Business And Economy Archive
Thread: So tell me...why are prices so high on things?
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Izerien
Tue Mar 15, 2005 5:08 am
#40
It always cracks me up how people get so offended when others make money.
Let's say I put a shoe up for auction that cost me 50 credits to make. I get two bids: 100 credits and 10,000 credits.
I'm going to accept the 10,000. You better believe that I will sell items for the highest amount people are willing to pay.
You might think I'm greedy, but I don't care because neener I'm rich. I enjoy being rich and I'm not going to purposefully sabotage my money making abilities because someone who's too lazy to make some real cash complains about it. If it was that hard to make money, then I wouldn't sell things at the prices I do, and I wouldn't be so filthy stinking rich!
But I would like you to do one thing. The next time you go to work, go to your boss and request a pay cut. I'm pretty sure that you're making more than you absolutely have to in order to survive. You wouldn't want to be greedy now would you.
Disclaimer: Author of this post is not really rich.
Let's say I put a shoe up for auction that cost me 50 credits to make. I get two bids: 100 credits and 10,000 credits.
I'm going to accept the 10,000. You better believe that I will sell items for the highest amount people are willing to pay.
You might think I'm greedy, but I don't care because neener I'm rich. I enjoy being rich and I'm not going to purposefully sabotage my money making abilities because someone who's too lazy to make some real cash complains about it. If it was that hard to make money, then I wouldn't sell things at the prices I do, and I wouldn't be so filthy stinking rich!
But I would like you to do one thing. The next time you go to work, go to your boss and request a pay cut. I'm pretty sure that you're making more than you absolutely have to in order to survive. You wouldn't want to be greedy now would you.
Disclaimer: Author of this post is not really rich.
Message Edited by Izerien on 03-15-2005 04:20 AM
samijx
Tue Mar 15, 2005 8:29 am
#41
One added tidbit to my previous post (a couple posts up) I have never bought a single SEA (Nor do I own any). Yes...you got that right! I'm a proud 10-pt weaponsmith and I have 20 million credits and about 20 million worth of resources. It doesn't take ultra expensive SEA's in order to make money. Hell....If I completely gave upall crafting, all combat, and all loot selling...I could still make a fortune by selling power and resources alone.Making money in this game is all about desire and effort.
SovietGuy
Wed Mar 16, 2005 6:58 pm
#42
I think that the orginal poster's problems lie not with his in-game abilities, but his complete lack of inter-personal skills. I am a ranger with 2.5 million in the bank. I could have a ton more, but I'm lazy and kill things whenever I feel like it rather than fulfilling contracts. Anyhow, during my harvests, I have become friends with many crafters, who often trade armor/foods/Bio-engineered pets for the organics I harvest. This has happened because I am friendly and courteous. Treat other people with respect and you'll often find yourself in a better situation.
Also, why not go into mineral harvesting yourself? Buy some cheap power, buy a low end mineral harvester, drive around until you see a bunch of the big mineral harvesters, set yours up, power it up, and sell the proceeds on the bazaar for 3 cpu? I've made 300k on resource sales this month alone.
Also, why not go into mineral harvesting yourself? Buy some cheap power, buy a low end mineral harvester, drive around until you see a bunch of the big mineral harvesters, set yours up, power it up, and sell the proceeds on the bazaar for 3 cpu? I've made 300k on resource sales this month alone.
bluejanus
Wed Mar 16, 2005 9:28 pm
#43
FriedSquid wrote:Actually, the prices are so high on things because of a credit duping / exploit bug which screwed up the entire economy by making money less scarce than it should be. The access to unlimited funds meant that some people bought at extremely high prices, which meant those they bought from were richer and it actually did trickle down in a sense, because they then sold funds (often) through real-life sources like Ebay. This led to people having access to more resources than they had really earned. They thereafter spent those resources upon things they could not otherwise afford (such as incredibly good armor and weapons) making them more scarce, making the merchants raise their prices, restarting the circle of broken economy.The devs stood by and didn't do anything for long enough that they couldn't stop the process at its root and now the entire economy is screwed up beyond belief... They'd love to reset the server's cash resources but it would drive too many players away, so they have to just let it be now.Isn't that heartwarming?Buy my crap on ahazi. I'm n00b and prices are cheap.
You know most of those funds were removed from the game. There's been far more money from the previous Kunga and Rancor missions.
Smart_Darwin
Wed Mar 16, 2005 9:59 pm
#44
GNC wrote:
Let's not forget that when using fusion generators and heavy harvesters, the cost of mining resources is well under 0.5 cpu. Nevertheless, the standard price is basically still the same as it was at launch,3 cpu.
That cost is fairly variable... there have been plenty of times I can't get my harvesters in a decent spot. I am not a fighter, so i cant clear out most creature lairs and I also have to stay away from any NPCs that don't like me. In any case, there are many times I have to settle fora low efficiency spot, considerably raising my unit costs.
Ultimately, this line of argument is undefensible. As a combatant, how much dos it cost you to get a mission? In the best case scenario, your return on investment can not be calculated; It costs no credits to get a mission, so any creds you get back are essentially free. Do you feel you should be rewarded for your risk and time and sometimes hard work? Sure!
Would you go out buy composite armor, uber sliced powerhammer and killer swoop and hunt kreetle for money? Probably not, as you expect a higher reward after investing so much. It is the same for crafters. You want to make money and so do we. The difference is that crafters have very little control over thier income, while fighters can choose how many missions they run.
At any rate, if you ever look around a read other's reccomendations for makeing lots of money, none of them indicate you should choose a crafting profession.
Starson
Thu Mar 17, 2005 6:27 pm
#45
Simple....Greed, its the way of the world in rl, what makes you think it would be different in a game.
Cafa
Thu Mar 17, 2005 11:17 pm
#46
Starson wrote:
Simple....Greed, its the way of the world in rl, what makes you think it would be different in a game.
Your wisdom astounds me. Callus up when you donate all your worldly possessions to some poor child in a third-world country. Till then, grasp reality.
Jagged-F3l
Fri Mar 18, 2005 7:15 am
#47
Rather than argue the points I would like to make, I strongly suggest that you create a character on another server and give crafting a shot for yourself. It isn't as easy as you have come to believe. Please don't mistake me for someone that doesn't understand your perspective either. I have both a pure combat-class character and a pure crafting-class character, so I understand your position well.
D8alus wrote:
You shouldn't be trying to make all the profit for the upkeep for you shop/vendors/harvesters/factories off of a single sale.
I've seen prices in ungodly ranges for one vendor and found them at up to 200k difference on another.
Why are you ripping off the pure combat guys that don't go for uber loot?
Now, maybe I don't understand something, but I've yet to see a harvester that costs more than composite armor and last I checked, there wasn't an access fee on pulling resources from the ground.
So how did these arbitrary prices get set?
Forgive me if I sound angry or antagonistic, but I am. I'm tired of running all over creation from unstocked vendor to unstocked vendor only to have to spend myself into the poor house just for a piece of armor.
Milgram
Wed Mar 23, 2005 5:05 pm
#48
Cafa wrote:
Starson wrote:
Simple....Greed, its the way of the world in rl, what makes you think it would be different in a game.
Your wisdom astounds me. Callus up when you donate all your worldly possessions to some poor child in a third-world country. Till then, grasp reality.
Nice dude. I wonder how many families he could feed if he sold his computer and donated the $$$ to a charity group.
SeCKSEgai
Thu Mar 24, 2005 4:14 am
#49
Ok, I really should be sleeping but I had to get in on this.
Prices so high on things? As far as I can tell, they've dropped considerably. I've got a little over 150 days logged in. I've managed to hit over 100million credits. There are players who've been on since launch who have never seen over 10 million in there bank account and yet people who have less time in game than I have and yet have more money.
When I first started playing I did the dantooine mokk janta money grind. It was guaranteed money. Eventually that was taken away. I explored and learned other aspects of the game and am very thankful for it. Otherwise I'd probably still be bored doing mokks and jantas. As far as I remember, even then I could afford my basic necessities, armor, food, and buffs and still manage a decent profit.
But I wanted to be more efficient and since the groups were no longer a viable means of income, I switched to loot hunting. And as such I've killed over 100 elders, over 100 krayts, and have invested the time and effort to make my money. I would bring in money, just to invest it into items to make me for efficient at what I do. In turn those items have paid for themselves.
But haven't you noticed a slow down in the economy? Look at the trade forums from a few months ago and compare prices?
On my server Corbantis, money used to fly around all over the place. But it doesn't move nearly as much as it used to.
You see, the money to spend had to come from some where, and believe or not there are economic classes in the game. For example, the mokk and janta killers were the main source of income for the richer classes. They would earn the credits, and spend them on in game items of other players, thus adding the money to the economy. Inflation occurred because so much money was flowing into the economy, with little being removed (ie shuttle and starport tickets). The more money in the economy without any "backing", the less it becomes in value.
For example, say an efficient mission grinder made 800k per hour doing mokks and jantas. So taking that into consideration, about an hour 's worth of "work" in game is valued around 800k. Now lets take attachments. Searching for useful attachments can take quite some time, especially of ones of high enough number to be worth using. One could spend days or weeks or more looking for specific attachments, but instead gives someone else that burden. In this respect, you would rather someone else spend the time looking for what you want while you invest your time into guaranteed funding, while who ever chooses to look for the loot you want isn't guaranteed the same amount of income.
(forgive me its past 2 am as I'm writing this)
But I can get much more detailed and refined in that, but I'll briefly summarize. Mission grinds put too much money into the economy. As of now it still trickles in, but at a much slower rate. Now, money doesn't exchange hands as frequently as it did. Many people are limiting there purchases to reserve buying power for after the CU changes. And items have (at least on my server) dropped dramatically in value for the most part. A plus 10 medicine experimentation would go for at least 3 mil a point when i first started playing on Corbantis, now its lucky to hit 2 as the demand has dropped considerably, and money isn't flowing as freely as it used to.
Prices are the way they are because people are willing to pay them. If you take a look at Corbantis's trade forums, there's a definite drop in pricing for almost all items, the only one that hasn't seen a drop are the coveted adk's, which I'm investing my hard-earned credits in myself. And the biggest reason that is the case is because of the item's overall value and usefulness as well as extremely limited supply. But just about everything else has become much lower than they used to sell for or would originally sell for. People stopped wanting to or be willing to spend at those levels as the economy started rebalancing.
Now I've had a bit of experience on both sides mainly combat but some crafting as well. Crafting isn't always as simple as go get this real quick and assemble. Locating resources (or buying), time and effort, etc will affect the value. If composite armor is so expensive for you, LEARN TO FIGHT WITHOUT ARMOR, I did, and in turn learned the strengths and weaknesses of several professions. If food is too expensive at one place, INVEST YOUR TIME and look for someone selling it cheaper. I've spent probably over 100 hours shopping on my server and am quite aquainted with what's available. But time is money in this game, and no one can play 24-7, although some can come pretty close.
If something is selling at a specific price at a regular basis, there is no reason to drop it.
If something rarely moves or stops moving completely, then either the seller must gamble on patience for a market value change, or waste time on insisting on a certain value that no one will pay, or adjust the price accordingly.
Supply and Demand are very simple concepts, and is the bottom line to any capitalistic economy, if not every economy.
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