Life as a Solo Crafter: Revelations

I very much enjoy crafting, gathering, fishing and farming. It helps me pass the time and detach for a while. This game has been great at developing those gameplay items as well.

After I built everything I could use and wanted for decoration, buffs or equipment, I needed a new goal. So I acquired more properties to make more things for. But eventually, there was nothing left to use those skills for.

So, I redesigned my homes, and my gear. But eventually, that was done and nothing was left to use those things for again. And so on.

Even when you build everything yourself, gold does eventually become a problem. So you decide to start selling your goods. And of course that also helps provide a sustainable loop for more crafting!

Alas, this is where things get trickier. It was not as much of a problem back at release as it is now because it seems like most people playing these days are crafters or at least already satisfied consumers.

I regretted being so determined to make every last thing by myself. Sure it was fun, but what I realize now is that I had excluded others from my game because I refused to buy wares if I could make them. That was mostly out of gold conservation, but the result was the same. And karma did come to roost when I needed others to buy my wares.

So, I changed my attitude and I started buying recipes from all over the place, anywhere I could find them. Many times at prices that were clearly exuberant. Normally, I would have just bought what I needed or more likely went farming for the drops. I easily spent 3-4 million on recipes alone.

What happened next was a blessing. Karma came back again to roost. I got thank you mails, and some folks started buying my goods as well. And now I know that to make the most out of this experience, I need to help others realize their game and hope they will pay it forward to someone else.

Now I am just trying to figure out the right sustainable crafting niche for me and I will buy the rest from others.

 

The addition of town-wide vendor search changed things quite a bit for me. I've never minded buying things from other people, but most things I made or farmed myself, because it was simply faster and/or less boring than running around checking a million vendors on the off chance that they had what I wanted.

 

Had the game launched with that feature I too might not have taken the "Jack of all trades, Master of none" path. This was particularly true back near launch when hundreds of folks saw themselves as Gordon Gecko reborn in digital form. Between that and folks exploiting aspects of the engine and/or just endlessly grinding resulting in the market being flooded with crazy amounts of top tier mats, I figured the better experience was to just not engage with the economy.

 

Good to hear you found new goals in the game!

Being a vendor/trader is a game in itself. I had so much to learn about vendoring when I started. Made some big mistakes, like selling rare items for next to nothing, because I had no idea of their rarity. Since then I specialized a lot and built up some knowledge about demand and pricing of a small subset of items. And I need to keep that knowledge uptodate, by following up on comments from customers and checking out other vendors. But it's fun, and not too time-consuming when I keep to my small subset

Good luck on your new career and have fun!

 

I found that over many years of crafting that farming core mats helps reduce costs a lot, but I spend almost all my gold on the most consumed materials I need that take the longest to harvest. This created a market in its own as I buy from people that shop around and come back with prices I find acceptable. I dont run around looking for cheaper if I can afford what I have around me. That is why i made Silverdale Market was a one stop market to sustain itself which has worked since its beginning. Over all selling of wares is key to more money. there is value in almost everything in game for different people. For faster money seek artifacts to sell. shop around for prices. If you need fast cash liquidate sometimes at cheaper helps build faster but as mentioned above sometimes you loose out alot if you dont know the value. Some just done care about the prices people sell and sell just to liquidate all inventory.

Gems is another way by combining artifacts to get the rare gems to resell. not all are weighted the same in value as some like artifacts are very hard to acquire.

having more than one shop in novia is always a good way to get noticed, and probably the most important is use the channels provided to market your wares and prices. if people dont know you exist than how will customers find you? adventures may stumble into your domain and find you, but advertising shortens the time and increases the chance for someone to come check it out.

just some of my rambling and thoughts.