R.I.D BASE OF OPERATIONS

Here are the issues that I see that the division currently faces:

1. Lack of active personnel listing
There are currently 6 members of the commercial division according to titles ingame. I know that we have way more traders than that. Even the 6 that are listed ingame have still not responded in the crafters listing thread so that I can figure out who crafts what.

2. Lack of customers from within the guild:
I can count on two fingers how many different guildies I've sold to, and that includes vendor sales. Most of my sales come from outside the guild. This would of course go back to the first topic. No one in the guild knows who crafts what and who is willing to craft special orders.

3. Some people think that guild traders should craft for free:
This was brought to my attention tonight. This is not, can not, should not be the case. A trader needs to at least recoup the cost of making the item, and would probably prefer to have a little change in his pocket. I myself will discount things to guildies (I have in every game I've ever played), but to EXPECT that is kind of demeaning to the crafter. He or she has to go to great lengths sometimes to get just the right materials to make an item. And lets not get into the costs of running a factory or harvester. But it all comes down to the individual crafter. We don't have set prices for anything, as each crafter views his time and effort into something at a different cost.

Feel free to post comments, suggestions, or anything else that you may have noticed. Shiftie mentioned that we need to use the forums more instead of the guild wide "can somebody make this?" or "I need a sith holo" mails. That is what our commerce section is for, isn't it?

Well, one of the big problems with traders not responding to your post on the Commerce forums is just the overall lack of forum use by our guild. I would like to get most if not all of our members to use our forums, but it may be a gradual effort.

I cannot recall if you have done this already, but I'd send a guild mail asking for names of traders within the guild. More often than not traders tend to be the alts so you may get responses from mains as well.

Also 6 members are in the Commercial Company but also feel free to send me mail if you'd like any traders to join the division. It'd also be a cool idea to organize a meeting with just your division assuming the traders in it regularly play. I can help out with this too.

As for your second concern... what I may do is write up a mail that has the waypoints of every single guild vendor. Whenever I meet up with a new recruit during an interview, I can send him this mail as I normally would with an application mail. And I can stress to him that you should first seek guild traders before looking for outsider traders. In the mail I can also keep an up to date list of traders.

Now your third concern is rediculous in that no member should expect things for free. Nothing in life is for free and I would be happy to smack anyone who believes otherwise. I'd very much like to know who's expecting stuff from you for free. Is it just one or more person? It seems like the way Vahdreas would act but dunno...

Anyways, don't let it bother you. If any member expects any of our traders to give them something for free, direct them to me because I'm putting them on a leash to harvest/buy their own resources.

I have some things that I'd like to talk about in this thread, but I need to hit the sack. I'll write down my thoughts here tomorrow. Think of what I have to say as a good news/bad news kind of deal. (For me, bad/not great. For everyone else, prolly good/neutral news)

Looking forward to hearing how bad news for you can be good news for us

Due to a lot of RL issues (wedding planning, alck of time, sudden lack of desire to play a lot...), I think I'm going to cancel my account for a bit. At least once I get through the wedding I think. Unfortunately, I think that leaves RID in a little bit of a bind.

On that note, I think that I'd like to step down as the commander of the Commerce Company. My lack of playing time is certainly doing nothing to help. I was attempting to setup that resource vending machine, but the results were mixed. Only about two or three people used it, but they did use it alot. I think with an infusion of more crafters, such a device/service would prove valuable to the guild.

I fully believe that Mikal is capable of filling whatever shoes I had, so my friend, the position is yours if you want it. I think your suggestions and ideas are great and could help shape the commerce division into something more than what it was.

That also leaves Nar Shadda. Until someone runs against me, I will likely remain mayor unless the city lacks the required citizens. If someone like Mikal were to run against me to maintain control, I would have no issues with that. I don't really want to see the city disband, but if it did I suppose I would understand. (I guess my real complaint is I spent a lot of time decorating the city hall.... lol)


OK, now with my stuff out of the way, onto the original topic...

/ranton

Mikal, I agree with you 100%.

To address your first point, I think the reality is that people either craft for themselves or for profit. Neither of which go along with being in a guild... Yes, RID has a few crafters but they are either all structure traders/shipwrights or make better business outside of the guild... Why won't they participate in guild efforts to promote the commerce division? I thinkit comes down to either a lack of desire to be apart of something bigger (personal greed and laziness...) or they really don't pay attention to things... To this day, I'm surprised how many people DON'T read their holomail... It's like pulling teeth...

For point two, you can refer to my response to point one for part of it. Business within the guild is truly a sad state. I have done everything that I can think of to help stir up business... I offer guild discounts... we sent out lists of guild traders.... I tried selling discounted resources to help guild traders lower their prices for other guild members... But like I said, see my response to point one. If people are too lazy to read their holomail, what good is sending out a guild listing? or advertising guild discounts? Then again, what do guild crafters do to promote sales inside the guild? Let's face it, if you are selling things to the guild at a discount, why bother when you can make more selling outside the guild? (then again, I found personal pride to selling things within the guild, so go figure...)

And anyone in the guild who expects things for free within the guild deserves a big old FUCK YOU. I'm sorry for being vulgar, but seriously... Very rarely do I ever, EVER give out things for free. And I can rattle off a nicce list of guild members who have begged me for free things... "OK, here's all the resources you requested. How about 3CPU?" They say, "well, I was expecting for free... But hey, I'll pay it..." WTF?!?!?! When the cheapest stuff on the server is priced at 15CPU, even as low as 10CPU, and you're gonna bitch about me charging 3CPU??? Pull your head out of your ass... I'll admit, inflation is a bitch and people have gone crazy over the past few years with what they charge, but don't give me shit because I'm still charging you a rpice for something even though you are a guildie... I mean, if I wanted that painting or gun you looted in an instance, you'd charge me 5 million or 10 million credits... so what gives??? Like you said Mikal, crafters have to go through a lot of effort to get the materials to make a mass amount of product and a lot of cost can go into it all.

I always love when a guildie, who is a crafter, laughs at me and says i charge too much for resources at 2 CPU or 3CPU and they tell me they can harvest it themselves for cheaper. If that's the case, then go bloody do it because I'm not losing any sleep or credits over your cheap ass... I mean, laughing at my prices is really supposed to entice me to give it to you for free? Piss off.

I do agree, more orders and requests should be made on the forums, but you practically have to bribe people to use the forums. I don't know why it's so hard. Yes, you have the holomail in-game, but that is better served for personal communications or mass mailings. If you're putting out a request for sith holos, come here. Quit spamming my inbox!!

OK...

/rantoff

Sorry to hear you have to (sort of) go

Hopefully we'll see you back after your wedding and we'll watch over Nar Shadda.

I'm not real sure about who was asking a guild trader for something for free. I read about it in a guildwide mail from Shiftie actually. It was something that was brought to his attention, not mine. But yeah, I would have laughed at the person. I do on occasion give stuff away for free, but usually I charge a small price which usually is just enough to cover the resources.

As far as the division goes, I finish school in 2 weeks. At that time my gameplay time will increase due to me *finally* being able to have a set schedule. At that time I would be able to fully take on the responsibilities of the position. As soon as I log in again (just got home from school at 11:00 tonight and have to be at work at 7 a.m....yuck) I am going to send out a request for traders to contact me. I will be asking for some pretty particular stuff from them (what they craft, do they take special orders, vendor waypoints, if any, that kind of stuff), and hopefully that will give me a better understanding of who we have and what we actually need. I know of a few traders and what they make, but I don't know if we have a DE or Foods guy, that kind of stuff.

As far as Nar Shadda, if anyone registers to run I can put my name on the ballot and pull my voting power (3, about to me 4 votes, woot!) to keep the city around. I hope to be able to catch you ingame to grant my 4th alt zoning rights before ya go though, since with my crappy connection and computer I can't dual log hehe.

I think that covers my response to most of the posts. Sorry it took me 2 days to get back in here, but I was gone all day yesterday too...I AM SOOOOO READY TO FINISH SCHOOL!!!!!!