Zendoren
Aktaeon Industries
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Posted - 2010.09.07 20:04:00 -
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Edited by: Zendoren on 07/09/2010 20:04:40
 Originally by: CCP Greyscale
Originally by: Bhattran
Originally by: CCP Greyscale
In principle, anywhere can generate a "complete market" if there's sufficient demand for it. What's needed in this scenario IMO is not to give these areas the resources to be self-sufficient, but rather to give them something that makes it beneficial to be there. If you can attract enough players, then the market will(/should) make it viable for other players to haul the necessary goods out there. One of the potential benefits of making everything more localized is that it carves out a much bigger role for the interstellar trader.
An issue with this is markets work best with customers, the more the better, players will make their greatest and most frequent efforts where they stand to gain the most which is wherever the population is greatest. You can't motivate people to spread out unless clustering has negative side effects and IMO this is punishing people who 'came late' or can't afford the fees used to enforce this. That also fosters players avoiding other players, to escape the fees/penalties of clustering, nice for using those empty systems but bad for players who don't get 'in' at the hot spots. If players are trying to turn a profit, have PVP action or just about anything you'd do with other players they'd now have negative consequences of being 'together' and benefits to being spread out, again IMO being penalized for coming late by getting stuck with a crappy system is not the way to go.
A great thing about EVE is you pretty much don't get locked out of systems because there are too many people there, lag/blob excluded. There probably are ways to work with that but the issue of not screwing over players who can't/don't get 'in' on the bottom floor of the good system(s) needs to be seriously considered in any plans to encourage populations spreading out/developing more complete markets.
This is a good point - trying to attack market hubs by penalizing sellers(/transactions) is likely going to lock out newer players without actually doing anything about the problem. The approach I'd prefer to take would be to leave the supply side of markets to fend for themselves, and instead focus on pushing the demand around. Specifically, if worldshaping and travel times and so on can be tuned to create more demand for local markets, the hubs ought to decentralize somewhat on their own. We've seen something like this happen in the past with Yulai becoming Jita, Amarr, Rens and that place I can't spell (to varying degrees, obviously), and repeating this trick would both ease some load issues (which, incidentally, we're also currently beating into a pulp on the hardware/software side) and introduce some clear gameplay benefits. If there was a clean way to do it I'd even consider designing Jita (and perhaps the other major hubs) into wholesalers' markets, so serious traders would use them as a central touchpoint, but "retail" customers wouldn't bother going there at all because it's easier/cheaper/more convenient/whatever to visit their local outlet.
Wholesaler idea is a wonderful one! May I suggest that you expand on that and possibly make these systems avalible for trade only if you have, lets say, Wholesaler skill trained; this can include the condition that 20% of your buy/sale orders are available per level in Wholesaler systems and/or broker fees and taxes are exempt on these orders. This might work or might not but I thought iI might throw it out there!
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