Artisan Archive
Thread: Here's what to charge for your stuff, and why (if this is to be a worthwhile profession)
Just something to consider.....this also assumes that you sell most, if not all of the items that you produce. If I had to wait to sell all of the weapons that I had produced, I'd still be a novice artisan...maybe with ENGI or ENGII if I was lucky. I understand the point you're trying to make, but considering that people are trying to get higher in the skill trees, they are willing to take the loss to clear up the inventory space. I personally have no trouble selling weapons between 750-2500 each, which is actually above your calculation when most of the items I'm using take 150-250 resources each to produce, I have no harvesters, and no additional overhead.
Remy - Weaponsmith - Scylla
blackweather wrote:Comment: I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what we crafters need money for?
Well, you don't NEED anything. But you can spend a lot more time crafting and a lot less mining, or scrounging, or what have you if you have money enough to fund harvesters, factories, and the like. It depends on what you enjoy and how fast you want to move up the ladder. I'm a lot more productive if I am busily crafting away or out selling while I'm letting a harvester gather the resources for my next batch. At some point, I'll look at a factory in the same way, I'm sure. And maybe if I really get tired of maintaining harvesters and such, I'll just take to paying a specialized miner for resources. All that takes cash.
Plus, it is largely an RP thing. MMORPG--if you're playing the role of a character in a developing universe, you'll find all sort of things to spend money on... food, clothes, housing, etc. If you're just looking at grinding or spreadsheeting, I can see why you wouldn't be interested. But I don't think that's really what it's intended for--you may as well play checkers with chess pieces and ask why they are all so bulky and difficult to stack.
IMHO, if you haven't found a need to charge for your items, you're more dabbling than crafting. The economy, such as it is, depends on interactions all along the chain. Crafters should make some 'profit' but much of what they make will probably go back into sinks that are there for that purpose.
There is some merit to what you say. I do dabble more than craft per se. I see my character as a combat character, rather than a non-combat one. I'll never be able to craft as well as someone who takes the entire artisan and weaponsmith lines. So I will probably end up buying my weapons at the highest end of the game, but i've alway enjoyed making things in these games.
The real question isn't about role playing a rich merchant, its simply this, A wealthy craftercan probably make anything he wants, the few things he needs to buy won't even begin to touch his cash, if he seriously goes after money. I think that for this economy to work in a more circular fashion, there needs to be money going back into the economy, instead of the crafter throwing credits into the hoppers of harvesting machines, there should be some reason for the money to go to players instead of disappearing.
Perhaps instead of maintenance money, have animals attack the mining machines, and require the merchants to hire armsmen to go clear out the vermin. Or perhaps allowing local pa's to charge a toll on the rresources in their area. Just floating a few ideas.