Architect Archive
Thread: Why do so many quit Architech?
Earlier today I talked to someone who had surrendered his entire architech skill branch. Whaaaa? With urban planner comming up you think there'd at least be something to look forward to. But no, I don't hear of any master A's saving up structure xp or resources for when urban planner comes out. And then I check swgarchitech.com and find that the guy is selling his account.
Is there really Nothing to look forward to at master? I havn't heard of a single person who's had fun upon reaching their goal.
Too many people are selling deeds for less than they cost to make! You get abused by the player base when you try to get even 1% profit! You can get crit fails on PA's and Heavies! With one account you can only harvest enough ore to make maybe one or two heavies a day!(If you have a house and structure factory).
1. Architects are not Architects
2. There are too many for the player base.
3. Houses do not contain enough functionality to cause the majority of players to want them further eroding the market.
4. Grinders at the beginning of the game set the prices way too low for most of our structures and architects are finding it hard to repair that damage.
5. Our products do not decay causing what little market we have to disappear.
That is why alot of architects are quiting.
I estimate that by the time the space expansion comes out there will only be need for 1 architect per city.
Plus, other than PA halls, there's no difference really between a novice and a master...all you need is the large houses and large installations trees to make most of your money...
If they moved all the large stuff to master, you'd see far more people sticking around, imo
Marthis - Bria
Caz-Ninu wrote:
Earlier today I talked to someone who had surrendered his entire architech skill branch. Whaaaa? With urban planner comming up you think there'd at least be something to look forward to. But no, I don't hear of any master A's saving up structure xp or resources for when urban planner comes out. And then I check swgarchitech.com and find that the guy is selling his account.
Is there really Nothing to look forward to at master? I havn't heard of a single person who's had fun upon reaching their goal.
Hey, that was me! Why? Because I got sick of waiting. Yes, it's coming up, no, we don't know when. I have hit the cap for Architect at 240k XP. I was involuntarialy stocking up resources because I wasn't selling anything, or wasn't selling it low enough. And I was already on the lower end of pricing. I'd hit the cap for XP a day after I made Master.
I also wanted to be part of the greater galaxy. I wanted to be part of the Galactic Civil War, and as an Architect I don't contribute to that. Except to build a house or PA hall, which just wasn't often or profitable enough. So here I am.
I'm not paying $15/month to "wait". I'm paying to play. Once everything gets there, maybe I'll get it back. But I should never have been having more fun playing my second account, which was a medic. At least I knew I was helping somewhere.
Because there are too many architects for the demand for structures.
Contrary to popular belief there is just about nothing that will correct this other than Architects quitting. If they introduce decay, that will affect the game in the following ways.
#1 Make architects more attractive so more people become architects.
#2 make structures even less attractive decreasing demand.
We will be back in the same boat.
The answer is easy, fewer architects, they way to get fewer architects is don’t do anything to make them more attractive and they will balance themselves out on their own.
easy huh?
I'm out of skill points at the moment, but have over 200k arch xp waiting to close out my last construction boxset..
I was a solo furniture maker and made over 400k with just a little effort.
Now I work for a PA, and still garner my own resources, with a home, and 8 heavies I've built on a 70% vein you can garner 400k resources every 5 days.
I'm pretty content with my place in the universe. When I'm not architecting I'm either questing or doing other PA things these days.
SWG forces you to find lemonaide with lemons.. Some people find that easier than others.. I keep praying that Archs and Merchants will get some dev love soon.. but we should not be drowing in self-loathing. You can still make money in this market, it all depends on you, your support network, and understanding your market factors for your area.
-C9-
Dayln,
To en extent I agree with you (oh no... not again).
However, we both know that even a smaller number of Architects (which I am all in favour of) wont help, if there is virtualy no demand for those architects products.
You can already see on the server boards that alot of people are trading their harvesters to other players, simply because the darn things last forever. Even with a modest influx of new players, I don't see how there will be any market for architect products in the medium/long term.
I think they need to introduce some form of decay on harvesters, make houses either non-movable or requiring something from an architect to re-deed them, and at the same time make houses etc more desirable. This could introduce renewable revenue for architects, while at the same time protecting the demand.
The major problem is that SOE are so far behind the development curve with all the other things that were supposed to be working at release that I don't see them addressing any of our issues for quite some time.
In the mean time you are right, the flow of people out of the profession is the only way to make those that remain viable.
PosiTec wrote:Dayln,
To en extent I agree with you (oh no... not again).
However, we both know that even a smaller number of Architects (which I am all in favour of) wont help, if there is virtualy no demand for those architects products.
You can already see on the server boards that alot of people are trading their harvesters to other players, simply because the darn things last forever. Even with a modest influx of new players, I don't see how there will be any market for architect products in the medium/long term.
I think they need to introduce some form of decay on harvesters, make houses either non-movable or requiring something from an architect to re-deed them, and at the same time make houses etc more desirable. This could introduce renewable revenue for architects, while at the same time protecting the demand.
The major problem is that SOE are so far behind the development curve with all the other things that were supposed to be working at release that I don't see them addressing any of our issues for quite some time.
In the mean time you are right, the flow of people out of the profession is the only way to make those that remain viable.
We don't have any real metrics except what we see with our eyes.. and that is so small a percentage of what is out there..
I have a fleet of harvies on a good vein of resource.. 300m east is a field of burning large and mediums.. Somebody is on vacation or forgot, or left the game.. or something.. but I see over 500k+ worth of equipment in flames. Tomorrow it'll be poof and then somebody or somebodies guild is gonna need to make some new equipment.
I'd love to know the real metrics behind inflow/outflow/burn rate, etc.. If there are 300k users and 90k houses, kinda gives me a rough feeling like we haven't yet hit a wall. And by the way my items go, I'm not feeling any losses yet.
Again, YMMV based on server and market.
-C9-
Demand will never quite reach zero, but I agree that it will get pretty small.
I know how you hate to agree with me, but I am right about prices, we will never again see the prices and profits of the early days, nothing will change that unless they just take away everyones house and start the game over. ( not going to happen ).
If they increase demand, more pople will become architects, if they add decay less people will want houses. What is happening now is heathy, and normal. But I do admit it will be a stone cold shock to the old timers. I expect bulkresrource prices to fall to 1 for 1 and structures to be close to that within a couple of months.
I think there should be a little decay myself, but I have no illusions that it will change anything at all about the total market in a positive way, it wont.
Woohoo... something I can now dissagree with.... though to be honest it isnt much 
I don't think SOE will want to let Architect become a tiny Niche profession. It takes too much effort to create and maintain a class in the long run to allow it to go virtualy un-used. Plus I doubt they want new players to go into it and then discover its a waste of time and leave the game disallusioned (sp).
I have no idea what they might try... but an example might be the ability to create destroyable PvP structures. The profession could support a far higher number of players, take resources and cash out of the economy, and at the same time have some appeal to those interested more in combat related activity.
Who knows.. I know i like doing it at the moment, and havn't felt even the tiniest urge to quit.
On the pricing I suspect that in some regards you are correct. i'm not convinced that it will drop to 1cpu.. but I have noticed about a 0.5cpu drop over the last 3-4 weeks. It's very gradual and difficult to judge, particularly on a well developed server like Eclipse. There are alot of seasoned buyers now who will pay more for particular resources, which makes it a little harder to see the overall trend. Structure prices MAY fall off a little, but I dont think they will fall at the rate resources drop. There is no need, and I think most architects are smart enough to hold onto the extra little profit at this point. Of course there may be those (cough) thatdrop their prices anyway... but I think they will be very much a tiny minority at this point.
Will an player base that is getting ever richer I personaly seriously doubt that low prices are going to be winning anyone significant market share of what is left.. I think service (Customer contact, delivery etc) will play a much greater role.
Even though i enjoy dissagreeing with you when I can, I am glad this game allows both of us to enjoy doing what we do. We can take opposing views on issues in a freindly fashion, and keep on sucessfully doing business in our own way. To me that shows a huge potential in the long run.
Ok, what can they do?
What will increase the profit of Architect without encouraging more people to become architect?
What will create decay that will not discourage people from owning houses. There are convoluted solutions that you can come up with, but if Architects start making money again, people will flock to become one and saturate the market again. This is the reality of a market economy.
The initial days of no one having stuff and wanting it aren’t going to return. That was a fantasy time, now reality hits, it is a buyers market.
The only thing they can do is make other classes more attractive, ( and make more classes ) which is exactly what they are doing. If they can make enough new classes ( on through the space expansion ) the percentage of people that are architects will be smaller and smaller, and that really needs to happen
Decay is certainly not a total answer, decay will make houses less attractive while encouraging more people to become architects.!