Miners and Making a Living in Istaria

[Cloe]

Some back ground,
Right before the changes to thePawnbrokersI gave mining a break. I recently, yesterday, decided to pick it back up. Mining gems worked pretty well back then and selling the cut gems made ok silver.Nothing compared to 1 silver or more per tier construction.Imagine my surprise when trying to sell 1200 tier IVcut gems and finding it would only take 800 or sopaying 3 silver... *blink* *blink* Tried several times to sell the gems at one time.. Hence I discoverd the 3k qty limit the PB's have. As that particular one was full, I tried another that didn't have any of that type of gemand they paid about what I remember around 21-24 silver. The next load to the PB, the second one,(same amount of gems) Paid much less?? Something like 12 silver... Ok so the more they have the less is paid. Are the imperial resources, the ones used to rebuild the Empire, limited in the same way??

I don't and won't pretend to know the nitty grittyof the dynamicshere with the PB's and these limitations. Any understanding that could be passed along would be greatly appreciated.Did I miss something planned for the class in the future?

From my experience of mining till level 82(before what Ilearned yesterday), mining produced a ton of material, bricks, bars and gems. "still does" Pawnbrokers were the best option for making a living. In those 82 levels I certainly didn't get rich, nor did I ever make it to1 gold piece mining. Of course I spent silver on comps for techs andonconstruction for my plot. The point being, the majority of silver thatI made mining, went to other players. I got lucky and won my plot at auction time, otherwise I couldn't have afforded it.

Current situation and reason for the post.

I used that really nifty program the crafting calc to work out Tier V teched Ironsilk and Jewelry. Iproceeded to hunt for the comps. Manged the Fins, snouts and chips by hunting. Honestly I would have rather bought them from a player. Thisleaves the vexator fringes and Veteran parts.In order to fund the remaining comps I went to the gems anddiscovered the Pawnbroker limitations/changes.

I'm not over looking consignment as I can easly put Tons of material on them. Does it really sell? From what I've been able to determine the construction classes forage for thier own resources to make the building materialsand naturalymake their livings more profitable. WhatI have that doesn'tsellobviously ends up in the vault.

Can the crafting class Miner make a living in Istaria?

[Deth]

The PB were changed just before the release of dragon lairs to stop people from using them to make a liveing. As you have found it does not completely stop but it does shlow it down greatly. As a miner you best bet is to go to the Dragon channel and offer your wares at a fair price and hope you find a dragon that is intrested and have the coin. I would be willing to buy such but as I spend more time crafting then hunting am very short of coin now after finishing off my craft scales. But maybe you will get luckly and find a Dragon that is less intrested in the gathering of resources for them selves and has the coin

[Helcat]

absolutely they can make a living. I routinely offer to hire Miners
in MarketPlace (even though I myself am L100 Miner) yet
rarely if ever do I get a response. There are those of us out
there who would gladly put crafters to work... I think the
real problem is people just don't have the desire to do it...

[Cloe]

I'm curious what kind of living were they able to make, and what in the world was I doing wrong. I've blocked out the little mith coin in my mind and nearly the gold one where it shows the balance. Thank you for the advice on the Dragon Channel.
To clarify, Dragon crafting doesn't use processed materials. So while it may be possible to make a limited living off of raw materials, my career won't advance due to the lack of experience. I tried picking at one of those new crystal nodes and get a message saying I don't have that ability or something... I bet I could make money if I could mine those. Would you buy those from me?


I'm on the Chaos server and did take a job making slate bricks a very long time ago. I do try to keep a pretty close eye on the market place but do get side tracked and play catch up with the scroll bar. I'm just not seeing those requests or for some reason missing them completely.

[Deth]

No with the new Dragon lair crafting we need both raw and processes resourcesof all kinds but the gems. Which we need raw of 3 kinds in equal amounts. But mostly wwe need process resources as we must combine items likestone bricks and metal bars for one contrction items,stone bricks and raw essence and thenmetalbarsfor another item, Metal bars and stone slabs and then added essence orbs to that for yet another item. So as you can see Dragon Laircrafters have a lot of runnign around to do.

As to the crystal, I play on order so RP reason would prevent me from buying it from a biped if it could be mined.

[Cloe]

Ok thats what I was wondering, too much has to happen with the new crystals in order to make them a consideration for making a living even if they could be mined.

[Helcat]

I'll give you a perfect example of what I'm talking about.
A few days ago, somone in MarketPlace posted he was
looking to hire someone to mine mithril for him.

The general response he received was "What is your
skill level... then why can't you mine it yourself?

With nothing to spend coin on, most players simply
don't wish to be bothered crafting/gathering for others...
sad, but this is what I am finding...

[Valornyx]

One of the banes of lairshaping is the dreaded tricut - requiring 6 unprocessed gems for for a tricut. These little puppies go into crystalline lattices at 20:1 meaning that to apply one crystalline lattice (at optimal) to your lair 240 unprocessed gems are needed.

Now a tarbash only holds one stack as nearly everyone who has been in the game for a little while would be aware.

A miner on the other hand gets that little burst of sweetness - the Standish Deluxe.

Fast speed and10 stack count (although no portalling) - puts you in prime position to become a dragons best friend.

Ihavetwo accounts and double-box with the biped alt (in miner) doing all the legwork and transferring resources to the dragon who processes the gems and pops them on the tarbash for delivery to my lair.

If I could not do this for myself - I think I'd be happy to pay a miner or two to help out with the resources required.

The resources required for lairs are quite staggering (without getting into a debate about that issue). I think that you can get work - or make a living selling resources - especially since miners are more efficient at digging them up (at least mine is).

[Cloe]

Iwill be movingon from miner, as it's prohibitive with the pawnbroker mechanics.
The mine it yourself example is sad and during the period since we last visited this thread I have not seen one requeston the other side of the coin.

I'mnot discounting the gains for smelting, quarrying ect.. Thats wonderful for crossover to other crafting classes as many have found out leveling a spellcrafter or blacksmith and many others 20+ levels in an hour. With the rumored changes to crossover in the future, miners are being routed further into a skidrow crafting class. No big deal for high level miners and please don't misunderstand me when I say that. My overall concern is...

What will be the incentive for new players to take up mining in the future?

The past changes and the future changes don't bode well for futureminers. Construction is finite and much less of a consumable with the novians going into a vault upon deconstruction of a structure.

Generally deconstruction is to move to a higher tier or game design has made that structure impractical for the area, still finite. I understand that people move plots and need their hard earned resources, even that will become static after a time.

Miners can't make a living and as pointed out by one poster already. That was in part intened.

[Cloe]

One of the banes of lairshaping is the dreaded tricut - requiring 6 unprocessed gems for for a tricut. These little puppies go into crystalline lattices at 20:1 meaning that to apply one crystalline lattice (at optimal) to your lair 240 unprocessed gems are needed.

Now a tarbash only holds one stack as nearly everyone who has been in the game for a little while would be aware.

A miner on the other hand gets that little burst of sweetness - the Standish Deluxe.

Fast speed and10 stack count (although no portalling) - puts you in prime position to become a dragons best friend.

Ihavetwo accounts and double-box with the biped alt (in miner) doing all the legwork and transferring resources to the dragon who processes the gems and pops them on the tarbash for delivery to my lair.

If I could not do this for myself - I think I'd be happy to pay a miner or two to help out with the resources required.

The resources required for lairs are quite staggering (without getting into a debate about that issue). I think that you can get work - or make a living selling resources - especially since miners are more efficient at digging them up (at least mine is).

Val, you are the second person I'm aware of that dual logs to in order to accomplish a task. I know you are not saying that you wouldn't hire a miner. Rather that there is no need for you to do so.

I can always visit the miner trainer should things change.

[Valornyx]

Well - I was using that as an example - but it really will come into play more as the much debated (although perhaps not known to you) changes to crafting come in.

In line with DLSH - crafting (if I understand this correctly) will be changed so that craft classes get xp only from their main function. For example DLSH really gets xp only significantly from placing the finished products on a lair - as that is what the school is all about.

Subsequently - dragons do not get any xp for 90% of the actual work that goes into DLSH - but almost all of it from application.

Now - what this will mean is that a blacksmith (for example) will not get any xp for making bars and the vast majority of their xp from making tools - since that is their main function.

Subsequently - when these changes go through I would expect to see miners making bars for example for other classes since the other classes will get no xp from the 90% of the work that goes into gathering the resources in the first place.

As you say though - you can always go back to it :)

[Cloe]

Thank you for the clarification! [:D]

[UlteriorModem]

Now - what this will mean is that a blacksmith (for example) will not get any xp for making bars and the vast majority of their xp from making tools - since that is their main function.

Subsequently - when these changes go through I would expect to see miners making bars for example for other classes since the other classes will get no xp from the 90% of the work that goes into gathering the resources in the first place.

Not following this.

So the blacksmith will getno xp for making bars is going to make bars to give a dragon so thatthe dragoncan get xp by applying said bars ?

BTW the xp for making bars right now might as well be nothing [:S]

[Deth]

Not following this.

So the blacksmith will getno xp for making bars is going to make bars to give a dragon so thatthe dragoncan get xp by applying said bars ?

BTW the xp for making bars right now might as well be nothing [img]/Web//emoticons/emotion-7.gif[/img]

So said MINER will make bars for the Blacksmith and Dragon. So all three get XP. Will save the bipeds the time and trouble of going becoming a miner. Making backs going back changing to blacksmith make tools. Repeat.

Now some will still do this as they do not want to bother with finding a miner.

[belezar]

Iwill be movingon from miner, as it's prohibitive with the pawnbroker mechanics.

Miners can't make a living and as pointed out by one poster already. That was in part intened.

You can still make a great living as a miner better than pawnbroking actually.

Try listing steel bars at 100-150c each. Cobalt bars at 65c each.

Store your gems up in a silo and slow feed them into pawnbrokers every few days instead of grinding the PB for a constant 24 or 48 hour period.

There are lots of ways a miner can make money and be useful. My smith makes money from mining and making metal on many occassions.

[Cloe]

[img]/Web/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Cloe wrote: Iwill be movingon from miner, as it's prohibitive with the pawnbroker mechanics.

Miners can't make a living and as pointed out by one poster already. That was in part intened.


You can still make a great living as a miner better than pawnbroking actually.

Try listing steel bars at 100-150c each. Cobalt bars at 65c each.

Store your gems up in a silo and slow feed them into pawnbrokers every few days instead of grinding the PB for a constant 24 or 48 hour period.

There are lots of ways a miner can make money and be useful. My smith makes money from mining and making metal on many occassions.

You really can grind the pbs for 24 or 48 hours??wow, I knowI don't have the stamina for that and I don't believe that I suggested anything of the sort,so I'm not at all sure how that contributes to anything.. Please elaborateor rephrase if I'm missing something helpful there... The part of spreading out over a few days does however help and I thank you for that suggestion.

The PB can be filled in 3 trips and pays considerably less for the effort on the second trip and whats the point on the 3rd trip?? 1st trip will net around 24silver for Tier IV gems which doesn't cover the cost of one vexator fringe for example.. The 3rd trip is about 6 silver.. So in an hours time your done with that PB, could be less if focused... If more than one person is mining in the area then it's done.

I appreciate the advice on pricing and your passing on the type of materials that are selling well for you. Is that on chaos?


I'm not sure how plausable making bars and bricks for someone else to pay for and level their crafting school is. It would seem more likely that I make marble bricks and save them for leveling a crafting school that doesn't get xps for them. Yet it is just as quick to train a crafting school and have that school make/decon tools for example. This isn't anything new to most and I'd be interested who on the chaos shard is willing to 500 silver and moreto level up a character. Provided anyone would bewillingto pay instead of switching classes as supposed.

Whensaying the smith makes money from mining and making metal bars..Is it being suggested that aMiner needs to be a Blacksmith to make money or that the mining skills the Blacksmith learns is what is makingtheSmith money??Orsimply metal bars make money?? Can a blacksmith make a living in Istaria? That would be it's own separate discussion..

Also to consider would be how many new miners will be able to make a living off of steel and cobalt?? Rhetorical really as they can't make them.I started miner before the merge and I can't recall much about the tier 1 gems or bronze mining other than there were a ton of 0's and 1's per swing at first for many levels. When the New player area has more than 1 maybe two at the most the new players will see diminishing returns when trying to sell to the pb and if there are 12 entries at a few hundered qty each. That gives a realistic impression that they aren't selling.

I have seen on Chaos over a dozen entries of cobalt bars with 1k or more per entry all from the same player... maybe thats one of the posters here.. So I want to sell some cobalt bars... I list them for less because I want them to sell?? then the other player can't make anthing off them and ends up with a vault beyond capacity. A third player would like to sell bars.. Two already have them listed. What are the options for the 3rd player.. Well that is obvious.... Visit the New Tris connie as it downloads over 1k of items and realisticly evaluate it.. Much will end up over burdening vaults.

The current mechanics don't support Miners making a living. It supports one Miner and one limited material at a limited quanity.

However if things change I can always revisit the trainer. As it is, I can make a living adventuring and selling hoard 1:3 or even 1:4... Although I may have priced something too high before I learned the going rate.Hoard is in demand and I don't mind selling it cheap vs deleting it. Yet that is not making a living as a miner and the theme was to be able to be self reliant as a crafting class.

I'd be all for brining back the parcels yet that wouldn't work because of the current dynamics. Although I feel it would be a good start. As a matter of fact if anyone on chaos has tier IV parcel forms gathering dust please send me a tell or pm.. I'd got that route if it was available and at least it would be another option...

What I haven't said yet is that I could visit every Pawn I can find once but that would be suggesting that jumping through portals was being built into the game beyond what is necessary and or practical. Plus dragging a full disk is going to cost 1s to enter the portal not all portals but the more used destinations.