Architect Archive
Thread: How many of you have 4 million credits?
This is a copy of a post from a weaponsmith on the general board.
I am taking a break for now, long story short, I feel I will enjoy the game much more in 2 or 3 months.
What I am curious about though is if there is some kind of reward system being set up for high end crafters. As the title says I have 4 million credits on my weaponsmith. I pay miners well up to 6 credits per, but I have enough resources to build guns for the next 6 months. Having money for the sake of having money is only entertaining for so long.
I know this will be on page 10 in about 15 seconds but if a dev happens to come across this could you drop some light on this?
Will I have a reason to want to make money? Will there be high end luxury items? Will there be money sinks to displace the cash that accumulates in the master crafter's bank account? If installation upkeep is the only sink out there its seems the economy will be terribly unstable, and massive inflation will run rampant. No economy, virtual or otherwise can survive with the money printing machines running 24/7.
The people mining his resources make more money than we do.
what do you expect when a house sells for less than a set of vibroknucklers
This is, of course, our own fault....
Caving to early pressure just to make a sale, architects set the standard way too low... those who only want the xp at the expense of the market, continue to set the standard way too low.
We could easily get 50-100k for small houses, if we all actually STUCK to that pricing... I do think that is too much for them, but people would save and pay that, if it were what they had to do... but, since the early architects wanted to make a sale at a time when having 10k was pretty rare, we now and will continue to suffer.
Personally, I created my own price setup, and stick to it regardless of others undercutting me. Really I think that I still charge a lot less than the structures are worth, but I believe the price is fair for myself AND the buyer.
And I do have 450k + a few hundred K worth of goods on my vendors (in addition to architect, I am a merchant, and stock almost every type of item in my shop). So I must be doing something right... I'm not in the boat where i can say I have enough resources to build for months, heck, I barely have enough for today. 
But there is a big diff in the resource usage of an architect vs a weapon smith... of course, we can use any old resource, where they need to hunt for good ones, but once they find them, if they get them in quantity, they are set for a while.
Anyway... just a bit of thought... while it seems we can never fix this, because someone will always undercut us, that very thought is what causes it... if all of us actually STUCK to a REALISTIC pricing setup, and ignored everyone else who was undercutting us, eventually prices would start to rise... caving to the whining of consumers about high prices (that aren't actually high) and sellers willing to lose their own shirt doesn't help any, and in fact hurts.. the more people doing the undercutting, the more difficult it is NOT to undercut. But if only a few are left going for the lowball price, there will still be enough business for the rest, and eventually the low seller will max and get bored, max and realize he is making no profit AND no need for the xp, or just go broke.
*shrug* Things work out, eventually.
I'm on one of the newest servers, wanderhome. I try and sell my goods for more than I would get if I sold the materials seperately. I have no desire to rush a sale and lose money just to get things out the door. If I am stockpiling I tend to just go on an advertising spree and the sales come. I think I'm at least reasonably successful because I'm honest and upfront. I tell people how many resources it takes and they know how much I'm making per resource. Ideally I'd like to make 10c a resource just like weaponsmths but I'm happy to settle for something at least a little in excess of the current resource prices.
I often get critised for high prices, 20k for smalls, and recieve many tells telling me they should be 10k. Perhaps when the server is more mature they will be, but while the resource price on wanderhome remains high my prices for houses will reflect that. People seem willing to pay my prices, as lets face it the difference between a small at 15 and one at 20 is 20 minutes running a couple of missions. Money is easy to come by and people seem willing to pay for good service, none of this waiting about for a week to see if they can find the cheapo architect who sells everything at a loss to sell things quick. I'm quite sure my prices will come down when the resource price does on wanderhome and I'm fine with that. A little profit over the resource cost and I'll be happy.
With regards to the 4 million, well I don't have that yet. I wouldn't say I'm rich but I have several hundred k in the bank. I'd like to make as much as weaponsmiths but I know it isn't to be. I do think though things will balance our naturally. Weaponsmiths make a fortune ? more people become weaponsmiths, supply outstrips demand, profit margins fall. Architects hardly make any profit ? people stop going down that route, less architects, more demand, prices rise to meet it. Everything finds it level in a free market economy, I only wish us architects were afforded the same benefits as other professions in being able to sell on the bazaar, I detest having to shout in the street about my wares.
I duuno Architects will have a short life span , compared to weaponsmiths and armorsmiths....weapons and armor decay from use. Homes do not....so we do make the big sales item wise...but those 2 professions sell them by the truckload daily.
Hell i was in a armorsmith shop and a person was charging upwards 10k for a piece of ubese armor...non-experimental. Now i dont know how many resources are needed to make the armor...but i mean sheesh seems very high for normal made items.
While some architect sold this person the house(was a medium size) for maybe 60k lowest ive seen on my server...he will sell his armor at 10k a piece and makethe cash back in maybe 5 minutes. While this armorsmith is done with him buisness wiseunless he needs extractors....see what im getting at?
Hopefully the Jackass running around DG, Corellia on Chilastra selling small houses for 3000 will run out of buisness soon. Meanwhile I have shifted to installations.
Houses are worthless now.
Cyberthugg: "It is not the average architects fault "
Not true, we can't hide behind others failings to account for our own... sure, there may be some who are more direct causes than others, but any architect who allows a grinder to make him lower his own prices has played a part in the cycle. I personally don't think that I have a lot of blame to take, but I'm sure I do... my prices are probably lower than they should be, even though they're more than a lot of people are willing to pay.
Its easiest if you don't just assume its someone elses fault and accept it, better if you assume that you yourself are PART of the problem, and do what you can to remedy it... for while you have little to no control over others, you are fully in control of yourself, and every one of us has done our share to further the problem.
None of us is without fault, at at least some level.
Hatton wrote:
Hell i was in a armorsmith shop and a person was charging upwards 10k for a piece of ubese armor...non-experimental. Now i dont know how many resources are needed to make the armor...but i mean sheesh seems very high for normal made items.
310 resources for Ubese Pants at 10000 credits = 32.25 credits a resource and all but3 of the resources needed is generic. The Non-Generic are Wooly Hide 20, Leathery Hide 40, and Neutronium steel 20. Even travelling to the best plant for the Materials that's a huge profit margine. I was going from Corellia to Naboo for Carbonite Ore. I paid 3-4 days maintance so paid 1400-2800 a week on travel fees, but every 3 days I had 6-7K ore, that's alot of Ubese Armor. I'm sure he could make travel fees back on 1 sale and have enough resources for several more sets.
And if you really mean 10000 a single piece and not set, then Ubese gloves only take 160 resources which would be 62.5 credits per resource on a glove.