Pricing Questions...

[Giganti]

Tonight I had another wonderful experience in the world of buff-begging and shopping. It left me with the usual feelings of wanting a break from the game. As a result, I decided to post here, in hopes to avoid this in the future.

My problem is that... I have no clue as to prices. Yet when I ask a price, people always reply with "offer". This, in and of itself, isn't a problem. But I often get negative replies if I offer. It doesn't enhance my gameplay much, that's for sure.

I want to know some basic prices of common items/services. Perhaps if the list becomes fairly useful/complete, it can help a lot of people avoid social depression O.o. I play on RK1 so I prefer prices relative to that server, but hey. Here's a list of all the prices I can think of that I'd like to know. By price I mean "normal tip amount" or price, either way.

SERVICES
Tradeskill Services (Common)
- Perennium Weapon Combine
- Implants (normal)
- Implants (Jobe Clusters)
- Breaking and Entering/Hacking
- Nano Crystal Creation

Buffs
- SFA
- IC
- Behemoth
- ES
- FG
- RRFE
- GSF
- Perception Buffs
- NS
- CT/CM/CI/CMochams
- Wrangles (primarily +131/132)
- High-End Soldier Weapon Buffs (Riot Control, Offensive Steamroller, etc)

ITEMS
- Perennium Weapons (prices at all QLs)
- Targeting Scope - Vision Enhancers (QL100-260)
- CAS Symbiotic sets
- Carbonum Sets
- Omnifiers / Clanilizers
- Omni/Clan Carb sets
- Omni-Steel Ribbed / Apocalypse Leather sets
- CoH weapons (at all QLs)
- Nano Crystals (125+, Blitzable, Boss-Loot, and Dyna Loot)
- Albrechts
- Pump Trainee/Master
- Tier-1 Armor Pieces (all main traded pieces)
- Reanimator's Cloak (component set)
- Predator Armor (all pieces)
- Armor of Yearning (all pieces)
- Symbiants (general idea of price/QL, and price of Brain Symbs since they're more expensive I think)
- Ancient Container


- Plus any other major items people think are useful.


I've been playing AO a long time. I have a slew of alts (none particularly high, but hey). I practically have aodb.info memorized (not that that's a good thing). But I've always sucked at prices. I get anything from "Sweet, thanks!" to "lol don't bother" when I tip for buffs, and I always feel awkward asking for people to make implants or offering prices for stuff I want, because I *never* know what's normal, and people refuse to tell me. I appreciate any help anyone can give me

[Lorna]

Prices depend on where you are... I'll try and give you some prices for RK3

SERVICES
Tradeskill Services (Common)
- Perennium Weapon Combine - No charge
- Implants (normal) - No charge
- Implants (Jobe Clusters) - No charge
- Breaking and Entering/Hacking - No charge
- Nano Crystal Creation - No charge

Buffs
- SFA - No charge
- IC - No charge
- Behemoth - No charge
- ES - No charge
- FG - No charge
- RRFE - No charge
- GSF - No charge
- Perception Buffs - No charge
- NS - No charge
- CT/CM/CI/CMochams - No charge
- Wrangles (primarily +131/132) - No charge
- High-End Soldier Weapon Buffs (Riot Control, Offensive Steamroller, etc) - No charge

ITEMS
- Perennium Weapons (prices at all QLs) - currently between 8m (QL109 Sniper) and 65m (QL 200 Beamer)
- Targeting Scope - Vision Enhancers (QL100-260) - 10k to 75m depending on the seller
- CAS Symbiotic sets - QL <100 around 20-40k per piece, QL200 200k per piece
- Carbonum Sets - Usually trade skills, people buy the Carbonum and ask somebody to build it, usually no charge for the building, and often given away to froobs afterwards (at least by me). Never seen one for sale.
- Omnifiers / Clanilizers - next to nothing, they drop in most in missions.
- Omni/Clan Carb sets - same as normal Carbonum above.
- Omni-Steel Ribbed / Apocalypse Leather sets - same as Carbonum
- CoH weapons (at all QLs) - 10-20m from what I've seen.
- Nano Crystals (125+, Blitzable, Boss-Loot, and Dyna Loot) - prices vary greatly
- Albrechts - Start at 500k, go up to 1.5-2m for 200's
- Pump Trainee/Master - none for sale at the moment.
- Tier-1 Armor Pieces (all main traded pieces) - Embryos 4.5m, Visions 500k+
- Reanimator's Cloak (component set) - no idea
- Predator Armor (all pieces) - 5-10m per piece
- Armor of Yearning (all pieces) - As clan, next to nothing Between 70k and 150k per piece
- Symbiants (general idea of price/QL, and price of Brain Symbs since they're more expensive I think) - 200 Brain goes for between 20 and 75m depending on type and how greedy the seller is.
- Ancient Container - haven't seen anyone sell one.

[Giganti]

Awesome, thanks for the reply!

So does the "no charge" thing mean people generally don't expect tips on RK3? Maybe people are laughing at me because I'm trying to tip 150k for SFA when it's normally free? O.o

Awesome news to me if so. I always feel so awkward getting buffs/tradeskills done cause I dunno how much to tip. I remember a few years ago, I had some QL125 imps made and had someone tell me "uhh, that's it?" when I tipped :/

Thanks for the quick (and thorough) reply!

Edit - Oh, and if that's an RK3-only thing... I'll have to restart there! I need to practice some German anyhow, I'm taking it at college but it'd be awesome to get some hands-on.

[Stor]

i ussaly just ignore WTS offers when seller dont know how much want for item

buffs are based on trade
'sooner or later you will need SFA, IC, RRFE, OS, [weapon] mastery or any other buff and if you ask me for cash now i will just ignore your request later'

ohh wrangles drain trader for short period of time and he is badly gimped so this buff deserves good tip

making items for free is not a good idea
you want help lowbie and make weapon and you see 2 mins later offer on shopping chat

[Gerlinde]

most of the buffs you listed are not much more work for the buffing person than to hit one button ... no tips for buffs!!! (except wrangles)

people often say "offer" because then there is the chance they get more than they wanted. also people selling often are unsure about the price. offer what the item is worth to you

tradeskilling - can't help you there as I always have friends make my tradeskills and they do it for free. you can ask the tradeskiller what he expects (and explain you have no idea) - if he refuses to give you an amount its his fault imo. I rather have someone telling me "usual tip is 5m" than "what you want", getting 500k and then cursing me

[Lorna]

Awesome, thanks for the reply!

So does the "no charge" thing mean people generally don't expect tips on RK3? Maybe people are laughing at me because I'm trying to tip 150k for SFA when it's normally free? O.o

<snip>

Edit - Oh, and if that's an RK3-only thing... I'll have to restart there! I need to practice some German anyhow, I'm taking it at college but it'd be awesome to get some hands-on.

RK3 is very polite, the couple of times I tried RK1 or test, there was way too much swearing on the OOC, for example, compared to RK3.

If you ask nicely, then you'll probably get the buff. If you are rude, then you won't get buffed (SFA plz or "buff me SFA now" will just probably get you /ingored).

[Fhinn]

Ok an initial attempt at RK2
bear in mind
1) most folk dont read forums
2) are trying to get as much money from you as poss
3) dont know the usual price themselves
4) being polite helps

SERVICES
Tradeskill Services (Common)
heres a suggested price guide;
Elbo price guide

- Perennium Weapon Combine - ^^
- Implants (normal) - ^^
- Implants (Jobe Clusters) - 1-2Mish
- Breaking and Entering/Hacking - 1-2M for excessive B+E. 1400 for QL200 guns.
- Nano Crystal Creation - would tip a few mill for rare stuff like GA due to the trust involved.

Buffs

I personally dont pay for buffs. I believe that a buff is repaid in kind. The only buffs I would personally pay for would be a big wrangle due to the rarity of traders (sadly).
Borealis on RK2 is one of the centres for buffs so i see a lot of WTB (buff) shouts from engies and so on. Prices i put here are rough guides to that shout/ trade- channel.

- SFA - No charge / 1-200k ish
- IC - No charge / 100kish
- Behemoth - Usually No charge
- ES - Usually No charge
- FG - Usually No charge
- RRFE - Usually No charge
- GSF - Usually No charge
- Perception Buffs - Usually No charge (advies love doing these! )
- NS - Usually No charge
- CT/CM/CI/CMochams - Composites Usu. free, though annoying for MP.
Mochies 250k-1M from the desperate.
- Wrangles (primarily +131/132) - 100k - 2M for the desperate.
- High-End Soldier Weapon Buffs (Riot Control, Offensive Steamroller, etc) - No charge

ITEMS
- Perennium Weapons (prices at all QLs) - currently between 8m (QL100ish and 50M Ql200
- Targeting Scope - Vision Enhancers (QL100-260) - 10k to 75m depending on the seller.
- CAS Symbiotic sets - ~8-10M for a full QL200 set. similar price for lower due to the blitzing matched sets. Single pieces ~1M - 2M depending on seller.
- Carbonum Sets - Seen low sets for 10k/QL. Not sure about higher ones.
- Omnifiers / Clanilizers - 75-200k per.
- Omni/Clan Carb sets - same as normal Carbonum above.
- Omni-Steel Ribbed / Apocalypse Leather sets - pretty rare, dunno.
- CoH weapons (at all QLs) - 3-10m. 3M for howlets usually to 10M for pained/QL105 weapons. The QL100/101 "twink" weapons can get big prices esp. Ql100 panthers (40-80M). Ql100 Chiropteras 45-65M Crispy ~20M.
- Nano Crystals (125+, Blitzable, Boss-Loot, and Dyna Loot) - roughly 500k-1M for a blitzable crystal. Others depends on crystal. look
- Albrechts - Start at 500k, go up to 1.5-2m for 200's
- Pump Trainee/Master - Silly prices. 25M - 90M for the master.
- Tier-1 Armor Pieces (all main traded pieces) - Embryos 2-4M, Visions 200k+ Noviticum 1-250k
- Reanimator's Cloak (component set) - ~8-10M
- Predator Armor (all pieces) - 5-10m per piece. full set 50-60M
- Armor of Yearning (all pieces) - ?dunno 100k/piece sounds ok
- Symbiants (general idea of price/QL, and price of Brain Symbs since they're more expensive I think) -
Enduring support ~45M, Arty occular 20-50M. and so on, too tricky to list.
- Ancient Container - 10M

discuss.

[varrus]

On RK2, you can get most of the buffs for free. As someone noted above, wrangles are an exception. How much should you pay -- there is no rule for that, but about 1 million for the 131 wrangle is rather common. However, your willingness to pay even little something will make you stand out from the huge mass of people begging for free buffs/services.

Services: pretty much depends on QL of the thing you want made and the amount of work. Prices and offers vary wildly from case to case. When I want someone to make a QL 5 perenniunm weapon for my newbie or 2 or 3 lowbie implant, I usually don't expect them charge for it. In most cases, people don't. But I always offer at least 1 million for higher QL weapons and, especially, for full implant sets. In case of QL 200 perennium, the tip may be as big as 2-2.5 millions, because requirements to make them are rather steep. But again, different tradeskillers may have different ideas of what is a fair tip.

Predator pieces go for 4 mil each on the average in player shops, except armbands, which are rare.

Prices for symbiants vary very much. Some are much more common than the others. You can pay like 30 millions for a certain symb because you need it and it is the only one for sale, next day someone goes for pocket-boss spawning spree and finds 5 or 6 symbiants of this exact type. He doesn't need them for himself, so he offers them for sale, prices drop significantly. After a while, these symbs are sold off, no one spawns this particular PB for some time, more peope want this symb, prices climb back up.

[jokzer]

most of the buffs you listed are not much more work for the buffing person than to hit one button ... no tips for buffs!!! (except wrangles)

Ehh.. afaik, some buffs require you to team with the caster (IC, 131 wrangle, maybe others) and ought to mean a tip.
Buffs that are difficult to obtain (eg. from high-level gardens/sanctuaries) also ought to warrant a tip.
In other words, be aware what you're asking for and give a sign of appreciation - it also increases the chance that you'll get another buff later on, just as being polite does.

And of course tradeskills - peope spend (many, many, many) IPs and (many, many, many) creds in order to be able to do those tradeskills.. tip good tradeskillers well, we really can't afford to lose them.

[Poutine]

On RK2 you can get some free buffs too, if you are polite enough...

As a lowbie Trader I wasn't able to get my implants and stuff high enough to equip a weapon, so I asked another trader to wrangle me (yeah I was totally over-equiped until I could get the money for the implants and stuff.. I was newb..) .. anyway..

This Trader gives me my wrangle, I can equip the weapon, all is fine. When I try to tip him, he gives me 1 mill and says that it was a pleasure, keep the money.

If only I could remember the guys name, that is a cool guy, thanks man.. whoever you are.

RK2 rocks

[Lorna]

Sounds like a player aftrer my own heart Drak. I've lost count of the Advanced Salesmans Hats I've donated over the years (hat and chip, combined result is nodrop), implants, sets of armour etc. just because people a friendly, polite and show an interest in the game.

[-Plexor-]

Buff wise on RK1 I'd usually only tip for a wrangle. The rest is give and take, I've never had to pay for a buff and never asked for a tip to give one. This is on the Clan side, maybe Omni's ask for tips, being the greedy corporate types that they are

The important thing is to ask nicely if you don't know the person you are asking. If they don't reply then just find someone else, as they may be busy or afk, or just have missed your request.

Tradeskill wise it's up to the tradeskiller to tell you how much they want to make something, you can then decide if you feel it's a reasonable price.

As far as the value of items goes, the best thing is to regularly check the Offers on Atlantean board and check prices in the shopping terminals.

[Glarawyn]

Personally, I don't accept tips for buffs...cause I know I'll need buffs from someone later. However, I have been known to make the rude buff beggers do a song and dance to get their buffs. A n00b Trox singing I'm a little Teapot infront of Trade Grid is just so umm...cute?

Tradeskills it depends. Usually I just hit up an org mate so it doesn't matter.

[sapphyra]

Now I know why I am always broke...I don't "charge" for any buffs/tradeskilling...tips are nice, but I don't care if I get em or not.

All about helpin out...doesn't take much effort to click my mouse or hit a button.

[baffle]

Now I know why I am always broke...I don't "charge" for any buffs/tradeskilling...tips are nice, but I don't care if I get em or not.

All about helpin out...doesn't take much effort to click my mouse or hit a button.

We are in the same boat then.

[Nemeria]

Only tip I expect to get on my 207 Doc is if the person is asking me to use my SB on him for the perception buff

Otherwise it's all free

As for pricing on everything else...it really, really depends

A good way to find out these days is to just check the player shops...I'm using the prices I find there as a general rule of thumb...

For nanos I use Kimi's...

For tradeskills I'll usually just ask the tradeskiller in question what they expect (and then I usually tip a bit above )...

Haven't really tipped for wrangles...but that's because I've been fortunate enough to be in the same org as a bunch of traders/agents who can help me out...

When asking for buffs I'll usually just buff them in return with SFA or Doc HP or whateever...anyways...hope that helps a bit

[Giganti]

Awesome. Thanks for the replies everyone.

I don't have a problem with tips ever. I don't mind tossing down 1m for a wrangle or a high-end combine. But I have yet to ever recieve more than one tip (5k offer from a complete newbie, which I declined). I've tipped for every buff I've ever gotten, which has probably set me back around 12m-15m over the course of AO. O.o

[Xandathrii]

AO is a teamplayer game....14 profs,and they all need each other....
Buffs are free(rk2) and should allways be Free.. Ull allways need buffs for something,and people will ask u for buffs......

About prices on Items.... Its allways going up and down.. If u want to buy a sertain item, do a "search" on the markedForums, mostly ull get a clue on what the prices are atm.... GL

[gergiskoo]

On RK-1 I've never had to pay for buffs, except the odd wrangle.

I guess that counteracts my horrendous luck with clicksaver and other drops.

[Katrien]

RK3 is very polite, the couple of times I tried RK1 or test, there was way too much swearing on the OOC, for example, compared to RK3.

I have every OOC channel on every character turned off on RK1. It's a cesspool sometimes.
(All right, most of the time.)

You make RK3 sound kind of appealing. The whole german server thing turns me off, though...