Calling all manufacturers!

[Torr]

Few weeks i stop to rise manufacture. Why? Because its now worth it. Atm my manu lvl is not so bad, but i would like to mix high armors, for that i need to mix cca 80k leather helms (only good for xp).

I suggest to make leather helms stackable, high Triks buying price of leather pants.

 

Calling all manufactures to high prices of advanced weapons and armors so u can make them with profit.

For example crafters get on almost every high item clean profit of cca 5k or more (this isnt against them).

 

And one more thing, since NMT cape was added in game, manufacturers production is lowered. Because they can have one armor set few months.

 

So to resume u can invest a lot of gc in one skill from which u have nothing....

 

Cheers!

[Blodoks]

Manufacture 64: never made a leather helm

[Lorck]

Another manuf strike? Maybe this time it can work, because there is no MrMind.

 

Anyways, good luck in your formation of cartel.

[shallara]

 

For example crafters get on almost every high item clean profit of cca 5k or more (this isnt against them).

 

 

 

And when we fail said item, we lose 50k gc worth of ingreds. The cost of the item covers the expense of those fails. Barely. Really don't have a lot of sales either. Most crafters don't "make a living" crafting for players.

 

Note: NMT cape is breakable, update last night (check news section)

[stalker314314]

i agree...

it's sad, manuers are not sticking together:/

i mean, imagine all manuers that can create (for example) titanium shield to charge (nominal price)+5kgc...what would happen? player who want to buy it will buy it no matter of price (in fact, in that case, it would be normal to pay that much for it), and manuers could make profit out of it...but there is always some guy that will charge nominal price (although he will not profit) and all others have to lower the price because of him.

My char, for example is 51 manu lvl, but i don't have nothing, since i could not possible make profit...crafters, potionist can, only manu profession is not profitable. My thinking currently is not to manu any more, because i could do other stuff, and if others manu start thinking like this, manu will die (of course, it will not die literally, just it won't be as much manuers as now).

 

As i can see it, problems are manuers itself...they allow themselves lowering the prices as much as possible, and not respecting what they have, and putting themselves in position to be treated as beggars humiliating themselves (of course, this is not that tragic, i'm travestying a bit;)

 

Not to look like only complaining, i propose solution in terms of virtual middle age guild (esnaf) where all the high manuers will be (entering will be automatically, no discrimination, and will require certain high manu lvl and/or some knowledge books) and where they will decide about prices, dictating them, steps to be done, forcing people to buy at a little higher prices, sticking together and in general - making manu a little more payable. Of course, there has to be consensus, but if all manuers are for that, there it goes first consensus:)

What others think of that? too romantic, too comunistic, too good;) maybe? pros/cons?

 

Too all manuers: Manufacture is hard enough and it should be respected, but if we don't respect it, others will not too:/

[Torr]

And when we fail said item, we lose 50k gc worth of ingreds. The cost of the item covers the expense of those fails. Barely. Really don\'t have a lot of sales either. Most crafters don\'t \"make a living\" crafting for players.

 

Crafters at least get some cover for failing, manuers dont, thats my point. Bu u can at least sell them to NPC for reasonable price. And again, i\'m not attacking crafters, just trying to show manuers how u have some covers for failing.......

 

Note: NMT cape is breakable, update last night (check news section)

 

Its breakable until few of them left, than it will be again unbreakable.

[Guest ohmygod]

 

For example crafters get on almost every high item clean profit of cca 5k or more (this isnt against them).

 

 

 

And when we fail said item, we lose 50k gc worth of ingreds. The cost of the item covers the expense of those fails. Barely. Really don't have a lot of sales either. Most crafters don't "make a living" crafting for players.

 

Note: NMT cape is breakable, update last night (check news section)

 

But before recent changes the said item ings did not cost this much

Edited March 16, 2007 by ohmygod

[Torr]

And when we fail said item, we lose 50k gc worth of ingreds. The cost of the item covers the expense of those fails. Barely. Really don\'t have a lot of sales either. Most crafters don\'t \"make a living\" crafting for players.

 

Crafters at least get some cover for failing, manuers dont, thats my point. Bu u can at least sell them to NPC for reasonable price. And again, i\'m not attacking crafters, just trying to show manuers how u have some covers for failing.......

 

Note: NMT cape is breakable, update last night (check news section)

 

Its breakable until few of them left, than it will be again unbreakable.

[hades]

This kind of cartel formation are ridiculous and dont work.

 

It would be like all fighters united and didnt fight for a couple of weeks to punish the evil manus, alcs and crafters that steal all our money... and fyi pure fighters are the worst paid el job possible :

 

- yetis were the only profit monster in game, yes were cuz now not even that and since NMT breaks now it only will get worse and i dont see fighters come here complain cuz of that.

[nathanstenzel]

One thing that kills the prices of higher end manufactured goods is mass manufacturing. Yes, people manage to buy massive amounts of ingredients and make massive amounts of higher end manufactured goods and sell them cheap while selling the rare manu events from those for alot.

 

People, if you sell the prices to players cheap, you hurt us all. Get rid of them at an NPC instead. I got rid of a number of them to the EVTR npc because I despise the current prices.

 

Sadly, I don't get to play much now. Effectively one less manufacturer to compete with.

[Vanyel]

I'm a manufacturer (somehow ). I'm not interested in any kind of 'strike' like this. Manufacturing is a fun for me. I want it to stay this way.

Regards,

Anshar

 

<edit>

PS. Helms stackable? What's next? Plates, cuisses, greaves, crowns, swords, shields? Hopefully never. We're lucky big items, like plates, weapon take only 1 slot. The should take more than this.

Edited March 16, 2007 by Anshar

[Torr]

I'm a manufacturer (somehow ). I'm not interested in any kind of 'strike' like this. Manufacturing is a fun for me. I want it to stay this way.

Regards,

Anshar

 

Its not strike, its suggest, if u dont like it, u dont like it. You arnt that big lvl in manu to say something like that, we will c when you'll need to make about 3k leather helms for lvl, i dont want to say about 10k....

 

PS. Helms stackable? What's next? Plates, cuisses, greaves, crowns, swords, shields? Hopefully never. We're lucky big items, like plates, weapon take only 1 slot. The should take more than this.

 

Maybe it wouldnt be bad idea if you can make over 200 tit pl8's and than going sell them to NPC........

Edited March 16, 2007 by Torr

[Ghrae]

As a crafter, I have to say that prices for items with high value ingredients should include a small fee in case the ingredients are lost. For everything else the ingredients are easy to get meaning just about anyone can make them and thus, organizing a common "safe creation fee" becomes impossible. Some newbie would make them either having not ever heard of such a safe fee or just not caring and undercut you.

 

I'm not a manufacturer so don't have the insight on what you have to go through to create your products, especially the higher level ones.

 

BUT, I do know that Manufacturing has the highest number of randomly created items of any skill (modable swords, uber weapons of xxx, uber armors of xxx). As such, I believe some manufacturers are using those randomly created items as their "safe creation fee". Esentially charging near cost for the difficult items in hopes to get an uber item and then get their money for fails back on the auctioning of said uber item.

 

So while getting a sufficiently high level in any skill is difficult and being able to make things in any skill and expect a reasonable profit is a bit of a joke, you might have to look at the WHOLE picture on a given skill and talk with those that have put a lot of work into the skill to understand just how the dynamics work.

[ttlanhil]

BUT, I do know that Manufacturing has the highest number of randomly created items of any skill (modable swords, uber weapons of xxx, uber armors of xxx). As such, I believe some manufacturers are using those randomly created items as their "safe creation fee". Esentially charging near cost for the difficult items in hopes to get an uber item and then get their money for fails back on the auctioning of said uber item.

if only it was only as bad as that... no, people will gamble on making the rare item and dump all the normals for below cost price. unfortunately, since there's not really enough demand otherwise, the hope of a rare item is one of the bright points to look for as far as making money.

this works fine for stuff like efe and ele, when there's demand for the base product. for the new-swords and steel/tit plate, there's not enough demand for all the manu'ers who want to make it

 

also, placing all the blame on the manu'ers is silly. we're not the only ones to blame. why don't wee sell tit cuisses? because monsters drop them. we can't compete with that. why don't we sell bronze kit? nearly all of it is cheaper to buy from the NPC than make, based on cost of bronze bar, based on cost of mining ingreds, based on cost of mining requirements, and so-on back... we can't compete with NPCs either (unfortunately, considering how long NPCs have messed with the market for iron chain and monsters with ti long, and with the NPC prices on new items pushing closer to market prices, it seems to be getting worse rather than better)

 

also, it's not until you reach the top 20 or so that there's any hope of holding a decent margin on items (in which case, if you might actually make a profit, people will abuse you for 'obscene' prices, but I digress)... until then, we're all trained to be idiot traders... and a lot of that comes from EL being a game. so it won't be fixed.

what exactly am I talking about? people don't think. many of them don't want to have to analyse the market (which isn't that unreasonable)... so if they're told "playerX sold that item for 2k less last night", instead of thinking it may be a lie, instead of thinking that the other player was dumping and needed some fast cash and accepted a loss, many people will simply drop their own price to match. once you're sitting around break-even, it levels out, of course, but this is one way for the prices to drop to break-even

of course, there's the problem with alternate entries into the market. the problems with NPC prices and monster drops are a part of this... PKers (or bag jumpers, etc) are another. they could hold out for the same price the manu'rs ask, but why should they? they won't lose out on cash if they undercut us. and sometimes people who paid the normal price will then sell for below market in order to get a quick trade. people who want fast money for some other purchase will do this

[Baloney]

What if, instead of dropping manuable items, the monsters would drop an equivalent amout of money ? So, for example, if you hit your 1/xxxx chance of getting the rare drop, you get 30kgc (something like that) instead of a tit cuisse. The non-manuable items (books, for example) would stay as they are now.

 

Then, fighters would have the money to buy (without changing the worth of drops they get), and there would be less manuables on market, providing better opportunity for mixers. The fighters would become consumers instead of flea markets.

 

Bal.

[CelticLady]

I agree with everything ttlanhil said and I'll add another catagory to the list of why the prices are so low for our high end items. Risk mixing. PlayerA brings me the ingreds for Titanium Plate Mail. I mix it and am successfull. They now have a plate that they most likely harved and mixed the ingreds for, or got someone else to help them with it. Thus, they have that plate at negligable gc cost and mostly took time. Said player turns around and not 5 minutes later advertises that same plate on market, undercutting me. It has happened to me more than once. And I do not mix for them again. I don't care if someone sells something that I mixed for them, just don't undercut me if you want to continue to use my services...

 

On the subject of mass mixing for rares. Yes, I've done it. It's been a long time since I did. It worked twice to get me rares and the next time I tried it, it cost me over 450k in lost gc from selling the excess stock to the npc, and I still haven't made that rare sword. So I think in general, this isn't a common practice much anymore unless others are far more lucky with rares than I am. And by the way, I sold at market price the ones I mass produced and dumped the rest at NPC. Market price was break even or -1kgc and NPC was -1k to -2k depending on how much I was paying for my ingreds.

 

And in general, most top 10-20 manuers do respect eachother's prices. We try not to undercut eachother. That isn't to say that some of our prices don't differ, but generally, we don't do it just to take sales away from another manuer.

 

I manu cause I like to create shiny weapons and armor. I've found that I often have to do other skills to support my leather helm addiction. I've played long enough to learn how to use the economy and what I personally need to do to make a profit. It would be nice if I could buy all my ingreds and then sell all the finished products at a profit, but in our reality it doesn't work that way.

[Atlantis]

Manufacture 64: never made a leather helm

Congradulations?

[Torr]

CelticLady:

/cut

 

Thats what i mean, to have a stable price on some item, so that every1 are happy, when manuers and buyers are happy, same for other skills.

All this isnt Radu\\\'s fault, its all about players.

Edited March 16, 2007 by Torr

[Lyeowar]

I'm a mid-level manufacturer (i.e. Serp Sword and under). I'd like to put my foot down and say that I won't be joining any cartel or strike. I believe firmly, in the game and in real life, in the benefit of a free market economy. While I realize that the game isn't like that, primarily due to NPCs (as indicated by the majority of my posts in the forums on how to modify the economy), I will not be part of the problem. Like CelticLady, I've learned that I can't sell every item for a profit. But, to me the game is about fun, and it's ridiculous the amount of joy I get when I see a serp appear in my inventory, or a beautiful set of chain armour. If I can make profit, great. Otherwise, I'll continue selling huge amounts of titanium bars and health essence to support myself.

 

I believe that such a cartel won't work - firstly because there are too many 'rogue' manufacturers. Similarly, every player can (and many do) operate fully independently of every other player, so there's really no way to enforce participation in such an action. Furthermore, as was mentioned, it would be entirely possible for another group of players, say the pk-ers, to refuse to buy above a certain price. Then, the game becomes polarized. Do you really want that? I mean, it'll work great for me, because I'll still be selling to the pk-ers

 

Now, I'm not saying we should sell at a loss when we can avoid it. And we definitely shouldn't maliciously undercut each other. I do my best to figure out what the market price of my ingredients are and sell for a profit above that. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So, I'd invite anyone who's still reading this rather contentious thread to set your own prices at what you think your work is worth. Just don't try to bully anyone else into following you.

 

And remember, it's just a game.

[Torr]

First, I dont understand why are everyone talking about as a strike or cartel.

Second, this have nothing with fighters, if they dont like it, they always have NPC\\\'s, El is not about fight.

Some enjoy it some enjoy some other skill, so if someone have nothing smart to say, batter to not say anything.

I could add a lot things which fighters have, but shouldnt have, but i\\\'m not complaining against them.

Edited March 16, 2007 by Torr

[smalul]

1. I agree about the leather helms thing - they should be stackable. That's because you need to make hundreds of them to gain a manufacturing level, but you can only get rid of them 35 helms at a time (selling to Trik, you can't sell if you have all 36 slots full). Maybe you could find someone who would buy 10 or 20 helms in the market channel, but that's it - the rest must be sold to Trik.

 

On that note, I would also be happy if the other low level items would be stackable, like the fur set items, but not items like swords (you need those to mine, and it would be unfair to players with low EMU).

 

2. Talking about other thing that I would like to see change - the price of some of the books. The biggest problem is the iron platemail book - it costs 40Kgc, and it's not a monster drop, while the steel and titanium platemails' books cost 6Kgc. The other thing is the bronze books - I would be happy if they would be made droppable, because it's very difficult to raise so much money for those books (6 basic + 5 items, @ 20Kgc each = 220Kgc).

 

Both 1 & 2 are up to the admins to decide (I hope they would implement my ideas, but if they don't - it's OK).

 

3. Talking about the cost of making items, I opened a thread about it once, and even made this excel file:

http://www.geocities.com/smalul/ItemCosts.xls

It just shows how much an item is worth from the ingredients point of view (no food, no books, no time included). This shows there could be profit from most items, but people just keep "under-selling" items.

 

This is up for the players to figure out, and I don't see how this can be solved.

 

4. About that cartel - good idea in theory, but it will never work, because you don't have any way to punish any players who break the cartel.

 

5. About that manufacturing vs. crafting issue - I like to think of myself an a manufacturer, and I needed money to buy all the high level books (steel and titanium sets), so ironically I turned to crafting, and the end result was that I've ended up with all those books (after weeks of work) and a higher crafting level (41 right now) than manufacturing level (33 right now).

 

6. The main problem with manufacturing (and other skills, but it's more obvious if you look at manufacturing) is the ingredients requirement - at high levels, the low level items (like leather helms) are just not enough to train your skill on, and getting your hands on the much needed high level ingredients (like hydro and wolfram bars, EFE, binding stones and even large amounts of iron, steel and titanium bars) is very difficult. If you use manufacturing schools to train your skill, you'll lose the item, and a lot of money with it, so it's not worth it.

If you buy all the ingredients you need from other players, you'll just end up losing money, so you have to make those ingredients yourself to have a chance of earning a profit. Basically, training skills at high levels is like going to work...

 

I think there should be a better solution, like gaining exp from making items relative to the skill level (similar to the a/d exp system), but again this is, like all my post, just a suggestion.

Edited March 17, 2007 by smalul

[LochnessLobster]

My feeling is that the players themselves will never be able to fix this problem. I made a few attempts waaay back when. I gave up on manufacturing for this reason 7 months ago. The thing about beating your head against a wall is that it feels good to stop. Even Ronald Reagan eventually figured out that supply side economics don't work.

[Moebird]

I don't even bother trying to sell high end stuff on the market. I worked hard at leveling up, just to be able to make my own armor/weapons and make those items for guildmates and friends. I tell them to bring me the ingredients and I make it for them. Every so often I'll make a big batch of newb level stuff and give it to guildmates to do a 'contest' on IP for fun.

[Troger]

And who might u be in game Torr??

[luciferx]

LOL its funny this is posted... Mufossa buys his armor on channel 3 even though he is a top Manuer in game because its cheaper then making it