Architect Archive

Dayln,

hehe.. while i was trying to fix my malfunctioning post, you posted a reply.

I respect your right to make more structures for less profit... hopefully you wouldn't be making structures at all in a game if that wasn't something that was fun (and therefor worthwhile in itself).

My point was mearly that I felt you missread what I was saying, and that Wal-mart as a business has no comparison to the way this game is being played, or indead what the low-cost sellers are doing.

It is interesting to me however that so many of the players in this game ARE trying to maximise profit (either monetary or xp, or usualy both), while arcitects as a group aren't.

Do you think architecture holds some sort of special attraction to the sort of people who would rather make a mark on the world than makeany other sort of gain?

I liked your last line, that may be true, I have not thought of it that way.

I also notice however that Archiitects are also the ones that make harvestors and sell resources, profitable business that, but yes I prefer to make my mark directly on the world and maximizing profits is not my primary goal. In fact short term maximizing profits should not be the goal of any company that can see farther than a year.

Daylin ,

Your logic is flawed in so many way's . You base everything on assumption , you assume that because I sell a Pa hall for 350k and you for (lets say) 200k , my customer will not come back , yet yours will???

Actualy I find that when I sell any structure , give them a SET price and deliver fast and friendly they come back and recommend more sales to me at my price .

For instance last weekend I sold a Pa hall to a bunch a cool cats that were started a new PA . Made there hall in less than 1 HR . Guess what , today I sold anotherPA hall to one of there members and a Large home , all because I could deliver FAST not because of my price ..

You underestimate your own worth , It gets to the point that I shut down sales , when my premade resources are almost empty , thats when i log on an alt and have some fun that way .

IMO people want stuff FAST FAST FAST , I charge a fair amount never more than 350k for any type PA hall , 125k for Large Homes 125k for all large harvs , except of course water (which is less) and Fusion (which is 160k) . I pre stock my vendor with Large Harvs on Sunday , im sold out by Wed-thurs ...This is no joke , nor flame .

One other thing , most business's i've studied and been involved in rarely look at the short term , who wants to be in business for 1 or 2 yrs ??

I dont base anything at all on assumption.

I know for a fact what my resources cost me.

I know for a fact that my customers repeat

I feel very good aboiut my own worth

I reap huge ( up to 400% profit ) on every sale.

I work for my customers, not other architects,

I provide my customers with the product they are looking for at a very competitive price.

My business is sucuessfull.

Posi where you and I disagree on that one point was the value of inventory, be it finished product or resources. Again, personally I am trying to apply real world business axioms to this artificial environment.
Ask any general manager of any company

inventory = bad

Now that is not true in an absolute sense, but it is in a general sense. Inventory be it raw materials or finished product is only potential money tied up sitting idle in a warehouse. The perfect company ( it does not exist ) Drives a truck ( or a fleet of them ) to the manufacturing plant with all the raw materials that will be needed that day, and that same fleet moves the finished product that was created with those materials that night to the customers, there is no warehouse. That is the goal of every production planning departmentfor every company, it is a goal none of them actually achieve, but it is the goal. ( I have spent years working closely with production planning departmentswith HUGE companies, last one was Procter & Gamble

The difference between they way you look at it and the way I looked at it is that I don’t count on the value of a potential sale that might take place with my warehoused resources. I am looking for liquidity.

The people that have made me laugh the most in this forum are the ones stockpiling finished product waiting for the price to go back up to the point where it was when this game was released and no one had a house. It will never get there, that time is gone and we are working under a totally different business environment unless they wipe every building off the map.

One last thing.

I also know that it is a constant war bwetween general managment and the sales manager about inventory. Sales managers love inventory while the owner of a company hates it. I have to play both parts in SWG.

I know the argument can be made the other way about inventory, I have made the argument myself. But a bird in the hand is still worth 2 in the bush.

Dayln,

Actualy I don't think its inventory value that we are disagreeing on.

In the numbers work-up I presented (selling 1 PA vs 3), I was actualy saying that you would keep zero inventory... You were selling any raw resources that were not converted to structures.

I agree with your stance on inventory being bad. In fact I am a business analyst, and I work primarily with manufacturing and distribution. I spend alot of time working with factories on lean manufacturing principals, andinventory reduction projects.

Interestingly in my business (automotive aftermarket) the government passed a law 3 years ago mandating that we value our primary inventory resource (Theused parts) at market value... ie. Thevalue they could be sold at. This law has since been challenged, and repealed.

Every company can chose to value their inventory in a way which suits them....

If I was in your position I would chose to value at market rate. So for example 100K of ore would have a book value of aprox 300Kcreds. If I manufactured that intostructures which sold for400K I would realise a profit of 100K on the manufacturing (ignoring labor etc). If I had to purchase additional material at a cost of 4 cpu I would take an un-favorable purchase price variance of -1 cpu.

You take a different (and perfectly acceptable) view. You value your raw materials at their cost of extraction (aprox 0.5 cpu). Therefor the same inventory (100K units) has a book value of only 50K. Manufacturing structures and selling them for 300K (less than me) you realise a profit on the manufacturing of 250K. If you have to buy any aditional material at 4 cpu you take an unfavorable purchase price variance of -3.5 cpu.

If I assumed my costs to harvest were about the same as yours (which they probably are.. I run about 20 heavies) then I would have to say that 60% or so of my profit comes from my mining, 40%from manufacturing,for a total of 400% margin (ignoring other costs).manufacturing.

You treat your mining operation as a 0% profit operation, and report all 400% or so as manufacturing profit.

I say all this simply to show those that arent in business that it is all just a matter of semantics. The bottom line for both of us is that we make money.. the difference is that you prefer to ensure a faster moving product through agressive pricing, while I prefer a little higher margin per unit at a potentialy lower volume.

Bot models can and are sucessful in the real world... and so far I see little reason to believe they can't be here in the game... assuming of course SOE actualy makes sure there is any market left 6 months from now for architects.

Anyway... enough rambling... we both know there is no definitive way to do business, and that the extremes on either end of the price spectrum will tend to die out.. low pricers because it just wont be worth the work.. high pricers because they wont sell enough.

Hey.. i just realised that we totally derailed a thread that was asking a specific question....

Oops

PosiTec
I know see why you and I often disagree but always on the details, rarely on the bottom line. Our real life experiences are very similar.

I worked for years on what manufacturing would call "fast change-over" team. We would actually go to other businesses and show them the value of fast change-over ( one product to another ). We worked extremely close with production planning.

You seem to have more holistic business experience that I do, and I have a lot. Not that you will get me to change anything mind you

I have had a blast with SWG, but when I came to these boards the constant resentment and name calling about people that sell for less ( while still making vast profits ) made me chuckle. It was this constant stream of people ( mostly kids ) screaming that "people that don’t know anything about business are putting me out of business" Kind of funny when you think about it, the exact opposite seems true to me.

So I decided to champion those that sell for less.

Dayln,

That Walmart thing, I didn't know that. Very interesting. Also, just wanted to let you know that I respect your opinion. You do seem pretty knowledgeable about economics and business. From what I have read of your posts, I would guess you either own a business, or study economics.

I think you are right about some of this, but we still disagree on how this applies to this game somewhat. We also disagree(I think we do) on what is "good" business and what isn't.

While many companies are profitable, many are not ethical, or moral. I am not going to go into a long post about the specifics of what I think is unethical about some of the companies, but I will name some that I think have some shady business practices.

Microsoft, Walmart(from the info you just gave me), multiple phone companies, bunch of big wall street companies with funky accounting practices.

Anyway, like in real life, some of those same practices can be applied to Star Wars Galaxies. I think you would be the Walmart of SWG.

Whatever the going price for structures is, you sell for 1 cred less(not literally).

Price war is something that never hurts.

Ok you can say a price war hurts the architect but also you gain when buying from a weaponsmith that is also in a price war.

So basically everyone gains.And a time will come when people will hit rock bottom price because going further is a loss.

So it is not just architects that have to deal with price wars.

Shadowfire is a good example of weaponsmith price war.When it was created some folks went there hoping to jump thru the crafting skills and make a huge fortune.

Sadly seems way too many had that idea and there is a good price war happening there.

GMT I appreciate that, and it is ok if we disagree, we adults can do that

My prices may not be as low as some would have you believe, I generally try to stay around 10% to 20% lower than the going rate, I have yet to get into a price war because I never compete with one person that sells for less than me. I compete with the average on my server and planet, so far that has worked very well for me. I have hardly ever had to reduce prices, I don’t react to one person selling a small house for 3k.
But I do expect prices to go lower soon, not just houses, but for resources too. I could be wrong.

I dont currently own a business, but I have, ( I used to fly and own aHot Air Balloon company,had to stop due to a healthissue. But I have worked closely with real world business a lot in my life. I have no degree and am not about to go to college at my age.

Most of my experience is hands on, working in jobs that have put me is close proximity to real business. Im 48 years old, my wife is a teacher. ( you think you hate my spelling? try living with her )