Smuggler Archive

I hope the subject line says it all. How much do you charge and why do you charge it? And let me tell you why I'm asking while I'm at it.

I have been absent from the game for around a year. Upon returning I had gotten blasted by /tells to have slicing done, which wass very much apprecciated : ) At any rate, it only took a day or two to run out of my WUKs and AUKs.

I went to a former guildie to get more, he has three accounts; one is a WS, one an AS and one is a master smuggler. I order several crates of WUKs and several crates of AUKs and then make my own clamps. Upon completion of the AUKs and WUKs I discover that their price had multiplied around five fold. My friend told me that this was because there were both too few master smugglers to cheapen the price of these tools AND that the economy had inflated due to the ultra-wealthy class of players. I do not know if those two points are true but the tools were five times more expensive on other vendors and I do trust the opinion of my friend. So now I find myself having used all of my tools having done slices for other players on a fifth of the pay scale that I should have.

So, this morning I raised my price from 2500 to 10k credits. Did I have to? No. Was it greedy? I really don't know. My friend told me that 10k has become the regular price on my server. But to me the escalated charge feels pretty high. Not to mention that I have recieved a very poor customer reaction to it... ( I'm starting to the think that my friend was wrong on the pricing....)

So, what do you guys charge? I am on the Radiant server if that is important.

Thank you for your responses.

Message Edited by SpinningCloud on 03-01-2005 07:10 PM

Message Edited by 01201986 on 03-01-2005 10:26 PM

Those repsonses make me feel a lot better about it. Thank you for that.

I suppose the dissatisfied customers from this morning must have been like I was a week ago. IE, not ready for the advanced economy. It's sort of funny though, I really didn't expect the effects of supply and demand to hit so hard after only a years absence. But even still, prices feel more transparent now than they did back then.

omg ppl charge that much? ive been charging 100 credits per percent..

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01201986 wrote:

I don't slice for the public any longer, but 10k is the norm. If someone argues just remind them they pay 10k for buffs that last 3 hours, they can certainly pay 10k for a slice that will last the entire lifetime of the weapon/armor.

That is the policy that the Smuggler's Alliance (not the jtl thingy, this is a non-guild player organization) on Wanderhome has adopted

Message Edited by 01201986 on 03-01-2005 10:26 PM

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QFE

and our Smuggler's Alliance is working quite well.

I don't slice at the moment- that is, unless you pay me-

SNAP ZOOM

One hundred billion credits!
If they argue, i raise the rate to-

SNAP ZOOM

One kajillion bajillion credits....

I'm up to 15K a slice and still get requests despite the fact I never have my title up and haven't done public slicing in months. Some people complain, but the low demand and my ability to make so much money doing other things makes it not worth my time to charge less.

I don't set a price. I slice, give it back and tell them they can tip what they feel is right. My average is about 15 to 20K, but once in a while you do get people who just run away, but that's why they gave us an ignore command...still these few idiots are outnumbered by the people like the guy who tipped me 350K for getting a 30 something dam slice on a NS Lance that gave it a max dam of over 1100...one lives for times like that...all in all, I like it, I'm not really in it for the money and it eliminates the hassle of setting a price and pissing people off. I've been slicing like this for several months and it's great, people are generally cool and tip accordingly. I think the 15K average is helped by the mindset created by buff prices on my server. People have gotten so used to spending 10 to 20K for buffs, slicing is just as much. I also think the drop in the active smuggling population on my server has made the populace appreciate the service. JTL helps, too.

The interesting thing is I'm probably making more money than if I was pushing a price.