Artisan Archive
Thread: so after the cdef-artisan economy boom for two weeks, then what ?
so two weeks after launch of a server when people can make the gear everyone is certified for after just 1000combat exp.. what is going to happen to the market for all the artisan made weapons ?
not talking about experimented cdefs vs. newbie tier one advanced weapons but when folks start selling advanced weapons that are of good quality. You can use your CDEF easily to get to expert weapon skill thus negating the need for about 3/4 of the interim weapons that you can sell if you are in front of the wave, but who will buy them once crafters are established.
Is there even going to be a need for 3/4 of the weapons ? Quite a few of them were broken in beta and couldn't match certain models regardless.
This isthe reason why limiting people to one character per server is bad for the economy. There is never any new blood and once people move up there is no need for lower tier items.
Unfortunately it looks like for crafters if your not on the crest of the wave then your in for hard times. I already know a friend who just got Eng 2 and cant make a living to save his life. The weekend after launch I was making 1k plus per bone glove and hide sale and a week later the saturation of items has driven the price to a quarter of that.
I think that what will happen is that the economy will crash and a lot of people will leave the crafting professions for combat professions, increasing demand and lowering supply. One or masterweaponsmith in each town is probably all that the economy can support. The economy will level out some, but I don't think that many people will get to play the crafting professions they want to. Perhaps that developers should consult a professional economist about ways to ensure a stable economy for the long term.
For the record though, my ideas:
1) Create a routine that sometimes purchases items from the bazaar priced at or below the average. The more of a supply for a given item, the more purchases the system would make, but at lower prices. The items will be destroyed (no UXP), but at least the economy will be stabilized and could accomodate an unlimited number of crafters. This discourages undercutting for the purpose of hoarding UXP, since low-end items will be bought by the system and zapped, and keeps things flowing as tehy're produced. As the price of an item rises through this process, crafters will take note, and make more in order to profit, thereby increasing supply and driving down the price the system buys at.
2) Special attacks such as overcharge shot should have a deleterious impact on the decay rate of weapons. Combats who fight hard will go through weapons like candy, which is realistic. Being shot should impact the decay timer of armor (again this is very realistic), repairs can only do so much for a chestplate that's been blasted several dozen times - time to buy a new one! Maybe instead of impacting the decay rate, these events could impact the overall damage potential of weapons or armor level of armor on a long-term basis. This will pick up demand for new items pretty quickly.
3) Faction representatives should buy arms and armor!!! These groups NEED weapons and armor to fight the ongoing war, they need to supply thousands of NPCs for battles. Faction reps should always be ready with crafting missions where someone has to craft 20 CDEF Rifles for 50 credits a piece. This allows newbie crafters a chance to make money while gaining XP, and it provides a market for advanced crafters as well. Then if someone crafts a pile of powerups, there's no need to destory them, just go hunt down a mission to sell them to an NPC so he can arm his faction. NPCs should buy weapons and armor. Plus, setting a fixed price for these transactions would give a good baseline for newbie to learn how much items are worth. Heck, NPCs should even buy houses and clothes! Don't they need these? Where do they get their supplies? Is there some seperate NPC economy? Add them into the mix and demand will stabilize.
Ramses1 wrote:
3) Faction representatives should buy arms and armor!!! These groups NEED weapons and armor to fight the ongoing war, they need to supply thousands of NPCs for battles. Faction reps should always be ready with crafting missions where someone has to craft 20 CDEF Rifles for 50 credits a piece. This allows newbie crafters a chance to make money while gaining XP, and it provides a market for advanced crafters as well. Then if someone crafts a pile of powerups, there's no need to destory them, just go hunt down a mission to sell them to an NPC so he can arm his faction. NPCs should buy weapons and armor. Plus, setting a fixed price for these transactions would give a good baseline for newbie to learn how much items are worth. Heck, NPCs should even buy houses and clothes! Don't they need these? Where do they get their supplies? Is there some seperate NPC economy? Add them into the mix and demand will stabilize.
Man I like the idea of that, make PCs compete with the rest of the world to buy items. Newb crafters would be able to prosper, they could even increase the comabt capability of the faction NPCs based upon how many items they receive, making crafters important to the GCW, and to carry this thought even further, have NPC's come to Doctors and entertainers for services, tipping for their healing.
This is the reason why limiting people to one character per server is bad for the economy. There is never any new blood and once people move up there is no need for lower tier items.
You want to see a bad economy? Look at UO. You want something made in UO, you don't buy it from a crafter, no. You log on to your own crafter character and make it yourself.
It currently takes approximately 20 hours to grind to Master Artisan. So, if there was MCS, what's to stop someone from taking 10 hours to grind to Eng and DA 4 to make the highest-quality CDEF's possible for their newbie characters? What's to stop them from doing destroy missions with their Master Marksman character to feed cash to their aforementioned artisan character in order to buy up resources/harvesters/factories in a snap and progress easily to Master status in an advanced profession?
Like it or not, SCS is a Good Thing for the whole of the game. The day SOE allows even one extra character is the day I quit SWG.
Especially for closed/full servers. that market for newbie items is dead. There won't really EVER be any more chars on that server. But even on servers still filling up, once people have some advanced experimentation the need for CDEF weapons and stuff is GONE. People are already selling Dh17s and Scout Blasters for a few thousand ,and that price will continue to fall. Another week or two and those items will be worthless too as people move up to FWG5s and stuff.
The ease and low cost of harvesters allow the early crafters to get such a jump on anyoneand to build things in such quantities that it isn't funny. After less than a week of running harvesters I have 20,000+ of some resources sitting around for things that only take a few units of each to make.
One crafter could easily probably supply the entire server with all their weapon needs. Especially if they run a factory.
I am not sure that the long term future of the economy is looking rosy here given how fast people are blasting through the tech trees and how fast people are getting resources. I see the PA mining fields already where there are 30 harvesters on a patch running 24x7.
I agree, the first couple days I was selling my wares at a regular rate. Now, it seems the economy has gone bust. I just reached Engineer IV and can't sell anything at the Bazaar. I have to try to undercut the competition with a modified and experimental CDEF Carbine, after all the work I've put into getting that far.
If you are thinking of starting out as an artisian, you've got a long road ahead of you. I was stuck making weapons, armor and fireworks only to either destroy them or launch them myself; just to clear my inventory. The market is over-saturated.
The only way I can make money now is to jump from town to town on delivery missions. I do this to offset the cost of maintenance on my harvesters. I shouldn't have to do this because selling my weapons should be how I offset the cost of my harvesters. It is far too easy for new artisians, or even experienced ones, to /sample their own resources without harvesting and flood the market with weapons/armor.It seems the only reasonI have harvestersis to produce enough resources to make/destroy items just to try andlevel fast enough to keep up with the competition.
I began playing on opening night along with a friend of mine. I started as an artisian, he as a marksman. At first I supplied him with weapons he needed and sold some at the bazaar. Buisness was good. A few days later, after playing the same amount of time, my friend became far too advanced for my weapons/armor and began looking elsewhere, as he should. He only had to take a few delivery missions to purchase somebetter weapons and armor.
Something needs to be done with the economic model if we are to see the artisian profession survive. There are too many items available and not enough people to buy them. Demand has to rise to buffer the supply. It is far too easy for one high level person to flood the market with high quality / low cost gear and squash any up-and-coming artisians. Why would anyone buy a basic CDEF Carbine/Pistol/Rifle if all it takes to buy advanced weapons is 6-8 delivery missions between towns.
One solution: A minimum price should be calculated by the game based on the quality of the item produced. It is then up to the creator to up the price based on demand for it.