Gartel Reiman
Civis Romanus Sum
Pax Romana Alliance
   |
Posted - 2009.07.21 12:12:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Gartel Reiman on 21/07/2009 12:14:20
 Originally by: Soulita
I can not speak for DC, but for me the reasoning behind wanting t2BPOs removed is this:
The lottery was a flawed and corrupt system. Invention has somehow fixed the damage done a little. To finally come clean once and for all, the t2BPOs - as last relics of this sad past - have to be removed.
I think everyone agrees that the lottery was not an ideal way to introduce said BPOs. However, to me that's an argument against their initial method of distribution, rather than their existence.
Answer me honestly - if it could be shown that every single BPO was no longer in the hands of those who won it at the auction, but rather "honest" people who had bought it with their own ISK, how much validity does your point still hold? (Note that I'm not suggesting this is necessarily true of EVE, but it's a thought experiment to ascertain where the problem lies.)
At that point, all accusations of elitism, corruption, people being lucky etc. dissipate. Because at that point T2 BPOs exist, and are purchasable by anyone with enough ISK and motivation to go for them. There's no inequality here, it's standard capitalism as with any other item.
Now if you consider opportunity cost, this above is effectively true for every BPO. All the current BPO holders either purchased their BPO for ISK (which I presume the vast majority did, in fact), or won their BPO worth x billion ISK - and gave up the opportunity to sell it for that price, in order to keep it and produce from it, thus resulting in their wallet being x billion ISK lower than it otherwise would have been.
I don't think that getting rid of T2 BPOs would benefit the game, either. They allow those who invested in them a small benefit in production costs over inventors, but for the majority of items have nowhere near enough production volume to be able to influence market prices compared to inventors. They also allow one guaranteed production of a T2 item without having to go through the invention process a potentially unbounded number of times, if you wish to pay the appropriate amount of money for the BPO for this convenience.
Yes, the lottery wasn't a fair way of distributing the BPOs initially. But now that they're in game, the system is fair in that anyone can obtain one at an appropriate price for its "unique" benefits, and invention stops BPOs from affecting the markets in any notable fashion. So I don't think it's possible to contend that they're unfair, which is the only reason I've actually seen for removing them.
Edit: I should probably mention as well that I don't own any T2 BPOs and never have, since ad hominem seems to be the name of the game... 
|