Ranger Archive

Some knob over on the Naritus forums is hijacking other "buying naboo bristly hide" threads saying he'll pay more. This got me thinking about what makes me WANT to harvest for someone and actively go hunting for a buyer (btw, hijacking thread like that makes me NOT want to hunt for someone). Here are some things that come to mind for me and I'd love to hear what everyone else has to say - agree/disagree with my ideas and please add your own too. You'll notice I'm big on respect - reciprocal respect for other players and their craft is what makes SWG so tenacious for me and is what can fuse relationships and bonds across the server. I say respect mostly because I want to specifically avoid the opposite.

1. Their tone is polite and respectful - I'm a nice guy who plays for fun - I just want to play with other decent human beings.


2. They contact me directly - by email or /tell, I like being contacted directly. It tells me that the buyer respects me as a Hunter (at least to some degree) and feels I would be a good avenue to success. As a side note to this one, don'ttry and play rangers off each other - we're a close group of friends and you'll shoot yourself in the foot this way.


3. They contact me early - I generally hunt for the first person to contact me. I can't help but have a little bit more respect for the buyer who is on top of their game and aware of spawns. This is helped even more if the buyer who contacts me is the first person to find the spawn - then I'm just impressed. Conversely, someone who hops on the trade forum band wagon WAY after the spawn has been noted and hunting is well underways is unlikely to get resources from me, despite the more-then likely higher price they set.


4. Price is respectful - While the income is nice, the more important thing for me is what the price set by the buyer indicates. A low price on a great spawn tells me that the buyer doesn't quite understand that it takes in-game play time to harvest resources. I can drop harvs and make 4cpu for 1mil resources after a week of doing nothing - hunting takes time, skill, weapons, food, armor etc... I want the buyer to reflect in their price their understanding of the effort that goes into hunting. Further, I want the price to reflect their need and use for the product. I can fully expect a lower price on resources for a prof that generally has low margins. Profs that want to buy resources at 10cpu though and are selling their items for obscene mark-ups.. well... I'd expect the buyer to demonstrate the value of this resource to them through their price to me. As a side note to price - I'm not big on haggling. If I feel a price is too low, I'll say so and generally my intent is to have a price agreed upon quickly and fairly. I'm not going to try and rip anybody off but I want to make sure the price is fair. I have found that the longer there is 'haggling' over price, the less happy I am about hunting. If someone hardlines on a low price without acknowledging my concerns as a hunter, well, you figure it out.

While each scenario with a buyer is unique and these are not hard and fast rules, they do help. Old friends - sure, they get free stuff left, right and centre without a question. BUT, these tips, IMO, are very helpful for establishing new relationships between crafters and hunters.

What do you have to add?

Really, for me, it has come down to just two things: How much money I can make, and how easily I can make it.

Before I would really hunt for anyone, but this week I got a contract on Dath wild Meat that managed to drive me insane. I usually use a very good technique for easy planets, where I will attack the lair and let on critter rush to heal it while a billion more spawn and rush to me. Then I easily kill them all and get an insane amount of resources for a low level lair. However, this is impossible with higher level enemies. for the time it takes to kill a CL70 and the yield isless than100cpu higher than an easily killed CL 55, it simply wasn't worth hunting. I got around 11k of the meat in overtwo hour, I think, and it reallyw asn't worth 15cpu to go that slow for me at least. Granted I didn't have any stims and had to si and wait for every attack, but even still, the terrain made it hell trying to get a clear shot- sometimes I had to attack from as little as 15m away, and then I would take a lot of damage.

So I generally am looking out for the easier contracts now, until I can get a good stock of pups, stims and a T21 with better DPS than my 400+ DPSLaser Rifle.

honestly, I do not hunt for others. I think that would change if they offered me a decent price CPU rate. What I do is find out what is hot....(what the last shift nows says is good stuff).....then I just talk to my guild (we hunt every night) and convince them to help me out. I grind XP for the village (want to try luck out), and collect about 800 units per harvest. Then when I have over 100k in stock, I just drop it off at my hunting lodge.

(I am currently working an angle that would grant me admin to one of my friends vendors).....that way, I decide what it is worth.

Trust me....it does get bought

One group of people i will always hunt for, at a very discounted rate, is a newbie crafter. I used to be an arch, then shifted to AS because i wasn't having any fun being an Arch anymore. One thing that was always hard for me was getting enough good organic resources to be competitive, and make goo resources. A great spawn would come out, and i couldn't afford the 100cpu+ price. So i would have to beg guildies for charity. That's actually the reason i crated my Ranger alt (and i am glad i did, because it's so much more to me than just a harvester now). So i will always help out a newbie crafter, just because it's so difficult for a newb crafter to break into the market. I know too many people who said "Man this is too tough to get into. I really enjoy it but i can't sell any decent armor, and therefore i don't make any money." They can't afford Harvestors, they can't afford good resources. etc, so if i can help them out not only do I feel good for helping a neb, but i also get a customer for the future.

Well all I can say is that I only hunt for those who I know are honest and will honor the agreed upon price. Last night I helped out a Master Armorsmith and in just over 1 hour had collected 26K of Dantoonine Hide. My price 2 free sets of Maruader Armor.

I have had too many people ask me to hunt for something, and then refuse to give me the price we agreed upon.

I hunt for friends mainly. I have enough credits to last me a while. I have also used hunting to trade for goods, like armor and food. I seem to like that for some reason. Don't get me wrong if I like the price I will sell it after I see if my friends need any.

Mostly money and me being bored enough to want to go hunting for one thing over and over.

Other than that, a good business relationship is nice too.

I prefer to huntwhen I feel like it - usually when I see people offering good credits for something I know I can gather in quantity. Although I have hunted after being asked specifically(contract like) I don't really like doing this. It makes me feel to constrained as to what I want to do. Sometimes it feels too much like work in fact, and not really fun.

Price...and thats about it...unless the buyer has a bad payment rep or something like a bizarre drop off arrangement.

(I wouldn't back out of a contract once accepted, but if you offer 10cpu and the next post is some competitor offering 30cpu then I will be doing business with the competitor.)

I only do contract hunting when I need or want to make cash, or if an offer is so juicy that it catches my attention - so personality doesn't enter into it much. I'm not doing it regularly enough to want to create some kind of relationship with the buyer...its just a short term business deal.

Price.
Can I be bothered tonight.
I'm going there anyway.

On the other hand, what'll make me not want to hunt for somebody?

bugging me with tells
foul mouthed gits
1337 speak
spammers

Oh, and just because I went out and hunted for you once, it doesn't mean that I'm your buddy, want to marry your sister, join your town or guild, or really want to have more of a conversation that "Hi, hows things?" "Ok, and you?" "Yah, fine" "k, laters..". If I don't return your tell within 30s it doesn't mean I hate you, yet. Strange as it might seem, I'm not sat in my lil house just waiting for you to call... I really don't care about your quest, your struggle, your personal mission to rid the entire galaxy of Imps/Rebs/Jabba/nuna whatever.

It's nothing personal, it's just business. Gimme my money and "move along"