Architect Archive

Very interesting, the avarage prices on your server are much like the "Low price" that I usually sell for. Different servers have different economies.

My prices are actually very close to yours, a bit lower.

And a well stocked vendor is indeed an advantage over what I do. As I said, my way is NOT the only way, and I am sure you do well in your business as well.

You obviously havent made high rate harvesters since the patch. The truth is, it does take more resources, and better resources, to make the higher rate harvesters. There are 3 stats looked at now as opposed to 1 before, and you must experiment not only the mining units, but the final combines now as well, which means you must use the high quality resources in the final combine, and you must get great success all the way though most of the time to get a BER 13 heavy. So tell me, are you planning on selling all those non-13 heavies for the same price? The value of a harvester is greater than the sum of its parts. Consider a BER 10 heavy vs. a BER 10 medium. Both have the exact same extraction rate, but the medium costs a lot less to run both in power and maint. According to your model, the BER 10 heavy has a greater value, because it costs more to make, when in fact the BER 10 medium is the better product.

I havent made many no, been too busy, have not sold any yet either, I am totally booked selling houses and city buildings.

When I do I will certainly check and see what people are selling them for before I set a price, I certainly dont jsut go by resources per unit.

I have not even upgraded all my own harvestors yet, I know I am eating into my own profits by still running some 10BER heavies, but I just have not had the time to upgrade them all yet. Business has been so brisk!

Still deciding on if I go for 10 BER Meds or 13 BER heavies., at the profit marginis I work at I will probably go for the 13's just for the speed of resources. But there is much to be said for a 10BER medium, and I do check my harvestors often so the smaller hopper is not a worry.

I really do hope to start upgrading more of them soon, problem is I put customersorders first and the orders have kept me from working on my own equipment.

Excactly right.

Which is why I am a low price dealer, to make sure that I capture as large ofa percentage of this declining market as I can. The real foolsare the ones hoarding and stockpiling walls waiting for the high price market to return.

It never will.

As customers decrease, the price will fall further and faster.

ahh, but you see, by selling for more I capture less of the market but make more credits with less work.... just the way i like it

didn't think i'd stay away from this forever did ya?

oh, and for those of you arguing the market value thing here... there's 2 different issues you're discussing which are actually not related.

PROFIT is what you make over the cost to make it... different people factor different things into this and costs vary... costs can range from .2 to 5 cpu or more depending on how you get your resources and the value you put on your time.

VALUE is the cpu of reselling the resources vs. reselling the product. if the avg resource sells for 2 cpu (play it safe as this ranges on different servers) and you sell your deeds for 2cpu then you put no value on the creation of the product. you still make a PROFIT but you could make the same profit from reselling the resources...

that being said not everyone wants to be a resource dealer and they choose to sell at their prices because... well... they can. It may or may not make sense to everyone else, but they are still making a profit by doing this.

Now, the fun part... got an email from a guy I bought some extra power from one day (radioactives had been out of cycle for a bit). he's now an architect and is selling at about 1cpu. Curious, I sent him an email asking if these were grand opening or permanent prices... when he responded permanent I asked him why he was selling so low (He didn't know I was an architect as i was on his mail list from the one purchase). His response was that he had made a ton of money in his power sales business and now all his resources were free. (I have no idea how he figured they be free forever). Now, even if you figure in costs to gather new resources at .7 or .8 (which is probly high now in particular but again, i'm staying to the conservative side) He's technically making a profit. Personally I think its a complete waste of time and this is the classic low price architect who isn't out to make credits just to run his business and he doesn't need to make money anymore so it really doesn't matter to him if he sells at a loss even if he was.

While this is a viable option and its certainly his right to sell however he wants... if he indeed can produce at the rate he claims (says all orders filled within 48 hours) this is how the economy can be ruined for everyone else in a hurry. Personally I doubt he will stay in business very long or his prices will go up because thats an insane amount of work for the joy of click click crafting.

Why anyone would bother making a structre and then selling it for less than they could get as raw resource is quite beyond me. May as well not be an Architect at all. Drop 64-odd Skill points, get combat skills, farm Holocrons and *still* run 10 Heavies and bulk sell 3cpu straight to the bazaar. Far more efficient use of your time.

As for me, my skills are worth *at least* 2cpu, thank you very much...I can't farm holocrons

Arghh -it's been a while and Iswore I'd never lower myself to get involved in another Dayln thread, but I can't resist

Quite simply, for the benfit of newcomers to these forums, Dayln enjoys working for other people so they can enjoy the riches and benefits of his hard work - he's effectively a modern-day slave.

The holocron comments throw up a perfect example - if Dayln turned his hand to full-time Holocron hunting, he'd be the player who would be giving them away as he found them.

Never mind the fact it took him 12 hours to get one - anyone who's followed his remorselessforum spam knowshe enjoys working for other people for a pittance, and by giving away holocrons he's saving them a whole lot of hassle. After all, why should they work when he can do it for them?

Run along now Dayln, this holocron idea has got to appeal to you, surely? People are working hard to get them as we speak, and you could be saving them a while lot of trouble. And while you're slaving away, they could be out having fun and enjoying everything the game has to offer.

Sounds like the dream arrangement

Skarra, Master Architect

What is areally funny about all this talk about what I am, is that my prices are not all that low. My prices are only 20% or smaller, less than the going rate. The vast majority of my stuff sells for over 3CPU.

The difference is, by surpassing the customers expectations, I hold a solid and long lasting customer base.

I have never sold anything for 2 CPU ( even though I would still be making a profit doing so )

You guys talk as If I am a super cheap dealer, im not, Im just a bit lower than the customer expects.

That is all it takes.

I have no interest in Holocrons, I like business, I was looking for a class where there would be real competition, I assumed architect would be that. I am surprised that it is not. There are very few serious business competitiors out there.

Sometimes I wish I was on BetaZoob's server, but if I were we would probably merge and take over the market. That would be worse.

Making prices for harvesters based onresources priceis obsolete. Old "3cpu rule" was like that, coz there was no risk/experimentation/quality involved in price.

After big patch i changed all my prices for harvesters so its based on rate now and i dont see anything wrong on it if medium chem is cheaper then 3cpu just coz its BER 6. Cheapest HeavyHarvesters (BER 7-8) goes for 45k. Why? Coz its totaly crap. On other hand i sell Medium BER 10 for 100k and its even more expensive then Heavy BER 10.

If anyone thinks this is underpricing and dont understand why,maybe its time for him to change profession ...

BTW I dont buy resources coz all resources are overpriced on bazaar ...

Sadly, our correspondant is one of the lowballers.

=(

I love the term lowballers, and undercutters.

It is like drivers syndrome,

"anyone that drives slower than me is an idiot, anyone that drives faster is a maniac"

hence

"Anyone that sells for less than I do is a lowballing undercutter, anyone that sells for more is a greedy price gouger"

You guys always give me a good laugh.

The thing that some of you seem to miss is that even though you "get by" by selling things a little over cost, we could be making a TON more money if we would stop ripping each other off. Case in point, the other day, I had two city halls that clients agreed to buy for 1 and 1.3 million respectively. They were actually excited about the them and were absolutely fine with the cost. Unfortunately, I lost both deals afterthe buildingswere completed because "Joe Architect" was spamming on the street that he would sell them for 200k.

Even if Joe Architect could actually make a profit by selling them so low, its not even worth his time selling the structure rather than the resource. Additionally, by not understanding the nature of demand and charging such low prices, he is actually ruining the market for the rest of us, because people will begin thinking that such structures are only worth 200k.

I can't complain, I'm a multimillionair in the game. I've gotten rich by not comprimising when it comes to competition. I'm not going to spend my valuable time making something that I only make a slim profit margin from, nor am I going to build it if I could make more selling the materials used to make it. Manufacturers in real life only make products because they can sell them for more than the raw materials cost; otherwise, they would not bother making them in the first place.

Ultimately this thread is pointless becausing nothing can convince other architects that they could be making more if they got a better business model. This market is already in maturity and will never see huge profits again after the player cities go the way of the houses. At least try to make some money while the demand is still there.