Bio Engineer Archive

Okay, so how much will we charge for these. My first inclination is to follow a model set by modern western Pharmaceutical companies. Creating a good creature, I mean a really good creature, is going to be a result of LOTS of time and effort. There is going to be a massive amount of trial and error, including lots of DNA sampling deaths. In addition to the not-fun grind of getting to be a good BE, we will have to learn how everything works and experiment and experiment until we find just the right combination. Making the final product might turn out to be quick and easy, but it will be result of hours of prep time and research. We will not just be crafting a product based on a regimented schematic, we will be developing a product to fit particular needs and demand.

SO, what do we charge? You saw (and some of you may have participated in) the kind of money that CHs got away with charging recently. You'll see the same thing with vehicles, certainly. There are rare drops out there going for millions and some people have a lot more money than they know what to do with. So what seems fair to you?

I see several levels of creature, all of which would have their own pricing schemes:
1) The kind of creature I mention above, one made with meticulous attention paid to either what the particular customer wanted as far as specials and resists or just that we know will be effective based on our knowledge of the game. Theoretically, once you find a combination that works well, you could replicate it as long as you could still find the dna source.
2) The large number of failed experiments that we will create in seeking to develop a creature as described in #1.
3) Statues. I think these will greatly increase in popularity and demand with the greater selection and the color options. It could especially be a good source of income for new BEs who are collecting yard trash dna and learning the ropes.
4) Big and weak. While I don't condone the practice, there are any number of kids playing this game that will be happy to buy huge creatures that are in reality very weak. Then when they get their clock cleaned they will conclude that the game or professions suxxors because they aren't bright enough to understand how it works...

There are others, including the fact that many of us will be making creatures either cheap or free for good friends and/or PAs.

So what kind of pricing scheme works? Is 100K for the ultimate tank too much? a steal? In the current inflationary economy will 1 million be closer to correct? Will not too badly failed experiments fetch 25-50K, the way weak mounts did?

I think it'll all boils down to how much better you can make that uber pet compared to one that can be found in the wild. If it's not significantly better, then people won't be willing to pay that much for it. I mean, if you can loot 10-30 dam weapons from a mob and your local weaponsmith can only make 15-35 dam weapons, will you be willing to pay a bundle for it? If however, this new system can make truly unique pets that are significantly better than wild ones... well, then BEs are going to rich, hehe. People are willing to pay hefty sums for composite armor, so why not good tank pets?

I think people need to get out of the thinking mode where pets are only damage sponges. Anything that can KD/dizzy is more than a damage tank: it is a tank that suddenly figured out how to fire that huge freakin' gun it has. Personally, I'm looking forward to figuring out the system myself, and customers will have to pay for my time and effort spent to create their new, specialized pets

Having tried my hand at making money off of other "new" content that gets introduced into the game i can safely say this is going to be pointless to plan out.

The people who slap together some pretty flashy critters will have them sold to people for a decent price in the first few minutes of the released patch, an hour later those same pets will be sold for just over what it cost to buy a holocron. Theres always somebody out there who wants show off having what everybody else does quite have yet.

By the next day some of us will be trying to quickly build up a quality pet to sell for a decent price, by the time we finally have the critter finished the "mad rush" will be over and we wont be able to give the things away if we offered to fly to thier location and coat it with chocolate.

Also there will always be an elite crowd of insane charity workers, thier sole purpose in this game is to gain popularity by giving away massive amounts of what other people are trying desperately to sell at a profit. They always either give away for free or sell the critter/item for less than it cost to make. Trying to standardize prices with people such as this around will be pointless.

I personally will be only building pets for others as they file a request and agree to a predetermined price, i sure as hell wont be building pets to pawn off on a vendor in the hopes i get lucky.

personally, I'll have a generic price list for unmoded clones, and an additional price list for each mod. maybe 5k for light armor, 2.5k for each added special attack, 1k for each resistance added. something like that. I'll probably put any interesting combinations I come up with, on my vendor, and list what mods they have on them. And generally just take special orders.


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The few, the proud, the gimped. BE is the profession to be
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Dra'gos Nor - Ahazi/Bio-Engineer - Creature Handler - Rifleman
Mistr' Fixx'it - Ahazi/Master Artisan - Master Merchant - Master Architect
Kkaos Reinz - Lowca/Brawler - Medic
Lorr - Wanderhome/Tailor
Psylent Nyte - Test Center/Scout
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Back Dragon Inc - NW of Bestine - /waypoint -1851 -3089
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Clones on order for specifics, look to be a "billable hour" type deal + expenses.

Kinda like hiring a PI,

I order a pet with certain attacks etc. you decide where and what you'd need to get:

Enought DNA for 2-3 combines.
Travel to planets to get that specific DNA
Incap/death/decay retainer.
Time spent traveling/crafting.
+ some base CL price.

Much like slicers, ther may be soem refunds.

If you get a great clone on first combine, you oculd "buy back" the DNA you didnm't use for their pet.. and reund some of the DNA money.. If you don't die, pay back the retainer (or 70% of it whatever).


BE pricing and policies are probably going to be very reputation based, and word of mouth commission type deals rather then venorific (TM) standards.

-T

-T

Well for the first few days it will be complete anarchy. The CH population will be running around trying to figure out what the next uber pet is. They will be looking for the new pets, the old pets that have babies again, etc. The thread talking about pet changes is already huge and a good read for BE as it talks about resist, etc.

As for prices - I've already had some of my normal customers offer me 100k for a kimo no matter the quality. They just want to have it on day 1 to show off. I'm going to use my old price I use on my Rancors to start. This will give me a base line I can use to then determine what each mod, etc. should be.

As I understand it, armor, resists, etc, will all go into calculating the Base CL of a clone creature...

Theoretically, a Level 10 Rancor is no better than a Level 10 Kaadu.

If that's the case, I mightsuggest charging something like X credits * Y creature level (before experimenting the CL down of course)?

For example, when I sold tamed creatures, I always sold them for 1k per CL. So a level 50 pet was always 50k (not counting extinct ones of course).

and CH's still aren'tgoing to buy anypets thataren'tsubstatially better than the tamable pets - so don't expect to charge TONS of credits fora pet that's the sameas "free" versions in the wild.

That's why I dropped BE a long while ago. But I might pick it up again now.

I don't think you are going to run into the same situation we did with mounts, where minutes after the patch hit, people were selling mounts for amazing prices. With mounts, the CHs knew which creatures to tame and had them stored up, and growing for the day the patch hit. They got their new ability and were immediately in business.

With the BEs I expect things to be different. First, from what I understand on TC right now --- old DNA won't do you any good. So you can't store up to be ready for the patch. Even then, the new ability is not just a switch that you throw, like the taming mount command. The knowledge, abilitiy, and resource gathering to make these new pets is going to get spread out over a longer period of time. Sure the first guy to make some really outstanding pet is going to charge a bundle for him. But I just don't see the mad hysteria like we had with mounts happening again for the BEs.

Well, okay. I think you are right that the first couple of weeks will be anarchy, but that period is really not what I'm talking about. I think anything built in the first couple of weeks is going to be crap compared to what will come after 4-6 weeks, when some really dedicated BEs do the kind of work (and I do mean work) that it will take to really find some killer combos. This is really a new and revolutionary thing for MMOs, you can't just follow the schematic on the weapon and then take it out for a test. Perhaps I'm seeing this system as much more complex than it will be, but I think this is really going to be something unique and that the people who do the work that will allow them to find winning combinations are going to have a windfall of fascinating proportions.

And creatures should not thought of as just tanks. I do not think of them that way but my conversations with many CHs on here and the dev comments clearly show they consider them that way. I've seen CHs that have pets with poison and bleeds that kick creatures that those who run around with pure tanks can't even touch.

I know you guys always want to go on some price fixing system, but honestly as long as I can turn a profit on the resources used to create the things I make I will always follow my own pricing system (which is to be fair and still make credits and not rip people off for one big sale)

You need the customer as much as they need you. That is the key to retail!

Personally, I ignore the creature's special abilities, HAM, damage, etc., and base my pricing upon the creature's CL (which is based upon the creature's special abilities, HAM, damage, etc.). While we don't yet know how the new cloning system will work, I currently assume the CL will still be a valid means of pricing, and will probably keep my current pricing scheme. Which, by the way, is this...

CL squared times 20

So using the current clones, a kaadu is a 2,000 cr creature (10 squared times 20), a brackaset is a 13,520 cr creature (26 squared times 20), while a rancor is a 50,000 cr creature (50 squared times 20). My current scheme deviates from this only in the cost of non-tamable pets. For these I just multiply the clone's CL by 100 (so a blurrg is 5,000 cr, a tybis is, uh, 2,000 cr (?), and a kimogila is 7,000 cr).

Why am I squaring the CL? Because of the higher-level DNA required for a decent high-level clone. If I'm going to be crawling around the mutant rancor cave collecting DNA to make a rancor clone, I'm going to be well compensated for it.

ahh now the greed subject. Sell for what you want. Make what you want. Have fun doing it.