Architect Archive
Thread: Architectual Item Pricing
Serratia
Tue Feb 01, 2005 9:53 am
#40
Stownhart wrote:
Well as long as you insist of bogging any system down with irrelavent and superficial factors and contingiencies, the ability to make a comparison of two scenarios will always be beyond your comprehension. Until you have the capability to strip away the unneccessary guilding and get the root core of a situation, you won't be able to understand the simple and very logical comparison I am making. I see that several of you have felt the need to bash my post here. And I understand that it is standard human nature to attempt to win a debate by over-whelming the opposition with the farce of appering "highly educated". However, how about we get back to topic? This thread is about informing the buyer how they are getting ripped off. Not about the thieves trying to justify there atrocities with cotradictions...reference to getting paid for the "sweat" going into the crafting...reference to playing and having fun. What all the responses hence have only shown is that you that over price don't really have a good argument for doing so. All you have done is try to be flashy with wording to try to justify the wrong doing. There is a title for a person that does such..."Conman"
thank you very much
The use of inflammatory language adds nothing to the validity of your argument.
As far as the "farce" of appering (sic) highly educated... Many of the posters here use big words and concepts because, well -they actually*understand* what those words and conceptsmean and use them as part of their everyday vocabulary. This is quite obvious from their elevated writing style. If you choose to use overblown language in an attempt to assert your own "highly educated" statusin this matter, I would suggest that you try using both spellcheck and a dictionary.
Stratege
Tue Feb 01, 2005 1:27 pm
#41
You all forgot about crit fault on experimentation, and also you forgot about time you spend for making items. And the most – you forgot about “eternal life” of all our items. That mean you can sell it only ones, and then no one buy em. Really, 1cr it too much if you look at real price then you can found that really it all cots not more that .3cr, so .5cr is ok.
Now most prices in 2cr, so your prices X2 on most and X4 on Harvesters, and I think its ok. And I don’t think it will be changed one day.
Now most prices in 2cr, so your prices X2 on most and X4 on Harvesters, and I think its ok. And I don’t think it will be changed one day.
Hazelina
Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:10 pm
#42
Stownhart wrote:
I have been playing this game for 7 to 8 months now. And I have never understood the extreme over-pricing that goes on. However I think I have it figured out now. See I am 38 years old and have had plenty of real life experience to learn the value of a dollar. Appearantly the vast majority of SWG players are children, and have not had a chance to learn such. So now coming from a very experienced capenter in real life, here is a more down to earth pricing plan. BTW, you can always find my wares sold at these prices...I am BlackStarr on the Corbantis server, my shop is in the Western Dune Sea of Tatooine titled StarrMart.
First let's tackle resource pricing. When I had an offer posted on my vendor for Fiberplast, I literly laid my head down on my desk laughing. Some one had offered 500 units of Fiberplast for 15,000 credits. That is roughly 27CPU. I sent the seller an email right after declining the offer. I asked him what types of drugs he was doing. Recently I set 14 Fusion Reactors on a 94% location. They were harvesting roughly 280,000 units a day. Maintainance was costly me roughly a total of 16,700 credits. So I was getting 16 units per credit of cost. In real life business, doubling your investment in product price is concidered quite lucrative. So a reasonable price for this reactive energy would be 8UPC (note NOT 8CPU). Now of course that was a 94% area of concentration. So let's average it and say half everything to accomidate a 50% concentration average and a reasonable price would still only be 4UPC. Why in the world would I pay the prices I have seen all the way up to a rediculous 50CPU when it cost so little to harvest it myself? There is another factor of course, and that is the high demand/rare resources that some crafting classes need. For example a Doctor/Medic requires specificall Dolovit Iron to make Advanced Solid Delivery Shells. And from what I have noticed Dolovite doesn't spawn very often. However even quadrupling the above noted pricing would only result in an even 1CPU.
Now on to crafted products. It seems that most crafters determine their pricing by how much resources it requires to make an item. Well this is why I tackled resource pricing first. Resources are cheap and easy to come by. So this should have very little influence on product pricing. Rather the skill level needed to make the item should be the predominent influence. In my line of work you pay an employee according to their skill and experience. A lead carpenter should make much more than a laborer even though they may both utilize the same amount of lumber in a day. However there are exceptions where the resource count needed should influence price. It's just shouldn't be the main factor invloved. For instance, all vehicles are able to be made at one particular skill level: Master Artisan. However Speederbike require more to make than X34's, and Swoops more than Speederbikes. So They should range in price accordingly. And of course item quality should play a roll also. Stimpacks made with the advanced components should cost more than ones made with standard components.
As an example of REALISTIC pricing here is a short pricing list of my most common wares;
Small Houses (all) - 5,000
Medium House (all) - 25,000
Large House (all) - 50,000
Personal Harvesters (BER4) - 2,000
Medium Harvester (BER10) - 10,000
Heavy Harvesters (BER13) - 25,000
Factories (all) - 20,000
X-34 - 5,000
Speederbike - 10,000
Swoop - 15,000
Loot Decoration (blue & orange rug, gong, glass top table, ect.) - 100,000
Guild Hall - 100,000
City Hall - 75,000
Various other city structures - 10,000 to 50,000
Furniture - 100 to 5,000
Well I hope this pricing info brings a few people back into reality.
If this isn't a troll and you are really an Architect can I have the location/server of your vendor? 
I am a MA but if I saw the things you have listed at those prices I'd buy it all up. Which is why I think you're just trolling or trying in a misguided way to get architects to lower their prices because you are broke and can't afford to buy this stuff.
Awaku
Wed Feb 02, 2005 5:25 am
#43
i charge alittle more than most on my server for furniture, but i always keep everything stocked, and people come buy from me for the fact that they know they can get what they want without searching all over for it..thats a service in itself. convienence is somthing a player will pay more for.
Stownhart
Thu Feb 03, 2005 11:00 pm
#44
Again you are trying to throw irrelavent factors into to shematic. If it takes a person 5 years to acquire the skill needed to be fully capable to be a full carpenter, and another person takes 10 years to acquire that skill level...I'm sorry, both capenters get paid the same $15.00/hours regardless. The years needed to become that carpenter is similar to the number of XPs needed for a skill level. It's meaningless...the skill itself is what's important.
To the rest of these recent responces, thank you for proving I have been right.
Pawlin
Fri Feb 04, 2005 12:38 am
#45
Stownhart wrote:
Again you are trying to throw irrelavent factors into to shematic. If it takes a person 5 years to acquire the skill needed to be fully capable to be a full carpenter, and another person takes 10 years to acquire that skill level...I'm sorry, both capenters get paid the same $15.00/hours regardless. The years needed to become that carpenter is similar to the number of XPs needed for a skill level. It's meaningless...the skill itself is what's important.
You're equating a journeyman carpenter to a journeyman carpenter. Yes both such journeymen would indeed get the same pay scale irregardless of how long it took them to reach journeyman status. Thats the same as comparing the payout for a gurk mission. Its fixed. Doesn't matter how hard you worked to get it our how skillful you were, you get the same payout.
But in the game we are all individual business owners. Business owners don't all make the same amount of money. A better comparison to the real world is the general contractor. How much do general contractors make? That varies a lot depending on how successful their businesses are.
Course I'm not sure at all how any of this supports your main point that prices should be lower irregardless of supply and demand.
To the rest of these recent responces, thank you for proving I have been right.
Ah the"I'm rubber and you're glue, what ever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you"defense.
bluejanus
Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:47 am
#46
Stownhart wrote:Again you are trying to throw irrelavent factors into to shematic. If it takes a person 5 years to acquire the skill needed to be fully capable to be a full carpenter, and another person takes 10 years to acquire that skill level...I'm sorry, both capenters get paid the same $15.00/hours regardless. The years needed to become that carpenter is similar to the number of XPs needed for a skill level. It's meaningless...the skill itself is what's important.To the rest of these recent responces, thank you for proving I have been right.
Well actually this isn't true. In the same local area, hourly wages are probably going to be similiar, especially with unions. In a broader area, carpenters of equal skill do not make similar hourly wages. And of course it will also depend on the available pool of carpenters per skill level. If there are a lot of carpenters available in an area, carpenters won't be able to charge a premium for their services. There are more factors involved than simply years of experience and skill level.
As for being proven right, you haven't been.
bluejanus
Fri Feb 04, 2005 7:56 am
#47
Cosno's post:
"You bring up a very interesting point. Pricing items depending on the skill required to manufacture them is a unique approach in this game, but a very real-world type approach. I think that is a great idea.
However - that is clearly not what you are doing in this pricing model. Here is why I say that. To make a personal mineral harvester you need to have Engineering 3 in Artisan. Engineering 3 in Artisan requires 4500 points of general crafting experience. To make the Heavy Mineral Harvester you need to have Installations 4 in Architect. To achieve Installations 4 you need an additional 39,000 general crafting experience plus 352,000 structure crafting ex[perience.
To sum it up:
Personal Mineral Harvester - 4500 experience
Heavy Mineral Harvester - 395,500 experience
So someone with Installations 4 has 87.88 times the experience than someone with Engineering 3. Thus if you sell an Engineering 3 item at 8CPU then you would need to sell an Installations 4 item at 87.88 times the price of the Engineering 3 item. In this case you would need to sell the Heavy Harvester at 703.04CPU for a total price of 19,523,420 credits...You claim your pricing is based on skill level needed to make the item - but that is clearly not the case.
Freud: Master Artisan / Master Architect / Master Droid Engineer: Intrepid"
I'm curious what the rebuttal was for this post.
"You bring up a very interesting point. Pricing items depending on the skill required to manufacture them is a unique approach in this game, but a very real-world type approach. I think that is a great idea.
However - that is clearly not what you are doing in this pricing model. Here is why I say that. To make a personal mineral harvester you need to have Engineering 3 in Artisan. Engineering 3 in Artisan requires 4500 points of general crafting experience. To make the Heavy Mineral Harvester you need to have Installations 4 in Architect. To achieve Installations 4 you need an additional 39,000 general crafting experience plus 352,000 structure crafting ex[perience.
To sum it up:
Personal Mineral Harvester - 4500 experience
Heavy Mineral Harvester - 395,500 experience
So someone with Installations 4 has 87.88 times the experience than someone with Engineering 3. Thus if you sell an Engineering 3 item at 8CPU then you would need to sell an Installations 4 item at 87.88 times the price of the Engineering 3 item. In this case you would need to sell the Heavy Harvester at 703.04CPU for a total price of 19,523,420 credits...You claim your pricing is based on skill level needed to make the item - but that is clearly not the case.
Freud: Master Artisan / Master Architect / Master Droid Engineer: Intrepid"
I'm curious what the rebuttal was for this post.
Anthemion
Fri Feb 04, 2005 10:04 am
#48
Stownhart wrote:Again you are trying to throw irrelavent factors into to shematic. If it takes a person 5 years to acquire the skill needed to be fully capable to be a full carpenter, and another person takes 10 years to acquire that skill level...I'm sorry, both capenters get paid the same $15.00/hours regardless. The years needed to become that carpenter is similar to the number of XPs needed for a skill level. It's meaningless...the skill itself is what's important.To the rest of these recent responces, thank you for proving I have been right.
I think he is simply dismissing the argument as follows:
Experience points = time it took you to learn skill X.
In real life nobody cares.
Base your price on the skill itself.(somehow)
How one would go about determining the value of one skill over another I have no idea. Would you say that all tier 3 skill boxes should be priced the same?
This would imply a large bed being priced the same as a Deep Crust Chemical Extracter.
Oh, and that Deep Crust Chemical Extractor should cost significantly less than a High Efficiency Moisture Vaporator.
I am just a little confused about what basis Stownhart is suggesting we use to price our items. He says it should be a "reasonable" price structure.
Message Edited by Anthemion on 02-04-2005 12:07 PM
CorinDWR
Fri Feb 04, 2005 10:08 am
#49
I was thinking about the cost of all this.... You might say this does not apply since you think it wrong to base the cost on resources used, but what is important here, as it is in real life carpenting, car production or whatever craft that use materials, is the cost you yourself pay for the materials. Income and expenses, every budget is based on that.
I mean BER 13 harvs aint the cheapest items to produce in this game.
The daily mainenance of running a BER13 harvester is:
Credits: 2160
Power: 1800
Normal cpu on power chimaera: 1,5
Which makes a total of 4860 per day.
How much the harv brings in each day:
Extraction Rate in kg/h x 60 x density % x24 = units mined per day.
Lets use a 60% ore spot as an example.
13 x 60 x 60% x 24 = 11232 units.
Ore unit cost: 0,43269231
Now lets see how much is needed for a 1000 structure module run.
Total Amount of ore: 200000/ which by the above formula would take 17,8 days to harvest on 1 harvester
Total Amount of metal: 50000/ which by the same formula would take 4,45 days to harvest
Which is a total of 22.25 days, but given that you take half the resources and let the owner take half, we need do double that time.
44.5 days if all is done on a single harvester. You could use more harvs in less time, but the maintenance cost would be the same.
44,5 days of the maintenance stated above (4860) is 216270 credits.
Now 1000 structure modules can be used to make 99 wall modules which in turn can be used to make 14 Heavy Mining Installations, so lets use that number for the rest of the equation here.
By dividing the maintenance cost of getting whats needed for those structure modules by the amount of heavy harvs (216270/14) you get:
15448. That is the structure modules cost per BER13 mineral harv. Not counting the resources used in the wall modules. That is the cost of 17500 units of resources.
Now we can get an average production cost of the harvester by dividing the maintenance needed for 10000 structure modules by the amount of resources needed to make those structure modules, then multiply that number with the total amount of resources in the harvester.
15448 / 17500 x 27770 = 24514.
That is the average resource cost of a BER13 mineral harvif you mine everything but the power yourself. The cost per unit is 0,88cpu.
Factory production
Is also part of the equation here.
Daily factory maintenance: 1200
Power used per hour of production: 50
Power unit cost on Chimaera: 1,5
14 Mineral Harvs
Making 1000 structure modules takes 17-18hours if memory serves me right(imsmr from now on).
Making 100 wall modules takes 2-3 hours imsmr.
Making 84 small structure storage modules takes about 3 hours imsmr once again.
Making 28 generator turbines takes about an hour imsmr.
This totals to about 24 hours of production time. Which means 1200 maintenance and 1200 power (1800 credits by Chimaera price)
That is 3000 credits. Divided by 14 harvs: 214.
Which is added to the harvester cost, which is now at: 24728.
Which leaves a profit of 272 credits if the harv is sold at 25k. Subtract travel prices between harv spawns and factories and such, subtract vendor maintenance, building maintenance, and sales tax if the vendor is inside a city and even the use ofBespin Port andPyollian Cake if you use them, and there isnt much left really. In fact with all expenses covered, I dont think youre making any profit at all, and to make up for the harvs youve given out to those mining for you, I dont think you are making a dime in this profession. Except if you sell alot of those BER4's of course.
Now this price might change a little if youre harving every resource including power yourself, but as a BER14 also needs maintenance, is saves some, but not alot.
Butare you trying to tell me that:
1. You survey all these resources needed by an architect
2. You set up 100 dynamic harvs, wait for people with lots to come about and pay maintenance on their harvs.
3. Get the resources from various locations in the galaxy.
4. Construct and sell everything you say you do (full range + loot kits + vehicles)
5. Sell it as cheap as you've stated (except the BER4 which is expensive tbh)
6. Manage to keep a good stock (this i find hard to believe if any other merchant and/or architect knows where your shop is located)
If so, where do you get the time to do all that. Selling harvs at 25k, you must be selling them by the hundreds every day. People who buy your harvs look at making 4-5 times what they paid in just reselling them.
I've been a full time architect for 8-9 months. I sell heavy harvs at 125k, fusions at 140k. Most of the time, and especially around JTL LaunchI couldnt keep stock up, and it was not due to the lack of resources, but lack of time. And I play about 7-8 hours a day, more in the weekends.
Before the solo group nerf, I know alot of architects who did architect for fun, but made their money on missions on Dantooine. They sold their harvs at 80k-100k but made their money on doing other things. How can you convince any of us that you are making money on these at 25k.
Now that solo missions aint as good a source of income as it was, and also before that, many archtiects have their craft as their main income. Calling them names based on their prices is so utterly wrong. You might enjoy your little business without all the money involved, but for most, this is a game. A game were they as architects and merchants base their success on the money rolling into their bank. Its the easiest way to see how the business is going. And it gives them the chance to improve their product either with skill enhancing tapes, or with better resources for the components/deeds where that apply.
Which brings me to another thing you said. That price based on amount of resources being used didnt apply on Corvettes and Saturns. But quality did. Ok, by that am I to conclude that a 12pt architect (which makes the corvettes of harvesters with up to 130k storage) should charge 10 times what a 10pt architect does. Since the quality of the product is better? Or should I with my 990average UT resources charge more than my neighbor who only got 915average UT. NO! because that is not what matters to our customers, what matters is vendor quality, that they find what they need, when they need it.
Rant over.....
Message Edited by CorinDWR on 02-04-2005 09:31 PM
MariusF
Fri Feb 04, 2005 5:33 pm
#50
From a cursory read of your initial post I think you are doing the most BASIC error made by all small businesses throughout the world.
If we take for a momentall your calculations as fact and allow you EVRYTHING you stated as correct. You still have not factored in the most important aspect of any business
YOUR OWN TIME!!!!!
How do you value yourself and your game time.
An established architect is a business. Very few can operate without maintaining more than 10 lots. be they lot swaps or multiple accounts you will be maintaining Harvesters by the dozen. You will be constantly employed maintaining these harvesters, moving materials around and looking for new resource spawns.
Then the actual craft process or, more likely , factory times.
During all this time you are doing Work. An elite combat will spend 10 minutes earning cash on a mission and find a decent reward structured to his skill level. All crafting quests in game DO not reward based on craft skill in general and pay very poorly anyway. The combat will be earning cash at a set rate based on his skill.
In short you are not PAYING yourself in your calculations! You are not valuing yourself.
Most long term architects are the very heart of any player city and do a valuable service for the players around.There is nothing wrong in paying ourselves a reasonable amount of reward for our services.
If I wanted to make credits I would go AS or WS.
3-4cpu is nothing but a fair rate for fair work!
shadezmc
Sat Feb 05, 2005 1:43 am
#51
at 38 shouldnt you be ou there working and not playing games .. just my thought.. anyone under 38 is fine 
Stl2aNgE
Sat Feb 05, 2005 5:45 am
#52
Ok, I charge or try to charge what the server is. I am on Bria Server, and if i charged your prices, I would be a busy person indeed. Everyone would buy the stuff at my prices then resell it for normal galaxy standards.....lol I have done this myself on occasion.
I think you are trying to generate business for yourself on your server. There is nothing wrong with that, but coming in here blasting everyone else is insanity. And you say you are 38 years old........Hmmmmmm....
The economy was set when I came in game about 8 months ago, I just went along with it. I had some help from my former guildleader Xosa, who taught me some very valuable tricks of the trade. I dont make tons of money with my architect, but I survive, and have enough credits to do what I wish to do in game, and thats all I need.
When figuring your prices, I think you had or have either server lot trades, lots of guildmates who dont craft and use their lots, or you got 10 toons.....lol I got 3 toons, and even though I got plenty of resources, selling at your prices would bring me down to 0 in no time.
I charge what I think the stuff I make is worth, and the time it takes me to craft it. I do not just sit around and craft, craft, craft, I like to do all the other stuff in the game also.
Are you a 12 point Architect? Or maybe got some combat? And having troubles buying the CA's or AA's or any other amount of things it takes to go hunting or just looting? Prolly not since you run a 100 harvesters all the time, but do you actually sell all that stuff? And i know you dont store all that stuff with just ten lots....lol. Prolly with some merchant you can store all that stuff, but that is just insanity.
And lastly... You sat that we charge too much for our wares, which is basically saying we are a bunch of greedy people. If that is the case, why on earth are YOU running 100 Harvesters all the time? If that isnt greed, I dont know what is.
I am 35 years old, just to use one of your tactics, And one thing I have learned in life, is:
Make sure your own back yard is clean before you talk trash about someone else's backyard.
This might be a good lesson for you to learn there, buddy...
Also, one last thing, please, consider what kind of example you are setting for the (kids) as you call them. Flaming them on the boards like this isnt a great example. We are supposed to be better than this, as adults.