Musician Archive
Thread: Buff Cost Supply & Demand may dictate change Master Musicians, please read...
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Itta
Tue Feb 17, 2004 10:09 am
#1
Attention Master Musicians
Buff Charges
OK, I became a Deevah with the serious intention of becoming an Entertainer for entertainment's sake, not to open up some secret force sensitive slot. The road was long, but I enjoyed it. Tips, however, were horrid - many, many people would heal and walk without tipping - I know, you all know the story and have lived it.
So, when I made master I was ecstatic! Finally, a viable commodity that I could sell! So, I started giving buffs. You all know that you get asked to do buffs constantly. So, at first I sold them for the going rate of 6k. But, I still couldn't get any peace, so I started selling them for 10k up front. Still, I was constantly busy. So, last week, I raised my rates to 15k!
15k for a musician buff!
Now, you're thinking "that's insane" and in a way, it is. But, the people that want - no, need - a musician buff are collecting a GREAT deal more than that with the abilities we are giving them. They go on hunts to Dantooine, etc, they run high missions, whatever... anyway, here's my point:
Lately, I've seen masters giving buffs for 3000 - 5000 credits. Now, I'm feeling the pinch of prices going to low, yet demand is still extremely high. So, I ask: why not keep our prices at around 10k? I know, I know - it's impossible to create a set price for a profession - it's been tried before and always fails, but what about whoever reads this post just raises their rates a little at a time instead of lowering them?
I'll tell you my experience so far:
Customer: Teia, are you buffing?
Teia: Yes, I am - I'm available to do a 2 hour musician buff for 15k
Customer: 15k? Wow - that's a lot. I usually only pay 6k
Teia: I understand my prices are higher than others - please feel free to get buffed by another master. It won't hurt my feelings at all
Customer: Nah, that's OK - where are you?
Teia: In the Cantina
Customer: OMW
Yes, that's typical - people try to "negotiate" all the time by saying they can get it cheaper elsewhere, but if you are firm they typically buy it anyway. If we let people continue to "negotiate" lower and lower prices, we'll be back to the poor players we were before we became masters.
Ask yourself this: if you are listed as "Master Musician" and are searchable, don't you get tells constantly asking for buffs? If so, doesn't that prove that demand is high? If demand is high, is there a reason to continue lowering prices?
Supply vs. Demand dictates that we can safely raise prices. When demand goes down, we should only then lower prices.
Just a thought - I'd love to hear your thoughts. I won't be offended and I'm also not actually trying to organize all musicians at once to raise rates - that's just crazy to think about. However, I will definately continue to charge more than the musician next to me (who's probably just holoing anyway, LOL) and I encourage you to do the same. 
Supermodel
Tue Feb 17, 2004 12:47 pm
#2
I agree entirely. Raise your prices until your workload is where you want it to be.
sweatyclimber
Wed Feb 18, 2004 1:08 am
#3
Supermodel wrote:
I agree entirely. Raise your prices until your workload is where you want it to be.
I agree as well, I do my buff rates on curcumstance. If I'm playing for someother reason, I do the 5k rate and just consider it a tip. If im wanting to worry about something else, I do 10k. If its out of my way, 20k and if its a special request that requires travel ect I do 50k.
My band did exactly whats quoted. We kept raising gig rates till our workload is where we want it to be. We still are at a point where we have to turn down gigs, but we also don't need to do every gig as we all have plenty of money
Itta
Wed Feb 18, 2004 6:02 am
#4
I need to setup a test character on other servers just to check out some of these Bands!
JohnMarble
Wed Feb 18, 2004 7:47 am
#5
I am a musician, but I'm always looking for the buffs, too. I'd never pay that. You can buy a bottle of brandy with5 uses (10 uses if you don't take 2 swigs)that buffs all three stats for only 4-6k. Now that I have a crate of the stuff and my muon... I just don't need that music buff anymore. Maybe my server is different, but I can do shouts on dantooine offering buffs and maybe get one person in a half hour. On a busy planet, I can do quite a few a night, but there's rarely a line for my buffs, if anything maybe one person shows up as I'm finishing up a buff on the first person. So I don't really see the demand to justify 15k, and again, I know I wouldn't pay that. Maybe my server is different.
Itta
Wed Feb 18, 2004 7:52 am
#6
JohnMarble wrote:
I am a musician, but I'm always looking for the buffs, too. I'd never pay that. You can buy a bottle of brandy with5 uses (10 uses if you don't take 2 swigs)that buffs all three stats for only 4-6k. Now that I have a crate of the stuff and my muon... I just don't need that music buff anymore. Maybe my server is different, but I can do shouts on dantooine offering buffs and maybe get one person in a half hour. On a busy planet, I can do quite a few a night, but there's rarely a line for my buffs, if anything maybe one person shows up as I'm finishing up a buff on the first person. So I don't really see the demand to justify 15k, and again, I know I wouldn't pay that. Maybe my server is different.
That's an interesting observation and one I didn't even think about - it could very well be different server to server. I'm on Starsider and when I login, I get request after request. I never have to advertise that I'm able to give buffs. Very interesting observation... what server are you on?
JohnMarble
Thu Feb 19, 2004 1:00 am
#7
Flurry, sorry, should have set that in my options.
If I go to coronet (our busy city) I'll get one /tell maybe, but not always.
MasterMeister
Thu Feb 19, 2004 4:51 am
#8
With my rate of 10k per buff and this really cool afk-buff-bot macro (with changing songs and customer interactiontoo hehe) I just reached the 1 million credits mark. I made this in one week buffing almost 24/7 in Coronet cantina. People can find musicians who are willing to buff for whatever the customer "thinks is fair" which is usually not fair for the musician (can end up with 500 credit tips or something insignificantly higher than that). With a set price of 10k, customers know right away what the price is, they can decide if they wish to be buffed or not. If i am afk and find someone abusing my buff macro (since it doesnt check if someone has paid or not when I am afk), I swiftly use the /denyservice command - pretty handy that one
Otherwise I see a constant income of 100-200k creds per day coming into my bank account, which helps a lot... though I dont know yet what I wíll buy for all this money Anyway.. even with chefs (of which there arent many around) producing such buff items, Musician and Dancer buffs are still in high demand and if the musicians and dancers do not sell their services below value, a healthy rate can be kept up to keep us from becoming poor
Anyway.. even with chefs (of which there arent many around) producing such buff items, Musician and Dancer buffs are still in high demand and if the musicians and dancers do not sell their services below value, a healthy rate can be kept up to keep us from becoming poor
JohnMarble
Thu Feb 19, 2004 2:02 pm
#9
Interesting, may I ask how much doctors charge for a full set of buffs where you are? On Flurry, they charge 6k. I met a doctor who said his buffs were 8k, and then he quickly started explaining, without any prompting from me, that his were with high quality meds and would be better than the 6k buffs. So that seems to be accepted by everyone as the "going rate." If a doc does a bad buff on a particular stat, they'll knock off 1k. I see this as an accepted practice fromall of come across.
The going rate for my buffs seems to be 4k. Usually when someone willoffer me 10k, they consider themselves generous.(Luckily, there are those who are even more generous than that, why I just ask for a tip.)I do think 4k is fair, considering I'm buffing only 2 stats, at a level a doctor would consider shockingly low. True, it's all supply and demand--there are more atk doctors. Perhaps it's because Flurry has a large population of entertainers? Anyway, speaking as a gunfighter, not a musician, I'm not as desperate to find music buffs with my brandy now.
Most people also don't seem to realize they can just join a music group and listen to somebody afk for free, luckily.
LeBob
Thu Feb 19, 2004 3:05 pm
#10
Itta wrote:
Attention Master Musicians
Buff Charges
OK, I became a Deevah with the serious intention of becoming an Entertainer for entertainment's sake, not to open up some secret force sensitive slot. The road was long, but I enjoyed it. Tips, however, were horrid - many, many people would heal and walk without tipping - I know, you all know the story and have lived it.
So, when I made master I was ecstatic! Finally, a viable commodity that I could sell! So, I started giving buffs. You all know that you get asked to do buffs constantly. So, at first I sold them for the going rate of 6k. But, I still couldn't get any peace, so I started selling them for 10k up front. Still, I was constantly busy. So, last week, I raised my rates to 15k!
15k for a musician buff!
Now, you're thinking "that's insane" and in a way, it is. But, the people that want - no, need - a musician buff are collecting a GREAT deal more than that with the abilities we are giving them. They go on hunts to Dantooine, etc, they run high missions, whatever... anyway, here's my point:
Lately, I've seen masters giving buffs for 3000 - 5000 credits. Now, I'm feeling the pinch of prices going to low, yet demand is still extremely high. So, I ask: why not keep our prices at around 10k? I know, I know - it's impossible to create a set price for a profession - it's been tried before and always fails, but what about whoever reads this post just raises their rates a little at a time instead of lowering them?
I'll tell you my experience so far:
Customer: Teia, are you buffing?
Teia: Yes, I am - I'm available to do a 2 hour musician buff for 15k
Customer: 15k? Wow - that's a lot. I usually only pay 6k
Teia: I understand my prices are higher than others - please feel free to get buffed by another master. It won't hurt my feelings at all
Customer: Nah, that's OK - where are you?
Teia: In the Cantina
Customer: OMW
Yes, that's typical - people try to "negotiate" all the time by saying they can get it cheaper elsewhere, but if you are firm they typically buy it anyway. If we let people continue to "negotiate" lower and lower prices, we'll be back to the poor players we were before we became masters.
Ask yourself this: if you are listed as "Master Musician" and are searchable, don't you get tells constantly asking for buffs? If so, doesn't that prove that demand is high? If demand is high, is there a reason to continue lowering prices?
Supply vs. Demand dictates that we can safely raise prices. When demand goes down, we should only then lower prices.
Just a thought - I'd love to hear your thoughts. I won't be offended and I'm also not actually trying to organize all musicians at once to raise rates - that's just crazy to think about. However, I will definately continue to charge more than the musician next to me (who's probably just holoing anyway, LOL) and I encourage you to do the same.
this may different on Starsider than it is on Bria but I often offer free buffs to members of my same faction in Anchorhead and I only get like 3 customers / hour 
I'm m.Musician and m.Ent
Echinacea
Thu Feb 19, 2004 4:04 pm
#11
Ah, but Capo...when someone gives me a lousy tip like that, I /addignore them. Won't ever be bothered by them again. And I've got a growing list of patrons who walk right past you to get both a Dance and Music buff from me, for anywhere from 10-25k. Sorry to say, hon, I've put you on my Ignore list so that I don't have to listen to the constant spam. I realize you're doing well with your macro, and I'm happy for you, but I think it's going to be counter-productive in the end. Honest, I do.
MasterMeister
Thu Feb 19, 2004 4:40 pm
#12
I dont plan to buff my entire life. You are not around all the time, while I can stand there buffing while afk and get the creds. Overall I think I make more creds than you just because my macro runs even when I am afk, sleeping or watching TV and people usually pay I dont care about the ignores as long as this way of buffing makes money its a good way to do it and I have received thanks from people who wanted buffs at odd hours with nobody around to buff them, except me doing my afk bot macro thing
I dont care about the ignores as long as this way of buffing makes money its a good way to do it and I have received thanks from people who wanted buffs at odd hours with nobody around to buff them, except me doing my afk bot macro thing
nvoigt
Fri Feb 20, 2004 7:26 am
#13
this may different on Starsider than it is on Bria but I often offer free buffs to members of my same faction in Anchorhead and I only get like 3 customers / hour
I'm m.Musician and m.Ent
Aye, same on Gorath. I can stand on Naboo, Tatooine or Dantooine and spam "free mind buffs for imperials" ( not exactly that line, a little bit more RP flavor included ) and I get maybe 5 customers per hour tops. For a free mind buff. So when people from other professions come here and tell me that there is such a lack in buffing entertainers, I always shake my head in disbelief. Not on my Server or during my playtime. Or it's all rebels. 
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