Synthing marketplace?

[SpishackCola]

I was playing WoW (right after I finished my econ homework) and, of course, thinking about PSU when I was looking through my leatherworking menu trying to find mats for someone in my guild for an item. Then I saw someone wanting to buy a crafted item (not like this is rare as its spammed all the damn time) and this just popped into my head. Probably because I love crafting...

I dunno if this has been happening on JP PSU or not since I don't visit JP PSU sites or messageboards (and haven't seen anything on the topic here) but do you think there will be a market for the selling/purchasing of synthing at some point? I'm not gonna get into the pros and cons of it but I believe it is something to legitimately think about.

Some examples I can think of off the top of my head concerning the possible processes of the transaction (the person buying the synthing will be referred to as the "customer" and the person doing the synthing will be referred to as the "seller"):

Material collection) A my mats versus your mats split most likely. Probably no cost if using the customer's mats or if they supply the board (I can see the customer wanting to only have the board used for them and maybe 1 or 2 for the seller but that'd take a strong bond of trust from the customer's end). Some varying cost if using the seller's mats (I expect plenty of price changing in the early stages of this practice due to S/D, hooray economics!). A split between the customer's mats and the seller's mats would be priced on what the seller must use.

Cost of synthing) While the money changing hands could end at just the cost of materials I wouldn't be surprised to see people charging a fee or asking for tips. These 3 examples are fee-based with mats coming from either side or split.

1. Up front fee payment. Before the synthing takes place the customer must pay the seller a set fee (placed by the seller or negotiated).

2. Split fee payment. A varying percentage of the fee will be paid before the synthing process is started. Upon completion of the synth the rest of the fee will be paid before the item is handed over to the customer.

3. Completed product payment. The fee will be paid by the customer upon success of the synthed item.

Of course there are the events of synth failure and customer cancellization to take into account during this process.

Ok, enough rambling of a side game player driven economy for now http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SpishackCola on 2006-10-17 14:12 ]</font>

[Brittaintrail]

I've heard you can actually open a store in your room some how.

[Tycho]

I think people would probably just ask trustworthy friends to do it for free, in case they didn't have proper PMs themselves. Because it makes sense.

[SpishackCola]

I know you can open a store in your room. I'm just saying there could be a market for this kind of thing since synthing isn't 100% all the time. I personally would try to find some friend I've been playing with for awhile that has a higher level PM or a recipe I don't have to make something for me. I just left it to the chance that they either aren't online (and haven't seen them in awhile) or don't have the board for the item I would want.

As I said this is just a random thought I had in my head. Not necessarily something that I want/needs to be in the game heh.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: SpishackCola on 2006-10-17 13:35 ]</font>

[SpishackCola]

Oh, another thing to go with the store deal. Maybe the customer and/or his friends don't have the mats but have the board, don't have the board but have the mats, have both but their PMs are too low to get a decent percetage success rate to try, or have neither the mats or board to make an item they've seen in game or read about via website or such. The seller has the board and either doesn't need the item he can make or doesn't want to feed it to his PM. I could definitely see a need being met here.

[Kurushii]

Ya if you wanted to you could make seperate characters with shops on your account and have each one's PM be set for certain types of crafting. But remember there is a set number of uses for each board before it goes bye bye. So the comment on free synthing would be unlikely unless the person doesn't care for the item board.

[SpishackCola]

Ah yes, I knew about the limited uses but I was leaning towards the seller not caring too much about using the board at any time for themselves. If they did plan on using it at some time in the near future I'd wager 99.9% they'd charge for the synth.

[mechatra]

Actually I've done something quite similar to this today.

Me and Synne (Uhawww) Both really wanted an axe. However axes are rather pricey. So what we did was we split the cost of a synth board, which costs 2/3rds of the full price of an actual axe, so we actually only paid 1/3rd of the original price each.

After this we gave the board to Synne's PM since his is a higher lvl than mine and generally betetr at synthing. We each supplied our own materials and each ended up with an elemental axe, for roughly 2/3rds of the price of a store bought axe.

Winner? I think so.

[SpishackCola]

It'd be kinda like that mech. The only parts that change is that you and Uhawww wouldn't have access to the board but you saw or heard of someone advertising that they did. You give him the mats, maybe pay a fee, upon completion you get an axe. Repeat for the other guy http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

But I wouldn't be surprised to see a ton of the small group of people chipping in for mats/board kind of conglomorate crafting as well.