Architect Archive

Someone said in another post:

"A poor architec would be considered rich by most other players."

This is our biggest problem. The player base is very uneducated about our trade. The 'aspiring' architect doesnt understand thier long term goals for thier buisness so we get 'undercutting'. We all know that the consumer judges thier price range accordingly to what they see people offer it for. If a person sells a medium house for 40k then thats the price for a medium house everywhere. It doesnt leave thier mind as potentially being higher. I've been trying several things lately and some of the seem to work. Others are very long term and you will see that eventually they will help you. Not all architects read these forums, but for the ones that do all seem to understand our general problems with economic struggling. At this point in time its not wise to play price wars with other architects. You are going to have to work with each other. You are going to have to be a voice for our trade. If you dont it will die. There is nothing the 'devs' can do. Its up to us.

The player base is very uneducated about our trade.

- When someone asks you how much something is give them a broader definition of what goes behind that price. For example someone asks me how much a medium house runs. I tell them:

/reply 75k Thistakes 20600 resources. I run machines which cost me 20k daily. I can also combine this item and it hasa chance to fail , thus loosing 61800 dollars in resources. (Our server hovers around 3 generally)

You're thinking thats a pain in the ass to do this everytime. It can be, but what you have succefully done is shown someone the math behind the number. They will either say 'thanks' and move on to try to find the undercutter or respond with shock in how much goes into that. I actually told someone this and they said I was lying. They said it only took 3k ore to make a medium house. <---- This is what you are dealing with and you need to make them understand. The game doesnt tell them these things and if they are not an architect/crafter in general they dont get it. They pop up back in thier tank after they die and loose nothing. This is what they think our job is like to. I can hear them now.... "wow I should have been an architect! They get to sit around and have factories roll out massive amounts of money for them!"

-If you have a deed on you. Any deed at all that you know you can sell. Stop for 10 seconds in a town and /shout your price. This puts the price in the consumers mind. You are not less of a man for advertising your prices. If people question you on the price then explain them too the math. ONLY IF ITS A REAL PRICE. If you have survived to Master and still have a buisness thats not beneath the dirt thenyou know what real fair and realistic prices are.

The 'aspiring' architect doesnt understand thier long term goals for thier buisness so we get 'undercutting'.

-Obviously if you see a newbie architect running around selling things for cheap then stock up for your own vendor/buisness, but when you do make sure you do one of the following things:

A newer architect is selling a small house(s) for 7k(or less. I would put on Master Architect tag, walk right up to him and buy what he had. Then I would offer him a job. I would tell him to make me a wall which is less resources for this same 7k. I tell him I will buy every single one he can bring me. I tell him to leave them on my vendor and I will pick them up ASAP so that he can get his pay. I tell him ,yes, he needs to use his own resources to do this and of course I would provide his training free of charge. They will respond with :

A) "This sounds good, but Isn't that helping my competition?" - You arent helping my buisness. Im helping you get on your feet to start your own. I know what it was like to have to sell everything you made. You will have money in the bank and the ability to enjoy what you do without the extra burden of having to sell things for less than they are worth to survive. etc etc.

If they accept this job then you have walls fora good price. You take another low guy under wing and he is properly educated on the way to his path. This isnt sharing information with your enemys folks. This is called APPRENTICE... and they are nice to have. As you know we dont need identical walls anymore. You can buy seven from this guy at this price and throw them into a heavy mineral and get much much money back. You are also helping the economy.

B) "No thanks".. Make sure you tell them the offer is there if they decide to take it.

C) "w4etever!DUn Tell me how to run bizniss!" <-- I then type /shout Small House - 10k right in front of him.

These are just a few suggestions that have helped my buisness. I hope they can help yours. They arent designed to make me incredibly rich. I for one am trying to help this field on my server as much as I can. Im really active in board posting and I go the extra distance to explain what goes behind things when I price them. Im taking a fair price and trying to make that the standardfor our server. Theres going to be plenty of time down the road to play pricing games with the other established folks, but at this current pace theres not going to be any established folks. You may say you charge fair and it doesnt affect you, but look around it does. This isnt even server specific. This all across the entire game. One galaxy does fade into next and of course there are different price ranges for each, but I do belive all across the board this department could improve drastically. Theres more to it than the devs helping at this point. They obviously have bigger fish to fry ...... and for the love of whatever i hope its because they are fixing factories

Opeth,

You're heart's in the right place but your head seems to refuse to accept that you cannot manipulate prices or "fix prices". There will always be someone hungry for the business that is willing to sell stuff at bargain prices just to get rid of it.

Unless you're the DeBeers company and you control almost all of the diamond mine resources, you will not be able to price-fix. It's like trying to nail Jello to the wall.

In the real world, rock bottom prices mean cheap components, cheap product ("cheap" being the derogatory form of the word). In SWG, a house selling for 1k is the exact same quality as the same type of house selling for 10k or more. Therefore, even the quality rules don't apply.

Yes, this is messed up and we're pretty low on the developers' list of priorities too, if we're even on it. So don't expect any fixes anytime soon.

Here's the way I deal with it right now. Keep in mind the following:

1. As a master architect, you don't get experience anymore for crafting.

2. Your house is the same as x's house is the same as y's house. Only pricing differs.

3.You can make more money selling raw resources from your harvesters without the constant clicking and potential crit fails (especially on a final combine for a heavy harvester - ouch, that hurts) than you can by crafting structures and selling them.

Therefore, I no longer sell structures, except to the folks in our village. Everyone else, I refer to another Architect. It really makes absolutely no sense for me to continue building structures and selling them.

Now, I just build for pleasure or for friends. And I don't give a rat's butt about the guy selling his house for 5k anymore. When I hear that, I offer to sell resources to him/her.

Also, with me no longer selling, it takes an Architect out of the market, making it better for the rest of you.

Here is what I send through email to any potential customer so they can have a list of prices that I charge.

Medium Harvesters -

Mineral: 24k

Gas/Chemical: 57k

Flora: 54k

Water: 21k

Solar Generator: 27k

Heavy Harvesters -

Mineral/Fusion Generator: 150k

Gas/Chemical/Flora: 120k

Water: 36k

Factories -

All factories are 55k.

As you can see I do not advertise small houses at all or personal harvesters. I leave this stuff for the novice architect since that is what they most likely are concentrating on to make money and xp. I do also offer advice and help to any novice architect who talks to me for any reason whatsoever. Right now the Architect is a dying class because our structures are permanent and the demand is slowly diminishing. But most people do not seem to care and still try to think that they are going to be rich because they are an architect.

nice post. i like how you handle the uninformed. ("A" especially)

however, i actually find that on my server (Flurry), quite a large number of my new customers know architect pains and are quite willing to help out in anyway they can, sometimes partially paying me in resources, sometimes those resources are quite good, and i'm happy trading them to my weaponsmith/armorsmith friends for more of other resources with lower stats. everyone benefits.

those who don't know prices/architect costs, i tend to refer them to www.swgcenter.comand tell them to read up on the schematics first. those who are belligerent i'll smirk and ignore. i have someone build a house selling deeds directly in front of mine with the sign "Selling deeds for 10k". he told me he's been there for a week and haven't sold a thing. during that time, i sold about 5 small houses in my vendor (Mina's Archi Stuff) for the same price(i hardly ever make small houses, but sold every one i made within 24hrs). For those who understand, it has a LOT to do with marketing. Mine is to treat all potential clients with respect and friendliness. I do give some good deals sometimes to return clients and friendly chatters.

Do remember, Nol (Master Archi) is right next door to me, and i'm doing fine selling my own stuff at my own prices, some cheaper, some more expensive than Nol's, and i'm sure both of us are doing fine, even if Novice Archi's are a dime a dozen on Flurry's Naboo. ^_^

Az, You are totally right in those respects. I did come off strong by saying i was trying to make things 'standard'. I guess in those respects it is impossible, but if one person can start doing it then another can help and another and so on. It just relys on the knowledge factor. Just from general experience the economy is very 'monkey-see-monkey-do'.The only buisness tactic people know is to sell 150k cheaper than the other guy and that in turn makes him a 'succesful buisnessman'. I prefer the 'used car salesman' approach. I have the best freaking deal in the galaxy and I would like you to pay for it. And no i dont finance or offer trade-ins either. No warranty. I will teach you how to use a factory being that the game doesnt explain it very well.

Hypnosia, you are absolutly right about the 'buisnessman' approach. This is a role playing game. I personally enjoy the 'buisnessman' character play style. This class amazes me. You will not find anything like this in any MMO. I've loved games like Sim City and things where you have to micromanage your finances. I've loved MMO style combat like EQ etc. Now its all blended quite nicely. I tried to tell a IRL friend about it and he simply didnt belive me when I was telling them how much depth goes into this class.

Its the people that can really run thier buisness from the buisness sim perspective that will be the most succesful, because that is thier goal in the game. Some want to become legendary Bounty Hunters. Some want to explore the worlds. I want to build the world that everyone does this in. With the urban planner (IF its done correctly.. and i really hope it is) that even takes another step up.

I do the same thing Shadowfire. I don't normally advertise smaller things to help the younger guys have some type of base. If I see them abusing it I will step in do what i mentioned above. Either offer them guidence or make money from them while setting the record straight. I do like the 'stair-stepped' approach to the economy. You have your newer guys working on thier first Master title and they can work towards a small house. Yes those should be cheap. You have your middle guys that are working up towards thier elites. They are affording the middle things and of course the already elite can purchase large things... but its not exactly balanced like that. Perhaps with time it will be. I still have some hope and if it doesnt work out I still have the pleasure of saying I have many owned structures that I built myself. You really cant expect an economy on a galatic scale to work itself out in a month. Theres going to be many more things introduced as spokes on the economic wheel... and if they take everyones hint on the 'swoop bikes need gas' factor, that is huge step in the right direction.. imagine the war for gas.

Thanks guys for the positive feedback.

I think that they should make it wherestructures can catch on fire or something so that they would have to have it built again so the architects would be needed more so they do not die out.biwan:

My best advice is set your price and stick to them. That's what I do. I set my prices at what I think is fair to both sides, about 5 credits per resource. I may lose some business because of the undercutters out there, but I still get plenty of business to support my harvesters and make a decent profit. You can always sell extra resources on the bazaar for more profit than the prices most architects charge.

If someone isn't willing to pay your price, explain to them why you charge that much -educating the customers sometimes helps- if they don't want to listen wish them well and go about your business.

Heres some tells I got today that I found kinda humorous:

"I saw someone selling a large house on Tattooine for 100k, why do you charge so much??"

"Scoop chairs for 500 each are you crazy?? Everyone else sells them for 200-300 just to let you know..."

I just smile and tell them that I base my prices off of what the resources and my time are worth to me, not what other people charge