The Price Is _______ - A Project

[Hitorichan]

So, last night I started on a project. A rather... long and tedious project, I'm sure. But I think this will be a very useful thing and I'm not approaching this completely alone.

So, what IS this project? Well, here it is in a nutshell. When we craft things, we need supplies. Some of these supplies have known costs (namely, those purchased from vendors). Some supplies have costs that can be calculated (such as vegetables that farmers make). And others have costs that can only be decided upon (Ore, Wood and Time Spent).

What I'm trying to do is create a master spreadsheet that has the cost of -everything- in it... and lets us calculate the base cost to produce... whatever. How much do those Perfect Pies cost? How about that fancy large rug? And what's the value of mirrored armor?

I made a start on this last night. I'm starting with the cooking side of things, as that's the one that's easiest for me to work through right now. The numbers I'm using for vegetable costs are NOT PERFECT. They need to be updated, but that's next on my list to do.

In the mean time... here's a preview.

GM Price Preview

It's an Excel spreadsheet. If you don't have excel, I suggest going and getting Open Office, which is free. It can read Excel files (not including Excel 2007 files). I actually use Open Office and then export to Excel for posting.

[Zabrak]

Wow, very cool. I'll be happy to help you out.

[Hitorichan]

For those that do want to help out, something that would help a ton would be... Next time you go out gathering materials, record your start and end time... Figure out about how much time you spend getting 50 (a stack) of a given resource. *

How much time does it take to gather 50 Rowan Wood?
How much time does it take to smelt 50 Rich Iron Ingots?

I'll be taking care of farming and cooking times. I want to try to come up with a rough estimate on how much time gets invested in a given product too.

If you anyone DOES record how much time it takes to gather/smelt/whatever, here's what I'd absolutely adore from you... A PM. Example:

100 Yew Wood
97 Minutes

50 Treated Yew
14 Minutes

* Oh, yes. I do understand there will be time variants based on tool type and all that. Like I said, I'm just looking for an estimate

[Zabrak]

I don't usually go collecting as a main task (although I have when I needed a significant amount). Usually I'm just collecting while I'm questing or generally killing whatever is around. So it's difficult to know how long it took me to gather 50 wood or 50 ore.

[Hitorichan]

Well, if you DO sometime go out collecting as a main task... keep track of it and send it to me? That really would be a big help. I'm not saying you have to go out and collect JUST to get the numbers, but if you do find yourself needing, say, 100 Pristine Hide... Time yourself.

[Hitorichan]

File listed in first message updated. All basic food items are priced out using vegetable prices based on slightly simple non-crit farming calculations. Still need data on hops/grains for the alcohol section, but the foods are handled reasonably well.

[Olmandis]

Hmm, well, I have been getting myself alot of ore, lately, but haven't offered up an exact time, but I think I can add a few more factors.

"Mine yer own business, buddy." 'An idiot's guide to strip mining everything under the dang sun.

Tip and tricks-

-When supplying the kin hall with ore, you may want to limit the number of finished ingots if you have already mastered the tier. A character does not actually gain the standard 8 pts for simply mining, they gain the points for turning 2 ore peices into a finished bar (an ingot) at the forge. So one may want to simply drop off the unprocessed goods so others can benefit from the points.

-the early bird gets the ore. Possibly the single most sought after commodity among the rough materials is ore, which can sell for a lavish price per finished stack at the AH. The best times to harvest are when no one else, obviously, is harvesting. Working the unholy nightshift has done wonders for my mining, I will say that.

The average time to get a stack will vary greatly depending on the ore in question. Copper in the shire could take about 20 minutes for a stack of pure, finished ingots (100 peices), while I've spent about an hour-90 minutes combing the length of the trollshalls to make 50 bars of dwarf iron.

Rich nodes- take advantage of the rich ore deposits, which yeild special materials, particuarily coal. I've upped my naughtiness exponentially in the hope Santa delivers this year. Nothing in metalurgy can really be accomplished without coal for processing from tier 4 on, so be prepaired. -note- "rich" rich iron ores deposits are labled 'bountiful rich iron'

The normal nodes will have 1-3 peices of rough ore, (average of 2), with rich having 4-5 plus extra, unqiue items. With a single workable ingot needing 2 peices of ore, per unit, you will generally need about 40-50 ore nodes to create a stack. THIS IS VERY TIME CONSUMING AT ALL TIERS, AND HELLISH FROM TIER 4 ON, PLAN ACCORDINGLY.

Various other odd metals crop up for specialty items, such as: white-gold, westernesse ingots, elven ingots, low-grade iron and high-grade iron, which are refined by blending multipe ores and usually coal into a finished, unique ingot used in upper-tier processing. These are generally speciality items, so I would shy away from making such things unless you really wanna get that tier up, as their use may be limited, but note, 'refinining' under the 'smelting' section of the ore trades skill will yeild additonal tier points.

-be kind, give to the dwarven kin hall reguarily. Metal-crafting in all it's forms probably takes the most patience and time out of the majority of the other crafts, with very little pay off until you, unfortunatly, master the entire tier, so be a pal and donate reguarily, cause man, we need all the help we can get.

tier1

Copper and Tin
Copper will be used for jewel crafters while the additional tin will be used to create bronze for early metal-working.
The standard is 2 lumps of ore combine into an ingot. An additional single peice of tin ore will yeild one bar of bronze.

The best zone I have found to harvest bronze/tin would be the shire, particuarily around the farms in the lower south west section of the map, as well as the small swamp just north of the starting town. Any starting zone should have a relativly steady supply of first tier ore.

tier 2

Barrow iron/silver
Rather elusive, the even tiers of mining seem to be spread thin. In addition to being in a limited number of areas, many people tend to harvest barrow iron making the scarcity even more acute.

zones: the bree feilds most easily accessable area to find barrow iron, relativly free of monsters, with the utility of a work site in area. From the north-bree road to trestlebridge the most abudents deposits seem to crop up right along the road, however, competition will be fierce with Bree as a hub for characters coming and going. The barrow downs is also a rather rich, if equally populated and over-taxed area to get barrow iron and silver, though the sheer amount of mobs mkaes mining solo perilous for most characters of sufficient level. The very earliest portions of the lone-lands yeild few and far bewteen deposits, but turns to tier 3 with surprisingly quickness and has very little to begin with. The north downs and the northern shire also are excellent areas to mine for barrow/silver, particuarily in the lower level areas of the feilds of fornost and the southerns woods leading to Esteldin, and the shire area west of scary and south of bull roarers. The later will possess arguably the richest, more plentiful nodes once more, as well as low mobs and competition.

tier 3

rich iron/gold- Possibly the most plentiful of nodes, the rich iron can be found throughout the lone lands and the northdowns to incredible degrees.

zones-The fields of fornost, and the areas both north and south of esteldin should yet such incredible output, as well as Tinnudir,that this could be among the easiest tiers you have to master. Gold is, of course, rarer, as the precious metal nodes are, also appear quite regurily.

tier 4, aka, 'the devil's rock collection'

dwarf-iron and platinum. Now...were screwed. Dwarf-iron is arguably the single biggest pain in the hee-haw in the entire game as, as an even tier, it's disappointingly spread scantially, has stiff competion, and the tier requires absolutly massive amounts. (master of tier 4 armoursmith ended up costing me about 1780 ore, if I can recall my calculations, plus coal was needed for everything, which runs 2sp and 56 cp a pop)

zones-The two most populous areas seemed to be the vast swamp in Angmar, which is wrought with mobs that will bug you into you high 40's and receives relativly heavy foot traffic, and trollshaws, particuarily the high moors, right on the path leading to Rivendell. Going out at an ungodly hour yeilded great results in the high moors, as the ore was relativly prevailent when it wasnt instantly being mined by fellow players, and the creatures were of lower level. There are also a few places in Tinnudir, particuarily in the mountainous regions across the lake from the outpost, where the ore can be found, but proves an incredible pain to get to.

Platinum can crop in very odd places, from the area where dwarf iron resides, to the misty mountains, were it's more common than the tier 5 precious metal of the same name which is exceedingly rare. Oddly enough, the trollshaws only boasts tier 3 precious, not tier 4. The swamp of angmar has both tier 4's for the harvesting.

tier 5

ancient iron-the final frontier, thank god its almost over. Ancient iron seems easier to attain, as most people would rather have shot themselves than continue on with this harvesting gig after experiencing the sheer madness of the last d**n tier. These nodes seem to yeild rich supplies quite often and are in relativly abundance

the north-eastern areas of angmar and the misty mountains, particuarily the later, are where you will need to go. MM is huge, and chock full of ore, so after mining yer dwarf iron in the moors, might as well hope up north and get a head start there on the next tier.

misty mountain silver- only available in the mm's, this ore hides from everyone and wont come out to play. the richest area seems to be the northern most reaches of MM, around the feilds of goblin town, where ancient iron pop up liberally. scan the feilds and rely heavily on your compass.

in addition, the tier 5 nodes can be found with in the ettenmoors and various nutbags sometimes head out alone to reap the benefits. Mine at yer own risk in the depthes of Isen for yer silver, less the creep worgs make you a chew toy.

-Local crackpot, Olmandis Stoneshout reporting.