Artisan Archive

Hmm yes the economy is very odd. But he isnt complaining about prices being to high. When it comes to vehicles the prices are LOW... i have always seen bike sell for 20-30k tops. but as mentioned it costs a master artisan 40k to build it. not to mention the time to harvest all the componants (bikes are easy in this area but still takes effort)

I have been a master artisan now for a month or so and have seen this problem also. But i think this will start to turn around once publish 8 comes out and they fix the vehicle repair exploite. right now everyone in the game has bikes that never die... so there is NO demand. once the fix is in place the demand should go way up compared to where it is now and make bikes easily sell for 30k. but it still wont be the 40k we artisans sink into the effort.

Another aspect could be a ability to better visually see a bikes Statistics when selling the item, you can mass produce bikes out of low quality ore and only get a experimental value of 50% and still sell it right next to a high OQ one with 97%... No one can tell the diffrence.. if they could tell the diffrence then i bet with the exploite fix and demand we could see bikes start to sell around 50k for the high oq ones.

Now society plays a problem. as stated, there are players in the game that have played the game since its birth. these players have tons of cash, they have tons of resources (i know of a Player that is stock piling resources waiting for the space expansion and the ability to make starships. he currently has 2 million units of at least 3 diffrent types of meterials waiting for the expansion. when it hits, this person is bound to become a sole source of starships on our server. since they have Donald trump money saved up. us lower end Mom and Pop shops (players just starting) can only sell our wares if we undercut the Big guys. hence the prices of bike drop back down below 20K....

thats how i see things. Now... how do you fix it...?

--Axler

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Bashin wrote:

Well I just became a Master Artisan.

So I got the uber Metal to make vehicles. 8k metal total for a swoop. I made my first one and got it to 97% effective and gave it to a guild mate.

I sat down... Iron cost me 3 cpu and the Alum cost 4 Cpu .. so a modest profit .. 5 cpu. Wait..that would put my swoop price at 40k!

Most people are selling Swoops for 24k on my server! Thats 3 cpu. That profit margin is non-existant.

I wanted to make some Vehicle customization kits for myself. I get everything together and realize that this too has a super low profit margin.

In fact, I must have over paid for the droid compartments cause I would be loosing money selling it at the 1500 credits each most artisans do on my server.

It seems the only item I can make a profit on from the artisan tree is Power Ups. Thats it! And I dont even need Master Artisan do it.

Maybe I am doing something wrong? Are there other things I am missing? I still cant understand why the majority of Artisans on my server started charging only 3 cpu when they can get that for the materials they use.

Is it the same on your servers?

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If you collect/mine the power and metals yourself, your resource cost will be <1cpu

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Talgoth_Do_Shon wrote:

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Bashin wrote:

Well I just became a Master Artisan.

So I got the uber Metal to make vehicles. 8k metal total for a swoop. I made my first one and got it to 97% effective and gave it to a guild mate.

I sat down... Iron cost me 3 cpu and the Alum cost 4 Cpu .. so a modest profit .. 5 cpu. Wait..that would put my swoop price at 40k!

Most people are selling Swoops for 24k on my server! Thats 3 cpu. That profit margin is non-existant.

I wanted to make some Vehicle customization kits for myself. I get everything together and realize that this too has a super low profit margin.

In fact, I must have over paid for the droid compartments cause I would be loosing money selling it at the 1500 credits each most artisans do on my server.

It seems the only item I can make a profit on from the artisan tree is Power Ups. Thats it! And I dont even need Master Artisan do it.

Maybe I am doing something wrong? Are there other things I am missing? I still cant understand why the majority of Artisans on my server started charging only 3 cpu when they can get that for the materials they use.

Is it the same on your servers?

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If you collect/mine the power and metals yourself, your resource cost will be <1cpu:smileywink:

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Harric wrote:

if u can sell your pure resources which cost u no matter how much for like 2 to 5cpu easily then its plainly stupid to sell a finished product for same or even lesser price. then u make only imaginary profit on them, cause u could make even more win without work by sell the pure resources (no work, no crit fail risk etc)

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It can be advantageous to sell something at a loss if it can lure customers who will when they are there also buy something else more expensive. However I do not think this is very applicable to SWG. Do one-stop malls really work, or do people still shop around? Time is money too I suppose.

I aim for example to make at least one factory run of each master artisan product and keep on a vendor just for completeness sake, not necessarily to make a profit on it. At least not directly.

All I read was your title...

/AGREE!!!

WTHell? 3 cpu...

Vehicles are a MUST in this game now

The first MArtisans to craft these things really dropped the ball

Lets fix that when the new patch comes out that stops shuttle exploit fixing....

Why should I sell a CRAFTED product for the same cost as the resources?

I could just sell the resources and save time...

And the guy who said you need to undercut to attract business so you can sell the good items, I say...

Aren't the VEHICLES the thing you want people coming to buy from you?

So give away free birdcages and undercut other items so people come to your shop and buy VEHICLES @40k a pop.

Message Edited by Flynn_Nomad on 04-26-2004 04:33 PM

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AxlerTwinblade wrote:

I have been a master artisan now for a month or so and have seen this problem also. But i think this will start to turn around once publish 8 comes out and they fix the vehicle repair exploite. right now everyone in the game has bikes that never die... so there is NO demand. once the fix is in place the demand should go way up compared to where it is now and make bikes easily sell for 30k. but it still wont be the 40k we artisans sink into the effort.

thats how i see things. Now... how do you fix it...?

--Axler

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You hit it on the head, but not the nail you think. What is the exploit fix going to solve? The reason bikes don't sell well now is...Everyone has one.

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Sevardos wrote:

Well, I decided not to sell vehicles (at least not make them myself I mean) - it's not worth the effort. Here's an interesting story that convinced me to not get into it.

Being a new merchant, I was looking through the Bazaar to see what trends are currently happening. A few weeks back, I was checking the Bazaar on Tat and noticed that there were 6 X-speeders with an instant price of 6K. I figured someone made a mistake and hit Instant instead of Auction. So, of course, I bought all 6 Later that day, another 6 went on the bazaar - same price / same guy. I bought those to. At the time, I bought them thinking this would be a great promotional item to drive traffic to my merchants and gain exp - sell these at 6K to visit my merchants and it wouldn't cost me a penny.

Next day, I was on Naboo browsing through the Bazaar and again, the same guy was selling 6 (or so) speeders for 6K and also had 6 for sale in Coronet. For the next few days, I planet hopped buying all his inventory. That week, I opened up my vendors and instead of selling them for 6K (my original plan) - I sold them for 12K and sold out within 2 days.

I made more money (and less hassle) flipping the inventory than if I would have made them myself. If there are fools out there who'll sell them for 6K, I'll gladly stay in the resell business - it's more profitable.

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Just be careful doing this with shop keepers. Some of them might take offence at your "gouging" other players like this and ban you from their shop. Happened to me. My own RL daughter. Guess I failed to teach proper Ferengi respect for profit

-Indene-

P.S. I do not consider it "gouginge" but that is what I was told by both my daughter and others in other threads. Being a Merchant and an Import/Export specialist is not alway a popular profession in either universe.

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Harric wrote:

an answer from a non businessman that is.

if u can sell your pure resources which cost u no matter how much for like 2 to 5cpu easily then its plainly stupid to sell a finished product for same or even lesser price. then u make only imaginary profit on them, cause u could make even more win without work by sell the pure resources (no work, no crit fail risk etc)

there u see why economy is broken in swg, ppl got no clue about business sadly

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Exactly why I stopped making vehicles and dropped Master Artisan. I and my partner at the time collected the metals made the schematics and ran the factory. We processed several crates of vehicles for sale and went out to make our fortune. I invested the credits for the metals and she invested the time and factory. When we sat for hours watching MA's hawking speeders in the 6-15k price range it was very dis enhartening. I concluded that it was not worth the trouble and went back to selling resources direct. And she dropped MA and moved on to doctor. I Also dropped MA as I mentioned as there was no value in it. I put the rest of the vehicles on my vendor at 40k and went back to mining.

-Indene-

Well there are plenty of people selling vehicles for 10k on my server. Well I dont go that low but I offer 3 types of quality at different prices, and more often than most, when the choices are in front ofthe customers they buy the higher quality vehicles. I do put the exact hitpoints on the tittle also, for better comparison. Also I think business will pick up very quickly, now that vehicles dont repair themselves when you travel/clone. And on top of it all repairs still arent sticking like they are supposed to, once you put your bike away and pull it out again the repairs are lost. So I think alot of people will be being needing replacements more often.

X34 Landspeeder

15,500 (Low quality, under 70%)

25,500(Standard quality, 70-90%)

35,500 (High Quality, 91% +)

Swoop

38,000 (Low quality, under 70%)

48,000 (Standard quality, 70-90%)

58,000 (High Quality, 91% +)

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PrincessThea wrote:

Well there are plenty of people selling vehicles for 10k on my server. Well I dont go that low but I offer 3 types of quality at different prices, and more often than most, when the choices are in front ofthe customers they buy the higher quality vehicles. I do put the exact hitpoints on the tittle also, for better comparison. Also I think business will pick up very quickly, now that vehicles dont repair themselves when you travel/clone. And on top of it all repairs still arent sticking like they are supposed to, once you put your bike away and pull it out again the repairs are lost. So I think alot of people will be being needing replacements more often.

X34 Landspeeder

15,500 (Low quality, under 70%)

25,500(Standard quality, 70-90%)

35,500 (High Quality, 91% +)

Swoop

38,000 (Low quality, under 70%)

48,000 (Standard quality, 70-90%)

58,000 (High Quality, 91% +)

Prinethea

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Yeha, thats great...I understand it, because I'm an artisan....

Try and explain that all to someone coming up to your vendor and seeing 3 different prices for a Landspeeder...

Untill they fix the descriptions I would just harvest 700 oq avg stuff and make avg bikes and sell them at an avg price...

Save the good materials for raw sale or other stuff.