Blacksmithing Economy

[Glatius2]

The price you charge should be based on what it's worth.

I'd slightly disagree with this. I would say the price you charge should be based on what you can reasonably expect someone to pay for it. Often what people are willing to pay isn't necessarily what its worth. For example back when mistletoe cutting sickles were hot, people would willingly pay 5k for a sickle. I seriously doubt anyone believes they're really worth 5k.

The prices on trade skill items go down not because what they are worth has gone down, but because what people are willing to pay has.

[Angelsyn]

No.

The price you charge should be based on what it's worth. If it'll cost too much to skill up, don't make it.

Should a car manufacturer include the cost of their factory, design work & labor in the cost of a car? Not by your logic.

It's the classic connundrom... a new car "loses" 20% of it's "value" the moment it's driven off the car lot.

If people charged what an item was "worth", then Golden Idols of Tunare would still be ~2kpp (like all the other Golden Idols still are) instead of ~1kpp or less.

If people are willing to pay 12kpp for a Cultural Plate Bracer & 35kpp for a Cultural Plate BP... Doesn't that clearly indicate that the items are "worth" that much?

Not too long ago, Acrylia Plate Greaves were "worth" 2.5kpp. Now, they sell (if you're lucky and don't get undercut) for 1.6kpp. Why? Competing drops? Nope... there's been no new items in the range that Acrylia Plate fills.
So why? Because of greed, price-wars & dumping. The Greaves aren't "worth" less... they're still just as good an item as ever. But the market perception has changed... and that's something that's nearly impossible to get back.

[kiztent]

No.

The price you charge should be based on what it's worth. If it'll cost too much to skill up, don't make it.

Should a car manufacturer include the cost of their factory, design work & labor in the cost of a car? Not by your logic.

It's the classic connundrom... a new car "loses" 20% of it's "value" the moment it's driven off the car lot.

If people charged what an item was "worth", then Golden Idols of Tunare would still be ~2kpp (like all the other Golden Idols still are) instead of ~1kpp or less.

If people are willing to pay 12kpp for a Cultural Plate Bracer & 35kpp for a Cultural Plate BP... Doesn't that clearly indicate that the items are "worth" that much?

Not too long ago, Acrylia Plate Greaves were "worth" 2.5kpp. Now, they sell (if you're lucky and don't get undercut) for 1.6kpp. Why? Competing drops? Nope... there's been no new items in the range that Acrylia Plate fills.
So why? Because of greed, price-wars & dumping. The Greaves aren't "worth" less... they're still just as good an item as ever. But the market perception has changed... and that's something that's nearly impossible to get back.

The car manufacture point is invalid in EQ since tradeskillers compete with farmers. If there were car trees in New Guinea (a la Hitchiker's guide) and GM tried to keep prices above the cost of farming and shipping cars from the car tree, because of their R&D costs, they'd go out of business.

We could use some better analogies in the auto industry (say looking at imports in the mid 70s), but simply put your sunk costs (skilling up) don't matter to pricing - unless everyone bears the exact same costs (and the farmers don't). No one cares what the cost of skilling up is. You either sell items at a competetive price to dropped items, or you don't sell items.

In the same way, people trying to enter a new business review the market for 'average' prices, then see if they can be profitable at those prices. Cost doesn't drive price, perceived value drives price. Every undercutter doesn't understand this. Everyone that is stuck with bales of made junk that can't sell it against farmed goods doesn't understand this.

If the "price at which a reasonable number of people will buy" (which is how I define worth - which I suppose isn't clear, my apologies) for a farmed item is below what it costs you in terms of time and/or plat to make an item, you don't make the item. Just like acrylia plate trashed barbed ringmail prices, the converse applies.

If the profit made from skilling up is less than the cost of skilling up, you don't skill up. You don't expect people to pay more to you than they would for comparable items because skilling up is hard.

I don't expect I'd get a lot of sympathy if I made a bunch of deathsteel or firey whatever weapons and couldn't sell them at ANY price, never mind trying to sell them at double vendor prices (and I know it's all dropped components, work with me here). Why would any other made item be different?

[wold2]

whats it worth

I'm convinced the Artificer's Ringmail Tunic is worth around 25k on my server..its comparable (not quite as good but comparable) to the Jaundiced BP with more hp, 5 less ac, same wisdom etc and the Jaundiced BP sells for around 40k. However, noone has bought a Tunic from me and my price has drifted down to 19k. Its not practical to farm Jaundiced BPs and its not that time efficient to farm Thurg or HoT for a Chain BP (never seen one drop in HoT yet, and when it does you'll see 10 or 15 people rolling for it!).
So why aren't my tunics selling like hotcakes!?
well the shamans I talk to say they think it is worth it but just don't have the platinum.
So I'm going to have to keep dropping the price to sell the thing even though I think its worth more.
Also since so far I'm the only drinal barb smith, theres no competition , either...

[Sunmina]

comparable armor

Just a few example of comparable or better gear now available.

1. Droppable gear now available in PoP
- Massive Flameguard Helm - Plate helm with 35 hp / mana
- Putrid Bile belt - Belt with 65 hp
- Decayed Chain Links - Chain pants with 35 hp
- Wristband of Strategy - Bracer with 10 to all saves, 30 hp/mana for int casters
- The trials themselves have about 4 or 5 drops which are similar to or better than most BD cultural pieces. Can look these up on Alla's if you want under PoJ section.
- Ornate mold gear is now available and the molds are droppable. Single groups exping in zones such as tactics and bastion of thunder can easily get ornate molds to drop. Ornate is comparable to all cultural I believe and is usually better(not up on ornate melee just yet).
- Will look up more if you want but it's very easy to just do a search on Alla's for these. Also, before PoP the majority of trash mob loot did not include HP, which is why BD cultural sold so well, since HP has become everyone's focus these days. Just about all trash mobs in PoP drop HP gear though so it's all very competitive with BD cultural. This is also why CT items sold well, because they almost always included a good amount of HP. Good thing for us tradeskillers that CT is pretty much abandoned these days.

2. "Generic" No drop gear is more available
With the increased levels and new AA, mobs which were once difficult are now easy. I used to solo in Kael Arena before PoP to farm Thurgadin armor, now I solo in ToV. Single group ToV farms were possible before PoP and they are completely trivial now. Non named Umbral Plains mobs that drop high end gear can be killed by duos or trios looking for armor. All this means that high end no drop gear is entering the game at a much faster rate. (if you want examples of this gear please look up the Umbral Planes or Sky Shrine quest gear on Alla'kazams).

3. "Uber" gear more available (sorry for the generic / uber definitions, they're the best terms I could find). Again, the increase in levels and spells have made named mobs which were previously only killed by 1 or 2 guilds on each server available to more. NToV / Ssra / Kael / PoG and such are much easier to kill and so have multiple guilds killing them. Heck, I've seen pickup NToV raids on my server. The gear these mobs drop is usually better than cultural and is now more available. (If you want examples of this gear please look up Rhag 1/Rhag 2/Arch Lich/High Priest/Cursed/Glyphed/Exiled/Creator in Ssra, King Tormax in Kael, Avatar of War in Kael, Vindicator in Kael, SoRZ in Kael, Tunare in PoG, Various dragons in NToV and WToV, Dozekar in ToV, Various dragons in Sky Shrine, various dragons in Sleeper's Tomb)

Note that items 1 and 2 are not talking about new gear, this is old gear, it's just easier to get now and available to more people.

[Glatius2]

I used to solo in Kael Arena before PoP to farm Thurgadin armor, now I solo in ToV.

Really? Soloing in ToV? Interesting. I doubt the majority of people can claim that distinction. Just as I doubt the majority of people could/can get ahold of the drops you speak of as being so trival to get. The majority of people I know haven't gotten past the tier 1 planes, let alone being able to farm ornate molds.

[Shaman Arriana]

And then I sat down and did a comparison of it versus the Kael quested I was wearing (thats right, the NToV stuff).

Just a small nit, but warlord armor is not NToV stuff. It does drop in infintesimal amounts, but it is really WToV quest armor. NToV drops are generally better.

Plus, if you are doing a comparison, drop the warlord breastplate and compare the chestplate of vindication. Trivial for any NToV capable guild to obtain, and ungodly stats.

well the shamans I talk to say they think it is worth it but just don't have the platinum.

You speak to not-very-bright shamans. The Iksar regen chestplate (available on basically any server for 5k or under) runs circles around the artificer ringmail tunic. No comparison. The gloves and the BP are by far the worst of the artificer set, in comparison to what is easily obtainable (coldain skin gloves, and shissar scale gloves smoke arti gloves, and are cheaper too).

So I'm going to have to keep dropping the price to sell the thing even though I think its worth more.

Well, what you think it is worth, and what it is actually worth are quite different things. I will never even bother to make an arti tunic because frankly it's a POS. Maybe if someone unusually stupid or to whom I had personal animosity wanted one, I'd make it for 30k or so. My normal customers I steer towards more sensible purchases.

Going past the easily purchased iksar BP, the end-all-be-all of shaman breastplates (pre-VT/PoP) is, like for barbarian warriors, the chestplate of vindication. With the mudflation of PoP, the Vindicator has become a 2 group mob. With 8 hour respawn, and the BP being his most common drop, they are flooding into the game. I expect all plate BP sales (and chain BPs to shamans) to dry up very soon.

[Cigarskunk]

The car manufacture point is invalid in EQ since tradeskillers compete with farmers. If there were car trees in New Guinea (a la Hitchiker's guide) and GM tried to keep prices above the cost of farming and shipping cars from the car tree, because of their R&D costs, they'd go out of business.

Bad analogy - if there were car trees then GM wouldn't have any R&D cost - it would just take a look at one of the car tree cars and make it's own version for cost of materials.

After all, in EQ, once a trader hits 250, he's always going to be able to make things at a fixed success/fail rate no matter how new or how many components are involved - there is no more R&D once you hit 250 unless VI allows tradeskillers to increase thier skill higher than 250.

[kiztent]

The car manufacture point is invalid in EQ since tradeskillers compete with farmers. If there were car trees in New Guinea (a la Hitchiker's guide) and GM tried to keep prices above the cost of farming and shipping cars from the car tree, because of their R&D costs, they'd go out of business.

Bad analogy - if there were car trees then GM wouldn't have any R&D cost - it would just take a look at one of the car tree cars and make it's own version for cost of materials.

After all, in EQ, once a trader hits 250, he's always going to be able to make things at a fixed success/fail rate no matter how new or how many components are involved - there is no more R&D once you hit 250 unless VI allows tradeskillers to increase thier skill higher than 250.

Actually it's a good analogy :P

The R&D costs will are still sunk (and if you check the original quote, it posits that skill up cost should be factored into prices), so even if GM decided to go into car farming, they still would have the R&D costs they paid to make their cars.

And for the non-250 tradeskiller, they have ongoing R&D costs and still have to compete with the car farmers.

[Glatius2]

Just a small nit, but warlord armor is not NToV stuff. It does drop in infintesimal amounts, but it is really WToV quest armor. NToV drops are generally better.

Sorry friend, I have to disagree. The NToV boss mob drops generally aren't significantly better than the Warrior Kael quested. A few pieces here and there might have a touch more AC or a few more HP, but they are pretty few and far between. I know because the guild I was in hunted NToV for months and I was contantly seeking upgrades for my Kael quested. However, I will agree that for most of the other classes the NToV boss mob drops beat their quested in most cases by pretty substantial margins. One of my personal beefs with itemization in NToV has always been that they effectively put most of the classes in Warrior caliber armor and yet didn't really give the Warriors much in the way of upgrades.

[Cigarskunk]

The R&D costs will are still sunk (and if you check the original quote, it posits that skill up cost should be factored into prices), so even if GM decided to go into car farming, they still would have the R&D costs they paid to make their cars.

OK, well think of it this way - imagine that in order to be able to pick a car from the car trees you need up to six individuals who have had 10 years of US Delta Force Commando training and combat XP and equip them all with gear that costs about as much as it did for GM to set up thier entire opperation. These folks can only each drive one car back at a time and of course the car tree is deep in the middle of 10,000 square miles of dense jungle, you only see one once every couple of days and there's only a slight chance that it will even have a car on it - sometimes they only have parts of cars, motorcycles or just walking shoes.

After all, isn't it fair to say that a high end character is going to have gear such that if he were to sell it he could easily GM several tradeskills? Heck, even my 46 SK has about 30k or so worth of possessions and he's definately under armed compared to all of the simular level folks I keep bumping into. Plus, camping mobs of that level usually takes atleast 4-8 hours (1-2 EQ days) and even assuming the sucker does pop, there's no garantee that it'll have the item you wanted.

[Angelsyn]

1) To use the Ornate Molds to get armour, you need to have the "flags" required to get the Molds.

2) The Recommended Level (not to mention Required Level) on the Nightmare/Hurricane Plate makes it almost worthless. The Chain is good, but mainly because Cultural Chain is such garbage.

3) To do the MQ's of Skyshrine, Kael or Thurgadin armour, you need to have great faction... which is almost as hard to get as the armour itself. The same people who can't farm the drops are the same people who probably can't get the faction and would gladly buy the Cultural Plate.
I have personally been offered a couple of Plate MQs on Thurgadin Quest Plate for my Cleric... but I don't have the time to get the faction needed.

4) Half the time I'm not competing with farmers. Show me one single piece of farmable armour that compares favorably with Acrylia Plate Greaves. Dragonhide? Don't make me laugh... even Worked Dragonhide Breaches go for 6k+. I'm competing with other Tradeskillers. At least some of the Tradeskillers understand about making a profit and pricing comparable to existing items.

[Cigarskunk]

3) To do the MQ's of Skyshrine, Kael or Thurgadin armour, you need to have great faction... which is almost as hard to get as the armour itself. The same people who can't farm the drops are the same people who probably can't get the faction and would gladly buy the Cultural Plate.
I have personally been offered a couple of Plate MQs on Thurgadin Quest Plate for my Cleric... but I don't have the time to get the faction needed.

Actually, the faction is the easy part of Thurg - my 46 SK is ally (not maxed yet though) and he didn't have to try TOO hard - a cleric would have an even easier time - just get into a giant fort group in GD one afternoon - you should be fine by then. That or one or two good Thurg raids. Worse case, just offer to heal/buff groups in exchange for being able to hit the mob with your lowest level nuke or throw a summoned hammer at it or something - anything to tap it for a point of damage and get that faction hit.

[ArrakeenNaedShoj]

At 44(or 45 if your equipment isn't great) a cleric can start soloing the Frost Giant Scouts near the EW zone for XP, cash, and Faction. If you play at off times, this spot is a godsend. By 46 or so you should also be able to take the Berserkers in the area with little issue. At 48 or so they start to go green, and from there you can move to EW and solo the valley near the Sleeper's statue, from 48 or so you should be able to solo the Berserker's, Savages, Scouts, and "blanks" as well as the Whooly Rhino's, Mammoths, Snow Griffons, and SOME of the Manticores(I avoid them though).

I did this for about 90% of my experienc from 45-51 and I was at max faction before I dinged 50. Was even non KoS to the dragons too. And all told it took me about 5-6 hours per level average(and this was With 45 being a hell level). Best spot for a casual cleric player who plays off times like me.

To P/L yourself to 44(if you care) the Solo Tree spec in Feerott is the way to go. At one time he was perma camped but at least on my server, I have been in feerott for a week and haven't seen anyone that wasn't going to Fear or CT or farming 'ling silks. 42 and 43 should take only 4 or 5 hours each easy.

[kiztent]

The R&D costs will are still sunk (and if you check the original quote, it posits that skill up cost should be factored into prices), so even if GM decided to go into car farming, they still would have the R&D costs they paid to make their cars.

OK, well think of it this way - imagine that in order to be able to pick a car from the car trees you need up to six individuals who have had 10 years of US Delta Force Commando training
-snip-

Touche. Of course, in the course of their delta force training, they may also practice finding and farming car trees.

Even worse, the planar armour. Not only do you hunt the elusive car tree, with equal difficulty to any other car tree, but the car tree only has engines, tires and interiors at a given harvest. You then have to take it back to GM to assemble a complete car. The guys that just farm cars are much better off than the guys that farm the parts of cars then assemble them.