The nerve of some people....

[Laspeera]

What is with people who expect the world and will give nothing in return???

I worked my lil butt off to get my tradeskills up, namely fletching, in order to make Thunderbolts, Nightmare bows, etc. Now what makes people think that they can just up and ask me, play like a victim of some kind, cry about this and that ........... for a FREE BFT???

I just don't understand. If the going price for something is 2k, or 5k, or 11k....don't people realize that there is a **** good reason for this???


/sigh -- I guess it's back to answering tells like these in the most rude manor possible to make people realize that my time and money spent ARE worth something.

[Fandrax]

I think this problem is only made worse by tradeskiller looking for increases that shout that they will do combines for free, provided you bring them the ingredients. I don't disagree with them doing this, I've used them often. My suggestion to you is tell them you'll only do it if they give you enought for 10 combines and you get to keep anything after 1 success.

[Laspeera]

LOL, point in case for this time the person didn't even offer me a thing. Oh...wait....he offered me his Blessed Faydark Stinger, whoopy.

[Novbre]

Eh?

I think this problem is only made worse by tradeskiller looking for increases that shout that they will do combines for free, provided you bring them the ingredients

Hehe, I'm guilty here. I do free combines of anyone that brings me the componets for the combine. I don't see where this makes any thing "worse". They take the time/trouble/effort/or pp to get the components. It doesn't cost me a thing beyond the 2 seconds it takes to hit combine (a'kay so it can take up to 10 seconds in the bazaar on a laggy day.) Half the tradeskills I do this for I can still get skill ups from on a lot of the things I'm asked to make. I'm not sure how this can be anything but a win/win for both sides.

Now If I have stalk the elusive iron oxide ground spawn....or spend hours and hours in PoV farming liquid metal, run around for 6 hours hunting down the ONE chanter/shammy/necro that has the imbude spell for the stones I need made atm, well then yeah....**** right I charge for that. But seriously instead of blameing those of us that do free combines for people, why not put the blame where it belongs? Those 2K people running around on each server with no clue how much time and effort and expense it is to raise tradeskills up high enough to make their uber desired item of the moment.

[Fandrax]

I wasn't trying to assign blame, I was only stating that with so many people doing free combines, it seems that more people are starting to assume they should be done because others do.

I don't disagree with the free combines, I hade 15 fleeting quives made and as long as people offer it, I'm going to use it.

[Flabbo McFattyfatfat]

They take the time/trouble/effort/or pp to get the components. It doesn't cost me a thing beyond the 2 seconds it takes to hit combine (a'kay so it can take up to 10 seconds in the bazaar on a laggy day.) Half the tradeskills I do this for I can still get skill ups from on a lot of the things I'm asked to make. I'm not sure how this can be anything but a win/win for both sides.

You will forgive me for being blunt, but thats a **** shortsighted way to look at it. If the items left the world, then maybe, but all you are doing is skilling up for skilling up's sake at this point, while destroying the market for anyone who has an interest in doing tradeskills for a profit. How many bft's can your server possibly need? And if you provide em essentially for free, then why the hell tradeskill in the first place?

Furthermore, it encourages no tradeskillers to buy the items, driving component prices up. They then turn around and sell it, lowering the market. Hell, it didnt take them any time to do it. Not that I am blaming the profiteers, they can only do it because of idiot traders who think its worthwhile to give away 300k worth of gear for 2 skill ups.

You want skill ups? Make bft's, sell em, and make arrows. You will come out ahead. At least charge per success what you would normally make as a profit margin.

But dont screw over future traders by doing it for free. I pity any future smiths on our server, good luck trying to sell your wares when competing with all the 3rd hand resales from people who combined for free.

[claver]

Flabbo, that would have been the case before Tanaan AA skill but not anymore.

Right now you have a lot folks trying to cap out <250> multiple skills so there really is no profit margin. You also have people in large raiding guilds with +15% mod items that are getting skill ups a lot faster and cheaper than a convention tradeskillers.

Before PoP was released there were basically 3 GM tailors on my server. Now we have around 12+ since the release of pop. So 3 GM's in 3 1/2 years of work and 3 1/2 months later we get 9+ more?.....see what i'm getting at?

With so many people now in the 200+ range many have no option but to do free combines for skill ups since the prices for player made wears have plummeted. A pre 200 tradeskill will not have the luxury of being able to sell items at the prices 200+ folk did pre pop. Everything is being driven down in price by the competition of multiple skill GM's.


I personally do free combines for skill ups. I am tired of selling/buying/competing for the sake of skilling up. Having to compete with brainless undercutters who MUST price everything 50-100pp under my prices just wore me out. You can't match thier prices, they simply drop them again. How are up and coming tradeskillers going to compete in a market such as this? So saying that doing free combines will destroy a market is a bit far off. It's destroying itself on its own.

I'm at 248 now and have been in the 240+ range for over 2 months in case you were wondering.

[Dunthor Warsmith]

Mudflation is always a problem. Items rarely get destroyed, so every success is pretty much on the server forever. This causes the problem that the market is flooded with the goods, causing prices to drop due to oversupply. Free combines harms this system even further by not even getting the initial profit to the tradeskiller, and also by (somewhat) increasing the number of items on the server (as you wind up producing more items, as that guy that got the free combine might not have bought one of the conventionally made bows).

However ... this process has been greatly accelerated lately. The advent of the bazaar made buying and selling tradeskill supplies much easier, making it even easier for the stereotypical uber with plat to burn to just buy all the drop-only components and skillup, and dump the successes on vendors/baz mule. This has driven up the price of supplies incredibly, and the flood of common skillup produces on mules has done much damage to price levels. PoP exacerbated the problem with New Tannan Crafting Mastery, allowing both the "uber with plat", the "max everything possible", and more traditional/welcome tradeskillers to go to 250 in as many tradeskills as they wish. This has caused even more people to go for the high end, flooding the market with even more skillup items.

Also, in this market of increasing number of skilled players, there's increasing attempts at undercutting to get the shot at the profit. It happened to JC long ago, as 200, then 250 JCers became quite common and people slashed prices to try and get any sales at all. It has been happening slowly to the other tradeskills as well, but the bazaar and New Tanaan have increased the rate dramatically.

Do free combine people hurt the market? If equivalent goods are not exchanged as if it were a sale of a tradeskiller-made product, then yes, it hurts the market. Is it a significant amount of damage? Compared to the effects of the bazaar, New Tanaan, and mudflation, most people doing free combines probably don't cause any significant damage. There are inevitably a few that have a massive enough operation that it causes economic disruption and does cause a problem, but the majority, I highly doubt.

...
At least that's my opinion :P