Artisan Archive
Thread: Economics 101: The Bane of Player Based Economies
mkummer
Fri Feb 20, 2004 4:43 pm
#14
You are right, i am not very happy with the economy. But the ressource/products thing is a little bit confusing now due to the hologrind i think, which ups the value of the ressources.
I am Architect 1101 and Master Artisan and i think i have higher prices as most others on the server. But it is fine with me, because i dont have so much ressources and as long as i cant make more it is better for me to sell it on higher prices, all i need is time. If i wait sooner or later someone buy the things 
And i try to have at least 2-3 of all things i can make on my vendor, so if customers enter my shop, they will not find the cheapest things, but they will find a stocked vendor and i can still survive with the money.
And i try to have at least 2-3 of all things i can make on my vendor, so if customers enter my shop, they will not find the cheapest things, but they will find a stocked vendor and i can still survive with the money.With the houses, 10k for a small is under 3cpu and lot of ppl sell them for 7-8k. The are a little underpriced in my opinion. I was happy when i visited an architect shop near mine and see that the architect sells his medium houses for 125k.
SingSolo
Sat Feb 21, 2004 1:03 am
#15
Many times on MMORPG one finds endless rantings from players about how the programmers royally messed up a given profession. The Artisan profession (as well as advanced professions based on the Artisan) are all headed down a long slippery slope to being completely ruined. Not by the programmers though, but by the Artisans themselves. Why? Because they have voluntarity messed up the economy by charging less for items than they could get by selling the resources to make them.
Let's take for example the Swoop Bike. At 6400 Ferrous metal plus 1600 Non-Ferrous. The going rate for GRINDING quality metal is 3 CPU. For actual good quality metal the price is even higher, but let's assume you're making an el-cheapo vehicle. 6400+1600=8000. 8000*3=24000. Now, this means one could easily sell the metal for 24k. Why then am I seeing people selling the finished product for 20k (or in some cases as low as 16k)? By charging such ridiculously low prices, you are not only saying, "My time isn't worth anything at all", you are saying, "My work is so poor, I'm gonna PAY YOU to let me make it for you." What is the point of actually selling products when you can make more selling the materials?Think the Swoop bike is an exception to the rule? You're wrong. Check around and you will see that, in most cases, people are charging less for finished products than what the resources are worth. To those of you who say, "So what. I don't buy my resources anyway, so it's still 100% profit for me. The cost of resources is irrelevant." or perhaps, "I get my resources for free from my guild." I say that under the current ecomonic situation, you're STILL cheating yourself by not selling the resources directly.
As Artisans, it is our responsibility to make sure the economy is stable. In this, we are obviously failing miserably. The answer here is NOT to lower the prices on resources. Resources are currently priced right around where they should be considering the time and expense of maintaining harvesters. The answer is to look at the value of the resources, and add in costs for manufacturing. Manufacturing costs being either the cost of maintaining factories or the cost for your time as an Artisan.
This is pretty basic stuff folks. It amazes me how often people can't get it right. This is, of course, not unique to SWG. You see the same types of problems in just about every MMORPG with player-based economies. Let's see if we can't see to it that SWG is the first MMORPG in history to actually get player based economies right.
Gyrmyth
Master Artisan
Whrlwnd13
Sat Feb 21, 2004 1:22 am
#16
I'd say that the reason that vehicles are being sold by Artisans so cheaply is because (Prior to Patch 6) there were numerous unscrupulus vehicle dealers selling vehicles for10 -15k. Since there are no stats listed on the deed Artisans that craft quality vehicles are unable to compete.This forces them to lower prices in order to get vehicles to sell.
Very fewplayers care about having a high quality vehicle. Especially since they can fix them for free using the shuttle bug.
SingSolo
Sat Feb 21, 2004 1:28 am
#17
Whrlwnd13 wrote:
I'd say that the reason that vehicles are being sold by Artisans so cheaply is because (Prior to Patch 6) there were numerous unscrupulus vehicle dealers selling vehicles for10 -15k. Since there are no stats listed on the deed Artisans that craft quality vehicles are unable to compete.This forces them to lower prices in order to get vehicles to sell.
That's my point though. Even if they are using cheap materials and charging NOTHING for the labor, the cost should still be at LEAST 24k on a swoop. Otherwise, they are simply cheating themselves.
LadyGrey
Sat Feb 21, 2004 1:42 am
#18
Unfortunately there are a fair number of players who are not just apathetic about this problem, but go out of their way to exacerbate it. They genuinely seem to feel that it is their moral duty to make sure that certain goods are available to everyone, which includes not just selling at cut-throat prices, but sometimes extends to them just giving stuff away. They are of the opinion that if they have the ability to do something, then there is nothing wrong with doing it. So if they are given resources by their guild, have factories paid for and maintained by the guild, and houses handed to them by the guild, then why not make speeders for 10k, or just give them away to people?
In essence, they are not playing the game, or contributing toward anyone else's gameplay (though in their minds I suppose that is what they think they are doing). It is the only excuse I can think of for limiting the use of harvesters to crafters, just as a way of limiting the amount of resources that fall into the hands of these perverted children.
In essence, they are not playing the game, or contributing toward anyone else's gameplay (though in their minds I suppose that is what they think they are doing). It is the only excuse I can think of for limiting the use of harvesters to crafters, just as a way of limiting the amount of resources that fall into the hands of these perverted children.
Atreus47
Sat Feb 21, 2004 1:51 am
#19
There needs to be more variation in the quality. For instance, if the speed of a vehicle depended on the quality ofthe resource then I think there would be a market for high qualities rides. My 2 high quality speeder bikes that I bought off a friend (he got something like 95% on his crafing roll) for 10k each are just as fast as a horrible qualilty bike that barely made it past crit failure and I can repair either with the shuttle bug. Most people would pay more for a high quality speeder bike that was even faster then the ones we have now. Oh, and the deeds definately need to show the stats.
BoberFett
Sat Feb 21, 2004 4:33 am
#20
SingSolo wrote:
ShaoSanPoi wrote:
The cost of resources is also important.Mining your ownresources on average cost less than .3 cpu.Using that valuea swoopcost about 2500 credits to produce. If you sell it for 16000 credits you have earned 13500 credits or a 540% return on your investment. The crafter is making a decent profit.
Okay. The same crafter paying .3 CPU for resources sells those resources directly. They are now selling them for (at a minimum) 24000 and have earned a profit of 21500 profit. Which is roughly 896% profit. Okay.... which is better 540% profit or 896% profit?
You're making the assumption that every player isplaying towards the goal of maximum profit. Some people do, it seems you're in that category. Others play the game just to have fun.Hunting for the best resources and creating a quality product is the goal for some people. Sure, they could make more money selling raw resources, but where's the fun in that? If there were some reason to maximize profit, people might be more aware of their pricing. As it is, once you've got a few million there's not much reason to keep going if you're just trying to amass wealth. There's nothing to buy.
As a solo architect with just my 10 lots, it took a while to get going. I made my first million selling factories and crafting stations. When the vehicles hit liveI stood in Anchorhead and sold vehicles for 15K, 20K and 25K. Yep, I'm one of those awful undersellers. But I had fun doing it, interacting with the customers who were excited to be getting a vehicle, and made another million. Could I have made another million by just selling the resources? Sure, and probably even more than that. These were decent metals I was using. Took me a couple weeks to save up the resources to use on vehicle day. But to me selling resources wouldn't have been any fun, so I sold cheap vehicles experimented to 60-70% instead. A few weeks ago I hit 4 million. At that point, I started buying resources like mad. I spent 3 million on resources. I quickly made it back, with tons of resources left over. I spent another 3 million on resources. I'm not back to my previous balance, but I don't care. My vendors are chock full of high quality merchandise. I've got 5+ million worth of inventory on the vendor, and I have the resources to make another 10-15 million worth of products. I could give it all away for free and my game wouldn't change. I've still got a couple million in the bank which is more than enough to do whatever I want.
It's like the old farmer who won the lottery. When the reporters asked what he was going to do with all this money he replied "I reckon I'll keep farming until it's gone."
DrogonOpe
Sat Feb 21, 2004 5:30 am
#21
Okay, my 2cr. I price Most of what I make based on a 5cpu formula. As for speeders (all of them) I use (5 cpu * crafted %). Makes my swoops cost less than 40kcr, but not by a lot as long as it was a quality item. So if I happen to make a 10% bike (by the way I'd scrap this not sell it), it would be sold on my vendor for a whopping 4kcr. You get what you pay for. I like the HAM on my 98% bike, i can ride it all day and not have it smoking after the first hour. When I craft the bikes I name them with the crafting % at the end of the name to give people a better idea what they are getting.
Now on my example of the 10% bike, the poor sucker that was fine with it will need to repair it every hour or so or it will die... Well he/she bought a lemon and now has to deal with it. The quality does affect the resistances and HAM to a good deal, so it's really worth buying a quality product.
Okay, I'm tired and starting to ramble....
Drogon Ope Master Artisan, Master Creature Handler, Marksman (0/4/0/3), Medic (3/2/0/0)
Now on my example of the 10% bike, the poor sucker that was fine with it will need to repair it every hour or so or it will die... Well he/she bought a lemon and now has to deal with it. The quality does affect the resistances and HAM to a good deal, so it's really worth buying a quality product.
Okay, I'm tired and starting to ramble....
Drogon Ope Master Artisan, Master Creature Handler, Marksman (0/4/0/3), Medic (3/2/0/0)
Naxet
Sat Feb 21, 2004 6:08 am
#22
I think SingSolo has smote the nail squarely on the head in the original post and I could not agree more. Stepping back from this and looking only at the big picture .... maybe Artisans should not be allowed to make space vehicles because they could not service the community's needs correctly on surface vehicles. Is that what you want? Or .... maybe making some changes might be in order? Well ... ?
RolfeWJ2
Sat Feb 21, 2004 10:12 am
#23
Hello everyone,
Having read 80% of the posts above, I would like to add the following.
I am new to MMORPG's, and of course SWG. I have also picked artisan as my first career choice
I would like to think that the 'big picture' needs to be looked at by everyone. By that I mean how the economy will rise and fall until it reaches equiblibriam. Imagine that only one Artisan existed in each galaxy, items created by him would be worth vast amounts because his items would be so rare. If however, there where many many artisans in the galaxy, crafted items would be so common they would doubtless be very cheap for non crafting classes. Of course, what you need is something in the middle. If the artisan class becomes difficult to play and develop because of falling item costs, fewer people will start in or stick at that profession. That would lead to fewer artisans, that would lead to items becoming a little rarer, and the price would rise. Rising prices would entice more players to start artisans, creating more items, making prices fall.... and so on and so forth. This is not a quick cycle of events, it will take months to see rising and falling prices due to the number if artisans in the galaxy.
However, because artisans are essentil to the SWG world ( what kinda world would it be without the items they create ) there will always be a playbale equiblibriam that the ecomomy will tend towards over time.
Puck_Starfire
Sat Feb 21, 2004 12:26 pm
#24
Nah Rolfe, you'll get a spiraling downfall like happened in AC when you have a group of players that funk it up for the others.
Whrlwnd13
Sat Feb 21, 2004 1:13 pm
#25
SingSolo wrote:
As for your "use of the shuttle bug", like any exploit, any player who uses it should be drawn, quartered, public humiliated, and then promptly have their accounts canceled.
Here I have to respectfully disagree. I've paid for numerous garage repairs that did not stick (even though I stored the vehicle immediately after the repair). Even though it affects the quantity of vehicle sales, I can't fault players for taking advantage of a bug when the proper procedure for repairs is broken. That is the fault of development.
Atreus47
Sat Feb 21, 2004 2:48 pm
#26
Quality means nothing when it comes to vehicles because of the "shuttle bug." I believe it's possible tht it may never be fixed. I have a couple theories as to the general way the shuttle bugs works.
Theory 1 is that it may have to do with the fact that the server can only allocate so much memory per person. Lets say you take out a speeder, then either take a shuttle or ride another bike at least 3000k away (guessing the number, I don't know for sure). The server forgets the information about you being there, and no has data stored regarding you in your new location. The bike is "forgotten" so to speak. When you try to store it, the server cant find it. Rather then do nothing, it gives you a new instance of your vehicle.
Theory 2 is that during the loading of you into the new location, the instance of your vehicle gets lost because it is a temporary variable and it has to reinstantiat an instance of your character. When you try to store your bike it can't find or remember where it was, it just knows that it isn't in your data pad. So when you store it just gives you a new one.
It could be a combination of both. I haven't seen the source, I'm guessing. Contrary to what most people think, you can exploit the shuttle bug between shuttles on the same planet. If it behaves the way I think it does in theory 1, you could just walk a long dinstance and have a new vehicle. I haven't really tested it, but if I get bored I could perform one or 2 tests and figure out which theory seems to best suit the bug. It may also be affected by what planet you are on and server load, who knows.
The point is, HAM is irrelevant when it comes to vehicles because of the shuttle bug. I think vehicle speed should depend on the resources and experimentation. I'd pay 60k for an extra fast speeder, shuttle bug or not.
Theory 1 is that it may have to do with the fact that the server can only allocate so much memory per person. Lets say you take out a speeder, then either take a shuttle or ride another bike at least 3000k away (guessing the number, I don't know for sure). The server forgets the information about you being there, and no has data stored regarding you in your new location. The bike is "forgotten" so to speak. When you try to store it, the server cant find it. Rather then do nothing, it gives you a new instance of your vehicle.
Theory 2 is that during the loading of you into the new location, the instance of your vehicle gets lost because it is a temporary variable and it has to reinstantiat an instance of your character. When you try to store your bike it can't find or remember where it was, it just knows that it isn't in your data pad. So when you store it just gives you a new one.
It could be a combination of both. I haven't seen the source, I'm guessing. Contrary to what most people think, you can exploit the shuttle bug between shuttles on the same planet. If it behaves the way I think it does in theory 1, you could just walk a long dinstance and have a new vehicle. I haven't really tested it, but if I get bored I could perform one or 2 tests and figure out which theory seems to best suit the bug. It may also be affected by what planet you are on and server load, who knows.
The point is, HAM is irrelevant when it comes to vehicles because of the shuttle bug. I think vehicle speed should depend on the resources and experimentation. I'd pay 60k for an extra fast speeder, shuttle bug or not.