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I wrote this up after talking to many
crafters and players and realizing a lot of players didn't know what
process a crafter goes through to fill an order. In many cases,
players don't know if they're getting a good deal or not on an order.
I wrote this guide to try and help players understand both the crafting
process from a crafter's perspective and arm them with information so
they can be an educated buyer. Note that terms and locations in
this guide are Hibernia specific but that the economics should apply to
all three realms. |
Cost to Level a Crafter |
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Crafters craft to make items to sell
and increase their skill. There are ten levels of materials used to
make items. Each level corresponds to 100 crafting skill points. Each
level becomes progressively more difficult in both time and money. To
compare, you can level to 200 for about two gold in a little over an
hour. To level out at the 1100 range it takes sometimes 30+ minutes
for a skill point and may cost 300+ gold per point depending on
losses and retries. |
Guild Funding |
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It’s expensive and time consuming to
level as a crafter. For skill point 1-650 in the mundane crafts a crafter can do consignments.
This a slow way to gain skill, but it does pay the way as you level.
However, doing consignments takes upwards of 20 times as long to gain a
single skill point versus power leveling. A guild can help bring a crafter
up in skill much more quickly by funding crafters with donations. As
a crafter I can tell you we’re always worried about money. I’ve know high
40s characters with less than a gold to their name because they’ve spent
it all on crafting. Funding from a guild can help crafters reach a high
skill level more quickly so they are able to craft those coveted higher
quality and level items. |
Time to Craft |
The amount of time it takes to make an
order involves several factors:
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Location of Materials
Materials for crafting are located in several places. Levels 1-5 are
easy and are in TNN. These materials will make items for characters up
to level 25. You can sit and craft all day long because everything you
need is right there. After level five you have to go to different
locations spread across Hibernia for your materials. Various level 6&7
components can be found in Innis Carthaig, Mag Mel, Ardee and Basar.
Level’s 8-10 are found only in two locations in classic Hibernia; Dun Cruachon (when
you
own it) and the relic keeps. For the Shrouded Isles expansion
this situation has improved greatly with material tiers 1-8,
forge/lathe and a vault in Domnann Grove. Aalid Feie is just
about Crafter's Heaven with all 10 tiers of materials, forge/lathe and
vault.
Location of Forge/Lathe
Crafters have to go to the locations
above to get materials for the items you ordered. These
materials may or may not be near a forge and/or lathe. After the
crafter gets the materials they may have to go to another location to
craft. For example, relic keeps have no forges. In addition, crafters
are limited by the amount of materials they can carry. Orders with
quality retries may take several trips.
Coordinating With Other Crafters
For scale armor orders, a tailor and an armorcrafter have to work
together. The tailor makes the leather underpinnings and the
armorcrafter scales the leather pieces. Armorcrafters can raise their
skill in tailoring only to 75% of their level in armorcrafting and
many don’t ever get close to that high because it’s expensive enough
leveling one skill line up. In most cases an armorcrafter alone can’t
fill scale orders. This can take time and coordination between
armorcrafter and tailor. This is especially true when the tailor has
to go to a location like the Relic Keep to get materials for high-end
orders.
Craft Time Including Retries
With materials and forge at hand now the crafter makes the order. This
can take a bit of time depending on the level of the item with respect
to the crafter’s level. If you’ve ordered an item at the top of their
crafting range it may take several retries on the pieces. In
addition, some people request items of a certain quality or higher.
The time to do remakes is significant and may even have the crafter
heading back out to get materials a second or third time in some
cases.
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Materials Costs |
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An item has a certain materials cost to
it. There are some great spreadsheets on how much it costs to make
player crafted items. Of particular note is Keltor’s comprehensive
spreadsheet:
http://www.kwyk.net/keltor/tradeskill.html. It’s a complex
spreadsheet so if you want something a bit more straightforward try out
Sstair’s interactive Armor website. Two other sites I use
frequently include The Harms
and Sstair's Armor Pricing I’ve heard so many
stories where people state a crafter ripped someone off with an item. Do
your research, know the materials cost of an item or armor set prior to
ordering it. |
Materials Losses |
There are two ways a crafter may have
material losses when making an item for you. For any given item the
materials needed don’t match up exactly to the material lots a crafter
has to purchase. For example, an item needing 14 strips, 34 leather
squares and 15 thread would need 20 strips, 40 leather and 20 thread in
purchased material lots. After making the item(s) the crafter may not
need the excess materials. This is especially true if the level of
materials isn’t something the crafter is currently leveling in. No one
has room in their vault to store stacks of all types and levels of
materials so this means the crafter must sell back the overage at a
loss. Selling raw materials to a vendor will return 50% of the purchase
price. It is possible to trinket some of these items to get back
more of the money from them but that takes additional time.
The second way a crafter can lose money is with critical losses. This
happens only if the item you’re requesting is still difficult for the
crafter to make. Losses can be in the form of raw materials or crafted
components in a multi-stage item like weapons or scale armor. Losses can
be significant and can eat all the profit a crafter may have made on a
particular order.
Bottom line, when you look at the cost including profit margin in
preparation to place an order, keep in mind that the profit listed there
is an ideal profit and that in many cases the crafter may make much less
in profit or even possibly lose money in the case of a critical loss. |
Pricing |
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What is a reasonable price for an item?
Different crafters offer different prices. Some crafters base it on a
percentage of what the merchants would or do sell the item for. Some do
a percentage markup over materials cost. What if you want a certain
quality and want to reroll the item for a guaranteed quality? Some
crafters offer lower prices for guild members and higher prices for the
general public. Most crafters offer a price that is very reasonable
given the time and investment they have put into their crafting and the
time it will take for them to fill your order. If you want to know a
breakdown on the price, ask the crafter. Most will tell you what they
charge and why. Again, refer to the spreadsheets and do your homework in
advance. |
Funding Through Item Salvaging |
A crafter who has made a significant
investment in their skill can make money on items drops. They can
salvage armor and weapons to some of their base material components. In
many cases a crafter can turn an item into a significantly larger amount
of cash than the amount a merchant will pay for the item. To do this the
crafter must first have the skill, and second take the time to go
through a multi-step salvaging process.
Here is a popular salvaging example. Finlaith Firebrand’s are common
drops off Finlaiths. A merchant will pay six gold for a Firebrand.
However, a crafter with metalworking at 700 can salvage the weapon into
diamond metal bars. The diamond metal bars alone sell back to the
merchants for 66 gold. But hold on a minute, remember the remnants story
from above? When you sell base materials back to the merchants you get
only 50% of the true value of the item. If we could turn those metal
bars into a product the vendor would pay more for the goods. It’s like
baking a cake. You can sell a cake for more than the ingredients alone
but you have to take the time to make the cake. In the crafting world
this is called trinketing. A Finlaith Firebrand salvages for 68 diamond
metal bars. A crafter can trinket that into hinges or brackets and sell
the finished products back to the merchant for a total of 151 gold which
is sight better than six gold! Trinketing takes time to do and requires
a significant skill investment but it is a way for a crafter to use
their skill to help fund further crafting. |
Funding Through Darkness Falls Seals |
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Darkness Falls seals are great for
outfitting players with good items. But what do you do with those seals
when you don’t have any more items you want? Share them with other members
of your guild first and if you still have any left over take them to your
nearest crafter. Darkness Falls items have salvaging values just like other
items. This means that a crafter can purchase an item with the seals,
salvage the item, trinket the item and ultimately turn it into money to use
for crafting. If you want to donate to help a crafter or your guild, seals
are a great way to do so. |
Seal and Item Purchasing |
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While guild donations are great, many
crafters are willing to purchase seals and items at either a fixed price or
a portion of their value. If you have items or seals you want to sell ask a
crafter if they’re interested in purchasing them. |
Guild-Funded Crafters - Expectations |
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Everyone in the guild who has donated
their hard earned gold and seals should be appreciated and thanked. Guild
funding is to help crafters achieve a higher crafting level and any guild
member who helps their guild crafters with donations helping out the whole
guild. To level quickly a crafter makes the same item over and over and
resells to the merchants at a loss. You basically eat money to level. Keep
in mind that guild funding is not so guild members can get items for free
or at a substantial discount below materials cost from guild-funded
crafters. A crafter would go out of business in no time flat with that
system. |
Placing a Crafting Order - Expectations |
So, you want to place an order with a
crafter. What do you do and expect?
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- First, check the base price for what
you want to order. If you don’t know what level or type of item you need
you can ask a crafter. They’re good at helping out since they’ve done
this a lot.
- Find a crafter that can make the
item for you.
- Ask the price for the order.
This is where a lot of people think they’re being ripped off. Think about
how much time it’s going to take this person to make the order for you.
Everyone plays the game and we all want to get XP, realm points, to hunt
for gold, etc. They’re taking time to make you an item. They have to get
the materials, possibly coordinate with another crafter for base items,
make the items and meet up with you to deliver the goods. They may
possibly sustain critical losses and have to resell material remnants at
a 50% loss. In general, it will take five minutes to an hour to fill an
order. When you think about the price think about how much XP, realm
points or gold you could have made in that same time. You may be
surprised at how little profit many of the crafters make given the time
investment. If the crafter is still leveling you can bet that
profit will also go right back into crafting as well.
- Do what you can to help the crafter.
If you’re asking for a low level item ask the crafter if you can pick up
the materials for them. Low level items take time to make but even at a
50% markup make virtually no money for the crafter. If you’re willing to
meet them with the materials they can make the item for you quickly. Most
crafters are very appreciative of this kind of offer.
- If the crafter can’t get to the
order immediately remember that they pay to play the game too. Most
crafters entered into the crafting profession because they like to help
people. But dropping what you’re doing is no fun if you’re getting great
XP or racking up on realm points.
- And lastly, when your order is
complete, tip the crafter if you’d like. Most crafters are very
appreciative of tips. You pick, tipping is always optional.
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Summary |
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I never thought I'd like crafting but now
that I've started I'm hopelessly addicted. Good luck to you with your
crafting. If you have
questions you can email me at
pharaoh@guardiansofvalor.com |
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Last revision: 2/18/2003
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