repeat buisness?

All u could say to me was to 'raise my prices and advertise' - but with already established architects, and mall's selling the exact same product at the exact same price - how can i get anywhere?

So I want to keep my prices low atm, to get some return on a proffesion that I have been doing for the last month (including grind and harvesting), to get a nice sum of creds back so I aint completely skint!

So instead of being 'told' effectivly to play by u're rules by having my prices the same as everyone else who already have shops up and on the offshot that someone comes to me rather than a well established mall such as HPI, Ill get no sales!

Instead, u've used me, and tried to use me further as an employee of u'reself!

Thanks for the nice welcome to the profession - No fair competition from u I see!

I didnt know there was such behavoir in this game!

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Here's how it went.

I was in the profession for around 4 months or so up until yesterday.

I asked around how much my harvesters were worth instead of looking at the sheer truth of things. "120k for BER13's" they said.

This is how much the server was pricing them for us. Needless to say, my moral is that if the server thinks that it's worth 120k, then it's worth 120k.

After a while of being in the profession I started to ask myself, how much money am I making out of this? I worked out a few figured and pondered along... realised that for all I was making all of these harvesters... it was costing me nearly as much just to produce the things.

The "interested" Architects of Chimaera got together and started to agree ona few prices, which we decided were not only "worthwhile" but fair aswell.

There were plenty of people willing to keep their prices at the same level, just to get competition - but they were fairly short sighted.

You came along, with the prices above.. expecting to make a profit with those prices. I don't particularly think you did your research, despite being a "new serious Architect".. but what's to be expected. I can't name one Architect on Chimaera that would sell BER13's for 100k to uphold their profession in the money making side of things. Any lower and you're just becoming charity.

Your prices, as you so wrongly contradicted here "were not moving". Fair play, free commerce.. it's an MMORPG. But you clearly haven't been in the profession long enough to realise what you're doing to it, when you introduce these crazy prices.

Armorsmiths, weaponsmiths and other professions are charging at 10cpu at the least. At my prices, I was lucky to be charging 4cpu - which was what it actually cost me to get some of the resources in the first place for the more expensive resources used. We were selling products at a base rate.. hell, looking at the time we spend, we were practically paying them to take it off our hands.

Of course, you came along, completely negligent of the big talk that Architects had on the server... completely took advantage of the fact that we'd raised our prices and you killed them again.

For the sake of the profession,I told you that you were undercutting. You had none of it. You're probably the most stubborn Architect I've come across full stop. Your prices were there to stay, such a martyr you are.

After twiddling on a few figures, I went along to your shop. 100k for a BER13 mineral harvester. I sold them (after the "notch" up by the rest of architects) at 130k per.

Working out my prices by using a 4cpu figure, it costs me 96k to make a BER13 harvester. What's the logical thing to do? I cleared out your stock. Not only were you saving me time, but I was making profit from it. The great thing is, as I rightly stated earlier, is that this is a free-economy. You can undercut all you like, but still at the end of the day, if it was saving me time - I'd sooner spend an extra 4k and buy yours, then resell it.

Call me lame, call me what you will - but in my eyes this is just as crap as undercutting to such an extent that you're not making profit.

After I'd done this, I had a moment of enlightenment. All this arguing I'd done for the profession, all the hours I'd spent slaving away at a factory. All of this flaming and incessant whining, which in all fairness - wasn't fun brought me to quit the profession. It's a game. Whilst I like to advance and make money, I don't like to play a game where it feels like work, or I have to anger or be angered by people just to get anywhere. I'm now selling what I have left of my stock less than anyone else on the server, at bare minimum price just to get back what it cost me to make these things... that's the least I want for putting all the time and effort that I have done into the profession.

Architects flamed away, and the server just lost a fairly well stocked vendor. I'm hoping that some sort of message has gone through to customers of the architect profession. Customers often dont have a clue what it takes to make these factories and harvesters. A guy laughed at me when I told him I charged 40k for factories. A singular comment on the forums made me realise how much our slavery actually means to them...

"Nice prices, keep them dropping... Nothing wrong with healthy competition"

Blissfully ignorant, the consumer sits back and wallows as prices drop even more.

Garik, you can support this dead-end profession all you want. I feel like I've been carrying a burden ever since day 1 of me being Architect, with my "1 sale a day if I'm lucky" business. Don't expect to get a nice welcome from a profession which is already charging base rates for its products.. especially as they're not renewable in any sense whatsoever. You had it all coming... maybe a little more research would have saved you from such a plunder.

Sorry for the hijack.

Message Edited by Flashya on 07-02-2004 07:13 AM

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Flashya wrote:

...Working out my prices by using a 4cpu figure, it costs me 96k to make a BER13 harvester....

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Pawlin wrote:

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Flashya wrote:

...Working out my prices by using a 4cpu figure, it costs me 96k to make a BER13 harvester....

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Grind metal and ore cost 4 cpu on Chimaera?

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Is that what it says?

No. They cost 2cpu. Iselda, Cogad and all the other joys that I used to use are far from it. My point was, that we're practically breaking even at that price. I've already had one argument.. I'm not prepared to start another.

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Flashya wrote:

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Pawlin wrote:

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Flashya wrote:

...Working out my prices by using a 4cpu figure, it costs me 96k to make a BER13 harvester....

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Grind metal and ore cost 4 cpu on Chimaera?

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Is that what it says?

No. They cost 2cpu. ...

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Well when you said "it costs me 96k" I took that to mean that you were figuring your costs based on the cost of raw materials. But I guess thats not how you meant it.

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Pawlin wrote:

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Flashya wrote:

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Pawlin wrote:

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Flashya wrote:

...Working out my prices by using a 4cpu figure, it costs me 96k to make a BER13 harvester....

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Grind metal and ore cost 4 cpu on Chimaera?

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Is that what it says?

No. They cost 2cpu. ...

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Well when you said "it costs me 96k" I took that to mean that you were figuring your costs based on the cost of raw materials. But I guess thats not how you meant it.

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