Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: A fair price for our labour of love?
Felisconcolori wrote:
Hmmm. CP/M. I don't think I was quite born then, although I was using FidoNet and BBS systems via a screeching 1200 BPS modem and a pimped C-64.
What operating system did the C-64 use? I thought perhaps it might be CP/M. CP/M was the operating system that DOS copied. It looked like DOS, felt like DOS, but was several years older than DOS, but still probably long after you were born, if you used a C-64. After CP/M, the transition to DOS was very easy. You may remember, while you were on your C-64, all those people with their business computers: Osbornes, Kaypros, Suns, and a dozen others. CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) was the standard for that time. Unfortunately, they didn't standardize disk formatting, which left a niche open for DOS. I am almost sure the Tandy used CP/M, but since you had one, perhaps I am wrong on that. My first operating systems were proprietary on mainframes. They went by names like TIES and CDC-Kronos. I don't claim to know much about them. I was a kid at the time, and knew enough to get into them and start programming in BASIC and MNF (Minnesota Fortran).
Many of the people I see buying my pets aren't that interested in if they are going to be squished at some later date (I think, after a year, most people assume it'll be safe at least until after the next major work effort is finished). They want to use them for, in varying cases...
1) Bothans riding Banthas while wearing hot pants (only) is funny.
2) Rifleman on the back of a bantha to get away from angry creatures = Good Thing
3) Grinding either Jedi or CH xp. Or both.
Except for the first, they seem to work fairly well. But I think very few people actually read any descriptive text on a vendor/bazaar item, and those that do probably won't think anything odd about it. (Maybe this Hyliguy is gonna try to sell me some stims... I just want the pet... and he sells them so cheap...)
Added my comment in yellow above. Perhaps they will think that, but I don't plan to refund money if, at some later date, new validity checks are added for those. I went bankrupt once doing that, while at the same time suffering a bit of understandable verbal abuse. I'll gladly refund money if a player decides that he doesn't like the risk or the implications of the level 10 pet after buying it, or exchange it for a VD/HP pet, but only immediately after the purchase.
I also won't refund money paid to someone else for that pet. If someone buys my pet at 80K and resells it at 800K, then in so doing, the reseller will have to assume the risk.
Oh, and my "Contact Hylidex" note is in the name of the pet (during crafting), not the description. I didn't trust the description to convey anything--and besides, I can't put the description on anyway, since I don't own the vendor. (Remember that we don't get vendors from BE.) No one can buy the pet without seeing the warning unless buyer narrows the screen so only the first few letters of the item name appear.
And barechested Bothans on Banthas sound hilarious. Would be funnier to see Ithorians like that, though. No trunk on the elephant, but a trunk on the rider.
A couple weeks ago someone posted 17 of these on our Trade Forums for 200k b/o. They were all sold immediately. That BE made more in an hour with their pets than I have in the past 2 months.
I hear what Arthur's saying about buying SP's, but sort of disagree. I think most of those customers have a lot of money and generally just want the best of what they buy. Why buy a 4K HAM CL10 when you can get one with 10K? The cost doesn't matter and nerf-potential doesn't either. The same attitude is what sells pre-sliced armor for 4 times the cost just for a couple percentage points in effectiveness.
To go back to general prices talk, I remember someone once posting a formula that I thought was pretty good. Something like 1K per CL + 5 * something for # of generations / how much you like your customers. BECalc is nice though it seems a little dated now. It tends to charge more for the more the pet has, whereas we know now that the less it has is actually what's difficult.
I recently made a straight Insanse Mant. Beserker creature for a friend. Comes out CL mid-40's, 12/11/10 HAM, Armor, 50% Kinetic and Energy, 100% Blast and Stun, good damage & decent specials. Kind of a niche pet for a CH's arsenal. According to BE Calc it's a 146K pet. Even though the DNA is a royal pain to collect I still think that's double what I'd put it on a vendor for.
/endThoughts
Message Edited by Kivrin on 02-23-2005 02:28 PM