Time for proper in-game advertising system for crafters?

It's 2012 and yet we crafters are still at launch back in '04 as far as advertising our wares is concerned. Not in a guild? No problem. Hit the 'u' key and up pops a convenient dialogue box with information regarding a selection of guilds. Level of guild, minimum requirements, etc., with a handy li'l 'Toon is Online Now' should you wish to shoot a tell. A nice convenient method of checking out the available guilds, suitability, etc. Non invasive 'cos you can scroll through the posted guilds until you see some that look inviting........ And we have? 'level 92 carp available for commissions, etc.' or 'Looking for prov to make me level 80 food. Have mats.' Are you kidding me? In 2012? Crafting is the lifeblood of EQ2. Take us out of it and the game falls apart. Yet we are treated as, at best, an after thought. I sent a request into the devs some months back asking if this could be addressed. Ignored. Maybe if enough of us contacted them, they might listen? If you think it a worthwhile avenue to explore?

Do you really feel there is a market out there looking to have these items crafted?
Is the auction channel really not enough of a mechanic to find someone to make something?

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Well no, otherwise I wouldn't have posted. The present system is clumsy, outmoded, and not conducive to the marketplace, which is presumably why we craft in the first place. I craft to make enough plat to upgrade my gear, plain and simple. If I wanted a hobby to pass the time, I'd go off and do something in RL. The system employed for guild advertising is excellent. Very simple to set up, very easy to read. All I'm looking for is something similar for crafters. Not verything made goes on the broker!

at best, you can /lfw
It would be nice if a window would pop up, not unlike the LFG window, where you can put a check in 'Reactant Recipes' category with box to check which levels you can craft and perhaps a list of Factions you can check, so they know you have faction recipes.
Or just a box to check for each expansion you can craft, with sub categroies if applies, such as TSO which allows to add tupta, grobb and Far Seas Strategic Pricing
A second tab, like they have for the LFG window, would be for customers that filter what they are seeking!
One can dream, right?

Atan@Unrest wrote:

1. yes (many players come and go without ever going to endgame)
2. no

If people don't know of and have stopped using the LFG tool years ago, how do you expect them to know about /who all lfw?

Cloudrat wrote:

Give me an example of a crafting request that you couldn't get filled with 15 mins using the /gu or the /auction command.
I'm simply not seeing it.

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Reactant gear is one that immediately comes to mind. There are people who are requesting lower tier gear, or even max level gear, and unable to get it made because nobody has that recipe. And yes, the requests can happen during prime time, with nobody responding. Whether the crafters are simply unwilling to respond, or nobody has that recipe, it's still annoying to not be able to put in a request that anyone can view at any time. Oh, and another example is quest crafted items, for the epics or HQ's. And yet another example is the faction only recipe items... Enough examples for you?

Trebien@Nektulos wrote:

Those were the answers I was expecting to see, but I've seen them responded to nearly every time they've come across.
It's my experience that most serious crafters have already unlocked the majority of these recipes, and if you pool a dozen of them together you have a very hard time finding a recipe they don't have, and I would argue generally atleast a dozen hardcore crafters are in the /auction channel most of the time.
Now, requests for that being done at unreasonable prices might not be getting filled. But I offer 100p for a combine, any combine, I've yet to not be able to have it done within 15 minutes. And that included low level research or faction based items I wanted for a BG twink.
Lastly, there have been several websites that tried to offer this same service, and they all died off cause well, no one used it. Its one of those things that if I thought players really wanted this resource we'd see it used at a fansite.

Atan@Unrest wrote:

You don't even need hardocre crafters or anywhere near a dozen. At this stage in the game, even with reactant gear, I can name a dozen casual players off the top of my head that can make anything in the game you want; each has a full bevy of crafters.
I despise crafting and happen to be one of those.

Laenai@Oasis wrote:

Not even remotely true. The post was talking about alt gear, not level 90 only.
I had all the 90 recipes done a long time ago, except maybe some of the sillier weapons, and even with my lax attention to the researcher, I have some crafters approaching 100% research now, but all the outfitters have double or triple the recipes to research, so for things like lower level alt bp's and weapons, there are massive gaps.

If Recipes were included in the Data Feeds, then we would look at providing a way to look up characters on a specific server that know a specific recipe book.

I think it's just a lack of concern about the lower level bp's and weapons. Why research them if nobody wants them, except one person who asks in channel for a few hours before they realize they have outleveled it.
Granted, there are a lot of cool things that could be done, but I'd hope the priorities are on fixing current issues. If they added a "willing to buy * for x plat" option to the broker, and added a crafting commission system similar to the broker, and put the research assistant npc's into the research tab of the spellbook, those would all be wonderfully awesome, but that's not going to fix all the raid balance, raid itemization and class balance issues.

I agree. It seems it's hard to make money on crafting since so many of the things you craft are on the auction house for the same or less than it costs to make the items.
Not all of us are high level raiders...some of us actually enjoy taking our time adventuring and crafting in the game. I would love to see a system that allowed players to advertise what they want, and make it so crafters are able to do an order for them kind of like writs except for real players.
It would be especially helpful in consumables like arrows, foods and potions. I currently throw 2000 or so arrows of each type on the AH every so often but I know there are people who would like to be able to set their own prices. As long as the profit margin was there it would be great for everyone.

Yep like Atan I don't really understand this request. Pretty much anything ppl ask for is sorted really quick from asking in channels - 1-9, crafting, norrathtrade here.
And as far as saying crafters might not have researched the lower lev recipes because a lot of ppl are up into high end raiding kind of shows a misunderstanding of the majority crafters I know - they tend to be completionists and research / faction grind ALL the recipes they can, because they can. I know I do

Completionist or not, I don't think I'll finish the outfitters this year.
The others might get everything except the level 90 weapon appearance items this year.

To go along with broker, we need a buyer mode like EQ1 has. That would allow for people to fulfill orders when they see someone looking for a particular item they can make. Also would cover any other tradeable item imaginable.

Cyliena wrote:

Buyer mode was great in EQ1, but that was mostly feeding crafters with the ingredients they needed. I don't know that it helps much in EQ2. Some classes would do well selling their basic goods, but others wouldn't be helped much, especially when it comes to dealing in rare materials. Let's say someone posts a request for an expert spell and 5 people see it around the same time. Only one of those people will profit from a sale and the rest will have wasted a rare.
As the OP suggests, improvements need to be made in the way people find crafters. There should be a way for a person to be LFW and show all the professions they have on their account. It would be great if we could also make things a little easier by somehow getting people to our crafting houses instantly. Not all crafters have CoV and not all customers are standing next to a house portal. Basically, when you search for crafters, their listings also show a house to visit as you would on the housing leaderboards. As an alternative, maybe crafters could have a house item to perform a CoV.

ive got almost every recipe in game. im missing a few skyshrine raid recipes and some t6 weaponsmith reactant recipes, and almost all the t8 and lower food recipes. but i have the skyshrine heroic recipes, each multiple times over. i wont log an alt to do a combine if its under 50 plat, and rarely for under 100 plat. (if im doing it for profit motive) i can do PR and get a hundred plat for just a little more time investment. the problem is not coordination among players, its how trivial combines are, how ubiquitous the recipes are, (and in skyshrine, how expensive the mats are). when ppl go to get a recipe done, they will spam channel for hours before offering a worthwhile tip. but they will spend 3k on the mats. and for a crafter trying to do combines and broker the product, it actually decreases in value as soon as you make it. the components sell for FAR more than a finished product. these are the primary problems with comission crafting for profit, and earning plat as a crafter off broker. when combines fees are entirely negotiable, they dont feel like spending ANYTHING on it. they already blew their bank account just acquiring the mats. this market design causes no profit on crafter side, and therefore very little incentive for them to even respond to requests. the effort involved in helping some poor schmuck who doesnt know how to powerlevel, isnt in progression guild, and is just blindly doing what he can is enormous versus how much use he will get out of it. ive done it a few times now (helping poor schmucks) and a few days later they are asking me for a new tier of equipment. the effort on my side for the value they get is too small. and their contribution to the whole thing is nothing. they dont have 1 plat to their name. combining that with the logging to alt aspect...and it takes a lot of spam before i have pity and help em out. if eq2 wants to save crafting, they need to fix these design flaws or bring in a new innovative aspect. id like to see true group crafting, with a communal progress bar, and each person contributing and needing each other to win, to produce 1 amazing item at a time. and these group recipes being required by all before it can be attempted. and requiring correct classes to participate. the asynchronous interdependence of launch was not real time. it made ppl dependent, not interdependent and working together at same time.

ratbast wrote:

Umm, they tried something like this when the game first started. Everyone had a special crafting hall, dependant upon what type of crafter you were (scholar was one), and you built your crafting hall up to allow you to purchase more sub-combine items, such as ore. Everyone had the ability to make certain low quality items, such as inks, paper, quills, etc, which were required for the completed recipes. However, when they tried that, it became extremely obvious that people weren't interested in supplying others with the components, hardly anyone was able to purchase needed items on the broker. You had to either have an alt able to craft the components you needed, or you had to have a friend willing to make them for you.
They even tried changing it, to make it a little easier for everyone. Everyone was able to buy recipes that gave them the ability to make the components themselves, but required more raws and/or fuels to make. This was to encourage people to still purchase from the original crafters, but you weren't prevented from making your final products if you really needed to. Needless to say, it still failed. People weren't willing to deal with the interdependance, and the crafting halls started to fail, to the point where all but one per zone was closed down.
So, altho the idea is great, you can see it wouldn't work.