Crafting Mafia

[Denidil Taureran]

those are A LOT lower prices than what is going rates on my server and it's about what i would charge

[sorkvir]

I wouldn't worry about it. Although 'competitive break your knee cap' type tactics work, they only work for short term. Simple fact, crafters want their stuff to sell. If you undercut the prices, your items will sell while theirs do not.

They can't 'stop' you from getting information (its all over the internet). And as far 'stonewalling' your items on the broker. ROFL....let them. Its just going to cost them more.

Seriously, these type of tactics DO NOT work. They only work if you have a MASS amount of cash and can 'buyout' the competition and price the items for more.

Dirty handed, low. Yes. It just shows how 'greedy' people are for colored pixels.

[Denidil Taureran]

the way they do it is refuse to sell to you items you need to complete houses and boats

[Shinto]

Originally Posted by Denidil Taureran

the way they do it is refuse to sell to you items you need to complete houses and boats

So find another disgruntled crafter who won't go along with them and have that crafter make what you need.

[sherrjo]

Plain jute bags sell for 2sp on Galenia, even pristine jute sells for 3.5 to 4sp.


Although on our server jute stacks of 15 sell for 2sp so you can easily make 3 bags for sell them at 2sp and net 200% profit. I think it's quicker to do WO batches though as you don't waste any gear and you can easily get 2sp.

I give my bags away most of the time.

If people are ahead of the game and price fixing i'm ok with that good luck to them. However, if it involves materials that other crafters need to level up then sigil should look into it.

[Sigurd]

Items have no intrinsic value. We assign value to them by our desire to own/attain them.

Capitalism says an item will sell at what the market will bear. If people overcharge, especially in a virtual world where these items are NOT necessary and where adventuring alternatives exist, they do not sell. If they sell regularly/well, they are >not< "too expensive."

Just... DO NOT BUY THEM ;P If others think like you, the sellers will be forced to lower their prices if they wish to craft for business. It is actually the buyers who have the most power in a non-food/fuel etc type of market.

Of course, I don't sell much myself - nothing yet in VG. I've become accustom to the mentality of the genre's demographic and the concept of "it doesn't cost me anything to make so I will sell it really cheap to sell alot of them" which is the REAL 'standard' in MMOs. I believe this is because most of those crafter perceive they have a lot of "free time" or are young enough not to value their time either for leisure or they have not yet seen the value of their time in business. When they get paid 15-20 or 40-75$ an hour (depending on their locations) this tends to change a bit - not coincidently dovetailing with the fact that when you are earning 105K, your 'free time' is less freely available - I can only imagine it gets exponentially worse until you are truly wealthy and no longer 'working' directly and then... free time again

This initial 'inflationary' period is fleeting and you will see after a few months prices for crafter so low no one will craft to be a businessman. It's probably around the time I will finally have time to dedicate to crafting - I craft to 'achieve skill/levels/mastery' - I generally only made things for friends after seeing how the 'businessmen' in DAoC operated.

I recall all the tells I'd get as I completed another master level asking me to make something, I had a macro explaining "if it isn't for my guild (no charge to make) I do not craft - you can thank the early crafters for that." Eventually, no one crafted for outsiders on MLF for a long time, then the vaccuum made for new crafters to sell at nice profits for a couple weeks and then the cycle repeated. I missed the early days of Sark's Axes - I'd go and buy upgrades regularly, they cost a bit but were great to have. Eventually all my alts had the equivs for pennies and I valued them not at all.

[Kato]

Originally Posted by Sigurd

Items have no intrinsic value. We assign value to them by our desire to own/attain them.

Capitalism says an item will sell at what the market will bear. If people overcharge, especially in a virtual world where these items are NOT necessary and where adventuring alternatives exist, they do not sell. If they sell regularly/well, they are >not< "too expensive."

hmm.. Capitalism never said that, common sense did

[Hitomi]

Originally Posted by Kato

hmm.. Capitalism never said that, common sense did

If you're going to split hairs, common sense never said that either.

[Denidil Taureran]

i love people who don't understand economics who argue about "Capitalism corrects everything!!!!" about one of the specific cases where capitalism breaks down (collusion between suppliers in this case)

[Sigurd]

Actually, my use of Capitalism only applies to the pursuit of profit. So many people quote when asked what something should sell for as: "you take what it cost to make and add a small profit" that is what they consider "fair."

"Fair" is for philosophy or morality discussions, this is 'business.'

Anyone giving the above rationale (the one I most commonly here as a complaint against some crafter's pricing) is not very familiar with the precepts of Capitalism or economics (or is not American - since I am sure our Capitalism is culturally different from British in a small manner and from the Danish in a large manner...) I, myself, as a Physics/CompSci major never took classes on the subject. Financial maven wife aside, I worked in retail for 11 years including 4 years of running franchises prior to becoming a full time developer in the early 90s. I too butcher the attributions and terms at times - but I know better than to believe a price should be based on cog + a "fair" profit. It seems the majority of the demographic of MMOs in the early 2000s did not.

The free market in this sort of game is available to all and all can be a supplier or purchaser or both. Unlike the real world, no one will go hungry, cold or without medicine due to their ability to participate.

However, it is insulting to me, to have people tell me what my prices should be because THEY don't want to pay more. I told em back then, fine - do not buy it - I didn't spend upwards of couple hundred hours and 2K plat to give away the fruits. Either I get something I consider their 'value' or I don't sell them. Worked for me, since I never buy anything (I always want to level a crafter to make it myself) outside of bags in MMOs anyhow (DAoC and axes for my main aside - those were the ONLY item I ever bought from a crafter - I am a HUGE alt-guy and liek to do everything) money is nearly meaningless other than as a thing to 'collect' for fun (and for needed things like mounts or rent in this game should I buy a plot) etc.

So as to the "Mafias" I applaud their idea if not their method of carrying it out (assuming this 'shunning' is offensive vs simply not selling them anything - you see no one is REQUIRED to sell anyone anything - the shunned character ASSUMING no one EVER sells him craft stuff, can simply create and level another crafter to make it or just fool others by buying it via a 'shell corpo...errr..character' duh ;P)

The one temptation I had after DAoC for playing a full pvp sever is thinking about real merchant-unions with strongarm mercs enforcing on sellers who 'don't get it' hehe - actually in Eve, I participated in tranport/selling (I like SEPARATED markets not continental or world wide borkers ) and in hiring out my stealth-guild's assets to harras market-breakers. I took the contracts only after invesitgating the seller, mainly cos I was still recently from DaoC (about a year prior) and disliked that practice. Basically I played Eve as a simulater and fooled around with shadow-guilds. Was fun but I like Fantasy way more and truth be told, all the buy-selling and dealing was way too much like real life. I worked as a dev in a big name Wall St firm at that time if I recall my timeframes (assuming Eve was out around 9/11 time? I have a notoriously bad memory - praise heaven for whiteboards)