Tailor Archive
Thread: OMG Master Level Items for under 2000 credits
All I can say is that I ran across a tailor who was charging 500 credits for Sunguards, so I bought out her stock and sold them on the bazaar for 2500 each. After 3 trips, I have now sold 11 of them @ 2500. She apparently hasn't figured out that she is selling all her sunguards to the same guy yet. The way I see it, on 11 sunguards, she made 5500, and incurred the costs of resources, vendors, her shop, and her time. I made 22000, and incurred none of them.
It's not a question of goodvs. evil, it's a question of smartvs. stupid. I am making 4 times the amount of money on her products as she is, and she's incurring all the cost. She's just transferring the wealth she deserves to me, because she (in this case wrongly) believes she is doing a public good by keeping low prices.
In the real world, people who price their products too low go out of business. In SWG, if you run out of money you can always spend an evening doing missions. So there's no market force correcting low pricing. That's the real problem. If tailors had no choice but to make tailoring profitable, then things would be different.
yes, ive seen it alot on many planets. Usually its the people who exploited their way to the top the first week with the factory bug and macros. Dont worry, you charge what you need to and they will consume vast amounts of factory materials cranking out to meet demand and..like most of those first masters..they will quit because they are bored. on my server we had a master tailor who flew to the top, undercut everyone, opened a shop and..within a month..the shop fell into disrepair, the vendors had nothing and now its gone, along with the master.
but it is a problem, there are many players who wish to utterly devalue the profession and make it so that it is profitless to try and catch up with them. I think there could be a solution. If the dev's recognize this burgeoning problem, and wish to see the economy not founder and professions become a mafia-bullies-you-out-of-the-market scenario, they can start making items have a minimum sale value, from both vendors and personal trades. If not that, there must be some kind of solution because, while its fair to say everyone needs their own pricing and markets need to stay competitive, note that what's happening here is beyond competitiveness. Notice that if SEARS sells a tool set for 9.95 WALMART doesnt sell the same one for 50 cents. Sure it'd drive SEARS right out of business..but WALMART also. Its not having that effect in SWG, its allowing one player to ruin not just the market..but the profession.
I see some posters here who feel the same, yet still admit they undercut the going rate. I know you want to be competitive but bear in mind that while you cut a 10k master item by pricing at 8k, the next tailor will undercut your 8 to 6 and so on.
Maybe what we should do is hold a message-board meeting to make a standarized pricing guide and try and have as many of us stick to it as we can. Remember, you are not going to competitively own the market. its just not practical. People tend to buy from crafters NEAR them as a convenience. If the prices were standard then they'd go to their local tailor and get what they need.
Im a master tailor and probably the worst thing about seeing the awful slew of low prices on high end items is how it effects the up-and-coming tailors on my server. What are they suppsoed to do? sell their mid-level gear for 100 cr? sorry but that stinks. especially when armorsmiths charge 100k for a suit of composite and then turn to a new tailor and refuse to pay 2k for a tailoring III item. its ludicrous
comatoast wrote:
If everyone in RL had a Rolex, what would owning a Rolex mean? Nothing.
I think this is the important thing to remember here folks. For those that flood the market with one type of clothing, or sell top-of-the-line items for very low prices, etc. what you're doing is devaluing all clothing and the tailoring profession and you're not helping your customers out one bit (you're in fact hurting the very people you are claiming to help). If someone works hard to run dangerous missions, or works their butt off becoming the most popular entertainer in the cantina, he/she is going to want to buy something that makes his/heravatar distinctive and makes him/her feel special and get a sense of pride and achievement. When every item is affordable to every newbie that spends a half hour running delivery missions, it takes something away from the entire gaming experience. play nice folks! Nice thing about the tailoring profession is that there is a lot of demand and not so many tailors.
I have mixed feelings on this subject. I understand both sides but when it comes down to it, I am going to set my prices at what I feel is right. I am the one slaving away to make the levels, pay my harvestors, pay maint., satisfy customers...it's my business. I am going to charge what I want, to make the profit level that I want.
It's nothing personal. I don't want to dictate how anyone should run their business andI definitely don't want anyone dictating how I run mine.
In my area there are several tailors, and we all get along fine. I personally do not concern myself with what other tailors charge. I will not sell my products dirt cheap but I am sure there are tailors charging both higher and lower than I.
The game is only a couple of months old. Hopefully our profession will continue to prosper and with the clothing decay, high prices will most likely be forced to come down or tailors will have to make clothing worthy of the price (durability). What I intend is for my prices to already be in line and I am gearing myself to look for the best materials. I am looking more towards the future instead of pulling my hair out over what is happening now.
As I said before, I do understand both sides. I simply can not harp about something I can not control. In this game people can set whatever price they want and it's their right. Those charging cheap prices will end up paying for it in the end.
One bug I do have is that NPCs are dropping high level items. That is much more of a concern to me than price wars. Someone getting a master item for free....it's just not right.
Rhensis wrote:
I see some posters here who feel the same, yet still admit they undercut the going rate. I know you want to be competitive but bear in mind that while you cut a 10k master item by pricing at 8k, the next tailor will undercut your 8 to 6 and so on.
Maybe what we should do is hold a message-board meeting to make a standarized pricing guide and try and have as many of us stick to it as we can. Remember, you are not going to competitively own the market. its just not practical. People tend to buy from crafters NEAR them as a convenience. If the prices were standard then they'd go to their local tailor and get what they need.
Im a master tailor and probably the worst thing about seeing the awful slew of low prices on high end items is how it effects the up-and-coming tailors on my server. What are they suppsoed to do? sell their mid-level gear for 100 cr? sorry but that stinks. especially when armorsmiths charge 100k for a suit of composite and then turn to a new tailor and refuse to pay 2k for a tailoring III item. its ludicrous
you should note that prices varies across server. on ahazi i sell my robe of honors for 10k and flightsuits for 8k, but from the handful of tailors i know, that's already on the hige end. i'm all for the pricing guide (i've been asking around trying to adjust my prices accordingly, since i don't want to charge less than other masters do), but i doubt many tailors on my server would agree to 15k master items
when it takes 20 minutes for the crates I am pulling resources from to show in my inventory, you better **edit** well believe that I am charging 15k. period.
Take your mathematical calulations about how much it's worth because of resources and shove it up your @$$, I am charging on time, not resources.
So, I'm exactly one skill box away from being a master tailor. And in view of that fact, I raised my prices and began producing only higher level items. My prices aren't as high as some, aren't as low as some - 3k for a gunmans duster, 5k for a luxurious gown.
My thoughts were to make sure I'm not so flooded with orders that I can't enjoy the game, and mainly to drive business towards lower level tailors who will offer the neato lower level schematics at lower prices than mine.
I got an email yesterday, seeking some clothes. I sent back pricing, and got told "no thanks, found a master tailor who charges half what you do"
Oy vey 
One the one hand, minor victory on the not-too-many-orders thing. And minor loss on driving-business-to-lower-level-tailors thing. Blargh lol
In the real world, people who price their products too low go out of business. In SWG, if you run out of money you can always spend an evening doing missions. So there's no market force correcting low pricing. That's the real problem. If tailors had no choice but to make tailoring profitable, then things would be different.
There is a problem with that however. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that running a business my way isn’t profitable. Right now indeed one could run missions to make up for that. If that’s not possible anymore to get one through the hard times what do you think will happen? People will start complaining about how SWG isn’t fun, how it forces them to set their prices (I can already see the “so much for player-based economy” posts) and eventually they would quit because it’ll feel more like a second job than playing a game that’s supposed to be fun.
I’m not in this to make money, or to be the best, or whatever. I’m in this purely to have fun. Charging the prices I do (or to be more precise setting up the calculations for it) is part of that fun for me. If SWG disables me from having fun my way I’ll stop playing. And while that might suit your purposes (“one less undercutting tailor”) it certainly isn’t what SOE is aiming for.
I don’t sell nearly enough to be a treat to anyone and with my prices being below what most are charging I’m almost guaranteed sales. Everything I make sells allowing me to have fun and only make those things I feel like making. How am I doing any harm to anyone?
I know you want to be competitive but bear in mind that while you cut a 10k master item by pricing at 8k, the next tailor will undercut your 8 to 6 and so on.
The thing with that is that I won’t lower my prices unless I absolutely, absolutely have to. And even then I’d rather stop selling clothes to the public in general and just run a few missions to pay for things. Of course I don’t think that was directly stated at my price-range, so I’ll leave it at that. 
If everyone in RL had a Rolex, what would owning a Rolex mean?
It would mean that everyone had a high-quality device to see the time on. Because really, what is the point of one person having things ‘better’ than the next person? Is one person better than the next? I don’t think so. I would wear a watch because I like the way it looks, it shows the time in a way I find pleasant and it functions properly. Not because it has a certain brand name that somehow makes it worth more than other watches. The same goes with clothes, wear what you like to wear because it looks good on you, not what happens to be the most expensive item.
When every item is affordable to every newbie that spends a half hour running delivery missions, it takes something away from the entire gaming experience.
Not really, the way I see it that adds to the entire gaming experience. Let me try to explain.
What I see now is that every player that’s been around for a month or two already has master level items. Most entertainers I know own one or two leotards, a flesh wrap and maybe a skinsuit as well, next to a number of other items. And that is without me selling them at my prices, because I’m not at that level yet, that’s for the ‘established’ high prices.
And that’s no wonder either, because in the long run what does it really matter if they have to do three missions to pay my 3k price or ten missions to pay someone else’s 10k price?
No, what I’m starting to see is that people are realizing that everyone has the ‘good’ stuff and are starting to look elsewhere to be original again. Since everyone wears black many are looking at other colors too. And that makes for exactly what we want in the game, creativity and variety. Now instead of someone just buying the high-level stuff they’re actually interested on getting something nice together to suit them specifically. Because an outfit that looks good on one person might just not work on another due to them having a different hair style.
Thus the gaming experience is enriched for everyone; for tailors because they get more creative work and for the other players because the world becomes much more varied. They just have to see first how unoriginal they are by all running around in black dusters, and the sooner the better.
Take your mathematical calulations about how much it's worth because of resources and shove it up your @$$, I am charging on time, not resources.
Now, that’s very friendly. How would you feel if I said the same to you, only with “time” and “resources” swapped? The fact that you don’t like one person doesn’t mean you should take it out on everyone who agrees with that person. Thank you.
Ah well, as long as we’re all still having fun ingame it’s all good as far as I can see.
- A. Kimusume
[Casual Wear III::Field Wear I::Formal Wear IV::Tailoring II]
If everyone in RL had a Rolex, what would owning a Rolex mean?
It would mean that everyone had a high-quality device to see the time on. Because really, what is the point of one person having things ‘better’ than the next person? Is one person better than the next? I don’t think so. I would wear a watch because I like the way it looks, it shows the time in a way I find pleasant and it functions properly. Not because it has a certain brand name that somehow makes it worth more than other watches. The same goes with clothes, wear what you like to wear because it looks good on you, not what happens to be the most expensive item.
Oh, come now! Relative instrinsic and moral worth of a being has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Economics. The Invisible Hand doesn't care how good a person you are, it cares how much cash you have in your pocket and what you're willing to spend it on.
Also, although I've never owned a Rolex, my guess it they are extremely well crafted, and if I ever spent that much for a timepiece I would expect it to last for a lifetime. Unfortunately, if the rumors are true, and clothing decay will never happen, we will never be able to explore that aspect of Economics.
<insert grumbling about edit button here>
That would be "intrinsic", not "instrinsic". You get the idea...