One of the things that can kill EVE as a game is the value of ISK.

Just imagine a situation where you must pay a standard monthly fee in cash to play the game and then buy ISK by selling PLEX in order to do any meaningful active PvP. Take a look at 3 years from now, for example, and a PLEX price hitting 1 bil ISK (according to the previously posted graph, that will happen).

Now let's take a look at faucets:
- If they stay the same, value of the ISK will continue to drop as it is dropping now and it would become harder and harder for new players to do anything meaningful.
- If they are nerfed, the amount of ISK in circulation will stay, but only rise at a slower rate. Again, not very newbie friendly.
- If they are buffed, we'll only have faster and more potent inflation until the point where ISK does not have any meaningful value (I've experienced exactly this in RL, sadly.)

The thing is, there is a delicate balance that should be worked on and maintained that provides new players the ability to join the game. If anything that they can do to make ISK is worthless compared to the value of PLEX, then we have a problem. And this game, being over 10 years old, needs new players in steady streams in order to survive. People's lives change significantly over 10 years and you simply can not count on veterans holding the game forever.

Overall, the inflation must somehow be stopped or slowed down significantly if we want to see this game survive 2-3 years from now.

So you think that PLEX is too expensive.

Are you looking for space welfare as solution? One PLEX per account per month free or for a subsidized price? Or the game will die?

Really, you need in game welfare to play a game?

No, I don't mean that the PLEX is expensive. I mean that ISK is devalued and that if continues to be devalued, we will have a problem.

There is a tremendous amount of hilarious wrongposting in this thread for something that was originally a troll.

You know that's just plain wrong, right ? The only thing that is guaranteed in a free market is that it's Pareto optimal which basically means that someone somewhere enjoys the free market. Nothing proves that in a free market "things will self adjust" whatever that means.

The "Amarrian Solution".

What problem? Just add more slaves to the "corporation" and send them off to do what slaves do.

Geeeeeesh, again with folks trying to make issues out of nonsense...

Your definition and understanding of Pareto optimality are wrong.

Pareto improvement is when somebody is made better off without making anybody else worse off.

Pareto optimum is when you cannot make anybody better off without making somebody else worse off.

If I am wrong I would like to know.

In context of this thread, if we nerf isk faucets just so that PLEX can be cheaper that is not Pareto improvement because even though PLEX buyers benefit isk earners suffer. So then you have to weigh the benefit to PLEX buyers vs isk earners suffering. If you do not care about Pareto improvement then you are just in business of redistributing wealth/resources.

A perfect free market will bring, when reaching equilibrium, a Pareto optimal situation. That's has been proved (don't remember the guy but that doesn't matter I can find it if you want).
However a Pareto optimum is hardly great in any case as you can find many exemples that are Pareto optimal while stll being ****** for everyone but one agent. If you do care about what is Pareto optimal and what isn't for practical purposes you are just dumb.

In the case of PLEX's price it's obvious that a shift in PLEX price, whether it is an increase or a decrease in price, isn't a Pareto improvment as there will always be one guy that want to push the price in the other direction. That's a decent illustration of why Pareto's notions are plain dumb in any practical cases. Pareto improvement are pratically non existents so I feel pretty good about not caring about them.

oh and my interpretation of a Pareto optimal is right, thank you very much.

That's why we cannot have nice things.

Just steal nice things from others, in the name of equality and fairness. That justifies all sorts of crimes.

It's not stealing if it's the law

Oh geez. Let's all make some isk in this thread.

So you may be OK investing in other isotopes but it may take time.

Oh geez. Let's all make some isk in this thread.

Running a tower is becoming more expensive. But this is only so for Caldari towers so far, I think. These are the ones to use nitropes. At some point, and I dont know when and why Caldari towers are so expensive to run, people will switch to other towers. So other isotopes are probably at their lows because nitropes are bid up. I would stay away from nitropes for now because of substitution effect. It is probably a bother to redo a POS with a different tower but at some point it will make sense. I think that substitution effect will keep a lid on nitropes until the other isotopes catch up. So you may be OK investing in other isotopes but it may take time.

With PI patch the cost of PIs is going up so that is also going to increase cost of fuel blocks. If I am wrong please let me know.

But I dont invest in nitropes. As I said I invest in second or third derivatives of a trend. So I bought 20 million of crystalline carbonide yesterday. I don't know if this is the right move. But I figured that with ice going up and PI the cost of running all towers will go up. For really sexy towers it might not matter but for the basic really boring towers the cost of running them will matter which will cause them to ask for isk or shut down, thus limiting supply of non sexy stuff like carbides.

Then with siphons the supply of all moon minerals will decrease somewhat. I am not sure of overall effect of this on towers. Sexy towers will get impacted probably. Non-sexy towers might not get impacted at all.

So I picked crystalline carbides since I am Gallente and said what the hell.

If I am wrong please let me know so that I can save some isk.