Artisan Archive

My experience with other RPG economies of this nature (for what it's worth) is that not only is supply and demand in constant flux, but the flux is also in flux. Rules that work perfectly well now will be useless in a couple of weeks. This is because game usage patterns are completely unpredictable and purchasers literally come and go out of thin air. Go to any game support site that has a catalog of items and recommended prices and they will always be way off because the data was collected in worlds that no longer exist. That's the bad news.

The good news is that SWG seems to be very amenable to the notion of a self-sufficient crafter. At least at the pre-Specialist level I'm in now. Maybe that will change at higher levels. But the idea that I have the ability to create my own Guild Hall or whatever using my own blood, sweat and tears, no matter how long it might take, is very appealing to me as a soloist. I'm not sure that you absolutely have to participate in the global economy to reach the top if that is your desire. Again maybe I'm naive at this point but I looking forward I don't see any major obstacles other than time.

Hmmm. last night i asked someonehow much i should should sell aluminum for. They told me if i wanted to sell it fast charge 200credits per 20units...if i was in no hurry then 300-500 credits per 20 units. Ilisted 200 unitsfor instant sell at 200credits per 20 uits. when i logged on todayi had an additional 2k in the bank.hmmm at 10credits/1 ore guess thats driving the economy in the wrong direction. On the plus side i was able to tip the dancer 100 credits and the medic 100 credits. More money made more spent (untruth).

You read that backwards.

He said 200cr for 20 aluminum.

10cr a unit. Which is close to par with what things were going for in beta. If I priced it lower than 5cr a unit (for good quality minerals) it was usually gone before I finished the refreshing the bazaar.

We need to have email lists. Spam is inevitable, but we should have mailing lists.

I can see it now - selling names and spending time managing them.

>>> Q'Tessa

Xexy Corp. 'Making your life better, one item at a time'

Good Post!

I run a store just SW of Bestine and that is what I pay my artisan suppliers. 3cr/resource (+ a little extra). I then usually mark it up to at least 4.5cr/resource and post it on my vendor (I need to cover vendor). Depending on market demand, I may markup higher.

So, for example, I pay them 30cr/coupler. Because of market demand, I can actually charge 65cr/coupler.

This is typically a good deal for the artisan because I clean out their entire inventory in one shot. They come by, post 25 items on my vendor. Next time I am by my vendor, if they meet the minimum standards I set and the price, I purchase all 25.

Also, I see a lot of you saying you are all merchants and that's not true. Most of you are suppliers (crafters). Very few of you are merchants. A true merchant doesn't build things. A merchant sets up supply chains, trade routes, and builds a customer base.

I am a merchant and hardly ever craft. The only time I do is to fill holes in my inventory.

But anyway, good analysis on costs and pricing.

QTessa - good to see you on the boards. Would you mind terribly taking a look at my post on the Corbantis board? I'd be very interested in your feedback.

Oops, I meant 200cr for 20 units. To me, that seems INSANEly high. Agian, if you're in my galaxy, I'm going to your planet!

10cr a pop for raw goods? Refined goods aren't selling for much in my town it seems because too much dumping. 3-4cr per input unit is all I would expect.

Ick
Ick Brothers Trading Company
[)|(]

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Grimjakk wrote:

10cr a unit. Which is close to par with what things were going for in beta. If I priced it lower than 5cr a unit (for good quality minerals) it was usually gone before I finished the refreshing the bazaar.

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Yes but in beta money was comming in much faster and easier. Also, there wasn't much incentive for luxury structures like houses since we all knew a wipe was comming. Furthermore, maint fees for everything (for much of beta) were low or non-existent. So people had too much money and not enough places to spend it.

Things seemed a bit more balanced now. I pay 2cr/resoure up to 4cr/resource ONLY IF it is rare and good. If it is an easy to find high quality resource, I still only pay 2cr/resource because, I can always get a harvestor and get the resouce myself. If is rare, or off-world, then it is worth more.

I think when things settle down, not as many people will be as silly buying at 10cr/resource.

I agree 2-4cr per resources seems ok to me. Two nights ago while running a delivery mission out in the woods I came across some pretty nice gemstone (I think it had 945 OQ). I mined a 100 units and put it up on the bazaar for 800 credits. It was gone in two hours. I think 10cr per unit is not too much for radioactives or gemstone. Well that is on Corellia at least.

I have one question and one comment,

Question: If I my harvester says 15 power req'd, and I put in 15 radioactive ore, it will run for one cycle right?

Comment: I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what we crafters need money for? I paid 1k to the clone bank, and I periodically tipped dancers and docs (until I figured that I can be a novice entertainer until I need those skill points, so now I just dance myself to heal my own battle fatigue). These are the only use I have for cash at this point. Granted, harvesters may need maintenance, but that is debatable. Until the high end specialization occurs accross the board, money is something we don't really need. In the real world food and rent and luxuries are what the money goes to.In an RPG, if there is no need, the money stays in the pocket. Once I get a house, i will probably find an architecht, give him all of the resources he needs and pay a minimal amount for my home. Spaceships? a whole year a way, judging by the release of this game maybe 2 years, unless starships are Xmillion credits, the economy has no way of truly moving the money around. Fighter types run around gathering cash from missions, and give it to us, we have no use for it and hoard it like scrooge. Am I missing something?

Ick, You cant try and apply real world economics to SWG. It wont work. You cannot try and arbitrarily (sp) create standards for people to follow. A person or even large group of people can't ever just decide how an economy is going to run. So I would suggest not worrying about it and just have fun. Ultimately, that is what the game is about anyway.

smeesh

Smeesh,

Um... yeah, you're right. I guess I had high hopes for the economy in this game, which is why I chose artisan. Never played a MMORPG before, so maybe I'm being nieve. Still though, if we in the artisan community would just do a good job of educating our fellow merchants, maybe we can make for a better, healthier, *more fun* economy.

Someone was giving something away the other day, and I politely asked them not to do that - that it was better to destroy. If we all did that, we'd all wind up making more money off the bazarre. That's all.

Good point though... all about fun.

Ick
Ick Brothers Trading Company
[)|(]

In some ways, this is more like what we think of as an 'economy' than the real-world 'economy' is. What we consider to be an economy when commonly using the term is actually just a sort of semantic model of what actually happens, which is always incomplete. It's usually just someone's computerized model of what happens measuring a few variables.

Well, this game IS the computerized model. It's a more perfect representation than reality could ever be because all the variables of the system are perfectly quantified (barring bugs) except the people--which are the ultimate X factor. But people are people, whether in a game or out, so there are a lot of traditional ways of approaching their input to the system that are still valuable to look at.

For me, that IS part of the fun, looking at that and playing it. Anyone getting heated up over it should take a few steps back, tho.

Good point blackweather, I enjoy crafting but I also see no real use for money as an artisan right now. I only have 3500 credits in the bank.