Shipwright Archive
Thread: Shipwrights Unite!!! Pricing issues
I'll take 10 tomorrow please. Chop chop, you SAID you should please ME.
Yeorg wrote:
Emenikan wrote:
Yes. When they buy a ship they should be able to jump and go...too bad they are just buying a chassis eh? I have been crafting non stop since JTL was launched...which is a lot of effort...if i put all the components onto a starter ship with the chassis...i would also sell for 110k...maybe more, i mean the shipwright could've been crafting 10 other chassis during that time and made alot more money in doing so. If the customer isn't up to paying that price...theycan go ahead and pay 18 million to grind it out and provide master shipwright quality within the first week of release as i have.
Yeorg wrote:
Okay, if I have a custom order (I assume this is what you are talking about), then yes I would raise the price a little. But not much more. I mean, come on. 110k for a novice ship deeded form fully equipped with level 1 components. I still think 110k is too much, even for that. Yes, it is a lot of effort, but are we not supposed to put a lot of effort into our profession and make the customer happy. When a player purchases a ship, he should be able to jump into it and go, unless he just wants the blueprints.
Smelli
Who says it just has to be the chassis. I am not Master Shipwright yet. I just haven't had the time to fully master it with work and all, but I am halfway there.I believe that Master Shipwrightsshould sellcomplete ships (stocked with components). The better the components inside the ships are, the higher the prices are. Custom orders can be taken. Yes, you can also sell chassis, but not at 110k for a Z-95 chassis. Sheesh. Also, components can be sold seperately for those who have bought completed ships and wish to upgrade or adjust any of the components inside their ships.
Smelli
Brilyn wrote:
<
Are you going to track what resources you used in each component? Track the value of them over time over the next 6+ months? And adjust the price of your components accordingly?
Yes, I am. Who the hell dosent? Do you just blindly pick resources from a bag? LOL I would hate to be one of your customers. >
I'll explain it slowly as you don't seem to get it.
Let's talk about Resource1, a fairly good Duralloy Steel (650CD, 1000 OQ, SR, and UT).
Currently worth about 6cpu, as it's in spawn.
You make a Blaster with it. You charge 10cpu.
The (fairly simple) question I am asking you is:
Are you going to note down the serial number of that Blaster, and adjustthatBlaster'sprice upwards, based on the appreciative value of the resources used to build it, as the value of Resource1 will increase over the next 6 months, as it becomes more and more Rare?
Message Edited by Brilyn on 11-01-2004 01:54 AM
You must be the poorest Weaponsmith on your server. 10 cpu. bleh
Fivo Asia
Since you seem to enjoy asking this question, I am going to answer it for you.
No, I am not going to track *every* recource in *every* item I make. But yes, I am going to adjust the prices of the items that I sell to match their market value.
Brilyn wrote:
Are you going to track the Resources used in *every* item you make, and upwardly adjust the price of that item, dependant on the 'current' market value of those resources?
Doctors? You realize that doctors are charging 10-15k for a set of 3 hour buffs? If you think your novice ships, which take 5000 units of materials to build, are not worth as much as a 3 hour doctor buff, then you have some serious re-valuing to do.
Pragoron wrote:
Problem 3. Simply put, if you are so worried about having customers or not having enough customers and therefore not being profitible ... don't be a Shipwright. The whole purpose of having a free enterprise system is to be able to weed the weak and the feeble out. I for one will not be putting a low grade quality NOVICE ship on the market for more than 12,000 credits...are you kidding me? Maybe 5,000 or 6,000 The second thing I would say is...make a quality ship, check the market and price it accordingly. If you can't beat the market then find a sucker who will buy it for your rediculous prices...meanwhile, I'll sale one ship after another...starting off with a low quality ship and moving up until they are of high quality. It worked that way for Doctors and it can work that way for Shipwrights.
MickGrey wrote:
Plain and simple:
I don't have enough lots to mine enough generic resources plus the 7 named resources, in addition to my lot use for factories and storage. I have to buy. A resource cost of 0.2 CPU is out of the question... it is more between 2.5 to 3.5.
It is extremely frustrating to see Tier 1 and even Tier 2 ships on the Bazaar, let alone the Tier 0 Novice ships. I've had several customers send me profanity-laced tells because they bought from me and then found a 5-6K blueprint on the Bazaar sometime later.
The original poster in this thread is correct... the Shipwright profession will end up like Architect if we're not careful. All it takes is for a few grinders to dump all their unwanted ships on the major Bazaars (Theed, Coronet and Bestine) to set pricing expectations for an entire server.
Is this what all of you want?
/addignore is your friend
Send a tell to them that because they are being a jerk, you are banning them from you store and adding them to your ignore list. This drives them crazy.
And I totally agree with chassis on the bazaar. If I see them at that price, I purchase them and re-sell them at what their worth.
Message Edited by rexan on 11-01-2004 03:06 PM
/wipes tear of joy from eye
THANK YOU ALL!!!
Its been SO long since I've seen a pricing debate of such high quality. I am truely moved. I rate this thread 5 stars!! I give it 2 thumbs up. Way up!!
/cheer /clap /yay
If you took everyting in this thread and replaced the word "shipwright" with the word "architect" then you would be doing a fairly good imitation of our forum about 1 year ago.
You guys have everything here. People quoting prices for finished goods below market value of raw materials, people discounting "market value of resources" as meaningless, people ignoring sunk costs, people who don't know what opportunity cost is if it bit them on the nose, people making semi useless analogies to real world pricing, people making ad hominem attacks, people calling for price fixing, people saying price fixing will never work, people ignoring differences between server economies, people who's vendors sell out in an hour and still think that higher prices are "unfair", people who think there is anything "fair" about capitalism, people ... oh well you get the idea. Its all just so awesome. ... Oh oh!!! And someone mentioned Walmart. I love that!!! Can't have a truely good pricing debate without the obligatory Walmart reference.
Glad to see you're all doing your best to emulate and even exceedus architects. It only took you a week to get here. We hadto work on it over a period of a few months to get to this level. /rolleyes /chuckle
p.s. I didn't notice anyone claiming that a certain pricing practice would be illegal if done in the real world. So if somone could please do that then this thread would be absolutely perfect. Thanks.
jassi007 wrote:
the real problem is to me not neccesarily paying a good price, its that I hate to pay good money for a beginner ship I'm only going to use for a little while. Take the x-wing or b-wing or the multiplayer ships. I'd be perfectly willing to pay 10cpu for those, because I'm going to be holding on to them for a good long time. But my z-95 or y-wing, the z-95 is a 1.5 day ship, the y-wing a 3-7 day ship. You don't want to pay 10cpu for grinding resources to get shipwright, and pilots don't want to pay 10cpu for grinding ships to get master pilot.
Thats the beef. Price the heck out of the end run ships and components. Thats perfectly fine. But mark 1 stuff, novice and tier 1 ships? Give me a break, there grinding material just like any other profession.
Nobody pays 10cpu for d18's, metal staves, and axes, so why would they for novice ships?
Many people can get by with the newb ship. Thats not a problem. A player crafted, hyperspace capible, newb ship is a luxury. You not need it to get through tier 1. Plus, there will probably be a large market for hand-me-downs as pilots outgrow the newb ship.
Why should shipwrights sell the newb ship at a loss when players can get a one for free?
Message Edited by rexan on 11-02-2004 01:14 AM
Cafa wrote:
Brilyn wrote:< my question for all of you that sell parts on the cheap is would you have a problem if I bought the parts you sold at 5cpu and sold them for 10-20cpu? >Doesn't really bother me, to be honest.For the most part, I set the price for an item at the amount of credits I want for it.For the most part.However, you buying out my vendor and reselling is detracting from my business. If I choose to sell at 5cpu to pilots, it's because I'm looking at the long-term gain of repeat business. Not a once-off sale.Not just the financial, but the reciprocal gain. Of pilots bringing me Looted components to RE. Of Pilots discussing with me their needs, and sending their friends to me.If you buyout my vendor, you impact *that* aspect of my business.So I'll ban you.So, you are a underseller that's trying to drive people out of the market. You've stated openly you don't care about anyone else, or profit. AFAIC you're fair game on any level. PVP isn't only with weapons.
BTW, you can only ban 36 people or line items on any structure. We would make your life interesting on Tempest because I'm sure we could round a few hundred people to buy you out, many Europeans, so we'd have all time zones covered.Your costs are not 0.2 cpu. That's a falsehood propagated by incorrect math. If you choose to sell below reasonable costs to be a jerk, expect to be on a lot of people's radar.Honestly, there are better ways to deal with people like this than buying them out. Just have random people send them tells constantly asking for orders.Fivo Asia
Cafa,
The math is generally incorrect because neophyte crafters forget to amortize the cost of harvester redeeding into the cost calculations. The longer you can keep a harvester on a spot, the closer your break even cost will approach about .5 for a 70% concentration. But if you have to pull a heavy harvester after one day, the break even cost is more like 1 cpu.
oh, and the neophyte crafter always plans for the best, and hopes for the best. True crafters know that you plan for the worst and hope for the best. That is why in my above calculation I also used 2 cpu power. A built in cusion helps absorb the fluctuations in the market.
Message Edited by CerionSkydreamer on 11-02-2004 12:03 AM