UO Second Age

Before i got crazy and make a crafter, to relive my favorite times of T2A on the live servers, is there a great need for crafted items? I'll be a super-crafter so i'll be trying to GM all of the crafting skills....worth it or no?

A reasonably priced blacksmith vendor does pretty well in the right location.

Alchemy does well too.

I'm not sure about tailoring.

Joephis19 wrote:Before i got crazy and make a crafter, to relive my favorite times of T2A on the live servers, is there a great need for crafted items? I'll be a super-crafter so i'll be trying to GM all of the crafting skills....worth it or no?

Demand seems to be resource based not crafted items based. There are enough GM crafters already. If you are looking to make money you should collect ore which can easily sell for 8 gold per ingot, boards go for about 4 gold per. If you are looking to relive the good old days then by all means have a supercrafter but money making is definitely in resources.

Cheers, welcome on board and good luck.

It's not about money, per se, i just really enjoyed doing it

Mens Rea wrote:A reasonably priced blacksmith vendor does pretty well in the right location.

Alchemy does well too.

I'm not sure about tailoring.

This guy's mining hut is named "Miner's Dream" so he should know.

Also if you ever see one of his toons and you have valuables on you. Run or he will snatch em!

It was hilarious watching him steal ppl's gift items on the 4th of July.

Joephis19 wrote:It's not about money, per se, i just really enjoyed doing it

Make an orc harvester and become an uber orcish supplier! Steal Trak'kars title of "Bezt Gukka Eber!"

You can be succesful being a crafter.

Check out this link for tips from the best crafter UOSA has seen, IMHO. Not much more I can add that Theograd didn't say there. I suggest you browse through his posts for more tips.

Ronk wrote:

Joephis19 wrote:It's not about money, per se, i just really enjoyed doing it

Make an orc harvester and become an uber orcish supplier! Steal Trak'kars title of "Bezt Gukka Eber!"

No one will ever take his title of the bezt gukka eber (Juzt azk hem!)

Resources sell often, and there is always a need for potion kegs. I would go alchy and hit the poiton market.

Pied Piper wrote:

Mens Rea wrote:A reasonably priced blacksmith vendor does pretty well in the right location.

Alchemy does well too.

I'm not sure about tailoring.

This guy's mining hut is named "Miner's Dream" so he should know.

Also if you ever see one of his toons and you have valuables on you. Run or he will snatch em!

It was hilarious watching him steal ppl's gift items on the 4th of July.

Thats not mens reas house, i think i even have banned one of his accounts from it!!

What I've learned is that on this shard, location is everything. There are simply too many crafters (which I firmly believe is because of the 3 account rule) and I'm willing to bet about 90% of the players have a GM smith, so most of the actual sales of crafted items are for new players or people who haven't fallen into that area of "I need to make a tank mage".

I tried a few shops in various locations and advertised. Even at a shop not far from my current one, I barely moved product. Now, while I don't make a ton of money with crafted items, I at least have a lot of it moving. There lies the other problem. Crafters have undercut each other to the point where you barely turn a profit. Unless you do all your own mining, lumberjacking, sheep sheering, etc, you'll find very little actual profit in selling GM goods because of other players dropping their prices to just above the market value of resources items take to make.

That being said, you seem to be like me in that your focus is mainly on shopkeeping/crafting, which is essentially what I play full time, so the simple fact of having customers and running a shop is what makes the game fun for you, then go for it. The best thing I can tell you is to mine mine mine and sell sell sell your ingots (to me ) till you have enough money to invest in a well located house, then get your shop up and running.

Theograd left out making a Player Vendor post and keeping it up-to-date as an important key as well.

I rarely vendor shop so I don't know which places to buy from, etc, so I'll just go through the Player Vendor section to see who has the item(s) I need first. I don't usually take cost into effect unless I show up and feel its overpriced.

I know a few others who shop this way, something for you crafters to keep in mind.

Hi, if you enjoy crafting go for it.

I would say tailoring, can earn some gold selling to npc tailor. Same for smithing. Not sure about tinker and carpentry


Granted you are not going to make a fortune in a day, but...if you enjoy what you are doing, the gold is worth it.


I bought my first two small houses off of tailoring and smithing, with cotton and wool tossed in when could collect it.


Enjoy and have fun

Westra

Tailoring is the least profitable skill of them all.

There is a great deal of fluffery in this thread, here is the reality:

Smiths can sell GM weapons and armor with moderate success. Very few people use those items, and you might end up selling halberds and the occasional dex suit, but it sells. The problem, everyone on the server has a smith, and everyone also wants to run a shop. Since their target goal is not to make money, but rather, be known as some sort of big shot vendor running person, the profit margin for these items is virtually non-existent.

Tailors are almost a complete waste of time. There is almost no use for non-magic leather armor, and clothing is not in high demand, what with newbie items, and given that bless deeds grow more and more rare each day. Couple that with the fact that clothing rarely breaks due to grandfathered items, events taking place in trammel, people wearing armor.... I only say "almost a complete waste" because you can use the skill to make beds and whatnot. The price NPC's will pay you for tailor made items is NOWHERE near what it was during T2A (which is probably good, less we have a shard of macroers making fancy shirts).

Tinkering: You can make trap boxes, that's pretty fun, it's also convenient if you are building other craft skills, as you can supply your own tools. Practically nobody buys tinker made items though. Maybe you will sell a 99999 diamond necklace (if you can still make those), or the rare bulk mortar order, but for the most part, it's non-profitable (again, save for it's carpentry applications).

With alchemy you can make a steady profit by keeping a keg vendor stocked. Again, the profit margin is low on this one, considering the time it takes to fill kegs and buy regs. Purple kegs probably still sell for a decent price. It's not the best, but it's certainly not the worst skill to have. It's also pretty convenient to stock your own characters.

Carpentry: There are a TON of placed houses on OSI, practically 3 for every active person, and 15 for every non-active one! The active players buy and sell houses like some faux uo-realestate bigshot all day long. You could probably make decent money in spurts selling tables and whatnot, and a healthy dose of cash selling addons (assuming you have the other skills). These are items that you need to either "be online when someone is looking for them" or "have a vendor in a really popular spot, that is known to be stocked" to sell easily. Great skill once you get established. The profits from this one probably trend with the influx of new players on the server buying houses though. Might have ups and downs.

Cooking: lolololol, no money or fun here.

Scribe: These guys can do pretty well, but you need money to train this skill, and a reputable location to sell your wares or nobody will touch your items with a 10 foot pole. It's a major hassle to make full spellbooks, but I guess if you macro them then it's worth it. Compared to the electricity cost to operate your macroing computer, I don't really care to do it. But it's good money.

Lumberjacking: Don't waste your time. It's more efficient to buy logs from NPC's and everyone knows this. It's also more costly to make your own arrows, and almost not worth making your own bolts when you factor in the harpy farming. Ian also has this market cornered. Don't waste your time!

Mining" You can make money with this, but it depends on who is making a smith character, and how needy they are. Occasional orders for "bulk" ingots (that will sit in a house for a year then idoc) may pass you by. The margin is pretty low, definitely better to farm, or really do anything else. If you like sitting at the keys and clicking repeatedly, you are probably better off making a fisherman. Mining can be fun, when coupled with stealth. You can mine places like Destard (loaded with ingots), but the fun wears off fast. Not to mention, a patch 6mo-1yr ago made ore spawn less frequently, I don't know how much of an impact that has had though.

Poisoning: You probably aren't making a fortune doing this, but it can be a pretty ok skill to have on a pvp'er or logged at your house.


Keep in mind, you are basically on your own from 0/50 to GM, because nobody wants less than perfect items. If your character has a silly name, that can impact sales too. Half the morons here don't know that exceptional and GM work exactly the same way as far as mechanics are concerned.


The verdict? Don't craft for money. You aren't going to find community (nobody is hanging at the forges waiting for repairs), money (see above), or fun (well maybe you will, I'm not you, so who knows). If you really must craft, make a carpenter/alchemist primarily. Sadly, carpentry requires most of the other skills too (magery helps for pentagrams, those are difficult to find). You might start with a miner, mine your way up to enough tinkering so you can make exceptional tools, then start working alchemy with any money you can spare. You can make money with relatively low alchemy, because there is no "exceptional" items, and some of the most desired potions (yellow/red/orange[greater anyway]) take very little skill to start making. You might even be able to have someone give you money to make them kegs to gain off.

I agree with most of what matron said, except the tailoring part. I have bought most my real estate by working tailoring. You just need to do it right for it to be profitable, but it is boring as hell, and you can't really afk it for too long.

I forgot fletching. You can make okay money NPCing bows. That's how I got started on UOSA even. However, don't plan on selling many bows to actual people as they probably only need them for non-magic events, as their archer bots use magic weapons and let's face it, nobody uses archery as a primary weapon anymore.

Pirul is probably right. I haven't tailored in a while so I wouldn't know.