Bio Engineer Archive

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GFoyle wrote:

Interesting - I see where you guys are coming from, but your reasons for blanket opposition to schematic sales seem to be moving from economics intopolitics.

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I think not. It's not politics; it is survival of our market. I'm sure it would cost less, in the long and short run, if consumers could buy the recipe of BK's (general example) secret recipe. That would allow people to make their own Burger King burgers at home thus lowering the operating costs at the restaraunts. This would NEVER happen. Or, a more severe case, Microsoft would never open their source code for windows for a cost < the box and disc at CompUSA.

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Byrefusing to supply schematics the overall aim appears to be to restrict supply - on the theory that this will increase the demand for BE's overall.

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How so? I'm more than glad to keep my vendor filled with crated additives. I, as a matter of fact, have 3 full schematics loaded of medium and heavy additives (all the additives are near the upper cap). I see no restriction of supply here. The only thing being restricted is a degree of whoring I'm doing onto myself and my BE community. I busted by butt for 2 weeks to master the profession. It cost me an arm and leg to pay for it, and I lost all my newbie deaths sampling DNA. I work hard to provide my server community with quality products. I absolutely guarantee your argument would be just as worthless and far more opposed if you brought this argument to the weaponsmith or armorsmith forum.

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Unfortunately darn near every economic model I know of predicts that reducing supply also reduces demand - in SWG's case chef foods are so expensive that instead of every player keeping a ready supply of all foods for use as the situation demands the people using food buffs keep only premium food for a very limited number of uses (Vassarian Brandy being the obvious). From experience most chefs I know of use only a few BE's to keep them supplied with addatives - and very often they are friends or guildies who supply the addatives very cheaply anyway (I was forced to lower my prices as a result).

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My guild chef pays a slight discount for her additives (the price reduction accounts for a crate of brandy in return). So it's fair to assume I'm not the only BE who does this.

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By increasing the supply of addatives we ought to be able to reduce the cost of chef food generally (in theory at least) - thus generating a ready market for all foods - not just the mind enhancing ones. At the moment I feel the economy is a bit sick as only a tiny range of food is available at extortionate prices.

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On my server, as specified earlier, many BE's have given away schematics for little to no cost and brandy is STILL 250k a crate (10 million credits at 40 crates.). So, the consumer is screwed either way.

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Although there is no way to directly force chefs to lower their prices - as soon as competition starts amoungst them it ought to trigger a drop in prices.

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On my server, there aretoo many chefs to count. They all advertise their wares in the common starports (ieTheed, Coronet, Bestine, and so on) and all sell their brandy for about the same. There is no need to compete since everyone wants brandy. Bria happens to bethe biggest server in the game. This implies morePvP.This, then, implies there are more rifleman (highmind cost for specials). Of course, don't forget the 3:4 ratio of poo-chuckers throwing mind poisons. On my server, I don't even think we've reached an equilibrium since many chef vendors I visit are nearly orfully out of stock. We can't even mention demand for other foods that no one will buy unless it is enhanced.

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Similarly the arguement that schematic trading "reduces interdependancy" just doesn't hold water. The chef still needs a BE to supply the schematic. Provided a reasonable price is charged for it, whether the profit is made from the schematic or finished good is immaterial. I agree that giving them away though is stupid!

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In your eyes, what is a fair price to charge? 10%? 25%? 50%? After all, the bonus value of brandy doubles with our additives.

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Like all arguements in politics I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

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My point, discounting those who do chef for the fun of the prof, many people went chef to do one ofthree things: fund their jedi (krayt pearls, uber comp armor, crystals,bla bla bla),fund their PvP costs (skill tapes, armor, food, pets, stims, buffs, tips for entertainers, maintenance, and so on), or fund their guild (I believe I saw a PC named FOE Moneymaker == master chef title).

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I think restricting the supply of addatives and tissues is strangling the economy, fuelling inflation and depriving a large number of playersthe benefits of enhanced clothing, food, etc. and limiting the use of those items to the better-off players.

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One cannotreinforce a point with no value.

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I'd rather have an economy where all player-made items are available in abundance at a reasonable price so I don't have to spend hours trying to find a vendor which isn't empty or charges the earth and new players to the game aren't held backwhilst trying to scrape together that initial "stake".Restrictng the market I feel is not the way to do this.

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the whole schematic issue has been argued over, and beaten to death with a stick the size of the empire state building more times than I'd care to count...

simple facts about selling schems:

1) yes it does hurt sales of finished BE tissues
- chefs that experienced the hard times are the ones that are more willing to buy the finished product...if they can find a reliable source.
2) it only takes a few minutes/mouse clicks
- while technically yes it does also take the time to grind through BE and all the costs associated with it...be honest...how many of you actually picked up master BE just to sell schematics or jsut to make tissues...adding on this cost to schematics is a trifle silly...but not completely untrue (willingness to sell schematics is a completely different issue).
3) there are a lot more chefs than BE's
- I don't think any BE would honestly dispute this...if no one were to sell schematics...and each BE had 3 or 4 factories running all the time (assuming resources weren't an issue...and the player only has 1 account so 6 or 7 lots for storage/house(vendor))...demand can quite easily outpace supply. some BE's have already gotten those nasty g-mails about "hey you suck...your vendor is never stocked and it only wastes my time..." etc. etc. etc.


debating wether or not to sell BE tissues or schems is like trying to put out the fire after its started...and from the looks of things, its more like using a squirt gun to put out a brush fire thats had a 2 day head start during a year long drought.

some chefs (not a lot vocally tho) have stated a desire to have experimentation return on chef subcomponents...the opponents of this argue that it would add too much work (something that added a lot to the rarity of chefs...well no where near as much as the multitude of really bad bugs tho). while there is no garauntee that reverting subcomponents back to the point where quality does matter would have any meaningful effect...it very likely would drive a lot of the "lazier" chefs out of the market. it could also do a lot of other things to the market...too hard to tell without knowing what the combat rebalance will do.

so well my point is this...instead of arguing amongst each other, perhaps its time to look at fixing the problem at the source (stop the pyro from starting that brush fire...), instead of yelling, and aguing about something you can do absolutely nothing about (yeah yeah trying to get the devs to do something can be equally as frustrating and futile...but at least every once in a while it works...and its better than arguing with every BE selling schematics one at a time as they begin to post on the BE boards...)

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ArthurDentOnBria wrote:

Oh, and just to follow up on my last message. There was recently a post in the Bria trade forum where a new BE was advertising his store and his chef additives at the type of prices you'd see on other servers (hell, he may have even gotten his pricing ideas from coming to this forum and reading what other BE's were charging). So what happens? He posts and the other BE's raid his thread, telling everyone how lame his prices were relative to theirs. So this is not just the case of some people "charging what they think is reasonable" it's actually a case of actively trying to ruin the market for others.

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Maybe the detractors are actually Chefs who have BE as a sideline?

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GFoyle wrote:

1.) I will be selling them at 250K per schematic.

That will net me 250 creds/unit - which was exactly the same profit I was making when manufacturing and selling the items. I am most certainly not giving them away and the overall effect is that I don't spend most of my gaming sessions buying meat.

If I were to sell schematics this is how I would do it too. They would cost whatever my normal profit would have been if I had made the whole run myself.

I think what I'm finding distastful here is that people are attempting to tell me how to run my business - and I'm quite well aware of the kind of thing I'm going to encounter when the business actually opens.

Don't be disgusted by what you're reading, but just try to understand the history. I'm not sure you were around here when the Chef revamp hit live, but once it was known that the Chefs would need BE additives, and the amount of bonuses the additives gave things got crazy. The way the market is for Chefs, their food won't sell if its not BE enhanced. Everyone wanted the new chef foods, and a LOT of people took up the chef profession. Some did it for the profit potentail since the demand was increadibly high. Others took it up because of the amount of dev attention it got and they wanted to see what it was all about.

At this point 2 things happened; 1.The amount of Chefs outpaced the number of MBE's on just about every server. Demand was outstripping supply. 2. The price of BE enhanced Chef foods skyrocketted (and still hasn't come down significantly on many servers). This was especially true for BE enhanced Brandy which was going for at least 250K a crate. There were a lot of chefs at this point who were in it scrictly for the money, or were hologrinders wanting to make a lot of fast cash. I believe it was this type of chef that started being most vocal about how much BE's were charging for their additives (which at a typical price of 40K per crate was only 16% of their price of a crate of Brandy), felt they were getting ripped off and complained about the interdependancy. They started saying that BE's should just provide schematics and those schematics shouldn't cost more than a 'generous' tip.

This attitude, which was very vocal, was obviously a slap in the face to the many BE's who also finally had a viable business demand and saw the chef's making over 100K in profit on each case of Brandy sold already. Needless to say, things got pretty heated. The anti-schematic movement got started this way since it was helping propogate the feelings that BE's were only worth the 20 seconds it would take to create the chef's schematic.

So this is how today's present attitude developed. Please don't be disgusted by the passion of some of these replies, just try to understand where that passion comes from and why.

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JayceMilam wrote:

Very valid points Ranc. I am also on Bria and busted my butt to master BEwith no help from anyone. I also started playing when the game was released and feel that things are much easier for newer players than we had it. The biggest problem I have is someone saying that if we lower prices or sell schems that well in turn cause the chefs to lower their prices. Yeah right, everyone wants brandy and if people are willing pay 250k a crate their is no reason for them to lower their prices. If they get BE stuff cheaper they will just be happy to make that much more profit

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That was, in the grand design, my point.

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Kevm wrote:

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GFoyle wrote:

1.) I will be selling them at 250K per schematic.

That will net me 250 creds/unit - which was exactly the same profit I was making when manufacturing and selling the items. I am most certainly not giving them away and the overall effect is that I don't spend most of my gaming sessions buying meat.

If I were to sell schematics this is how I would do it too. They would cost whatever my normal profit would have been if I had made the whole run myself.

I think what I'm finding distastful here is that people are attempting to tell me how to run my business - and I'm quite well aware of the kind of thing I'm going to encounter when the business actually opens.

Don't be disgusted by what you're reading, but just try to understand the history. I'm not sure you were around here when the Chef revamp hit live, but once it was known that the Chefs would need BE additives, and the amount of bonuses the additives gave things got crazy. The way the market is for Chefs, their food won't sell if its not BE enhanced. Everyone wanted the new chef foods, and a LOT of people took up the chef profession. Some did it for the profit potentail since the demand was increadibly high. Others took it up because of the amount of dev attention it got and they wanted to see what it was all about.

At this point 2 things happened; 1. The amount of Chefs outpaced the number of MBE's on just about every server. Demand was outstripping supply. 2. The price of BE enhanced Chef foods skyrocketted (and still hasn't come down significantly on many servers). This was especially true for BE enhanced Brandy which was going for at least 250K a crate. There were a lot of chefs at this point who were in it scrictly for the money, or were hologrinders wanting to make a lot of fast cash. I believe it was this type of chef that started being most vocal about how much BE's were charging for their additives (which at a typical price of 40K per crate was only 16% of their price of a crate of Brandy), felt they were getting ripped off and complained about the interdependancy. They started saying that BE's should just provide schematics and those schematics shouldn't cost more than a 'generous' tip.

This attitude, which was very vocal, was obviously a slap in the face to the many BE's who also finally had a viable business demand and saw the chef's making over 100K in profit on each case of Brandy sold already. Needless to say, things got pretty heated. The anti-schematic movement got started this way since it was helping propogate the feelings that BE's were only worth the 20 seconds it would take to create the chef's schematic.

So this is how today's present attitude developed. Please don't be disgusted by the passion of some of these replies, just try to understand where that passion comes from and why.

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Well said friend.

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Diabla wrote:

Funny, I pay 10k a schematic from my BE "business partner". LOL

What I don't understand is why most people believe that all Chefs are rich? As a novice I can tell you, it takes a whole lot of capital to start Chef and you don't make most of it back untill you're a Master Chef. Even when you're a master Chef, not all of your items will sell, a very small portion of what we can make is demanded.

Following the same path of logic, the rescources you need (ie. meat, milk, sometimes bone) is increddiably expensive. Let's be honest here: The Ranger is the one to point the finger at.

I wouldn't mind buying tissues if prices were lower so I COULD turn a profit, and you wouldn't mind selling the tissues lower if it didn't cost you 50-70 CPU.

Overall, don't bite the hand that feeds ya.

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Many chefs have combat classes so they can gather their own animal resources. Those who don't are in guilds where their members provide meat and bone. And, on my server at least, hotspots are covered by flora harvesters. As a BE, I require flora for everything I make. When a friendly shift comes, you can bet I"m not the first or last person there. A nice shift for dath berry fruit came about 2 weeks ago. My flora harvesters are literally buried This makes the production of food very cheap. On your novice note, with the exception of armorsmith, no crafting profession will sell wares people will buy. I work hard with my main toon to make credits to afford the stuff I utilize to play this game. On the food note, novice chefs won't make something worth using simply because the benefits gained eating the food isn't worth the cost . Especially when you take stomach filling into account. So don't worry about making profit until you've mastered. Then get some vendors on the map and you'll be in business. Get a merchant droid and place it near a starport. On my server, at least, food sells very well.

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Diabla wrote:

As a novice I can tell you, it takes a whole lot of capital to start Chef and you don't make most of it back untill you're a Master Chef. Even when you're a master Chef, not all of your items will sell, a very small portion of what we can make is demanded.

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Biytor wrote:

Well I'm a BE/Chef and this whole debate is interesting. The only reason it went BE was to get a steady supply of tissues. Having spent large amounts of my time looking for BE's to supply me, I gave up and went to grinding.

So by selling schematics for any price, and I do mean any price. Just makes this stupid cycle continue on and on. The Chefs don't need to have storage space, they can make runs to fit their needs and timeframes. They can have a combat class to harvest creature resources. The Chef loses nothing in buying the schematic. You give them the power to do as they wish, when they wish and how they wish. Same would go for Tailors also.

In the real world (as so many of you like to point out). Production and manufactoring proceedures are not widely traded. You protect your edge in the real world. It's what allows you to undercut your compitition and see larger profit margins. I've run shops and still do. You NEVER let your customer know how you do something. If you do, you can bet they will find someone to do it cheeper then you're charging for it, or will start their own shop to supply themselves. By giving your Schematics away your cutting your own throat, PERIOD. If you want make the schematic and have the chefs supply you with the items needed to make it, and charge a lower price per crate. This is done in the "Real World" all the time. It's common practice. You supply, I produce. You do not get the manufactoring practices I use.

I doubt the majority of BE's will get this. To them any money is good money.

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I agree completely. I also think you'd be surprised. Most of the forum regulars will agree with you about not selling their schematics.