How to Fix Provisioners so that Everybody WINS

zDocW · 02-11-2005, 11:35 PM

I am a level 49 provisioner so have some idea of what I am talking about.

I see from the latest test update notes that there are some, very Provisioner specific changes in the pipeline which have made a few people upset. I can understand why people are upset about being largely forced to go with crafted food/drink. However a lot of people think this will benefit provisioners and I do not agree with that.

Let me explain why.

Right now the ONLY way I can make any kind of money to justify the time and effort I spent getting my craft to 49 is to do Writs and Workshop tasks. With the proposed nerf to these - I personally doubt they will be worth the effort. Effectively I can see me stopping playing my provisioner and goint adventuring or just giving up entirely.

So, I am a provisioner you say - why don't I make provisions and sell them for a little profit, make money that way and benefit my community?

My answer - I would love to do just that! After all that is the reason I started a provisioner in the first place, make some money for me and provide a service to the community. I believe that is the main reason why any crafter takes up a trade.

The reasons why I am not doing this and won't be in the future (except for friends) is very simple - TIME and COST but mainly TIME. As an example right now I have just finished crafting some T5 creamed coffee for a friend. This is one of the few drinks I am prepared to make and I foolishly agreed to do 2 stacks. That is 40 drinks - not an unreasonable amount to order for a full time adventurer. That might give him 50 hours of play time so for a reasonably active player I can expect him to come back in about a week. Now in terms of time it has taken roughly 2 hours of my time to make these. He is also going to require T5 food - that will be at least another 2 hours of my time.

That is 4 hours of my time per week for 1 player! Every week!

As an active player I could probably support 10 players, if I do nothing else except craft for 40-50 hours a week! How much should I charge for this service? Well to answer that lets look at my market - adventures in their 40's. Since I am not one of them I can only go on what I read on forums and see in game to have an idea of what an adventurer can make per day. Let's be a bit conservative and say a high level adventurer can make about 40g a day (I've heard this is closer to 50g+). That is about 280g a week so that is 2.8pp.

As I high level crafter I should therefore expect to make at least that as well. What do I have to charge then to make this?

Excluding all my material costs completely I would have to charge 7 gold per stack of food or drink. Purely as MARKUP. Right now my raw harvests cost me at least 4g a stack. If the new fuel costs go in that will be at least 6g a stack fuel costs. Plus there are some other misc. items like liquid, dough etc which we can largely ignore for this calculation.

I will therefore have to charge 17g a stack, that is almost 1g a drink/food item - just to earn what a high level adventurer would earn in the same amount of time.

That is an amount that I forsee a LOT of people complaining about and calling provisioners greedy etc. Hmmm - do I really want to be called that or have people thinking that about me when I am only earning about the same or less than an adventurer of equivalent level - I don't think so. :smileysad:

But the story does not end there I am afraid.

Remember the above numbers are for me just standing there full time 50 hours a week staring at a stove and pressing buttons every 4 seconds to counter events or try to get getter quality. Would YOU want to do that?

Well ... maybe ... I can't speak for you but I know that for me to do that I want a lot more compensation (i.e. money) to even consider doing that for most of my EQ2 life.

And quite frankly I don't care how much money I was getting I wouldn't want to do that ALL the time.

So.....how to fix this problem. Well very simply in my opinion, and a lot of other people have suggested this as well.

Allow Provisoners to make Multiple Items per Final Combine.

So simple an idea yet is solves so many problems. I as a provisioner can spend far less time behind the stove crafting what is really a required commodity. I can still make decent money by charging far less per item. I can supply far more people with, again I emphasize, what is a required item and I can have more spare time to try other crafts and explore the world.

Everyone WINS!

aeio · 02-11-2005, 11:43 PM

I think you are looking at this wrong way.While you see potentially spending 4 hours a week on one customer, I see this as a good thing, as long as it can be made profitable.The biggest problem MMOGs have is that there are too many suppliers in relation to customers. If there are 500 provisioners on a server with 10,000 players, that means each one has access to 20 customers. If each provisioner can crank out enough product for 500 players, that is a disaster.So actually they got the time aspect right. By limiting your ability to supply the market, they are leaving room for more players to fill the role of provisioner. This has to be done, because regardless people will do it. It helps you in the long run, because you are not all stepping all over each other.Of course this is only viable if you can do it and make some money at it. How much is up for debate...But if truely takes that long to make that much food for a person, it sounds like it is on the right track.If it took you 5 minutes to do that, you could play 40 hours a week and supply 480 hardcore players instead of 20, it would ultimately be a mess. Because every other provisioner would be able to service 480 hardcore players. It doesn't take many provisioners at that rate before the market is over-saturated and you can't give your product away.

Tarindel · 02-11-2005, 11:48 PM

I think the original poster is on the right track. As it is now, assuming 1 min/combine and 2 combines/drink, it takes 40 minutes just to create 1 stack of food or drinks (80 minutes for 1 stack of each). For casual players, that leaves NO time for creating of food and drink for other players... The only people putting food and drink on the market would be the hardcore players and botters, and food would be as expensive as it is now.I do not think this is what SOE had in mind. Provisioners need to be able to create food in batches of 4, so casual crafters can produce enough for other players to use, and the supply can push prices to a point where casual adventurers can afford it.

Bunglem · 02-11-2005, 11:53 PM

zDocWho wrote:

Well to answer that lets look at my market - adventures in their 40's. Since I am not one of them I can only go on what I read on forums and see in game to have an idea of what an adventurer can make per day. Let's be a bit conservative and say a high level adventurer can make about 40g a day (I've heard this is closer to 50g+). That is about 280g a week so that is 2.8pp.

Is this a fact or are you just making this up? I have a hard time believing it... as an adventurer at level 30 I make about 20s/hour. I have a hard time believing that I could make 200x that amount in 10 levels. Obviously I don't know firsthand, just wondering if this is really the case.

Ceruline · 02-11-2005, 11:56 PM

aeiouy-Yes the current approach leaves room for new provisioners. However, to provide an adequate supply roughly 1/5 of all players would have to be DEDICATED provisioners. I have to disagree strongly with you that they got the ratio right here. Quadrupling the yield of provisioner recipes would still leave plenty of room more crafters, the demand is so great.Yield changes are sorely needed (I've put forth my rationale in another thread already) and will benefit ALL players if they are put in.

BWShellShocked · 02-12-2005, 12:01 AM

I'm a lvl 40 full time Provisioner. The OP is spot on, as far as what it costs and takes in terms of time for a Prov to make anything. I can't speak to the numbers an adventurer makes per day, but if they are wrong, they are not wrong by much. Adventurers are the main harvesters of the game, and based upon how much the harvests sell for, I can easily see how an adventurer can make that kind of money. Then, of course, you have the loot drops they are able to sell as well. As a full time crafter, I only have one main source of income, and that being exactly as the OP states. Tasks and writs.

I am unable to fully utilize the online vendor model we currently have as our only real way of selling our wares. One PC, 5 family members. When I'm not on the PC, someone else is. When I am on, someone else is waiting to use it. When I'm at work, my wife is using it. When the kids come home from school, they are using it. DHCP resets each night prevent me from remaining in vendor mode while everyone is asleep, coupled with the $20-25 per month increase in electricity each month, by leaving the PC on 24x7. For someone on dialup, I can see this as being the same situation. DSL users have DHCP resets every 8 hrs (in my part of the country, anyways). Looking at the amount of vendors online at any given time, I can safely assume that the majority are in the same situation.

Provisioners that are forced out of crafting and into adventuring will only be crafting for themselves, further reducing an already scarce supply. The money I made from writs and tasks allowed me to basically suppliment/offset the price I do sell (when I have the time to do so). I didn't have to worry about making a sizeable profit because selling my wares is not my main source of income. This allowed me to sell at basically cost (10-40s), and the majority of those that bought from me found my prices fair and reasonable (after explaining how long it takes to make, harvest, etc., of course). There are always some that complain no matter what the price, but for the most part, people understand the situation. By removing our main source of income, many of us will no longer be able to afford to dedicate the time/effort to supply the market.

If we are to continue playing the game, we will have to find an alternate source of income. That will come from only one of two places. Either we abandon our crafting and become adventurers OR we raise prices to the point that only the elite few will be able to afford our wares. There are no other options for us.

Most provisioners will be forced into adventuring to make money, harvesters will no longer have much of a market for their harvests, as we will have no real income or even a need to buy those harvests. Those that remain full time provisioners will be forced to harvest their own (I do that already, as I can't afford the cost of vendor bought goods), further destroying the income of the adventurer. If adventurers have no money, or severely reduced income as crafters will, they will not be able to afford to purchase crafted food/drink, if they can even find any available.

As a provisioner, I can't speak much about the difficulties of interdependancies. I know they sound pretty rough, but I also know that based upon the posts in response to this latest change, most do not sound as if they wanted the whole thing scrapped. It needed to be fixed, not removed, is what I'm finding to be the majority opinion. Again, I have no experience to base any opinion on with this issue, so I will have to defer to those that do. I can say that I've never had a problem with the idea that they may introduce some form of interdependency for us, but only if they significantly reduced the amount of time it takes us to produce food/drink, either by giving us mulitple yields, or increasing progress/durability via buffs. If they did that, then the added time of having to find our items we need to purchase from other tradeskillers should, in theory balance out the additional time requirement to produce our product. As it stands, without the interdependency, I've always assumed our lack of muliple yields, and the huge time it takes us to produce minimal amounts of product were designed to be that balance.

If/when they modify the vendor system to allow us to sell either offline (doubtful), or online but while we are actively crafting, I think the market will find plenty of food/drink available via vendors. Pricing of said food/drink, however, is another issue entirely. With the new patch, the increases in fuel costs, coupled with the removal of our primary source of income will only make matters worse, not better. Our harvest nodes (shrub types), spawn far less frequently than others, such as roots and fungi. And our primary ingredients from the shrub harvests, are rarer still. Our primary ingredients (fruit/spice/seasoning, as in fayberry/apple/peach, marjoram/shallots/saffron, cinnamon/honey/cardamon) are required typically 2-3 times each, for a single final combine, yet between failures on harvesting and the rarity of those primary ingredients, makes our particular harvests hard to come by and very expensive on the vendor. For the provisioner that harvests themselves, such as I, it literally takes 3-4 hours just to harvest enough of those primary ingredients to make at most, 3 stacks of finished food or drink. For me, that's an entire weekday night of playing. That leaves zero time to craft for that day. The next day, I then craft those harvested ingredients, and again, 3-4 hours later, I have only 2-3 stacks of finished goods. This is barely enough to supply myself and a few guildmates for a day or two worth of food/drink. This means, I have nothing extra to try to sell via vendor (provided, that I have the time to sit afk in my room, not actually playing the game, to sell my wares). Weekends, when I have 6-8 hrs to play, results in another stack or two above what I can normally make, but that's it. So, as you can see, supply is very much limited simply by the design of our profession.

By simply increasing the likelihood of these types of harvests, will go a long way towards bringing prices down, and increasing supply. Increase supply, and prices will fall. When prices fall, the cost to produce will fall. With a vendor system that is easily available to all player types with differing real life situations, supply of finished goods will increase, driving the cost of the goods down further still. Leaving the writs and tasks paying what they currently pay, allows us to continue to make a decent living, AND allows us to market to the masses at the same time. You will always have the greedy type player that is only interested in amassing enormous amounts of cash. Nothing will ever remove that element from the game. It is just like real life. You have the minority greedy hoarders, and then you have the rest of us, which, are the vast, vast majority. The above will address the majority of issues with the supply/demand economics of the crafting part of the game, and will keep the game fun and enjoyable for most player types. Continue with the current trend of "patches", and the game becomes more like work, frustrating, stressful, and not even close to being fun.

Bottom Line: This recent patch is going to hurt everyone, at all levels, across the board. Its creates a complete circle of economic failure, plain and simple. I honestly hope I'm wrong, I really do, but I truly do not believe that I am.

Message Edited by BWShellShocked on 02-13-2005 12:16 PM

Kamimura · 02-12-2005, 12:06 AM

As a provisioner I totally agree with the OP.

Rave · 02-12-2005, 12:22 AM

Looks like things are going to go the other way. Take a look at our "fix" in the update notes.

It's a good thing they nerfed that summoned food. It was WAY overpowered. SMILEY

zDocW · 02-12-2005, 05:36 AM

One of the things I forgot to mention was the fact that lower tier items still take almost as long to make! Again this issue would be solved by multiple crafted items per combine.

Bhagpuss · 02-12-2005, 05:52 AM

The OP is spot on. I am a 37th provisioner, either the highest or second highest in my guild (I don't keep count). Our guild has around 50 active players, the great majority of whom are adventurers. To keep them all supplied with food and drink would, I estimate, require 3 full time provisioners - that is, provisioners who only craft and only supply the guild, and who are making food and drink every day.

Of course, we have nothing of the kind in our guild. We have me and another provisioner in the 30s (maybe in the 40s now - as I said I don't keep count), both of whom spend maybe 20% of their time crafting and the rest adventuring. I can barely supply myself, the two people I group regualrly with, and the couple of people who give me food and drink raws. There is absolutely no chance that i can supply even a substantial minority of my guild.

In my guild, which is Level 15 with most characters in the 30s and some in the 40s, many people don't currently use player-made food and drink at all. They use vendor bought. This isn't because they don't understand the benefits of player-made food, it's because they cannot afford it, and even if they could afford it there is insufficient supply of it.

If the changes on Test go live, they may be pretty much forced to buy player made or give up. One player has already stated he will give up and I personally would deguild rather than become a guild provisioner that has no time to adventure.

I think this is the tail wagging the dog. Adventuring should be the main part of the game and crafting should be a pastime. Otherwise, if EQ2 is primarily a high-medieaval fantasy small-business simulator then it should be advertised and promoted that way.

As a mid-level provisioner I would prefer that vendor food and drink be increased in effectiveness, not decreased. Let us all get on with the main reason most of us bought the game - adventuring.

Chog · 02-12-2005, 06:15 AM

aeiouy wrote:
I think you are looking at this wrong way.

While you see potentially spending 4 hours a week on one customer, I see this as a good thing, as long as it can be made profitable.

The biggest problem MMOGs have is that there are too many suppliers in relation to customers. If there are 500 provisioners on a server with 10,000 players, that means each one has access to 20 customers. If each provisioner can crank out enough product for 500 players, that is a disaster.

So actually they got the time aspect right. By limiting your ability to supply the market, they are leaving room for more players to fill the role of provisioner. This has to be done, because regardless people will do it. It helps you in the long run, because you are not all stepping all over each other.

Of course this is only viable if you can do it and make some money at it. How much is up for debate...

But if truely takes that long to make that much food for a person, it sounds like it is on the right track.

If it took you 5 minutes to do that, you could play 40 hours a week and supply 480 hardcore players instead of 20, it would ultimately be a mess. Because every other provisioner would be able to service 480 hardcore players. It doesn't take many provisioners at that rate before the market is over-saturated and you can't give your product away.

Ummm.... Not the best with numbers, but I am confused on how you got yours...

If it takes 4 hours to supply 1 person for a week currently and you play 40 hours a week.. so you could supply 10 people a week, where did you get 20 from? Ohh, thats right, that is the number we are supposed to provide for in your example.

So if we allow Provisioners to make 4 drinks per each final combine (like alchemists and WORTS) then we could supply upto 40 people a week doing nothing but crafting for 40 hours, no harvesting just cooking. Where did you get 480 from?

So for a fulltime 40 hour job, Provisioners would be able to supply 40 people a week at a reduced cost to the player. Provisioners are not asking to make a stack of food / drink in 5 minutes. Provisioners are asking to make it worth there time and effort to sell their supplies to other players at a reasonable rate.

Lut · 02-12-2005, 06:17 AM

Wow, id really like to know how lvl 40ish adventuring characters are pulling off 40gp a day?

As far as the drink/food goes I agree.

I want nothing more than to buy crafted drinks and food. But cant afford it. Its not the provi's fault they are forced into selling high to justify creation of the food.

Now SOE has decided that they are gonna drop merchant bought food 66%.... /claps good job /end sarcasm

most of the time when I look on the broker I cant even find the expensive crafted drinks cause they are snatched up...

so now I cant afford/find drinks. The ones I can afford are now being nerfed so they are less than half as effective as well. This is ridiculous.

If your gonna nerf drinks so that players are forced into buying crafted (which is better and we should use these) and not let the choice be up to them, fix provi's food crafting becasue as it stands now you keep hammering stakes into the hearts of your players...

zDocW · 02-12-2005, 06:38 AM

I see there is quite a lot of healthy scepticism about the 40g per day for high level adventurers number I came up with. Let me explain - first of all I am talking about high end 40's (remember I am a level 49 provisioner) as the type of level I am comparing myself to, not a level 40 but more likely a level 48-50.

I have seen the number 50g or more earned mentioned several times in posts on forums.

Most reliably of all, I personally know a level 50 char that makes a lot more than 50g a day! How? Easy, she harvests almost full time and sells most of her resources for 3-5g a stack. I am one of the people that buy from her! It does not take a whole day of harvesting to collect 10+ stacks of T5 harvests to sell and I can assure you she collects a lot more than 10 stacks in a session :smileyvery-happy:

CrimsonAveng · 02-12-2005, 10:58 AM

I agree with the original poster. As is, there is not enough player made drinks on the market. How many times has your guild planned a raid and checked the market for high lvl drinks and oopsie...they arent there. Now, I know I'm not very high level, but I prov part time (3-4 hours a week and have no interest in doing more) and i can only keep me and my alt in stock with drink. I can sell some food but not much. As a part time crafter I ought to able to provision at least some of my guild mates or sell some on the market but with the current system thats's almost impossible part time.

I left SWG b/c it felt like too much work. I do this to relax and have fun, not work. Just give us 4 for a pristine, 3 for a normal and 2 for a savory. Is that too much to ask? It still wont flood the market. I just want to help a few ppl out and I dont have the time right now.In the long run it'll help everybody. And what if the market got flooded with food and drink. Who cares? Prices would go down, provs would still make their profit, and I wouldn't have to wait on that tank or cleric to take a 2min rest break after every fight.

Just my 2c

akuarius · 02-12-2005, 01:02 PM

I'm a provisioner. Oh yeah, just about every person I know is also a provisioner right now...or plans to create a provisioner alt just to be able to afford drinks! I've talked to about a dozen "provisioners" on the stoves in my server (AB), and almost every one of them is just making drinks for themselves or if they are particularly generous, drinks for their guild. I don't know many people that are patient enough to actually sit in front of a stove for over an hour to make a decent stack of drinks only to sell them off so they have to sit in front of a stove for another hour or so to make another stack and so on. I've done the calculations...if it's fun you're after...don't be a provisioner! Buy a screensaver with a picture of a stove on it, and then go buy a few REAL drinks with the extra 15 bucks you save each month by not paying for a game that makes you sit in front of a stove for an hour to make a few fake drinks!This is how bad it is: Instead of making my own drinks, I will more often than not, BUY them from the broker for "ridiculous" prices because I would rather spend imaginary gold than waste REAL time.That's right. I, a provisioner, will pay the sad soul that actually makes drinks, 50s to 1 gold for ONE drink...because I know what a hassle it is to do it myself.For all you naysayers that say provisoners charge too much: Fine! I agree! But you would charge just as much, if not more, if you actually spent hours on end just to make some delectable kill me now pie, or some refreshing SOL cocktails! You do it! Take my job! I'll give it up gladly. You already have one gauranteed customer waiting for your product (me). Because I'm done doing it for myself and my guild. It is just too painful and too [FaarNerfed!] time consuming.I agree 100% with the origional poster. Increase the output amount per recipe just like alchemist subcomponents. Simple solution that would take about 30 seconds of programming (ie, copy alchemy code, paste into provisioner code, done).As far as the second poster is concerned...WRONG. In a free market, people will choose the professions that they consider to pay the most money (OR will do what they enjoy...god forbit it should be fun!)...and when everyone rushes to fill those positions...then there will be a brief glut in the market (agreed). However, as soon as many of the Provisioners that glut the market feel the pain of no income, they will recede and seek other sources of income until the market stabalizes at the perfect supply and demand equilibrium where the product is worth producing to the seller, and worth buying to the consumer. Even if all the provioners leave because there is no money to be made....then they will leave...and shortly thereafter, demand will rise again and that demand will be serviced by the people that will settle for the smaller profits of that demand.As the game stands, it is designed so that you really HAVE to have decent drinks (and food on occasion) otherwise you will hold the rest of the group up by not having enough power in enough time to do you job properly. The game is designed this way, fine. But if it is, then at least make drinks affordable for everyone, and not just rich idiots like me that waste all their time looting and tradeskilling! I hate comparing the RL to the fake world of eq2, but come on. Should ONE drink be more expensive than a sword! or a piece of armour!?A free economy works...controls on it ruin everything. So, placing an arbitrary control on the output volume of a product is just plain stupid...especially on items that are traditinally made in voluminous batches...and even more especially on items that expire very quickly after consuming them! I would much rather spend an hour making 80 drinks than an hour making 20. The extra 60 I make could help my guild...and I might even have some left over to sell on the market for other players to enjoy. As it stands...only the "greedy" have the patience to actually make "extra" drinks to sell. That is why they are so expensive. I personally would NEVER sell my drinks because each one represents like 15 minutes of my time (remember, I have to count the time it takes to harvest, build up my skills, make money to buy recipes, bigger bags, bigger boxes, make all the subcomponents, search for fools that will make my subcomponents, etc).Not all tradeskill classes can be created equally. In the real world, the cook doesn't earn the same kind of money as the jeweler...but the cook enjoys cooking and so does it despite lower incomes. Oh, and the baker charges 5 bucks for a dozen donuts...the jewler charges thousands of dollars for ONE ring. Not everything has to be equal! As a provioner, I would rather earn less money so I could have more time to have FUN. You can take away my gold, but you can't steal my time!

Bhagpuss · 02-12-2005, 04:46 PM

akuarius wrote:

In the real world, the cook doesn't earn the same kind of money as the jeweler

You clearly don't live in the UK, where we have a slew of multi-millionaire celebrity chefs. Jamie Oliver, Delia Smith, Keith Floyd, Aynsley Harriot, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nigella Lawson , their faces gleaming from every tv set night after night, their books piled in huge pyramids in bookshops and supermarkets from one end of the nation to the other. Jamie Oliver is apparently even in line for a Hollywood Biopic.

On the other hand, I don't believe there's a single celebrity jeweller, unless you count Terence Ratner who famously bankrupted his national chain of jeweleers by publicly announcing that his company sold "crap".

Thelah · 02-12-2005, 07:10 PM

zDocWho wrote:

I see there is quite a lot of healthy scepticism about the 40g per day for high level adventurers number I came up with. Let me explain - first of all I am talking about high end 40's (remember I am a level 49 provisioner) as the type of level I am comparing myself to, not a level 40 but more likely a level 48-50.

I have seen the number 50g or more earned mentioned several times in posts on forums.

Most reliably of all, I personally know a level 50 char that makes a lot more than 50g a day! How? Easy, she harvests almost full time and sells most of her resources for 3-5g a stack. I am one of the people that buy from her! It does not take a whole day of harvesting to collect 10+ stacks of T5 harvests to sell and I can assure you she collects a lot more than 10 stacks in a session :smileyvery-happy:

You forgot to consider the overhead with adventuring, like downtime getting a group together, get to where you want to go, deaths, buying upgrades.

At level 40 fighting in zone like RV, I'd make about 1 gold per hour in cash drops at most. Compared to the stack of tier3 3h22m drinks I made and sold for 5 gold in two hours.

Degas · 02-12-2005, 07:10 PM

Bhagpuss wrote:
The OP is spot on. I am a 37th provisioner, either the highest or second highest in my guild (I don't keep count). Our guild has around 50 active players, the great majority of whom are adventurers. To keep them all supplied with food and drink would, I estimate, require 3 full time provisioners - that is, provisioners who only craft and only supply the guild, and who are making food and drink every day.
Of course, we have nothing of the kind in our guild. We have me and another provisioner in the 30s (maybe in the 40s now - as I said I don't keep count), both of whom spend maybe 20% of their time crafting and the rest adventuring. I can barely supply myself, the two people I group regualrly with, and the couple of people who give me food and drink raws. There is absolutely no chance that i can supply even a substantial minority of my guild.
In my guild, which is Level 15 with most characters in the 30s and some in the 40s, many people don't currently use player-made food and drink at all. They use vendor bought. This isn't because they don't understand the benefits of player-made food, it's because they cannot afford it, and even if they could afford it there is insufficient supply of it.
If the changes on Test go live, they may be pretty much forced to buy player made or give up. One player has already stated he will give up and I personally would deguild rather than become a guild provisioner that has no time to adventure.
I think this is the tail wagging the dog. Adventuring should be the main part of the game and crafting should be a pastime. Otherwise, if EQ2 is primarily a high-medieaval fantasy small-business simulator then it should be advertised and promoted that way.
As a mid-level provisioner I would prefer that vendor food and drink be increased in effectiveness, not decreased. Let us all get on with the main reason most of us bought the game - adventuring.

If I could have given you TEN stars, I would have!

Degas · 02-12-2005, 07:15 PM

zDocWho wrote:
I see there is quite a lot of healthy scepticism about the 40g per day for high level adventurers number I came up with. Let me explain - first of all I am talking about high end 40's (remember I am a level 49 provisioner) as the type of level I am comparing myself to, not a level 40 but more likely a level 48-50.

I have seen the number 50g or more earned mentioned several times in posts on forums.

Most reliably of all, I personally know a level 50 char that makes a lot more than 50g a day! How? Easy, she harvests almost full time and sells most of her resources for 3-5g a stack. I am one of the people that buy from her! It does not take a whole day of harvesting to collect 10+ stacks of T5 harvests to sell and I can assure you she collects a lot more than 10 stacks in a session :smileyvery-happy:

I strongly disagree, based on experience. Harvesting 10 stacks of the food/drink resources that Provisioners will buy takes an insane amount of time. At 160+ gathering, in T4 areas, I can put together one stack of something like Wild Apples or Honey in an 8-hour gathering session. This is in Enchanted Lands, where I can basically harvest in rich fields without worrying about agros.Even in a T3 area like TS, the same amount of effort only yields slightly more resources.First, you have to find shrubberies.Second, you have to roll against the game when you harvest.Third, you have to compete against others doing the same thing.Without going into the actual statistics, I can state unequivocally that your statement about harvesting 10+ stacks a day is not correct.

Message Edited by Degasai on 02-12-2005 10:18 AM

Speak · 02-12-2005, 07:25 PM

I am an adventurer. L-34 Mystic. I spend maybe 50% time hunting and 50% time harvesting. I don't mind paying 1 gold for food or drink with 3-5 hours time span. Money is not hard to make. With harvests selling (Tier 4) selling for 3-15 silver each, and vendor trash in EL & Zek selling 20-50 silver I make on average 15-40 gold a night based on 4 hours play time. I broker over night, all resources get purchased. I never have a problem with finding food. So fuel cost go up, and people have to buy more food, this means raw material cost goes up, thats good too. If you understand the game mechanics of making money, its not hard to do well.

zDocW · 02-12-2005, 08:24 PM

Degasai wrote:

zDocWho wrote:

I see there is quite a lot of healthy scepticism about the 40g per day for high level adventurers number I came up with. Let me explain - first of all I am talking about high end 40's (remember I am a level 49 provisioner) as the type of level I am comparing myself to, not a level 40 but more likely a level 48-50.

I have seen the number 50g or more earned mentioned several times in posts on forums.

Most reliably of all, I personally know a level 50 char that makes a lot more than 50g a day! How? Easy, she harvests almost full time and sells most of her resources for 3-5g a stack. I am one of the people that buy from her! It does not take a whole day of harvesting to collect 10+ stacks of T5 harvests to sell and I can assure you she collects a lot more than 10 stacks in a session :smileyvery-happy:

I strongly disagree, based on experience. Harvesting 10 stacks of the food/drink resources that Provisioners will buy takes an insane amount of time. At 160+ gathering, in T4 areas, I can put together one stack of something like Wild Apples or Honey in an 8-hour gathering session. This is in Enchanted Lands, where I can basically harvest in rich fields without worrying about agros.

Even in a T3 area like TS, the same amount of effort only yields slightly more resources.

First, you have to find shrubberies.
Second, you have to roll against the game when you harvest.
Third, you have to compete against others doing the same thing.

Without going into the actual statistics, I can state unequivocally that your statement about harvesting 10+ stacks a day is not correct.
Message Edited by Degasai on 02-12-2005 10:18 AM

Degasi, with all due respect, you are flat out wrong.

And for many reasons:

First of all we are talking about T5 harvesting areas - all harvest nodes are generally a lot more abundant than in lower tiers because not a lot of people can harvest T5 areas.

Secondly She is harvesting ALL nodes, except fungi so can fill up very fast. I agree with you that 10 stacks of food only would take ages :smileysad:

Thirldy I have often harvested personally in high level areas, I am a sub-20 level character and I could still harvest a FULL inventory in about 6-7 hours of solid harvesting in high level areas when I did have to worry about aggro. We are talking 40+ stacks.

I harvested all my own resources for tradeskilling until my early 40's so I harvested a LOT and have a very good idea of what I am talking about. :smileywink:

Finally - I am not making this up - I know the person - she has over 30pp in the bank and a fully furnished luxury apartment. I would give the char name to you, but I don't believe it is my place to do so.

There is a lot of demand for T5 resources of all types. For example until not long ago Severed Teak was selling for 40s each! Thats 8g a stack for a reasonably common T5 resource. :smileysurprised:

There are adventurers out there making very serious money. Not all of them but certainly a lot of them. In fact just last night there was a level 50 boasting in channel how he had over 20pp and all ebon armour, nice house etc etc. Purely from adventuring.

Droka · 02-12-2005, 11:35 PM

I don't ever post but as a provisioner I think this is the right idea. Think about it this way, go home and make some koolaid. Then go and make some pasta. Look at what you made. Yes you could drink that over the course of time, but you just made a meal for atleast 2 people if not more. This is only an example but after crafting 5 hours last night and only getting a hand full of things made it helped me realize that this is an issue.

Also I made some antonican coffee and went to sell it on the broker. I was thinking 5sp for coffee and then I thought I wouldn't pay that. I set it at 3sp. Then I thought, well maybe I should see what others are selling it for. 23sp... hmmm I still kept mine at 3sp but I think being able to provide a market with goods will bring the price down and the only way to do that is let people make multiples.

Folks this is a consumable product, everyone needs and everyone uses and goes away. There is always a demand. Lets help the adventurers and give multis. There is a difference between us and alchemist (I have an alchemist as well). alchemist only supply tradesfolk. Provisioners supply everyone..... yep everyone. The demand is easy trippled if not more.

KaraIblis · 02-13-2005, 12:05 AM

I also think that adding more items that can make drinks...or using some items used to make food also make drink would help. there is a terrible imbalance with harvestables atm in food/drink production ratio. mebe one of the fishes could make fish wine ect. on the brokers its rough to get drink most the time, if its not very expensive, then its just not there. but theres always tons of food, cheap and never bought.

zDocW · 02-13-2005, 05:16 AM

I noticed one of the posters said he is a provisioner that buys his food/drink occasionally. I also do this from time to time because of the sheer hassle of making what is a consumable item. In fact I have even bought food/drink in order to complete an order for a guildie, just because it was taking so long!

BWShellShocked · 02-13-2005, 11:02 PM

zDocWho wrote:

I noticed one of the posters said he is a provisioner that buys his food/drink occasionally. I also do this from time to time because of the sheer hassle of making what is a consumable item. In fact I have even bought food/drink in order to complete an order for a guildie, just because it was taking so long!

Full time Lvl 40 Prov here. Ditto, I will *occasionally* purchase the interim drinks and foods, just to speed up the final combine process, and I don't mind helping out the lower level Prov by buying their stuff.

Typically, though, I make junk drinks for myself, 1 combine drink such as coffee, for use while tradeskilling. When I have to go out and harvest, I make better stuff for myself, but only slightly better.. I add milk for creamed, bringing it to 1.5hr duration. I do this because harvesting, for me, is a deadly experience in T4 & T5. T5 I can't really harvest at all, actually, as I haven't found a safe spot where no aggros roam. T4 is pretty tuff as well, but doable. T3, I only rarely die there, and combine my harvesting with doing adventure guild writs (kill footsoldiers, snakes, beetles) so I can slowly progress my adv level, while contributing to the guild, and refilling my harvest coffers.

Talbot · 02-13-2005, 11:26 PM

Personally, and guild wise, when this patch goes in, 5 of us are leaving the game completely. We have all had our fill of game co's screwing us over. we have played every game out and each time same [FaarNerfed!] different day. So, there will be one less jeweler and one less provo, and 5 less adventures in the mix.

Oghi · 02-14-2005, 12:13 AM

46 provisioner here -- and the original post is spot on. It takes forever to make food and drink. *That* is what people undervalue when considering what profit is appropriate. Whether the profit margin is 20% or 200%, I'm not going to spend 2 hours making up a stack of t5 food for 3 gold. Stove and Keg just isn't that exciting to look at.

With the new fuel prices adding 12 gold in costs to a stack of decent t5 provisions, I seriously doubt anyone will buy what I make. Fuel + Ingredients + a reasonable fee for my time will mean 30 - 40 gold/ stack. I don't imagine too many people will line up for that. Those who do may be foolish, as they'll just end up waiting for the three members of their party who *didn't* buy t5 drink to regen their mana between pulls.

Mimzel · 02-14-2005, 04:19 AM

Thelahun wrote:

zDocWho wrote:

I see there is quite a lot of healthy scepticism about the 40g per day for high level adventurers number I came up with. Let me explain - first of all I am talking about high end 40's (remember I am a level 49 provisioner) as the type of level I am comparing myself to, not a level 40 but more likely a level 48-50.

I have seen the number 50g or more earned mentioned several times in posts on forums.

Most reliably of all, I personally know a level 50 char that makes a lot more than 50g a day! How? Easy, she harvests almost full time and sells most of her resources for 3-5g a stack. I am one of the people that buy from her! It does not take a whole day of harvesting to collect 10+ stacks of T5 harvests to sell and I can assure you she collects a lot more than 10 stacks in a session :smileyvery-happy:

You forgot to consider the overhead with adventuring, like downtime getting a group together, get to where you want to go, deaths, buying upgrades.

At level 40 fighting in zone like RV, I'd make about 1 gold per hour in cash drops at most. Compared to the stack of tier3 3h22m drinks I made and sold for 5 gold in two hours.

And, if I may, you forget that most provisioners dont have time to actually produce eatibles 24/7. I have a real life job for starters, and I have family and friends. But most importantly for my in-game career, I dont have unlimited supply of resources (!). As stated earlier in this thread it would take ages gathering stacks of drink resources only. In addition to these factors eating up my time, and placing me away from the stove, I also go out to harvest resources myself. Because Im only interested in certain shrub resources, and I dont have unlimited inventory space, I have to destroy alot of non-provisioner resources (aka no profit).

Actually, lets see what criteria have to be fulfilled b4 I place a stack of drink on the broker:

1) I have enough drink for myself and my adventuring needs
2) I have enough drink to give to my alts
3) I have enough drink to give to my friends (who are more important to me than strangers, of course)
4) Im bored with writs and the gp I get from them... SMILEY
5) I have time left to actually produce another stack of drinks after Ive gone through step 1-4
6) I get paid enough to reimburse me for the hassle it is making drinks for strangers

Conclusion:

|------------time---------------| = 1 -> not enough time to supply the market + goods to valuable to sell / people too poor to buy

|------------time---------------| = 4 -> Surplus of wares that can be placed on the broker, after #1-6 have been fulfilled

Mimzel · 02-14-2005, 04:29 AM

Btw... 500 provisioners per server, taking 4 hours a week to cater the needs of one person each, is roughly equivalent of 500-1000 peoples needs being met. 9/10th of the market have to either go hungry/thristy, or buy npc food/drink.

And all in all I totally agree with the original poster.

Ibis · 02-14-2005, 09:18 AM

food and drink do me very very little good. as a fighter I engage mobs ahead of my group. I notice a small difference when buying tier 5 provisioner stuff from generic stuff but if I can find an enchanter I dont use either food. an enchanter gives me in-combat regen so I can engage at will and truly dungeon crawl. with food I have the fun of sitting between fights to let it work. and I'm fighting 70% of my time I'm drinking. so I actually get the effect of 30% of whatever I spend. personally low end of my shopping list.

02-11-2005, 11:48 PM	#3
Tarindel Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Davis, CA Posts: 43	I think the original poster is on the right track. As it is now, assuming 1 min/combine and 2 combines/drink, it takes 40 minutes just to create 1 stack of food or drinks (80 minutes for 1 stack of each). For casual players, that leaves NO time for creating of food and drink for other players... The only people putting food and drink on the market would be the hardcore players and botters, and food would be as expensive as it is now.I do not think this is what SOE had in mind. Provisioners need to be able to create food in batches of 4, so casual crafters can produce enough for other players to use, and the supply can push prices to a point where casual adventurers can afford it. __________________

02-11-2005, 11:53 PM	#4
Bunglem Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 43	zDocWho wrote: Well to answer that lets look at my market - adventures in their 40's. Since I am not one of them I can only go on what I read on forums and see in game to have an idea of what an adventurer can make per day. Let's be a bit conservative and say a high level adventurer can make about 40g a day (I've heard this is closer to 50g+). That is about 280g a week so that is 2.8pp. Is this a fact or are you just making this up? I have a hard time believing it... as an adventurer at level 30 I make about 20s/hour. I have a hard time believing that I could make 200x that amount in 10 levels. Obviously I don't know firsthand, just wondering if this is really the case. __________________ ----------------------------------------- "Only two things are infinite... the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the former." -Albert Einstein

02-11-2005, 11:56 PM	#5
Ceruline Tester Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 335	aeiouy-Yes the current approach leaves room for new provisioners. However, to provide an adequate supply roughly 1/5 of all players would have to be DEDICATED provisioners. I have to disagree strongly with you that they got the ratio right here. Quadrupling the yield of provisioner recipes would still leave plenty of room more crafters, the demand is so great.Yield changes are sorely needed (I've put forth my rationale in another thread already) and will benefit ALL players if they are put in. __________________ --Pondscum, 70 Shadowknight, Test Server, Fhir Rhuen-- Maybe I used too many monkeys... Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

02-12-2005, 05:52 AM	#10
Bhagpuss Tester Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 347	The OP is spot on. I am a 37th provisioner, either the highest or second highest in my guild (I don't keep count). Our guild has around 50 active players, the great majority of whom are adventurers. To keep them all supplied with food and drink would, I estimate, require 3 full time provisioners - that is, provisioners who only craft and only supply the guild, and who are making food and drink every day. Of course, we have nothing of the kind in our guild. We have me and another provisioner in the 30s (maybe in the 40s now - as I said I don't keep count), both of whom spend maybe 20% of their time crafting and the rest adventuring. I can barely supply myself, the two people I group regualrly with, and the couple of people who give me food and drink raws. There is absolutely no chance that i can supply even a substantial minority of my guild. In my guild, which is Level 15 with most characters in the 30s and some in the 40s, many people don't currently use player-made food and drink at all. They use vendor bought. This isn't because they don't understand the benefits of player-made food, it's because they cannot afford it, and even if they could afford it there is insufficient supply of it. If the changes on Test go live, they may be pretty much forced to buy player made or give up. One player has already stated he will give up and I personally would deguild rather than become a guild provisioner that has no time to adventure. I think this is the tail wagging the dog. Adventuring should be the main part of the game and crafting should be a pastime. Otherwise, if EQ2 is primarily a high-medieaval fantasy small-business simulator then it should be advertised and promoted that way. As a mid-level provisioner I would prefer that vendor food and drink be increased in effectiveness, not decreased. Let us all get on with the main reason most of us bought the game - adventuring.

02-12-2005, 06:15 AM	#11
Chog General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 475	aeiouy wrote: I think you are looking at this wrong way. While you see potentially spending 4 hours a week on one customer, I see this as a good thing, as long as it can be made profitable. The biggest problem MMOGs have is that there are too many suppliers in relation to customers. If there are 500 provisioners on a server with 10,000 players, that means each one has access to 20 customers. If each provisioner can crank out enough product for 500 players, that is a disaster. So actually they got the time aspect right. By limiting your ability to supply the market, they are leaving room for more players to fill the role of provisioner. This has to be done, because regardless people will do it. It helps you in the long run, because you are not all stepping all over each other. Of course this is only viable if you can do it and make some money at it. How much is up for debate... But if truely takes that long to make that much food for a person, it sounds like it is on the right track. If it took you 5 minutes to do that, you could play 40 hours a week and supply 480 hardcore players instead of 20, it would ultimately be a mess. Because every other provisioner would be able to service 480 hardcore players. It doesn't take many provisioners at that rate before the market is over-saturated and you can't give your product away. Ummm.... Not the best with numbers, but I am confused on how you got yours... If it takes 4 hours to supply 1 person for a week currently and you play 40 hours a week.. so you could supply 10 people a week, where did you get 20 from? Ohh, thats right, that is the number we are supposed to provide for in your example. So if we allow Provisioners to make 4 drinks per each final combine (like alchemists and WORTS) then we could supply upto 40 people a week doing nothing but crafting for 40 hours, no harvesting just cooking. Where did you get 480 from? So for a fulltime 40 hour job, Provisioners would be able to supply 40 people a week at a reduced cost to the player. Provisioners are not asking to make a stack of food / drink in 5 minutes. Provisioners are asking to make it worth there time and effort to sell their supplies to other players at a reasonable rate. __________________ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances."--Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina

02-11-2005, 11:35 PM	#1
zDocW General Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 83	I am a level 49 provisioner so have some idea of what I am talking about. I see from the latest test update notes that there are some, very Provisioner specific changes in the pipeline which have made a few people upset. I can understand why people are upset about being largely forced to go with crafted food/drink. However a lot of people think this will benefit provisioners and I do not agree with that. Let me explain why. Right now the ONLY way I can make any kind of money to *justify* the time and effort I spent getting my craft to 49 is to do Writs and Workshop tasks. With the proposed nerf to these - I personally doubt they will be worth the effort. Effectively I can see me stopping playing my provisioner and goint adventuring or just giving up entirely. So, I am a provisioner you say - why don't I make provisions and sell them for a little profit, make money that way and benefit my community? My answer - I would love to do just that! After all that is the reason I started a provisioner in the first place, make some money for me and provide a service to the community. I believe that is the main reason why any crafter takes up a trade. The reasons why I am not doing this and won't be in the future (except for friends) is very simple - TIME and COST but mainly TIME. As an example right now I have just finished crafting some T5 creamed coffee for a friend. This is one of the few drinks I am prepared to make and I foolishly agreed to do 2 stacks. That is 40 drinks - not an unreasonable amount to order for a full time adventurer. That might give him 50 hours of play time so for a reasonably active player I can expect him to come back in about a week. Now in terms of time it has taken roughly 2 hours of my time to make these. He is also going to require T5 food - that will be at least another 2 hours of my time. *That is 4 hours of my time per week for 1 player! Every week!* As an active player I could probably support 10 players, if I do nothing else except craft for 40-50 hours a week! How much should I charge for this service? Well to answer that lets look at my market - adventures in their 40's. Since I am not one of them I can only go on what I read on forums and see in game to have an idea of what an adventurer can make per day. Let's be a bit conservative and say a high level adventurer can make about 40g a day (I've heard this is closer to 50g+). That is about 280g a week so that is 2.8pp. As I high level crafter I should therefore expect to make at least that as well. What do I have to charge then to make this? Excluding all my material costs completely I would have to charge 7 gold per stack of food or drink. Purely as MARKUP. Right now my raw harvests cost me at least 4g a stack. If the new fuel costs go in that will be at least 6g a stack fuel costs. Plus there are some other misc. items like liquid, dough etc which we can largely ignore for this calculation. I will therefore have to charge 17g a stack, that is almost 1g a drink/food item - just to earn what a high level adventurer would earn in the same amount of time. That is an amount that I forsee a LOT of people complaining about and calling provisioners greedy etc. Hmmm - do I really want to be called that or have people thinking that about me when I am only earning about the same or less than an adventurer of equivalent level - I don't think so. :smileysad: But the story does not end there I am afraid. Remember the above numbers are for me just standing there full time 50 hours a week staring at a stove and pressing buttons every 4 seconds to counter events or try to get getter quality. Would YOU want to do that? Well ... maybe ... I can't speak for you but I know that for me to do that I want a lot more compensation (i.e. money) to even consider doing that for most of my EQ2 life. And quite frankly I don't care how much money I was getting I wouldn't want to do that ALL the time. So.....how to fix this problem. Well very simply in my opinion, and a lot of other people have suggested this as well. Allow Provisoners to make Multiple Items per Final Combine. So simple an idea yet is solves so many problems. I as a provisioner can spend far less time behind the stove crafting what is really a required commodity. I can still make decent money by charging far less per item. I can supply far more people with, again I emphasize, what is a required item and I can have more spare time to try other crafts and explore the world. Everyone WINS!

02-11-2005, 11:43 PM	#2
aeio Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 267	I think you are looking at this wrong way.While you see potentially spending 4 hours a week on one customer, I see this as a good thing, as long as it can be made profitable.The biggest problem MMOGs have is that there are too many suppliers in relation to customers. If there are 500 provisioners on a server with 10,000 players, that means each one has access to 20 customers. If each provisioner can crank out enough product for 500 players, that is a disaster.So actually they got the time aspect right. By limiting your ability to supply the market, they are leaving room for more players to fill the role of provisioner. This has to be done, because regardless people will do it. It helps you in the long run, because you are not all stepping all over each other.Of course this is only viable if you can do it and make some money at it. How much is up for debate...But if truely takes that long to make that much food for a person, it sounds like it is on the right track.If it took you 5 minutes to do that, you could play 40 hours a week and supply 480 hardcore players instead of 20, it would ultimately be a mess. Because every other provisioner would be able to service 480 hardcore players. It doesn't take many provisioners at that rate before the market is over-saturated and you can't give your product away.

02-12-2005, 12:01 AM	#6
BWShellShocked Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 29	I'm a lvl 40 full time Provisioner. The OP is spot on, as far as what it costs and takes in terms of time for a Prov to make anything. I can't speak to the numbers an adventurer makes per day, but if they are wrong, they are not wrong by much. Adventurers are the main harvesters of the game, and based upon how much the harvests sell for, I can easily see how an adventurer can make that kind of money. Then, of course, you have the loot drops they are able to sell as well. As a full time crafter, I only have one main source of income, and that being exactly as the OP states. Tasks and writs. I am unable to fully utilize the online vendor model we currently have as our only real way of selling our wares. One PC, 5 family members. When I'm not on the PC, someone else is. When I am on, someone else is waiting to use it. When I'm at work, my wife is using it. When the kids come home from school, they are using it. DHCP resets each night prevent me from remaining in vendor mode while everyone is asleep, coupled with the $20-25 per month increase in electricity each month, by leaving the PC on 24x7. For someone on dialup, I can see this as being the same situation. DSL users have DHCP resets every 8 hrs (in my part of the country, anyways). Looking at the amount of vendors online at any given time, I can safely assume that the majority are in the same situation. Provisioners that are forced out of crafting and into adventuring will only be crafting for themselves, further reducing an already scarce supply. The money I made from writs and tasks allowed me to basically suppliment/offset the price I do sell (when I have the time to do so). I didn't have to worry about making a sizeable profit because selling my wares is not my main source of income. This allowed me to sell at basically cost (10-40s), and the majority of those that bought from me found my prices fair and reasonable (after explaining how long it takes to make, harvest, etc., of course). There are always some that complain no matter what the price, but for the most part, people understand the situation. By removing our main source of income, many of us will no longer be able to afford to dedicate the time/effort to supply the market. If we are to continue playing the game, we will have to find an alternate source of income. That will come from only one of two places. Either we abandon our crafting and become adventurers OR we raise prices to the point that only the elite few will be able to afford our wares. There are no other options for us. Most provisioners will be forced into adventuring to make money, harvesters will no longer have much of a market for their harvests, as we will have no real income or even a need to buy those harvests. Those that remain full time provisioners will be forced to harvest their own (I do that already, as I can't afford the cost of vendor bought goods), further destroying the income of the adventurer. If adventurers have no money, or severely reduced income as crafters will, they will not be able to afford to purchase crafted food/drink, if they can even find any available. As a provisioner, I can't speak much about the difficulties of interdependancies. I know they sound pretty rough, but I also know that based upon the posts in response to this latest change, most do not sound as if they wanted the whole thing scrapped. It needed to be fixed, not removed, is what I'm finding to be the majority opinion. Again, I have no experience to base any opinion on with this issue, so I will have to defer to those that do. I can say that I've never had a problem with the idea that they may introduce some form of interdependency for us, but only if they significantly reduced the amount of time it takes us to produce food/drink, either by giving us mulitple yields, or increasing progress/durability via buffs. If they did that, then the added time of having to find our items we need to purchase from other tradeskillers should, in theory balance out the additional time requirement to produce our product. As it stands, without the interdependency, I've always assumed our lack of muliple yields, and the huge time it takes us to produce minimal amounts of product were designed to be that balance. If/when they modify the vendor system to allow us to sell either offline (doubtful), or online but while we are actively crafting, I think the market will find plenty of food/drink available via vendors. Pricing of said food/drink, however, is another issue entirely. With the new patch, the increases in fuel costs, coupled with the removal of our primary source of income will only make matters worse, not better. Our harvest nodes (shrub types), spawn far less frequently than others, such as roots and fungi. And our primary ingredients from the shrub harvests, are rarer still. Our primary ingredients (fruit/spice/seasoning, as in fayberry/apple/peach, marjoram/shallots/saffron, cinnamon/honey/cardamon) are required typically 2-3 times each, for a single final combine, yet between failures on harvesting and the rarity of those primary ingredients, makes our particular harvests hard to come by and very expensive on the vendor. For the provisioner that harvests themselves, such as I, it literally takes 3-4 hours just to harvest enough of those primary ingredients to make at most, 3 stacks of finished food or drink. For me, that's an entire weekday night of playing. That leaves zero time to craft for that day. The next day, I then craft those harvested ingredients, and again, 3-4 hours later, I have only 2-3 stacks of finished goods. This is barely enough to supply myself and a few guildmates for a day or two worth of food/drink. This means, I have nothing extra to try to sell via vendor (provided, that I have the time to sit afk in my room, not actually playing the game, to sell my wares). Weekends, when I have 6-8 hrs to play, results in another stack or two above what I can normally make, but that's it. So, as you can see, supply is very much limited simply by the design of our profession. By simply increasing the likelihood of these types of harvests, will go a long way towards bringing prices down, and increasing supply. Increase supply, and prices will fall. When prices fall, the cost to produce will fall. With a vendor system that is easily available to all player types with differing real life situations, supply of finished goods will increase, driving the cost of the goods down further still. Leaving the writs and tasks paying what they currently pay, allows us to continue to make a decent living, AND allows us to market to the masses at the same time. You will always have the greedy type player that is only interested in amassing enormous amounts of cash. Nothing will ever remove that element from the game. It is just like real life. You have the minority greedy hoarders, and then you have the rest of us, which, are the vast, vast majority. The above will address the majority of issues with the supply/demand economics of the crafting part of the game, and will keep the game fun and enjoyable for most player types. Continue with the current trend of "patches", and the game becomes more like work, frustrating, stressful, and not even close to being fun. Bottom Line: This recent patch is going to hurt everyone, at all levels, across the board. Its creates a complete circle of economic failure, plain and simple. I honestly hope I'm wrong, I really do, but I truly do not believe that I am. Message Edited by BWShellShocked on 02-13-2005 12:16 PM

02-12-2005, 12:06 AM	#7
Kamimura Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,964	As a provisioner I totally agree with the OP.

02-12-2005, 12:22 AM	#8
Rave Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1	Looks like things are going to go the other way. Take a look at our "fix" in the update notes. It's a good thing they nerfed that summoned food. It was WAY overpowered.

02-12-2005, 05:36 AM	#9
zDocW General Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 83	One of the things I forgot to mention was the fact that lower tier items still take almost as long to make! Again this issue would be solved by multiple crafted items per combine.

02-12-2005, 06:17 AM	#12
Lut General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 55	Wow, id really like to know how lvl 40ish adventuring characters are pulling off 40gp a day? As far as the drink/food goes I agree. I want nothing more than to buy crafted drinks and food. But cant afford it. Its not the provi's fault they are forced into selling high to justify creation of the food. Now SOE has decided that they are gonna drop merchant bought food 66%.... /claps good job /end sarcasm most of the time when I look on the broker I cant even find the expensive crafted drinks cause they are snatched up... so now I cant afford/find drinks. The ones I can afford are now being nerfed so they are less than half as effective as well. This is ridiculous. If your gonna nerf drinks so that players are forced into buying crafted (which is better and we should use these) and not let the choice be up to them, fix provi's food crafting becasue as it stands now you keep hammering stakes into the hearts of your players... __________________

02-12-2005, 06:38 AM	#13
zDocW General Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 83	I see there is quite a lot of healthy scepticism about the 40g per day for high level adventurers number I came up with. Let me explain - first of all I am talking about *high* end 40's (remember I am a level 49 provisioner) as the type of level I am comparing myself to, not a level 40 but more likely a level 48-50. I have seen the number 50g or more earned mentioned several times in posts on forums. Most reliably of all, I personally know a level 50 char that makes a lot more than 50g a day! How? Easy, she harvests almost full time and sells most of her resources for 3-5g a stack. I am one of the people that buy from her! It does not take a whole day of harvesting to collect 10+ stacks of T5 harvests to sell and I can assure you she collects a lot more than 10 stacks in a session :smileyvery-happy:

02-12-2005, 10:58 AM	#14
CrimsonAveng Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 103	I agree with the original poster. As is, there is not enough player made drinks on the market. How many times has your guild planned a raid and checked the market for high lvl drinks and oopsie...they arent there. Now, I know I'm not very high level, but I prov part time (3-4 hours a week and have no interest in doing more) and i can only keep me and my alt in stock with drink. I can sell some food but not much. As a part time crafter I ought to able to provision at least some of my guild mates or sell some on the market but with the current system thats's almost impossible part time. I left SWG b/c it felt like too much work. I do this to relax and have fun, not work. Just give us 4 for a pristine, 3 for a normal and 2 for a savory. Is that too much to ask? It still wont flood the market. I just want to help a few ppl out and I dont have the time right now.In the long run it'll help everybody. And what if the market got flooded with food and drink. Who cares? Prices would go down, provs would still make their profit, and I wouldn't have to wait on that tank or cleric to take a 2min rest break after every fight. Just my 2c __________________ Swampbane: 60 Warlock/60 Jeweler Matador: 62 Defiler/ 60 Provisioner Lexnar: 59 Bruiser/60 Alchemist "Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

02-12-2005, 01:02 PM	#15
akuarius Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 6	I'm a provisioner. Oh yeah, just about every person I know is also a provisioner right now...or plans to create a provisioner alt just to be able to afford drinks! I've talked to about a dozen "provisioners" on the stoves in my server (AB), and almost every one of them is just making drinks for themselves or if they are particularly generous, drinks for their guild. I don't know many people that are patient enough to actually sit in front of a stove for over an hour to make a decent stack of drinks only to sell them off so they have to sit in front of a stove for another hour or so to make another stack and so on. I've done the calculations...if it's fun you're after...don't be a provisioner! Buy a screensaver with a picture of a stove on it, and then go buy a few REAL drinks with the extra 15 bucks you save each month by not paying for a game that makes you sit in front of a stove for an hour to make a few fake drinks!This is how bad it is: Instead of making my own drinks, I will more often than not, BUY them from the broker for "ridiculous" prices because I would rather spend imaginary gold than waste REAL time.That's right. I, a provisioner, will pay the sad soul that actually makes drinks, 50s to 1 gold for ONE drink...because I know what a hassle it is to do it myself.For all you naysayers that say provisoners charge too much: Fine! I agree! But you would charge just as much, if not more, if you actually spent hours on end just to make some delectable kill me now pie, or some refreshing SOL cocktails! You do it! Take my job! I'll give it up gladly. You already have one gauranteed customer waiting for your product (me). Because I'm done doing it for myself and my guild. It is just too painful and too [FaarNerfed!] time consuming.I agree 100% with the origional poster. Increase the output amount per recipe just like alchemist subcomponents. Simple solution that would take about 30 seconds of programming (ie, copy alchemy code, paste into provisioner code, done).As far as the second poster is concerned...WRONG. In a free market, people will choose the professions that they consider to pay the most money (OR will do what they enjoy...god forbit it should be fun!)...and when everyone rushes to fill those positions...then there will be a brief glut in the market (agreed). However, as soon as many of the Provisioners that glut the market feel the pain of no income, they will recede and seek other sources of income until the market stabalizes at the perfect supply and demand equilibrium where the product is worth producing to the seller, and worth buying to the consumer. Even if all the provioners leave because there is no money to be made....then they will leave...and shortly thereafter, demand will rise again and that demand will be serviced by the people that will settle for the smaller profits of that demand.As the game stands, it is designed so that you really HAVE to have decent drinks (and food on occasion) otherwise you will hold the rest of the group up by not having enough power in enough time to do you job properly. The game is designed this way, fine. But if it is, then at least make drinks affordable for everyone, and not just rich idiots like me that waste all their time looting and tradeskilling! I hate comparing the RL to the fake world of eq2, but come on. Should ONE drink be more expensive than a sword! or a piece of armour!?A free economy works...controls on it ruin everything. So, placing an arbitrary control on the output volume of a product is just plain stupid...especially on items that are traditinally made in voluminous batches...and even more especially on items that expire very quickly after consuming them! I would much rather spend an hour making 80 drinks than an hour making 20. The extra 60 I make could help my guild...and I might even have some left over to sell on the market for other players to enjoy. As it stands...only the "greedy" have the patience to actually make "extra" drinks to sell. That is why they are so expensive. I personally would NEVER sell my drinks because each one represents like 15 minutes of my time (remember, I have to count the time it takes to harvest, build up my skills, make money to buy recipes, bigger bags, bigger boxes, make all the subcomponents, search for fools that will make my subcomponents, etc).Not all tradeskill classes can be created equally. In the real world, the cook doesn't earn the same kind of money as the jeweler...but the cook enjoys cooking and so does it despite lower incomes. Oh, and the baker charges 5 bucks for a dozen donuts...the jewler charges thousands of dollars for ONE ring. Not everything has to be equal! As a provioner, I would rather earn less money so I could have more time to have FUN. You can take away my gold, but you can't steal my time!

02-12-2005, 04:46 PM	#16
Bhagpuss Tester Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 347	akuarius wrote: In the real world, the cook doesn't earn the same kind of money as the jeweler You clearly don't live in the UK, where we have a slew of multi-millionaire celebrity chefs. Jamie Oliver, Delia Smith, Keith Floyd, Aynsley Harriot, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nigella Lawson , their faces gleaming from every tv set night after night, their books piled in huge pyramids in bookshops and supermarkets from one end of the nation to the other. Jamie Oliver is apparently even in line for a Hollywood Biopic. On the other hand, I don't believe there's a single celebrity jeweller, unless you count Terence Ratner who famously bankrupted his national chain of jeweleers by publicly announcing that his company sold "crap".

02-12-2005, 07:10 PM	#17
Thelah Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 86	zDocWho wrote: I see there is quite a lot of healthy scepticism about the 40g per day for high level adventurers number I came up with. Let me explain - first of all I am talking about *high* end 40's (remember I am a level 49 provisioner) as the type of level I am comparing myself to, not a level 40 but more likely a level 48-50. I have seen the number 50g or more earned mentioned several times in posts on forums. Most reliably of all, I personally know a level 50 char that makes a lot more than 50g a day! How? Easy, she harvests almost full time and sells most of her resources for 3-5g a stack. I am one of the people that buy from her! It does not take a whole day of harvesting to collect 10+ stacks of T5 harvests to sell and I can assure you she collects a lot more than 10 stacks in a session :smileyvery-happy: You forgot to consider the overhead with adventuring, like downtime getting a group together, get to where you want to go, deaths, buying upgrades. At level 40 fighting in zone like RV, I'd make about 1 gold per hour in cash drops at most. Compared to the stack of tier3 3h22m drinks I made and sold for 5 gold in two hours.

02-12-2005, 07:10 PM	#18
Degas Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 19	Bhagpuss wrote: The OP is spot on. I am a 37th provisioner, either the highest or second highest in my guild (I don't keep count). Our guild has around 50 active players, the great majority of whom are adventurers. To keep them all supplied with food and drink would, I estimate, require 3 full time provisioners - that is, provisioners who only craft and only supply the guild, and who are making food and drink every day. Of course, we have nothing of the kind in our guild. We have me and another provisioner in the 30s (maybe in the 40s now - as I said I don't keep count), both of whom spend maybe 20% of their time crafting and the rest adventuring. I can barely supply myself, the two people I group regualrly with, and the couple of people who give me food and drink raws. There is absolutely no chance that i can supply even a substantial minority of my guild. In my guild, which is Level 15 with most characters in the 30s and some in the 40s, many people don't currently use player-made food and drink at all. They use vendor bought. This isn't because they don't understand the benefits of player-made food, it's because they cannot afford it, and even if they could afford it there is insufficient supply of it. If the changes on Test go live, they may be pretty much forced to buy player made or give up. One player has already stated he will give up and I personally would deguild rather than become a guild provisioner that has no time to adventure. I think this is the tail wagging the dog. Adventuring should be the main part of the game and crafting should be a pastime. Otherwise, if EQ2 is primarily a high-medieaval fantasy small-business simulator then it should be advertised and promoted that way. As a mid-level provisioner I would prefer that vendor food and drink be increased in effectiveness, not decreased. Let us all get on with the main reason most of us bought the game - adventuring. If I could have given you TEN stars, I would have! __________________ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Degas: Level 29 Erudite Coercer Degasai: Level 26 Ogre Warrior Dark Legion, A Freeport Guild on the Unrest Server ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

02-12-2005, 07:15 PM	#19
Degas Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 19	zDocWho wrote: I see there is quite a lot of healthy scepticism about the 40g per day for high level adventurers number I came up with. Let me explain - first of all I am talking about *high* end 40's (remember I am a level 49 provisioner) as the type of level I am comparing myself to, not a level 40 but more likely a level 48-50. I have seen the number 50g or more earned mentioned several times in posts on forums. Most reliably of all, I personally know a level 50 char that makes a lot more than 50g a day! How? Easy, she harvests almost full time and sells most of her resources for 3-5g a stack. I am one of the people that buy from her! It does not take a whole day of harvesting to collect 10+ stacks of T5 harvests to sell and I can assure you she collects a lot more than 10 stacks in a session :smileyvery-happy: I strongly disagree, based on experience. Harvesting 10 stacks of the food/drink resources that Provisioners will buy takes an insane amount of time. At 160+ gathering, in T4 areas, I can put together one stack of something like Wild Apples or Honey in an 8-hour gathering session. This is in Enchanted Lands, where I can basically harvest in rich fields without worrying about agros.Even in a T3 area like TS, the same amount of effort only yields slightly more resources.First, you have to find shrubberies.Second, you have to roll against the game when you harvest.Third, you have to compete against others doing the same thing.Without going into the actual statistics, I can state unequivocally that your statement about harvesting 10+ stacks a day is not correct. Message Edited by Degasai on 02-12-2005 10:18 AM __________________ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Degas: Level 29 Erudite Coercer Degasai: Level 26 Ogre Warrior Dark Legion, A Freeport Guild on the Unrest Server ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

02-12-2005, 07:25 PM	#20
Speak Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 92	I am an adventurer. L-34 Mystic. I spend maybe 50% time hunting and 50% time harvesting. I don't mind paying 1 gold for food or drink with 3-5 hours time span. Money is not hard to make. With harvests selling (Tier 4) selling for 3-15 silver each, and vendor trash in EL & Zek selling 20-50 silver I make on average 15-40 gold a night based on 4 hours play time. I broker over night, all resources get purchased. I never have a problem with finding food. So fuel cost go up, and people have to buy more food, this means raw material cost goes up, thats good too. If you understand the game mechanics of making money, its not hard to do well.

02-12-2005, 08:24 PM	#21
zDocW General Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 83	Degasai wrote: zDocWho wrote: I see there is quite a lot of healthy scepticism about the 40g per day for high level adventurers number I came up with. Let me explain - first of all I am talking about *high* end 40's (remember I am a level 49 provisioner) as the type of level I am comparing myself to, not a level 40 but more likely a level 48-50. I have seen the number 50g or more earned mentioned several times in posts on forums. Most reliably of all, I personally know a level 50 char that makes a lot more than 50g a day! How? Easy, she harvests almost full time and sells most of her resources for 3-5g a stack. I am one of the people that buy from her! It does not take a whole day of harvesting to collect 10+ stacks of T5 harvests to sell and I can assure you she collects a lot more than 10 stacks in a session :smileyvery-happy: I strongly disagree, based on experience. Harvesting 10 stacks of the food/drink resources that Provisioners will buy takes an insane amount of time. At 160+ gathering, in T4 areas, I can put together one stack of something like Wild Apples or Honey in an 8-hour gathering session. This is in Enchanted Lands, where I can basically harvest in rich fields without worrying about agros. Even in a T3 area like TS, the same amount of effort only yields slightly more resources. First, you have to find shrubberies. Second, you have to roll against the game when you harvest. Third, you have to compete against others doing the same thing. Without going into the actual statistics, I can state unequivocally that your statement about harvesting 10+ stacks a day is not correct. Message Edited by Degasai on 02-12-2005 10:18 AM Degasi, with all due respect, you are flat out wrong. And for many reasons: First of all we are talking about T5 harvesting areas - all harvest nodes are generally a lot more abundant than in lower tiers because not a lot of people can harvest T5 areas. Secondly She is harvesting ALL nodes, except fungi so can fill up very fast. I agree with you that 10 stacks of food only would take ages :smileysad: Thirldy I have often harvested personally in high level areas, I am a sub-20 level character and I could still harvest a FULL inventory in about 6-7 hours of solid harvesting in high level areas when I did have to worry about aggro. We are talking 40+ stacks. I harvested all my own resources for tradeskilling until my early 40's so I harvested a LOT and have a very good idea of what I am talking about. :smileywink: Finally - I am not making this up - I know the person - she has over 30pp in the bank and a fully furnished luxury apartment. I would give the char name to you, but I don't believe it is my place to do so. There is a lot of demand for T5 resources of all types. For example until not long ago Severed Teak was selling for 40s each! Thats 8g a stack for a reasonably common T5 resource. :smileysurprised: There are adventurers out there making very serious money. Not all of them but certainly a lot of them. In fact just last night there was a level 50 boasting in channel how he had over 20pp and all ebon armour, nice house etc etc. Purely from adventuring.

02-12-2005, 11:35 PM	#22
Droka Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 65	I don't ever post but as a provisioner I think this is the right idea. Think about it this way, go home and make some koolaid. Then go and make some pasta. Look at what you made. Yes you could drink that over the course of time, but you just made a meal for atleast 2 people if not more. This is only an example but after crafting 5 hours last night and only getting a hand full of things made it helped me realize that this is an issue. Also I made some antonican coffee and went to sell it on the broker. I was thinking 5sp for coffee and then I thought I wouldn't pay that. I set it at 3sp. Then I thought, well maybe I should see what others are selling it for. 23sp... hmmm I still kept mine at 3sp but I think being able to provide a market with goods will bring the price down and the only way to do that is let people make multiples. Folks this is a consumable product, everyone needs and everyone uses and goes away. There is always a demand. Lets help the adventurers and give multis. There is a difference between us and alchemist (I have an alchemist as well). alchemist only supply tradesfolk. Provisioners supply everyone..... yep everyone. The demand is easy trippled if not more. __________________ Itai - Lvl 80 Wizard Nagafen

02-13-2005, 12:05 AM	#23
KaraIblis Loremaster Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 14	I also think that adding more items that can make drinks...or using some items used to make food also make drink would help. there is a terrible imbalance with harvestables atm in food/drink production ratio. mebe one of the fishes could make fish wine ect. on the brokers its rough to get drink most the time, if its not very expensive, then its just not there. but theres always tons of food, cheap and never bought.

02-13-2005, 05:16 AM	#24
zDocW General Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 83	I noticed one of the posters said he is a provisioner that buys his food/drink occasionally. I also do this from time to time because of the sheer hassle of making what is a consumable item. In fact I have even bought food/drink in order to complete an order for a guildie, just because it was taking so long!

02-13-2005, 11:02 PM	#25
BWShellShocked Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 29	zDocWho wrote: I noticed one of the posters said he is a provisioner that buys his food/drink occasionally. I also do this from time to time because of the sheer hassle of making what is a consumable item. In fact I have even bought food/drink in order to complete an order for a guildie, just because it was taking so long! Full time Lvl 40 Prov here. Ditto, I will occasionally purchase the interim drinks and foods, just to speed up the final combine process, and I don't mind helping out the lower level Prov by buying their stuff. Typically, though, I make junk drinks for myself, 1 combine drink such as coffee, for use while tradeskilling. When I have to go out and harvest, I make better stuff for myself, but only slightly better.. I add milk for creamed, bringing it to 1.5hr duration. I do this because harvesting, for me, is a deadly experience in T4 & T5. T5 I can't really harvest at all, actually, as I haven't found a safe spot where no aggros roam. T4 is pretty tuff as well, but doable. T3, I only rarely die there, and combine my harvesting with doing adventure guild writs (kill footsoldiers, snakes, beetles) so I can slowly progress my adv level, while contributing to the guild, and refilling my harvest coffers.

02-13-2005, 11:26 PM	#26
Talbot Loremaster Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 63	Personally, and guild wise, when this patch goes in, 5 of us are leaving the game completely. We have all had our fill of game co's screwing us over. we have played every game out and each time same [FaarNerfed!] different day. So, there will be one less jeweler and one less provo, and 5 less adventures in the mix.

02-14-2005, 12:13 AM	#27
Oghi General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 331	46 provisioner here -- and the original post is spot on. It takes forever to make food and drink. That is what people undervalue when considering what profit is appropriate. Whether the profit margin is 20% or 200%, I'm not going to spend 2 hours making up a stack of t5 food for 3 gold. Stove and Keg just isn't that exciting to look at. With the new fuel prices adding 12 gold in costs to a stack of decent t5 provisions, I seriously doubt anyone will buy what I make. Fuel + Ingredients + a reasonable fee for my time will mean 30 - 40 gold/ stack. I don't imagine too many people will line up for that. Those who do may be foolish, as they'll just end up waiting for the three members of their party who didn't buy t5 drink to regen their mana between pulls. __________________ Oghier Sleepytoes, Dwarf Bartender Aramur, Illusionist Arcane Masters, Antonia Bayle

02-14-2005, 04:19 AM	#28
Mimzel Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 84	Thelahun wrote: zDocWho wrote: I see there is quite a lot of healthy scepticism about the 40g per day for high level adventurers number I came up with. Let me explain - first of all I am talking about *high* end 40's (remember I am a level 49 provisioner) as the type of level I am comparing myself to, not a level 40 but more likely a level 48-50. I have seen the number 50g or more earned mentioned several times in posts on forums. Most reliably of all, I personally know a level 50 char that makes a lot more than 50g a day! How? Easy, she harvests almost full time and sells most of her resources for 3-5g a stack. I am one of the people that buy from her! It does not take a whole day of harvesting to collect 10+ stacks of T5 harvests to sell and I can assure you she collects a lot more than 10 stacks in a session :smileyvery-happy: You forgot to consider the overhead with adventuring, like downtime getting a group together, get to where you want to go, deaths, buying upgrades. At level 40 fighting in zone like RV, I'd make about 1 gold per hour in cash drops at most. Compared to the stack of tier3 3h22m drinks I made and sold for 5 gold in two hours. And, if I may, you forget that most provisioners dont have time to actually produce eatibles 24/7. I have a real life job for starters, and I have family and friends. But most importantly for my in-game career, I dont have unlimited supply of resources (!). As stated earlier in this thread it would take ages gathering stacks of drink resources only. In addition to these factors eating up my time, and placing me away from the stove, I also go out to harvest resources myself. Because Im only interested in certain shrub resources, and I dont have unlimited inventory space, I have to destroy alot of non-provisioner resources (aka no profit). Actually, lets see what criteria have to be fulfilled b4 I place a stack of drink on the broker: 1) I have enough drink for myself and my adventuring needs 2) I have enough drink to give to my alts 3) I have enough drink to give to my friends (who are more important to me than strangers, of course) 4) Im bored with writs and the gp I get from them... 5) I have time left to actually produce another stack of drinks after Ive gone through step 1-4 6) I get paid enough to reimburse me for the hassle it is making drinks for strangers Conclusion: \|------------time---------------\| = 1 -> not enough time to supply the market + goods to valuable to sell / people too poor to buy \|------------time---------------\| = 4 -> Surplus of wares that can be placed on the broker, after #1-6 have been fulfilled __________________ Fury, Defiler, Conjurer, Necromancer et al...

02-14-2005, 04:29 AM	#29
Mimzel Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 84	Btw... 500 provisioners per server, taking 4 hours a week to cater the needs of one person each, is roughly equivalent of 500-1000 peoples needs being met. 9/10th of the market have to either go hungry/thristy, or buy npc food/drink. And all in all I totally agree with the original poster. __________________ Fury, Defiler, Conjurer, Necromancer et al...

02-14-2005, 09:18 AM	#30
Ibis General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 155	food and drink do me very very little good. as a fighter I engage mobs ahead of my group. I notice a small difference when buying tier 5 provisioner stuff from generic stuff but if I can find an enchanter I dont use either food. an enchanter gives me in-combat regen so I can engage at will and truly dungeon crawl. with food I have the fun of sitting between fights to let it work. and I'm fighting 70% of my time I'm drinking. so I actually get the effect of 30% of whatever I spend. personally low end of my shopping list.