Originally by: Irrilian

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Why macromining is bad for Eve:

Depression of high sec mineral prices. Macro mining produces a glut of minerals on the market, driving down prices. This amplifies any of the annual trends normally observed. Thus less money earned by the honest miner.

Competition for a limited resource. Honest miners have to compete with macro miners for the same asterroid spawns. Macro miners arent just sitting in 1.0 and 0.9 systems, but semi attended teams are mining down to 0.5. Some ore types are particularly desirable in high sec e.g. Omber for its high Isogen content. Quite systems cultivated for a good % Omber, or just regular spawns with plenty to mine are becoming harder to find. Thus less money earned by the honest miner.


Inflation. Another form of competition, but this time on the market with my fellow players. With a market driven by supply and demand of the players, an influx of cash in the hands of some with drive up prices for the things they commonly purchase. E.g. if a seller places items on the market for x and theyÆre snapped up quickly, next time he may increase his price a little to earn a larger profit. This isnÆt something that will be readily observed with individual transactions, but an overall upward drift in prices, that is inflation. Thus it costs more to purchase things.

Thus honest players loose out in a number of ways. Moreover the Macro issue is particularly insidious as it attacks the means at which newer players typically earn an income.

I expect those declaiming ôYet Another Macromining Thread!ö may raise their own voices in complaint when it begin to effect their sources of income too, when this is not just seen as a ôcarebearö complaint. Macro mining is only the most trivial form of macroing that can be done. As seen in many other mmorpgs, operator supervised bot teams are quite capable of PVE farming to the highest levels and in other PVP games even locking out regular players of entire areas with assassin squads. If Eve is seen as profitable to the secondary market companies expect the clichT ôLeave of PKö at 10/10 complex and officer battleship spawns near you.

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