Merchant Archive
Thread: Post-patch SWG Economy how it will be...(and why the nerf wont happen)
- Raise prices to cover the limited amount of potential sales
- Retire because they cannot rely anymore on bulk sales.
- *Specialization
In this case, artisans mayspecialize in a certain product. For most artisans, the most logical economical solution would be to produce the product that is both popular in terms of selling, and the product that produces a healthy profit. What may end up happening is all architects would specialize in producing Heavy Miners. There would end up being a shortage of small houses. If the limit is taken down to 110 items, give me one reason why an established Master Architect would use his precious vendor spaces selling small houses. The profit margin is not great enough in this case to justify stocking an item that will barely yeild a profit. This same principle would be applied to weaponsmith, armorsmith, etc. No more going to a vendor and finding Ubese Shirts/Ubese Belts. No more finding nice, usalbe 2500 credit scout blasters.
While to most of us, we are established players, and rarely need a scout blaster. What it does do, is hurt drastically the new player. No longer will they beable to head to SC mall or what have you to find a nice first house, a few cheap pistols and maybe a few clothing items to distinguish themselves. They will, for the most part, be forced to either use inferior quality goods, or have to save up thousands to purchase larger structures.
This whole new proposed system caters to the richer, established players. Why is troll going to bother running his 2500 credit scout pistols? Why would cuttle bother running a 7500 credit small house? And what about people who rely on bulk sales, like tailors and furniture vendors? There should be a place for every crafter in this game. Heck even loot hunters need vendors. I cant tell you how many Imperial Plans 1/2/3/4 disk sets i sell.
A big part of Star Wars Galaxies is the diversity of the game. By forcing specilization, then you end up with everyone selling the same product. If you are going to force speciliaztion, you might as well remove small houses, scout blasters, chitin and mirabi armor, etc.
So far, I have established the point that to keep a good profit margin with reduced supply, Artisans will have to raise prices and possibly specialize in high return products. This does not even being to touch the iceberg. Because so many people will want a certain product, that will cause the price to rise even more. With reduced supply, comes increased demand. And with increased demand, comes increase vendor price. And this all can trickle down to newer players. Not only will that 2500 scout blaster not be avaliable, but they will have to pay an increased price for the mid level to high end merchandise.
Trickle Down Effect:
The nerf would effect just about everyone on some basis. From pvpers, to crafters, to dancers, etc. But i think maybe the hardest hit would be resource miners. There wouldnt be the need for the insane amount of resources a mining company could pull in. Organics would probably still command a premium.
On a side note, I have master merchant with Zina. I sell all sorts of stuff at my store, including buff packs. I price my packs at 17500 for a quality 12 point Master Doc pack. If the nerf were to happen, I'd only beable to sell my packs in crates, otherwise I dont think it would be worth it. So the person who only has 100k to spend on buff packs, maybe shut out. By simple economics, it would not be as wise for me to stock single packs.
New players who wander into SC mall can go to Sandy's med vendor and buy ONE b Stim for a minimal fee. With a 110 item limit, I highly doubt that Sandy would continune stocking single items
The Tailor Nerf:
Plain and simple, tailors are one of the most colorful classes in this game. From my experience, and believe me, I know a ton of tailors, they do it because they love it. They love making outfits for your character, so you can better distinguish yourself from the masses. They make you unique, so to speak. Believe me, I love tailors, but the overall profit made on SINGLE items is not much, unless you consider bio engineered clothing and the tailor schematic items. Tailors rely on bulk sales. It would be a stretch for a tailor to make a good living if they were nerfed to 110 items per vendor. An average outfit probably is 5-6 items. For me, its shoes/pants/shirt/belt/lekku. Unlike armorsmiths, tailors cannot sell bagged outfits effectively. People want to SEE what they are buying. I can go buy a full outfit for under 10k.
Lets look at this from a pure economics standpoint. What is the average profit margin made from a tailors sale? What this would do is createa shortage of tailors. Even the ones who truely love it, would have to take a second look and evaluate if they still wanted to remain as a tailor
Doc Buffs:
I have mentioned above a bit about my thinking if there were to bea nerf regarding doc buffs. The fallout is much greater than what i've posted obviously. With a 110 item limit, docs would end up stocking only crates. And at an increased price. 50k a buff pack? I wouldnt doubt it. People are already charging 25k now, with vendor limits, I would forsee at least a 10k credit increase. This would inturn raise doc buffs at the starport from 10k to what? who knows. Hunters would have to charge more for their organics. And so on.
Armorsmith:
While armorsmiths make a killing, one nice thing is being able to go buy individual pieces of armor. Armorsmiths can and do get away with selling full suits of armor in a bag. This is very convienent for both the consumer and for the seller. But with a 110 item limit, an armorsmith would be relegated to basically selling full suits and full suits only. Anyone who hunts knows the decay rate of a chest plate compared to the decay rate of a left bicep. Unless you know an armorsmith, then you are basically forced to buy either full sets everytime you need to replace a chest, or make friends with an armorsmith. While the latter isnt too hard, just imagine the addition tells and work an armorsmith would be put to.
Player Interaction and Convienence:
As this game is real time, our time ingame is also limited. People want to go have fun. People want to go hunt with their new t21, or go to a party dressed in their new gown. People do not want to spend the majority of their time running around to vendor after vendor and not finding the item(s) they are searching for. With a high item limit on vendors the selection and diversity of products is obviously great. WIth a nerf to allow only a certain amount of items, you will see limited stock, and a result, you will run around all the time searching for items.
The player interaction may increase. A lot of the time this is good, in this case, it won't. As it stands, popular crafters are bombarded with tells currenly. Imagine after the proposed nerf how many more tells they will get because their vendor is sold out of a certain item. Sure interaction can be good, but like everything, too much is not necessarily positive and constructive.
Summary:
The games economy is complex, yet simple to understand. Its like a big stock market. I have only detailed a few professions, and believe me, I could sit here and probably do the fallout from all 33 professions. But you all obviously dont want to read 500 pages of SWG economics.
The game should be fun. Being a crafter shouldnt be a 24 hour job. There has to be time to do other things. One of the best feelings is finishing a huge run and stocking your vendor, knowing that it has a weeks supply on it. The proposed changes would advocate a days supply.
Shopping is fun. I dont care who you are in this game, everyone enjoys taking an hour ortwo going from vendor to vendor seeing what little treasures they can find.
Crafters who arent as serious will be hurt by the resource competition. The rich will get richer, the poor, will not necessarily get poorer, but they will make less than they do now. This is more of a republican philosophy.
jefdenbeffer wrote:
nice, constructive 5-star post
too bad it will be ignored
lol they always ignore me unless im giving away free krayt pearls.
Hero_DarkJedi wrote:
Hate to burst your bubble ...
1) This nerf will happen ... why?
2) Monopolies ruin new crafters gaming experience.
Your whole post is basically about scarcity ... but you don't talk about how scarcity will open up the market to new crafters.
The Dev's want to open up the market to new crafters ... scarcity is how they are going to do it. Why do you think they are doing this along with the removing empty vendors from the map thing? cause once this goes live, there will be 2x-10x the number of vendors on the map instantly.
And when the scarcity starts to get to critical mass, along comes the new crafters ... and what are they going to make? 2500 credit scout blasters :-)
Personally ... I will pick my most popular items ... put them in crates of 5 and 10 ... and sell them like that. This will leave a nice sized market available in my neck of the woods.
So ... the new crafters will indeed pick up the slack ... they will be tickled pink they can actually play a crafter and get business. This is fantastic for them.
Long time players will stick with higher end crafters such as myself, who will deliver really good weapons ... but they will come in crates and they will not be cheap ... but with crates of 5 each I can stock 500 weapons even with a 100 item limit. With crates of 10 I can stock 1,000 items.
New players will be forced to buy second rate weapons from new crafters ... and that is what this all boils down to ... and whether or not that is good for the overall health of the economy.
I could very easily argue how it will, in the end, be better for the economy. Short term is not going to be pretty ... but long term it will be better.
I also seriously doubt they are going to leave it at 110 items per vendor ... but that is just my educated guess having been around a very long time.
So, youbasically want to award people who haven't put in any time or effort into the profession. The people who put in a lot of hard work get shafted.
Hero_DarkJedi wrote:
I could very easily argue how it will, in the end, be better for the economy. Short term is not going to be pretty ... but long term it will be better.
I also seriously doubt they are going to leave it at 110 items per vendor ... but that is just my educated guess having been around a very long time.
hero, on your 2 points.
1.) one of the biggest gripes i have is that they are changing the economy with one patch. the changes wont be gradual, they will be quick and concise. people will have to rethink their templates to maybe accomodate for merchant. as a master i am fine having 550 items, but my stock fluctuates daily. we have been playing this game for 1 year. nerfing eyeshot, or combat medic poisons really only effects that specific profession. nerf eyeshot, or cripple, and someone doesnt like it? they drop that and get something else. this was just an example, im not saying its how it happened, but you probably get what im saying. nerf the economy and it effects everyone.
2.) 110 items will not happen. i will be shocked if it does. but back to a point i went back to...tailors. lets equate this to real life. you go to the BMW dealer in your average USA town. they probably have 30-50 bmw's on the lot. they deal in high end items, with high end profits, suited to high end consumers. then you have a ford dealership, with 100's of cars on the lot. then, a bit off subject, you have JC Penny, who sells clothes. 10's of thousands of items. the bottom line is that to put a limit on a vendor, you are implying that all items can and would have equal value to be fair to crafters. tailors deal in bulk. krayt weaponsmiths deal in quality. me? loot vendors deal in stuff that cant be made. etc. 250 items per sounds good to me to be honest
ZinaTheMaker wrote:
FACT:
It is fun shopping. Going vendor to vendor, finding nice stuff.
Shopping is fun. I dont care who you are in this game, everyone enjoys taking an hour ortwo going from vendor to vendor seeing what little treasures they can find.
Sometimes yes, other times no. If I have 3 hours to play during a specific night. I do now want to spend 2 hours trying to find one piece of armor or one craft of food. There are other times where I don't mind this. I might spend a saturday evening searching out some nice guns or some amazing stim B's.
I like knowing exactly where I can buy certain things. As a crafter I enjoy this as well. I like the aspect that many people can count on me for having exactly what they want when they want it. I'm not perfect, but I can at least try to be. I might end up pulling in a few more customers each week, but in the end it really is the returning customers that matter to me most. I'm making a food they enjoy and that makes me useful in the game.
I really believe this nerf is very bad for the entire economy. Inflation will happen very quickly with a lot of people either leaving or cutting down on the amounts they sell. Noone will increase their production because of this.
Ryche_Mykola wrote:
So, youbasically want to award people who haven't put in any time or effort into the profession. The people who put in a lot of hard work get shafted.
I surely don't know what you are talking about.
If you mean I think that crumbs off the tables of the long time crafters, such as myself, is a reward?
Well, I remember being a WS on this server in the shadow of Styker ... I know how hard it is right now for new crafters to break into the business. To the point where they have to "buy" their way in. Is that right? No.
I don't want to "give" anything to anybody ... but in principle, I believe the Dev's are correct in their assumption that monopolies are bad for the long term health of the game.
Please be specific if your going to put words in my mouth :-)
ZinaTheMaker wrote:
Hero_DarkJedi wrote:
I could very easily argue how it will, in the end, be better for the economy. Short term is not going to be pretty ... but long term it will be better.
I also seriously doubt they are going to leave it at 110 items per vendor ... but that is just my educated guess having been around a very long time.
hero, on your 2 points.
1.) one of the biggest gripes i have is that they are changing the economy with one patch. the changes wont be gradual, they will be quick and concise. people will have to rethink their templates to maybe accomodate for merchant. as a master i am fine having 550 items, but my stock fluctuates daily. we have been playing this game for 1 year. nerfing eyeshot, or combat medic poisons really only effects that specific profession. nerf eyeshot, or cripple, and someone doesnt like it? they drop that and get something else. this was just an example, im not saying its how it happened, but you probably get what im saying. nerf the economy and it effects everyone.
Actually I do understand what you are saying.I don't think the economy is going to suffer greatly from the "fix" for non-merchant vendors. That I think is going to be a non-event ... it will just get absorbed in the 45 days or more after the publish goes live. (30 days for items to sell or fall off the vendor, 2 more weeks for them to be removed).
So I don't see the other changes having an affect immediately.
2.) 110 items will not happen. i will be shocked if it does. but back to a point i went back to...tailors. lets equate this to real life. you go to the BMW dealer in your average USA town. they probably have 30-50 bmw's on the lot. they deal in high end items, with high end profits, suited to high end consumers. then you have a ford dealership, with 100's of cars on the lot. then, a bit off subject, you have JC Penny, who sells clothes. 10's of thousands of items. the bottom line is that to put a limit on a vendor, you are implying that all items can and would have equal value to be fair to crafters. tailors deal in bulk. krayt weaponsmiths deal in quality. me? loot vendors deal in stuff that cant be made. etc. 250 items per sounds good to me to be honest
Tailors are hosed with this patch ... there is no if's, and's or butt's about it.
The question though is: "Do you keep monopolies in place for the tailor profession"??
Now I feel for the tailors ... I can only imagine what goes on in that profession ... but do you allow for all new crafters to have a really hard time and not fully experience the game for just 1 profession?
I hate to say it ... but I think my answer would be no.
The answer I have for tailors? allow players to colorize their own garments ... like they do armour. Problem solved .. well ... a big chunk of the problem is solved with that answer :-)
Is this change going to hurt my business ... probably ... I have worked hard and am about to celebrate my 1 year anniversary as a Master Weaponsmith ... but I also feel for the little guy ... and something along these lines is going to help them.
Glizzy wrote:
"Crafters who arent as serious will be hurt by the resource competition. The rich will get richer, the poor, will not necessarily get poorer, but they will make less than they do now. This is more of a republican philosophy."
_______________
Great post, you are right on! I'mconfussed on the republican philosophy statement.(unless i read it wrong) If these changes go through, they are in effect trying tostiffle the econmy by forcing it into a recession.Income Redistribution / class warfare are pages right out of thedemocratic parties playbook.(Think the '2 Americas'talking points we've been hearing repeateldy)
Take this vendor cap and try and transform it into modern day america. I thinkmost republicans would be against low vendor limits and would favor the system as-is with the other propossed vendor changes being implemented months ago. I routinely hire newbs to help me survey and manage harvesters. I pay them well for this. Time is Money.
You are correct ... this move is anti-republican. It's classic socialism really ... but then again ... this is a game and doesn't have all the checks and balances of a real economy so therefore artificial ones have to be put in.
BTW ... it's not the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer" ... it's generally the "hard working get richer and the lazy get poorer". Generally speaking those that are poor are so from their own life choices. I know ... I am not poor, yet my parent died when I was 2 and 14 (father/mother) ... I have no college degree ... I have no technical training ... yet I am a "Director of Information Technology" ... your future is in your hands...
Message Edited by Hero_DarkJedi on 08-09-2004 03:50 PM