B
BadJelly
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- Thread starter
- #31
Some people.....
Having done 2 full MP cloth suits now I feel somewhat qualified to comment on this subject.
Both these suits came in at well under 15x base cost, in one case 12.5x and in the other 7.5x. The reason? Well that’s what it cost me to make them. I don’t work on a fixed price basis simply because I don’t believe it is realistic to do so.
It took me 325 attempts to get the MP gloves for one of these suits. That’s 325 x 4gp loss each time – ie 1.3 plat. Had I had suitably bad luck on the rest of the suit, it would have cost 520plat. Unlikely I know, but even at 15x you are banking on better luck than you deserve.
If people decide to charge a fixed price then that’s their right. If the price is cheap they will go out of business, if it’s too expensive then they will go out of business. Simple market economics will dictate the price of items regardless of the cost. It’s these differences that make crafting interesting – the buzz from winning an order and seeing a happy customer is addictive, to me at least.
These MP suits though were for guildies so the profit was negligible. Do I feel justified charging a few hundred gold (or more) in pure profit for my time if working on an MP suit for a non-guildie? Damn right I do. Does this all get ploughed back into the crafting? Again – in my case it does. I can’t name one crafter who I’m aware of who has a huge bank balance. Maybe they exist, but I can’t think of an occasion where one has ever boasted about huge wealth.
I’m the no.3 Albion tailor right now (ok simply by alphabetic order I know, but not for long). I’m making top tier armours for hundreds of gold a time. In cammy recently I’ve been making armour for level 20’s or lower – in a number of cases not charging for the time or the materials. The profit you make on the big stuff is what pays for this sort of thing.
In general I think crafters do provide a service and a good one at that. Aussie just to be clear on something – I’m doing a 99% studded set right now. Do you actually have even the faintest idea how long that takes? Run to excel, buy materials (hugely heavy lots of metal) which in my case cos of low STR involves guild help. Run to Cammy, make studs, make armour. Damn vest not good enough, even though it’s used a sh*t load of leather and studs. Ho hum, try again. 4 tries later – ho hum, out of leather, back up to excel then… etc etc etc FOR HOURS AND HOURS!!!!
So for you to question the choice of the crafter to be reimbursed for this is clearly the act of someone who does not understand. If you refer to someone on hib selling one cheap, well hey, maybe they made it on attempt 1? Maybe they need the money? Maybe it was given to them from a guild crafter in a guild that doesn’t charge internally? Who knows?
Anyway, rant over. These threads always crop up, and they always will. It’s a free economy and people can charge what they like. If you don’t like the prices then go somewhere else. Some of us (and there are many I can name, Brerras springs to mind but there are others) in the crafting world are not out to rip ppl off and put real effort into providing a quality service (from price, to effort, to conversation etc).
Get yerself a legendary tag and then come talk to us.
BJ
Having done 2 full MP cloth suits now I feel somewhat qualified to comment on this subject.
Both these suits came in at well under 15x base cost, in one case 12.5x and in the other 7.5x. The reason? Well that’s what it cost me to make them. I don’t work on a fixed price basis simply because I don’t believe it is realistic to do so.
It took me 325 attempts to get the MP gloves for one of these suits. That’s 325 x 4gp loss each time – ie 1.3 plat. Had I had suitably bad luck on the rest of the suit, it would have cost 520plat. Unlikely I know, but even at 15x you are banking on better luck than you deserve.
If people decide to charge a fixed price then that’s their right. If the price is cheap they will go out of business, if it’s too expensive then they will go out of business. Simple market economics will dictate the price of items regardless of the cost. It’s these differences that make crafting interesting – the buzz from winning an order and seeing a happy customer is addictive, to me at least.
These MP suits though were for guildies so the profit was negligible. Do I feel justified charging a few hundred gold (or more) in pure profit for my time if working on an MP suit for a non-guildie? Damn right I do. Does this all get ploughed back into the crafting? Again – in my case it does. I can’t name one crafter who I’m aware of who has a huge bank balance. Maybe they exist, but I can’t think of an occasion where one has ever boasted about huge wealth.
I’m the no.3 Albion tailor right now (ok simply by alphabetic order I know, but not for long). I’m making top tier armours for hundreds of gold a time. In cammy recently I’ve been making armour for level 20’s or lower – in a number of cases not charging for the time or the materials. The profit you make on the big stuff is what pays for this sort of thing.
In general I think crafters do provide a service and a good one at that. Aussie just to be clear on something – I’m doing a 99% studded set right now. Do you actually have even the faintest idea how long that takes? Run to excel, buy materials (hugely heavy lots of metal) which in my case cos of low STR involves guild help. Run to Cammy, make studs, make armour. Damn vest not good enough, even though it’s used a sh*t load of leather and studs. Ho hum, try again. 4 tries later – ho hum, out of leather, back up to excel then… etc etc etc FOR HOURS AND HOURS!!!!
So for you to question the choice of the crafter to be reimbursed for this is clearly the act of someone who does not understand. If you refer to someone on hib selling one cheap, well hey, maybe they made it on attempt 1? Maybe they need the money? Maybe it was given to them from a guild crafter in a guild that doesn’t charge internally? Who knows?
Anyway, rant over. These threads always crop up, and they always will. It’s a free economy and people can charge what they like. If you don’t like the prices then go somewhere else. Some of us (and there are many I can name, Brerras springs to mind but there are others) in the crafting world are not out to rip ppl off and put real effort into providing a quality service (from price, to effort, to conversation etc).
Get yerself a legendary tag and then come talk to us.
BJ