Scout Archive
Thread: Stop Giving Away Your Harvests!
. I focus on keeping the oil in the pipes hehe.jmatt - Anti-trust issues are not always black and white and as you point out, are subject to interpretation. Since as I said, I work for an oil company, let's use this example. If gas station A charges $1.89 a gallon and gas station B sees this and prices his gas at $1.79 a gallon to try to sell more, then no problem. However, if gas station B says to gas station A, I won't charge less than $1.89 if you don't, then that is seriously price fixing. But anyway, I am mostly just joking about this. What you said is true, we are discussing fair market value for our services. Obviously we suspend reality a bit when we play, that's the beauty of it.
But anyway, I am mostly just joking about this. What you said is true, we are discussing fair market value for our services.
Fair enough.
rek17 wrote:
Hmmm, there are anti-trust laws in the US (and I'm sure there are comparable international laws) that forbid these kinds of discussions of price fixing and collusion, etc. I work for one of the largest oil companies in the world, so I happen to know a bit about this.
OT: Do you really? I mean, I work at the world's largest physical commodities exchange. What do you sell? Brent? Sweet crude? Sour?
Back on topic: It's not right for a group of competitors to fix their prices, but when the market is open to everyone, when information is distributed about the market state, it's great. I think that's what is happening on Valcyn with the increase in wooly prices. I think they realize that the people that can bring in the volume (rangers and high-level scouts) will go to the people with the best prices... and since that information is being distributed more widely than previous, the market will hopefully come to what would be a fair market price for all of the resources (harvested and mined).
My maintenance total of 10500 factored in my several personal harvesters, that were used to pull up massive amounts of polymer and fibreplast, the majority of which I sold at a discount rate of 2cr to a local tailor, who in returnsold me reinforced fibre crates for 5k a piece. I rated polymer and fibreplast as costing 0, and just used maintenance cost.
My point is that while Master armoursmiths can be offensively overpriced, and thus could afford to pay 30cr for hides (they'll still put their prices up in a vicious circle though) many armoursmiths trying to make it to armoursmith will be priced out of the market. Thus any competition for armour moguls that would possibly induce them to lower their prices, is being strangled out of the market, and we're left with the multi-factory untouchables who can charge what they like.
My personal view is that we should charge 6-12cr a resource, and boycott people who sell overpriced armour. At the moment clothing with ranged defense tapes and a composite helmet is all we really need, especially if you have phec. dart traps and a bit of luck...
Also as I mentioned earlier, try staying on one planet for a few days. Your costs drop astromically, and when grouping you get free heals from the medics in your group. I make most of my money from huge mission payouts, and groups always want me when I say "Hey, I can find you a kimo..."
That formula is very simalar to what I get out of it. I charge 1200 for a top qulitly stim maily becuase of herbie meat is so rare. It takes 800 indentical herbie to make a crate of stims and you just can't find it in that quantiy easily. as a doc/cm i don't have any good source of money I gave up most of my gun skills for doc. As most of you know the money for missions is tied to your gun skills.
If I could get 60k of herbie meat i would gladly drop my price but its just not posible. so i am forced to sell my meds at a price that i wont sell out of. whats worse selling meds for 1200 each or selling out of meds at 400 each and having no income till the next shift. I have to wait till a good adv componet resourse come to my galaxy and then put 3 or 4 heavies on it. there are 6 resources in the stims. and the hardest to find is the herbie. most docs just skip that componet and use regular. it drops the quality of the stim by only 40 or so. but they can sell 100 more of them. if you raised prices to high most docs would just stop useing herbie all togather.
CM's use insect meat for diseases. diseases have no real use at the moment cept as a griefing tool. most players die befor the disease can take effect. so small quantities are the only thing needed.
Avin meat is use in buffs. they can last up to 2 hrs. some docs charge for them. but most just buff there friends. if you wana get buffed for your big hunt just GIVE a doc some good Avin meat and they will give you up to 1k to each stat. there is virtualy no money in it so please dont extort them on it.
Curently the only way a doc can make money is by selling stim-b's and buffs. tips suck badly and i don't even go in the med center any more unless i'm bord or need xp.
I hope this gives you a little insite in our world.
Thanks for your harvest
I just wanted to give an update on the harvest pricing situation. Knowledge is power and free amrket rquire transparency. There in a 3 page rant going on over on the armorsmith board, with complaints about the costs of hide. This was posted by an armorsmith:
Sorry fellow armorsmiths but I actually think the prices should be more in-line with the 15-20 per for really nice Wooley/Scaley Hide. The current profit margin on Composite is insane. I would say total cost of composite is somthing like 18,320 to make and that includes paying 20cr for wooley hidesI sell every bit ofcomposite for 115k a set which clears me around 97k per set which takes 20 minutes to make. Nowthere are a lot more costs involved sono need to go down the factory/harvester/travel road. All I am saying is 3cr/5cr10cr/20cr is a drop in the bucket and we all know it.
This fellow is charging 115k per set of Composite. On my server, top notch Composite is currently 275,000 credits.
Stop giving away your harvests.
I just wanted to give an update on the harvest pricing situation. Knowledge is power and free amrket rquire transparency. There in a 3 page rant going on over on the armorsmith board, with complaints about the costs of hide. This was posted by an armorsmith:
Sorry fellow armorsmiths but I actually think the prices should be more in-line with the 15-20 per for really nice Wooley/Scaley Hide. The current profit margin on Composite is insane. I would say total cost of composite is somthing like 18,320 to make and that includes paying 20cr for wooley hidesI sell every bit ofcomposite for 115k a set which clears me around 97k per set which takes 20 minutes to make. Nowthere are a lot more costs involved sono need to go down the factory/harvester/travel road. All I am saying is 3cr/5cr10cr/20cr is a drop in the bucket and we all know it.
This fellow is charging 115k per set of Composite. On my server, top notch Composite is currently 275,000 credits. Stop giving away your harvests.
I would be careful that you don’t price yourself out of a job.
I can and do collect my own hides for crafting. In a pinch I will pay up to 15 CPU for hide. If the price goes above that I will just forget about buying hides.
Jager wrote:I would be careful that you don’t price yourself out of a job.
I can and do collect my own hides for crafting. In a pinch I will pay up to 15 CPU for hide. If the price goes above that I will just forget about buying hides.
That's an absurd comment. The economy is in a great deal of flux right now... You only need to look at the wonderful state of harvesting and the many threads in the scout folders to see that things might just change. Just because we USED to be able to get XXX number of hides doesn't mean we always will - and if the base supply mechanism changes, then you as a crafter are going to have to be open to change as well.
Hardly absurd, if a crafter perceives that the cost of materials to create an item is too high they will look for other methods of acquiring materials. That is what I meant by “pricing yourself out of a job”.
I am very open to change, hence why I am open to hunting for my own hides. It would be different if the high quality hides only dropped from the high difficulty mobs. When I can /harvest from high quality hides from a Durni, I see no reason to pay 50 CPU.
Jager wrote:Hardly absurd, if a crafter perceives that the cost of materials to create an item is too high they will look for other methods of acquiring materials. That is what I meant by “pricing yourself out of a job”.
I am very open to change, hence why I am open to hunting for my own hides. It would be different if the high quality hides only dropped from the high difficulty mobs. When I can /harvest from high quality hides from a Durni, I see no reason to pay 50 CPU.
Nah - it's still absurd. Why is 15cr your magical threshold? Because of the extensive historical pricing models in all of 2 months SWG's been up and running? Heh. The price for materials will always fluctuate according to supply and demand. If I can only collect 10 'high quality Durni hides' in an hour, should I charge more than I would if I can get 100 in an hour?
Right now, it makes sense for you to go out and hunt for your hides - because the price of the goods you sell hasn't fluctuated like the supply of the hides has. If the shortage of hides continued for 6 months or a year, the price of your goods would also naturally rise - which would make it less cost-effective for you to hunt for your hides. But saying that 'I'll never pay more than 15 credits a hide!!!' is absurd. You're limiting yourself in a way that makes no sense in a fluctuating economy like SWG has - and what's worse, is you're making empty promises solely as a means of trying to browbeat us into keeping our prices down. If the hide market continues to be as slow as it is, the prices will continue to rise - and there's damned little we can do about it. Of course, manufactured goods will also have to rise to pick up the slack - that's one of the great things about having such a player-driven/flexible economy.
jmatt wrote:
Okay, I took a look at some Armorer schematics and have made a rather startling discovery.
As an example, on my server with its current pricing structure, an Ubese armor jacket sells for about 7900cr.
Know what the cost is? 1770cr.And I made that calculation by figuring all mineral resource needs at 3cr per and all hides at 10cr per, which is definitely higher than what these guys pay in bulk.
That's a430% profit! So the next time a crafter tells you that 30 cr hide is a ridiculous amount and that he'll just go out and get his own, let him.
When he tells you that paying that much will drive up armor prices, don't believe it. You could charge 50cr per hide and he'd still be making a fortune. It only takes 50 leathery and 30 wooly take make the Ubese jacket in my example.
Stop giving away your harvests at bargain basement prices. We should be charging 30cr per hide, at least, for anything with even a smidgen of quality.
I say we all stop selling hide, meat and bones for a week or two and see just how many crafters decide to spend endless hours in the field, gathering their own.
jmatt, I'm not against raising prices in accordance with increased demand, but what you are talking about is price gouging. Not everyone we sell to is making high-level armor, what about chefs, medics, combat medics, doctors, and tailors? Those professions don't make near the profit margin that an armorsmith can! The real problem you illistrated is with the armorsmiths, they are gouging their customers. If it bothers you that much, find ways to get them to lower their prices (letting more prospective customers see your cost break-down is a good start), but lowering yourself to their level is just hurting innocent professions.
Well, at least give me a break! I am a Master Architect and a Manager of a Mall on the Kettemoor galaxy. My favorite products to make are furniture.I charge on an average 6 credits per unit on all my furniture. What you don't see built into my costs are my time to make them. Most of the time it is almost instantaneously so that wouldn't matter anyway. I consider the time that I make items is the time that I spend having fun in SWG. I am not going to charge any of you for that.
I recently lost my furniture store and all of its contents. I had to start from scratch. Right now I can't make any furniture that requires Wooly Hides because I can't find any on the Bazaar that fit with in a price range that I would like to sell my furniture at. That means that I just won't make and sell that furniture. I have plenty of other furniture schematics so I make quite a few pieces of furniture and because of my pricing, it does sell fast.
So the bottom line is any Hides that I can't procure myself for my furniture, I will just have to do without. If the situation changes in the future and Hide prices drop then I will start purchasing them again and will make the furniture that requires them.
And in case you wondered, the most that I have sold houses, factories and mining installations for was 6 credits per unit. Now I believe I am selling between 4 and 5 cpu. So we are not all trying to gouge the public. Some of us really want to sell itemsat what I would call, realistic SWG prices.