Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: Your BE Pet Prices
I used to sell my level 10's for 20K but I've put them up to 50K in view of the fact that there is inflation in the game. Pre-CU you had to split the mission reward with all the people in the group. Post-CU the reward is duplicated. I don't want to undervalue my pets - ie. it takes me a LOT longer to get the DNA to craft a level 10 then it takes a level 80 to get the money to buy one for 20K and this just seems wrong.
If someone really really wants a pet and hasn't got the cash - I'm always happy to cut a deal - and friends and guildies get their pets for free IF they ask me - sometimes they prefer to buy from the vendor.
For CH pets, my pricing schema is something like 1.5K per level up to level 50 and 2.5K per level up to level 69 with level 70's being dealt with as a separate case. However to be honest, a lot of the time, I'd rather persue making lots oflevel 10's and send CH people to Rachna for the level 70's 
I love making level 10 pets ... don't know why but it's always been my speciallity.
Pets are the only things I sell and most of the money that I make from them will go into our town coffers to help run the town.
Dor
lammergeier wrote:
I gave up. I give everything away, and accept donations.
I really feel that pain Lam, but I'm going to try re-edjucation instead of surrender.
Here is what I do: I price by the DNA sample for pets.
So the COST of the DNA for my crafting depends on the difficulty of getting the DNA itself. ie: This is what I would be willing to pay another BE to get the samples for me, eventhough I get most of the samples myself. If the sample is from the krevol sniffing around outside my door, its free. If the sample is from something that sends me to the cloner all the time (urnsors' caretaker), well... thats much more expensive. On my server, people who run missions have no problem making about 500k+ per hour, so I try to guage my prices by that. Spend an hour getting DNA so that DNA is worth about 500k. So for me, uller stoneclaw dna comes really easy, so I call that 10k per sample. Or about 50 per hour. So after I pull some numbers out of my @$$ for DNA prices, I make petz.
Just like any other crafting profession, I take my cost of production (DNA costs) and multiply by some number to get a 'sale' price. Most crafting proffs use anywhere from x1.5 to x5 or higher for this price. Then you have to add in a fudge factor for things like, how kool the pet is, if its max level, if its max damage, ect...
This pricing is NOT 1k per CL. I HATE the fact that people are willing to sell for this little. Selling a pet that takes you hours of combined effort to make for 70k just kills me. (*looks for the /rant off button*)
Example: lvl 35 e-z pet
5xUller Stoneclaw @ 10k per sample = 50k cost = @ 2.5 multiple = 125k plus kewl fudge for being lvl 35 twin = 150k per pet. easy!
Well this is a reason I have decided NOT to post my recipe for 499 max damage pets that is not generational. I love helping other BE's figure things out for themselves and understand what is going on.
LuCha wrote:
So with this special type of crafter, one who really loves what they do, we have a difference of opinion. It seems that most people just have no idea what to charge for pets. The 1k/lvl thing seems ok on paper. The math isn't very hard so anyone can do it. But then you realize that loads of people want lvl 10 pets. At 10k per, I almost want them to resell off my vendor! At 20k I still want to resell them! And a few people here are selling lvl 70 pets for 250k or less?!?!?! I can understand if the pet is just a lvl70 with 6k ham and 400 max damage, but not for a 9k health pet or one with 499 max damage. How much time was spent trying to figure out just how to make that pet? How many hours were spent getting the DNA for it? How many lvl 71s were made trying to craft that lvl 70? This 1k/CL price thing is the reason why a lot of BEs are always saying how poor they are.
But it was always supposed to be about coming together and sharing our finding and observations and fooling around as BE's. Not about posting our most special recipes so that everyone else on our server who we have never even met can use them to make cookie-cutter pets and undercut whatever prices we decide to charge ...- what I make is special. it is handcrafted with care and attention and I work up almost every recipe myself
- i want to make people happy by charging low enough prices
- i want to make the other BE's happy by not undercutting them
- i resent the other BE's who use my work to undercut ME although I am happy if they want to undercut me with their own recipes ...
- you can't necessarily tell, by looking at my vendor, that I have done anything different from the other BE's and I may very well have NOT. They might have worked up their own recipes - who knows - they sure haven't posted them is all I know.
- i resent anyone who takes my product and resells it at a profit with no work.
It's very complicated and at the end of the day - all i can do is say 'hey! no fair!!!!' and that's about it...
Dor
I charge 1K per CL regardless of CL. Anymore and IMHO I am overcharging. Hope this helps
Again, it's important to remember that prices can vary greatly per server and just because one person prices things one way on Server A does NOT mean they're wrong because someone on Server B prices differently. I can see this being a problem if you have two BEs from ServerB arguing this point, but it's pretty harsh to try and convince people they're "wrong" or "undercutting others" just because their prices on ServerA are a bit lower, for example, since the economies are not the same for Server A and B.
Based on what I see onMY server my prices are pretty dead on, and unless they are CL35s, CL60-69s, CL70s, or they usea special recipe for incredible stats,they pretty much follow the 1k/level. I did research into the BE pet economy and what others price theirs for and the stats they're selling for to decide how to sell my pets. I do price my CL70s much higher as it has taken me about 2 weeks to develop the new recipe I use, but I would not get anywhere if I sold them for a million on my server. And as for CL10s... I've managed to come up with a formula to make those that takes almost no effort, and I want them to be accessible especially to new players, so making them higher than 10-15k is out of the question in my opinion... again, based on MY server.
The only people I'm "undercutting" on my server are those still out there trying to sell pre-CU deeds that are CL125 with strong poison and disease thatthey're trying to get 1.5 million for. Your opinions on pricing are based on the economics of your server, while mine are based on the economics of my server. Does that make either one of us wrong? No.
Dorelli wrote:
LuCha wrote:
So with this special type of crafter, one who really loves what they do, we have a difference of opinion. It seems that most people just have no idea what to charge for pets. The 1k/lvl thing seems ok on paper. The math isn't very hard so anyone can do it. But then you realize that loads of people want lvl 10 pets. At 10k per, I almost want them to resell off my vendor! At 20k I still want to resell them! And a few people here are selling lvl 70 pets for 250k or less?!?!?! I can understand if the pet is just a lvl70 with 6k ham and 400 max damage, but not for a 9k health pet or one with 499 max damage. How much time was spent trying to figure out just how to make that pet? How many hours were spent getting the DNA for it? How many lvl 71s were made trying to craft that lvl 70? This 1k/CL price thing is the reason why a lot of BEs are always saying how poor they are.
Well this is a reason I have decided NOT to post my recipe for 499 max damage pets that is not generational. I love helping other BE's figure things out for themselves and understand what is going on. /cheer Dor
But I want to still keep something to myself that is special and a reflection of how much time I put into making the best pets I can. In the past I have wanted to post recipes to show how i did something but nowadays ... there are 640 pet deeds on vendors on Bloodfin that need homes and manyare the 8K level 70 recipe that we all know and love. But the only pets I have seen that are an improvement on that are Rachna's and she is doing hard work to get them there.And a smart customer will look for the better products, but they just might go for the cheaper one.
I know this comes as a very surprising thing to say from the founder of BEta which is supposed to be not for profit
Actually I don't understand why anyone would want to be BE who doesn't want to figure out for him or herself how it works? (Maybe because its phase 1 and people are picking up BE just to do the senses village quest?) But then I tend to be very (extremely) naive about people in general. I see recipes as a starting place for more research - not as a recipe for profit. I have to disagree here. I think recipes are the END of a lot of research. Once I have a recipe, then I can make more of the pets I've worked so hard to create.
Another reason that I put my level 10 prices up is that I am aware that me, as a person, I spend hours and hours making my level 10s. However, anyone with enough money can come along and buy all my level 10's and put them on their own vendor for 5K or 10K more than I charge and they will still make a huge profit for no work. And yet, I wanted to keep my prices low enough that a CH could buy my level 10's and train them up and sell them onto the general public for a profit. Over the weekend - I spend hours making level 10's. I think I made about 20-30 of them. Well, yesterday someone walked into my shop and bought 10pets - 8 of them were level 10's. I don't know WHAT to think about this. Do I feel pleased that they found what they wanted at a price they liked? I DO if they were buying for a guild or were a CH trying to provide an alternative product to non-CH's .... Do I feel annoyed that they are possibly another BE or merchant who is simplyprofiting from my hard work (although we did a vendor search and so far they have not showed up on other people's vendors). I've started branding my newest pets on the description line...
Let's assume I sell for too little, then I would be wiped out very quickly. But this applies really only to the level 10 pet problem since anyone can use those.
I don't know WHAT to think but it really boils down to this for me:
- what I make is special. it is handcrafted with care and attention and I work up almost every recipe myself
/agree
- i want to make people happy by charging low enough prices
almost /agree (i'm willing to settle for this, but if you want something off my vendor, then you are going to have to pay)
- i want to make the other BE's happy by not undercutting them
/agree
- i resent the other BE's who use my work to undercut ME although I am happy if they want to undercut me with their own recipes ...
/agree
- you can't necessarily tell, by looking at my vendor, that I have done anything different from the other BE's and I may very well have NOT. They might have worked up their own recipes - who knows - they sure haven't posted them is all I know.
/agree
- i resent anyone who takes my product and resells it at a profit with no work.
/agree
It's very complicated and at the end of the day - all i can do is say 'hey! no fair!!!!' and that's about it.../disagree (I don't want to tell the stories about putting other people out of business. FYI: Its not fun, and it just makes people mad at you)
Dor
As far as people selling pets for 1k per CL I think I may have changed my mind!!! Go right ahead! Go for it! All you have to do to be an uBeR bE is grab a recipe off the forums, get the DNA and BAM! You have a wonderful pet that you can sell for next to nothing. Just be aware that some things may happen because of this:
- You may just...
- have a hard time keeping up your production...
- wonder why you have no time to do anything else...
- complain about being poor...
- be unable to make a new or better pet...
- find the search function on the BE forums no longer comes up with any recipes because BEs will become completely closed mouth again about their pet recipes...
- never find any advice on how to make pets other than: get any DNA and toss them into the schematic where ever you want...
- be totally lost for a good place to find good DNA...
- have a hard time finding anotherBE, because the profession was spoiled by sub-geniuses like you who took a fun and potentially profitable part of the game away from the people who really cared about it...
- see a few more x-BE jedi killing each other in Theed because they don't need to waste any time making uber pets anymore because you have the market cornered with the only lvl 70 pet you know how to make and are selling it for 70k
Oh, yeah... my wife says thank you! This whole topic got me railed up enough to take a break from writing this post to beat her for a while. She now knows that undercutting is bad and she hasfinally toldme where the weaponsmith is that sells uber krayt T-21s for 1k per tissue. She still feels that violence is unf business practice, but I'm bigger than her and that is that!
Message Edited by LuCha on 09-14-2005 08:13 AM
Amethyst
Good point & also /agree about server prices, but... 1k per CL on any server is waaaaayyyyy to low. (my opinion from an over inflated economy on bria)
And selling pets that are totally messed up is just wrong. I understand selling a lvl 71-75 to another BE, but not a lvl 125. Keep it or just give it away. /sigh... some people
Message Edited by LuCha on 09-14-2005 08:20 AM
first off /hug Dor
Now to a reply, and no its not a flame
hope that makes you feel a little better Dor /big hug!!!
Dorelli wrote:
Well this is a reason I have decided NOT to post my recipe for 499 max damage pets that is not generational. I love helping other BE's figure things out for themselves and understand what is going on. / I agree base recipes are good to share but everyone should play around and make there own.
But I want to still keep something to myself that is special and a reflection of how much time I put into making the best pets I can. In the past I have wanted to post recipes to show how i did something but nowadays ... there are 640 pet deeds on vendors on Bloodfin that need homes and manyare the 8K level 70 recipe that we all know and love. But the only pets I have seen that are an improvement on that are Rachna's and she is doing hard work to get them there.
/ And you should hold your specail recipes. In the forums and BEta we have plenty of info on making pets and good base recipes for beginers. We all have our specialties and should keep them or we will end up being all the same (something I would hate to see).
I know this comes as a very surprising thing to say from the founder of BEta which is supposed to be not for profit
/ Very true people need to know that all this info is a base line to work from. We all have to work out our own recipes and specialties. Some of us like to make different pets every time other like a set pattern, but all of us should make our own type and style of pets.
Actually I don't understand why anyone would want to be BE who doesn't want to figure out for him or herself how it works? But then I tend to be very (extremely) naive about people in general. I see recipes as a starting place for more research - not as a recipe for profit.
/ I started BioE before the new crafting system came into effect. Once the new system Began we all pulled together to figure it out. New recipes were formed and an understanding of the system formed. All the recipes from then till now are things I look to as a base line. I take them and adjust them to fit my style and prefeance as should we all (IMHO).
Another reason that I put my level 10 prices up is that I am aware that me, as a person, I spend hours and hours making my level 10s. However, anyone with enough money can come along and buy all my level 10's and put them on their own vendor for 5K or 10K more than I charge and they will still make a huge profit for no work. And yet, I wanted to keep my prices low enough that a CH could buy my level 10's and train them up and sell them onto the general public for a profit. Over the weekend - I spend hours making level 10's. I think I made about 20-30 of them. Well, yesterday someone walked into my shop and bought 10pets - 8 of them were level 10's. I don't know WHAT to think about this. Do I feel pleased that they found what they wanted at a price they liked? I DO if they were buying for a guild or were a CH trying to provide an alternative product to non-CH's .... Do I feel annoyed that they are possibly another BE or merchant who is simplyprofiting from my hard work (although we did a vendor search and so far they have not showed up on other people's vendors). I've started branding my newest pets on the description line...
/ Well I think your prices are reasonable and good. However remeber this is coming fomr someone that has'nt sold pets in over a year or more. I understand keeping your bussnies afloat and if someone wants to resell your pets look at it this way. Most CH or non-CHthat ever buy a pet they like look to see who made it ( I know I look at the make marks on any pet I train for someone). If the enjoy the pet They will sure contact you for another should the want or need arise. As for the reseller yeah it does suck but I used to have people do it with my Meds all the time when I was master Doc back in the day.
Let's assume I sell for too little, then I would be wiped out very quickly. But this applies really only to the level 10 pet problem since anyone can use those.
I don't know WHAT to think but it really boils down to this for me:
- what I make is special. it is handcrafted with care and attention and I work up almost every recipe myself
- i want to make people happy by charging low enough prices
- i want to make the other BE's happy by not undercutting them
- i resent the other BE's who use my work to undercut ME although I am happy if they want to undercut me with their own recipes ...
/ I try not to take anyones buss. as I only give pets to people I think need or deserve them. I also make them when asked as time allows.
- you can't necessarily tell, by looking at my vendor, that I have done anything different from the other BE's and I may very well have NOT. They might have worked up their own recipes - who knows - they sure haven't posted them is all I know.
/ I would post more recipes but as I have stated I dont use them much I kind of Eyeball it, It's a feeling thing for me more than anything else.
- i resent anyone who takes my product and resells it at a profit with no work.
It's very complicated and at the end of the day - all i can do is say 'hey! no fair!!!!' and that's about it...
Dor
Now I have read the arguments for and against the 1K per CL, but I dont care. I will continue to sell my pets for 1K per CL. My reasoning is that I work mostly in BE tissues, thats where my money comes in, yes the pets sell real fast, and I add more when I can. I dont care if people take my product and sell at a higher price, its part of an economy. I am sorry if some of the other BE's think I am undercutting them, but just remember "I dont do pets often enough to really matter".
Live long and prosper in all things
/shrug my point remains the same.
I spend hours in-game developing new recipes, running experiments to test my recipes, and making sure that I can develop pets that are unique and different than the cookie cutters. I put my heart into the pets I make and use mostly recipes I've developed myself, and after careful consideration of the prices on my server, feel that I am dead on. I make good money. I don't have troubles keeping up with production. I do more than take a recipe I find and use it- I tweak it and use it as a base to develop my own formulas, which I am very proud of. I highly respect other BEs that do the same- and I'd expect them to keep their special recipes secret the way that I do: if we were all the same it'd be boring. When it's all said and done, if I want to be successful with my large two-shop BE pet business (keeping in mind that pets are all I sell), I have to be realistic with my prices. When I compare to the prices and stats of the other deeds out there, I'm in a very good spot. I'm not undercutting anyone, but I'm also not inflating my prices so high just because someone on another server thinks I'm wrong... that would lead to me not getting any sales, or at least a lot less. If I priced my pets the way that you do on MY server, my pet prices would tower above everything else available, thus not making my business very profitable since they can go to another BE and get something cheaper. Sure my stats might be better than theirs, but that would only sell to a few. Most others would prefer to spend less if they could.
This is what works for me and this is what works well on my server based on my server's economy. I'm not undercutting anyone and at the same time am making good money. I can keep up with production and produce a wide variety of pets with unique recipes that I develop. I continually research ways to make better pets every day and keep building on my knowledge and understanding of this great profession that I love. I'm happy. Isn't that what it's all about? Being happy and enjoying this game that we play?That'swhat I'm here for. There's nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree. I think it's important to realize that there is no one right answer, especially with so many different servers with different dynamics and economies.
Let's instead look at what we agree on. We both agree undercutting is bad, in many forms. We both agree that cookie cutter recipes should be a base recipe of which to build from to create our own recipes. We both agree that a smart customer will go for the better pets, but just might go for the cheaper ones. We agree on a lot of things here. I think we agree on everything except how to price these things. Considering how the economies are different on our different servers and you have to be realistic on how you price based on the other products out there to compare to so as to not undercut but also provide a unique product...there is just no wrong way to go about achieving thosegoals we both agree on. We'reboth achieving those things we agree on in our own wayfor the same goals, purposes, and reasons. Again, there is noone set right answer here.
Dorelli wrote:
Well this is a reason I have decided NOT to post my recipe for 499 max damage pets that is not generational. I love helping other BE's figure things out for themselves and understand what is going on.
LuCha wrote:
So with this special type of crafter, one who really loves what they do, we have a difference of opinion. It seems that most people just have no idea what to charge for pets. The 1k/lvl thing seems ok on paper. The math isn't very hard so anyone can do it. But then you realize that loads of people want lvl 10 pets. At 10k per, I almost want them to resell off my vendor! At 20k I still want to resell them! And a few people here are selling lvl 70 pets for 250k or less?!?!?! I can understand if the pet is just a lvl70 with 6k ham and 400 max damage, but not for a 9k health pet or one with 499 max damage. How much time was spent trying to figure out just how to make that pet? How many hours were spent getting the DNA for it? How many lvl 71s were made trying to craft that lvl 70? This 1k/CL price thing is the reason why a lot of BEs are always saying how poor they are.
But I want to still keep something to myself that is special and a reflection of how much time I put into making the best pets I can. In the past I have wanted to post recipes to show how i did something but nowadays ... there are 640 pet deeds on vendors on Bloodfin that need homes and manyare the 8K level 70 recipe that we all know and love. But the only pets I have seen that are an improvement on that are Rachna's and she is doing hard work to get them there.
Not to gloat or anything, but I find it very funny how a recipe I posted two months ago keeps recycling. 
I quit posting all of my recipes for the same reason. Originally I reasoned that itdid not lend well to haveavery few BEs thinking that their medicore pets were worth rediculous prices like NiTech (sp?) and his 10 million credit 7k Health/400 damage pets,and it wouldbe better for the community to get an idea of what was going on with the new pet system (all my posted recipes were right after the changes.) So it would be best to reveal how simple and easy it was to make pets with very good stats. But it does no one any good to copy recipes and sell them for next to nothing.
Also, to the OP, I should clairfy that my vendor has CL 10s, 23/24s, 35s, and 70s. If I make a pet that's not the "perfect" level, like 69 or something, it's scrapped. I don't waste my customers' time putting up sub-par pets. I also charge morefor pets that require multiple generations, but those are typically custom orders.
As far as pricing itself: I feel that I'm honestly pushing the threashold of "too expensive." However, I'm a former WS,so I have more credits than I know what to do with,not to mentionassets reaching into the 9-figures. So I figure it's better to be a bit pricy than undercut, given that I'm not hurting for credits, and I consider thisa hobby more than a job since I love doing it so much.