Because I have too much free time, and this is the kind of thing that I really enjoy, I did a scenario analysis of the level 3 kegtap rune in an earnest attempt to prove to the administration why it's really not worth it to buy and have in a shop. If, of course, the runes were only intended for personal use, my analysis would be moot. I, however, refuse to believe that and hope that the intent was to give shop owners another option.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pWA...P8h9G-WavEdEkSQ

All of the assumptions are subject to change depending on personal 'deals', etc. but please note that if I remove the entire cost of 36,600 from the situation, it STILL takes 5 months to recover your cost of the rune. Please note, as well, that it is assumed it takes 2 days to sell out of a health keg. I haven't found this to be true, but even if you sell out very quickly, it's still not worth it, in my opinion. The money is better 'spent' elsewhere, where it can give a better rerturn (for example other goods for the shop.)

I just can't see the cost outweighing the benefit.

DISCLAIMER: I have only done the analysis in as much as it relates to shops and shop owners. The merits of having a keg for personal use are there, but they are not what I'm discussing. Thank you.

So in other words, they're just like every other artifact.

No.. Because most of the other artifacts ARE worth the credits. (MOST, not all.) This is a great idea, in theory, to me, but it fails in execution, which is also different from other artifacts.

This is an impressive analysis of recouping the cost of the level 3 keg rune.

So you think out of this list: "spatula, shears, jeweler's hammer, forging hammer, gloves of harvesting, poisonist's gloves, pantograph, magic quill" you can prove that you can recoup the cost of most of those in less than 5 months? This I've got to see. Because plenty of others have done these analyses and concluded it'd take far longer than 5 months, if it could be done at all. I think it's safe to say you've demonstrated that the keg rune is a positive steal; after 5 months it's pure profit forever.

I agree with Gwylifar, but I'd also buy these new runes just for the coolness of having a single huge keg or cube I could always carry with me. It could never be stolen because it'd always come back to me AND it holds six times more than a normal keg or cube. I don't really care if I can recoup the cost of it, honestly.

If you'd actually take the time to read what I said, I said they're -mostly- -worth- the credits, not that they can be recovered. Either they save in time or effort (forging and herbs) or they increase utility (pantograph). I also haven't seen any of these so-called analyses that conclude it'll take far longer than 5 months, so when you decide to put the effort into it, rather than spewing things you assume to be fact, I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

Google spreadsheets is an excellent tool for sharing and creating spreadsheets.

Zarquan, my disclaimer says that I've only done the analysis based on the assumption that it'll be used in shops, and to help shop owners. I completely agree that there is a potential worth for personal use, and, sure, I guess you can feel free to buy one... I can't quantify the cost of personal use, and I can't measure out time in a way that'll allow me to compare it to credits, realistically, so let me change my disclaimer to read something a bit more blatant, and hopefully that'll address your response.

So even though the other analyses have already been done and all you'd have to do is search for them, you still want me to do all the footwork of proving your assertion for you. Well, I've already read them, and I don't care nearly enough to do all the work for you. Particularly given that you think a pantograph offers "extra utility" to the owner, and that the value of time saved on harvesting or forging can't be evaluated in monetary terms. Feel free to believe as you want, and we'll see how many people you convince.

I love how people can do work to determine the worth of an item and post it for our benefit, and then be attacked for it

If you are disputing a claim by stating that there are "other analyses" which prove otherwise, isn't the burden on you to back up that statement by providing links to those analyses which you cite? If you are just stating your personal opinion as the basis of your argument then that's a different story.

I'm curious in seeing what other analyses have been performed regarding the benefit of tradeskill artifacts, as I have certainly overlooked them.

I find the Forging Hammer to be totally worth it, and I recouped the price of it, in under 2 RL months.

I think the burden of proof falls on Myndaen, since it's his assertion that the keg rune's return-on-investment time of 5 months is substantially more than the return-on-investment time of "almost all" the other artifacts, and as yet, he's provided no evidence to support this assertion.

But if the burden does fall on me, so be it: I will cede the point, as I said, for this simple reason. I believe that anyone who doesn't think that "saved time" has a monetary value at all, or that a pantograph offers its owner a non-monetary "increased utility", will not be convinced by an entire mountain range of evidence anyway, so it's not worth the time and effort to build up that futile mountain.

If you'd like evidence for my assertion that futile argument is unproductive, I offer this.


He wasn't attacked for it. His conclusion was questioned and disagreed with, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to be expected by anyone who posts an argument. Then he was attacked for having some impressively wrong ideas at a later point in the conversation. This is a meaningful distinction.

Nice analysis. If anyone is interested, I could make one of those for the fesix pack.

I'd like to see an analysis on how long it takes to earn the 1000 credits that an aether shop costs. Basically, ever artifact is an investment and you'll have to work to get the cost back in before you really make profit from it.

I did the maths once on how long it would take me to get the credits back in from poison gloves.. I decided not to get them. It would have taken months and months and months!

If you know you're going to sell that long though.. they might be worth it. Or just for convenience.

Were your harvesting gloves not worth the price?

I think everyone is forgetting that it is possible to trade in artifacts, for 2/3 of its cost. So in fact, it is a lot quicker to break even than you put it.

That's a good point, Rika.

The never-decay and theftproof features are also worth something, though for a keg going into a shop, very little: those already won't decay and it's the contents you'd be worried about losing, not the keg.

I'm stupid so I'm going to ask this without shame, so...it takes 7 months to recover from the cost/break even? I plan on playing longer than that, so the runes would be of good benefit to me anyway? Still pricey though, so I'm going to wait a bit before getting any for my shop. (I want one for my cube since it gets lost/stolen every three months )

Once again, if you READ my post, my post states that my assertion is that the keg rune is not worth it from a shopowner's standpoint. YOU were the one who attacked my findings with corollary arguments that were almost completely unrelated to the analysis I did to start with. I HAVE provided, in the form a spreadsheet, evidence supporting my assertion (my OPINION) that the level 3 keg rune is not worth it for a shop owner or a shop investment.



If you plan to play for longer than that, and will definitely have a shop for longer than that in which you'll sell healing kegs, yes, it'll be a good investment. This is going on the assumption that you sell 50 refills every day. Increase the amount of refills you sell per day and you'll make your money back quicker, decrease it, and it'll take longer. That's the general gist.

It's my guess, however, that there are better ways to spend your money for the next 7 months, but I don't know how or what.

EDIT: I miss Verithrax. Now he was a good troll. I really think he should start a troll school so that all of the other little trolls can learn how to properly argue for the sake of arguing. Perhaps there can be advanced lessons on how to do so from a very tall horse.

While interesting, there's a lot of assumptions in the analysis. What if you can buy those herbs in bulk for a larger discount? What if you team up with an herbalist who provides the herbs free of charge for a cut of the profits? What if you drop the price of sips sold by 10%, undercutting the competition and sell out much faster than otherwise?

However, the biggest assumption is putting a gold cost on credits. This is probably hard to understand but credits are actually worth much differently than what the credit market averages. Why? Because most people who buy credits on the market don't buy in bulk and do so usually (not always) for occasionally lessons, not artifacts. For most people, they analyze whether the time it would take to earn the gold is worth the cost of real money to purchase the credits outright. Let's say you put a cost at 1.5 million gold on the keg rune. Lets say it takes you one hour of straight bashing/influencing/questing to make 20k gold (I don't know if that's true or not but let's assume). Thus, it would take you 75 hours to purchase the keg rune. Is the keg rune really worth about two weeks of full-time work? My guess is most people would say no. Even at $10/hour, that would make the keg rune worth $750 (about 3000 credits!). Let's say you're only willing to spend 10 hours of constant bashing/influencing/questing for a keg rune. Lets say this would net you 200,000 gold. Certainly by your analysis, you would earn this back quite quickly. Lets say you can make 50k gold an hour, this would make the keg rune worth 500,000 gold, still 1/3 of what your analysis demonstrates.

In other words, the credit market is in actuality a poor indicator for such cost analysis, because most people who purchase credits value them differently. Again, I know this is a difficult concept to wrap your head around, but the truth is that the worth of credits is actually much more subjective than what is indicated on the market. Those who purchase credits usually don't put them on the market, partially because they feel their credits are worth much more and partially because they aren't as interested in gold as are in an artifact or lessons. Of course, the views of a business professional and an unemployed student would be radically different.