Cringeley
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Posted - 2006.05.10 15:18:00 -
[1]
The T2 BPO system as implemented is a highly flawed rendering of the "research" and "patent" system it purports to be.
First, the research side. Instead of completing highly specific and interesting research-related quests players can simply sign on with a research agent once their standings and skills are high enough and thereby rack up research points that will, if they are lucky, result in a BPO offer. In the real world research and invention are absorbing careers that mostly don't fit into people's spare time. To represent "research" more faithfully (assuming the absolutlely MASSIVE rewards for research are kept in) the game should make research a deeply involved career that requires a greater time investment and player skill (not just skill points invested in a handful of science skills).
Secondly, the blueprint system is not really a "patent" system, in spite of the use of the term in the agent fluff. What players get is a key to use factories and materials to produce a particular item at a particular rate.
In the real world when someone invents something they can produce it for a profit, and they can also license others to produce it (or expand production by buying or renting more production space).
A very simple change that would bring huge benefits to the T2 system, in my opinion, would be a sharp drop in the copy time for T2 blueprints, to say half or a quarter of the manufacturing time (i.e. you can make 2 or 4 copy runs in the time it would take to make an item). This way T2 lottery winners would have a more viable option to make easier, smaller profits on their blueprints by giving others a chance to buy them. Some T2 BPO owners do do this, but not nearly as many as I would like to see.
Further, it would allow BPO owners to increase their rate of production by running BPCs off their BPOs and manufacturing from those. This would probably lead to a fall in profit margins but an increase in overall profits for the most competitive T2 manufacturers who would be able to double or quadruple their sales volume.
One final aspect of the T2 system that bothers me is the lack of market laws in Eve, although I don't see this as something Eve's devs are ever likely to change. T2 BPOs in Eve are natural prey for monopolies and cartels, who can either starve non-allies of a particular item, or raise the item's price to exhorbitant levels. Again this is something that would be prevented in the real world through competition and anti-cartel laws. The real free market is not a jungle, but an environment in which a legal framework prevents cornering of scarce resources on which everyone depends.
In closing I would say that the strongest argument for reform of the T2 BPO system is the level of ire it attracts from players. This is more than just a matter of jealousy. Players are right to consider it grossly unfair that a feckless idiot who happens to luck out in the research lottery can end up making billions of isk per week and making life miserable for more talented, less lucky players. Although there is, of course, an element of luck in business success, there is also a necessary element of skill that is missing from the T2 BPO process. In general I would like to see reforms that make "T2 researcher" a respected profession instead of the byword for "gambler" that it currently is.
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Thrice is he armed who has his quarrel just,
But four times he who gets his blow in fust. |