Architect Archive
Thread: Architect... a dead end profession?
QuiJonOz
Fri Jun 25, 2004 11:16 am
#27
Too bad we can't sell a PSP for a harvester 
.
.Yes furniture is a very nice markup, but it also is somewhat limited (though being able to hue furniture might help some).
To use your Best Buy analogy, what we need is the equivalent of ink. Printers are dirt cheap nowadays, but the cost of ink hasn't changed much. Why? Because that's where the company makes its money, not in the one printer they sell you but in the cartridges you'll use over its lifetime.
I've seen possible solutions suggested along this line... hue kits for furniture and structures, repair kits to offset introduced decay. Also, I would like to see starships require powerplants and storage modules, but that's a coin toss as to whether we'll see that.
Bogwalker
Fri Jun 25, 2004 11:19 am
#28
I think the problem with furniture is you spend a huge amount of time stocking, restocking, deleting emails etc. Maybe Im selling furniture too cheap, but at the moment I can either sell a single large house for 145k, or I can sell maybe 50+ pieces of furniture to make the same. Stocking those 50 pieces, dealing with all the emails etc is a lot more work than the few clicks it takes me to make a single house.
Pawlin
Fri Jun 25, 2004 2:23 pm
#29
Bazalan wrote:
...Now it's a drop in the bucket and I can't believe I can find architects selling them for 85K. I don't even think thats 3cpu for the massive amounts of resources to make these things. They should 1/4 the resource cost for these so architects can make some profit....
Heh. If they dropped the resource costs down to 25% of the current level thenthose 85k harvesters would soon cost 21k. So people would be doing the same work for even less profit.
Tunturi
Fri Jun 25, 2004 2:29 pm
#30
NinjasLovePirates said:
I sold Small Houses for 20k each to cover my costs and hopefully save back enough cash to be able to build two small houses at a time. Very quickly, the 'going price' for a small was 6k, and I was yelled at quite frequently when I quoted prices and accused of ripping people off.
Ya thats one big problem with player economy, everyone wants top tier stuff at cheap prices and they dont want to wait and make the money to buy the stuff. They want it NOW and dont want to pay what its worth. For example if you had only NPC's selling small houses for 50k nobody would say a word. They would save up and buy one, but since its players making them and selling them they want it dirt cheap and scream andyell until they find someone to sell it to them cheap. If crafters would stick to there guns and not drop prices, they would eventually stop the yelling "Your ripping me off" and just save up and buy it.
Bogwalker
Fri Jun 25, 2004 3:45 pm
#31
I think the way you run your architect business depends very much on how you obtain your resources. Ive been running up to 17 BER13 harvesters, so while I could make more profit on my resources selling furniture than houses,I simply couldnt shift anywhere near that quantity of resources. So in the end I make the most money by shifting the most volume of resources, which means houses and factories. I am effectively in the business of selling resources. If I was to switch to buying resources then Id definately consider switching to furniture and dropping houses altogether.
NinjasLovePirates
Sat Jun 26, 2004 12:50 am
#33
Bogwalker wrote:
I think the problem with furniture is you spend a huge amount of time stocking, restocking, deleting emails etc. Maybe Im selling furniture too cheap, but at the moment I can either sell a single large house for 145k, or I can sell maybe 50+ pieces of furniture to make the same. Stocking those 50 pieces, dealing with all the emails etc is a lot more work than the few clicks it takes me to make a single house.
You may want to adjust your prices, but if you sell a large house for 145k, and 50+ pieces of furniture for 145k, you're probably making a lot more profit on the furniture already. Also, you can Shift+LeftClick the e-mails to delete them all at once.
If you have customers buying multiples of furniture, you may also want to consider selling some items in crates...
Another plus to making furniture is that you don't need huge stacks of resources to make those items. To make a large, you would need a few large chunks of resources. Either way, it's your business and you can run it however you'd like.
Zandra96
Sat Jun 26, 2004 4:49 am
#34
Brilyn wrote:
Guys, I don't *intend* offense with this, but:
Structure decay is one of the dumbest idea there is.
<< no the dumbest idea is as a weaponsmith to troll this board and not to mean offense at your stupidity>>
For one very VERY simple reason:
Are ye prepared to travel from planet to planet, spending ALL your time ingame repairing buildings?
I doubt very much that you are.
<< yet you do see ppl hoping planets every other day to find better weapons and repair kits>>
So now, we have buildings that are going to die.
Which will kill all the stuff inside. Which, in a lot of cases, is irreplaceable. Like Quest paintings. Like gifts from friends (regardless of how common the item itself is).
So what you need to do, on a server by server basis, get the Architect community to up the prices. Start with a 50% increase.
<< i love to see you start a campaign telling all your weaponsmiths to increase prices by 50% (which btw that would make us from 3-5 cpu to 6-10... HOW MANY CPU ARE YOU CHARGING FOR YOUR CRAP???>>
No, this is not going to be instantly successful.
But it's exponentially more likely to succeed than lobbying for Structure Decay.......
you are stupid.. troll your own board
emtfl
Sat Jun 26, 2004 6:01 am
#35
Why not just lobby the devs for newer style houses? Maybe houses with windows you can see out of, or add color kits to paint houses with. The houses are just plain boring and lack imagination. same with guild halls. Maybe Make newer guild halls with higher storage but make it so that current guildhalls keep same storage so if a guild wants more storage they need to buy new hall.
City Structures like gardens,fountains statues, street lights should decay espicially lights. Say 45-60 days these need to be replaced every city wants to keep there city nice so they will buy the stuff regardless.
tethorn
Sun Jun 27, 2004 6:08 am
#36
Im noticing now that i have been arch for bout 8 months, that arch is probably the best proff out there for alt chars. Low maint on resources (just need decent steel/chem/gas) to produce max ber harvies, and houses/factories can be made with what ever you get your hands on. I personaly would love to see more items to craft just for something new but i cant complain at sales. I keep an average of 500 items on my deeds vendors, round 50 of generic/planet in located on small houses, 50 samd split med houses, 20 on larges, 20-50 of each factory, and at least 50 each med 10 ber harvies, and same in larges i also keep around 5 of same ratio on guild halls and city structures. bottom line is if you need it its there and dont have to wait for order.... I have yet to start advertising because my customers do it for me, i personaly dont have time to run around "fixing" someones house when dur runs low, i dont want to spend my entire game time at harvesters/crafting/fixing if that ever comes around i will drop arch, give us more to craft fine, give us more looted schematics (diff house styles, furniture, city structures) great!!! Making ALL crafting proffs needed for ships even better!!! Most ppl realized that arch would have its ups and downs its not a high demand proff but if dedicated to keeping vendors full and charging at a fair price for all involved its a great easy way to make a living, 4-5 cpu is my avg charge if i move more thatn what i have posted i increase price due to demand... and sales and profits balance out again amazing how that works...
Mi'a <SGO>
Master Architect
Mater Artesian
Master Merchant
Politician
Pawlin
Sun Jun 27, 2004 1:23 pm
#37
Zandra96 wrote:
you are stupid.. troll your own board
Name calling is not necessary. Please keep it civil here.
Slamdango
Sun Jun 27, 2004 7:49 pm
#38
Call me weird but I do Arch because I enjoy it. The player economy could go to hell and I wouldn't care because I supply my own needs.
Slamdango
the happy grinding weirdo
Rickey
Sun Jun 27, 2004 8:51 pm
#39
The problem with decay on structures is as long as there is maintenance that people have to pay to keep them, it is a form of double taxation that they don't have to incur with items crafted by other profesions. Now, I understand that SOE is using maintenance as a way to drain some money out of the economy, but that money drain comes at the Arch's expense. As already noted, most items produced by other profs are consumable in some way. Here are a few ideas:
- Similar to usage xp, the Arch that crafted the item gets a cut of the maintenance.
- You don't just add money to a structure for this magical maintenance. You purchase a 'maintenance contract' from an architect that keeps it operating for different periods of time.
- Do away with maintenance and implement decay (at least on harvesters).
As folks clamor for new content and better loot, it directly conflicts with the space in a building that the furniture we craft take up. The furniture that is actually a container is long overdue idea I hope to see soon. Too bad it will come at the expense of the tireless travel pack makers who decorate most houses.
Maybe building item limits and furniture limits should be tracked seperately, giving more people the real option of having arch crafted decorations instead of choosing resource and loot storage over decorations.
- Similar to usage xp, the Arch that crafted the item gets a cut of the maintenance.
- You don't just add money to a structure for this magical maintenance. You purchase a 'maintenance contract' from an architect that keeps it operating for different periods of time.
- Do away with maintenance and implement decay (at least on harvesters).
As folks clamor for new content and better loot, it directly conflicts with the space in a building that the furniture we craft take up. The furniture that is actually a container is long overdue idea I hope to see soon. Too bad it will come at the expense of the tireless travel pack makers who decorate most houses.
Maybe building item limits and furniture limits should be tracked seperately, giving more people the real option of having arch crafted decorations instead of choosing resource and loot storage over decorations.