easy isk doesn't result in people being any richer, it only results in prices being higher.

This. Just like higher mining yields just depress mineral prices and thus do not increase mining income. And so on and so forth.

If people were all complaining that they all have loads of isk but can't afford anything then this might be a problem - but I get the feeling that people are complaining about isk faucets because it seems like people can afford much more

easy isk doesn't result in people being any richer, it only results in prices being higher.

In addition the income inflation is not uniform across the playerbase, it's new high income activities focused in Hisec.

Much of which in turn ends up in the pockets of alliance leadership via moongoo stranglehold, but the average rank and file nullseccer never sees this income except in the form of ship programs or paid logistics fees, if they're lucky.

Moon goo doesn't cause any inflation. It does not produce any isk.

Because it makes the game mostly pointless if losses don't hurt.

In 2004 BS were a big deal and losing one hurt, now most people shrug off capital and faction BS losses like they don't matter.

Indeed, it simply provides an avenue for ISK to move from those in high sec to those in nullsec, in large quantities.

but the numerical value of the price is not actually relevant - what is is how much effort/time that item required from me which is a (subtly) different thing.

I don't buy this at all.

Candy is right. The very real risk of loss (or achievement) is what makes the eve experience so intense. The less subjective value these things have, the more trivialized and boring the gaming experience gets.

Proof: Look at SiSi. You can have as much pvp as you want at virtually no cost. It's completely boring because it's meaningless and because there is no real risk of losing anything valuable.

As in real life it's much more fun to be rich in Eve - you can have more shiny things, take bigger risks with them (why yes I will PvP with my faction fit battleship instead of treating it like a precious treasure and just ship spinning with it). What's more if money is easy to come by then you don't need to do the boring grind stuff (ie. *working*) you can spend more time messing about and having a good time doing fun things (ie. *playing*).

It should be apparent though if the increased supply of isk has reduced PvP via the various killboards. I wonder if they have graphs of activity over time (would be trivial for them to create from their DBs even if they don't)

Not that I disagree with your main point, but I'll just say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with collecting isk for the sake of collecting isk. And so what if I buy a shiny ship just to spin around? Yes, I expect haters to hate. But these idiots are usually the same ones collecting kills. And what does a PVPer do with his precious killboard? Just as in the isk/ship collector's case; absolutely nothing.

So let those that blanket themselves in hate and jealousy do it. Because you will not be able to reason them out of an idea they did not reason themselves in the first place. You'll have more success asking a rock to move.

I think it's safe to assume that the increase in ISK supply is not detrimental to pvp in itself, as less effort is required to replace a ship. People are just switching to more expensive ships. But to keep things interesting at this pace, CCP would have to introduce higher end ships regularly. The better (and actually sustainable) solution is to balance isk faucets/sinks and risk/reward.

What is considered rich in Eve?

OP doesn't understand inflation.

More liquid ISK = harder for newbies = less newbies = less money for ccp.

When attrition of older players < amount of staying newbies, CCP will slowly go out of business.

I still want to know what is considered rich in this game...

I still want to know what is considered rich in this game...

1bil?
5bil?
10bil?
25bil?
How ever much Chirbba has?

it can be very detrimental assuming you can predict the evolution of a complex system (which Eve undoubtedly is) and solving problems before they occur.

I still want to know what is considered rich in this game...

1bil?
5bil?
10bil?
25bil?
How ever much Chirbba has?

I do understand inflation but I'm yet to be convinced that what is going on is as clear cut as that.

Secondly, while inflation is a very bad thing in a real world economy (because we use our money to stay alive) it is less clear what the impact would be in Eve (in fact the social issues that can be caused by a seemingly out of control system, which is where inflation eventually leads, might be quite interesting in Eve given we are all armed to the teeth)

but hey. received wisdom :- t's inflation stupid. Inflation is bad. End of argument - let's not try and understand anything shall we?

Frankly I'm not bothered how much isk other people have, my thread regarding isk wasn't a compaint about other people being rich. ]

I still want to know what is considered rich in this game...

1bil?
5bil?
10bil?
25bil?
How ever much Chirbba has?

inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.

easy isk doesn't result in people being any richer, it only results in prices being higher.

The only thing we need to look at is PLEX. When PLEX are at 2 billion a pop, then EVE has hyper inflation because everyone is sitting on 50 billion ISK.

That's only one side of the equation. The other is how willing people are to shell out RL cash for a virtual currency. And between china and the western countries that populate most of TQ that parameter is not the same.

That's real world economics though and while it of course impacts EVE as a business, I would say the RMT value of EVE has far deeper impacts on the virtual economy of EVE.

EVE China has 30K subs. The ability to grind is much higher. The need to PvP off that grind time isn't there. They have null sec NAP that makes goon NAP look like dollarama compared to Wal-mart. I understand you are saying there might be less Plex in the China server. I just don't think that's the reason. I suspect the available plex for the pop is similar to the number here. They just have way more ISK.

That all said, Plex is still the marker for ISK available in game because Plex is the hardest asset in the game, on both servers.

I still want to know what is considered rich in this game...

1bil?
5bil?
10bil?
25bil?
How ever much Chirbba has?

1000 people out of 50k can get rich and then can get even richer with no effort whatsoever

Rest doing all the work to scrap by month to month..

Seems it works as intended, considering EVE is an capitalistic world.
Whining about high sec missioners, incursion runners is pathetic..
Incursion 100 people can get rich ... high sec missioner non can get rich unless they are 23/7
100 ppl vs 1k vs 48900 .. seems like good ratio for wealth distribution .. those 1k are far more richer than those 100 ppl can even dream of.

I'd prefer to see this understanding to be able to make "informed" decisions. But am hoping CCP have this awareness as I expect due to their dedicated economic staff.

If this wasnt the case why are people tending to be concerned about where the grass seems greener?
...
In conclusion and the point I want to make is I wish there was a proper study to understand these issues and not to be misslead by people using propoganda for their own particular interests.

Last time I checked incursions were open to everyone.

As one of the 30-ish people at last fanfests economy round table with Dr. EyoG I confirm that CCP is aware and unhappy about the imbalance of isk entering and leaving the economy. At that moment, they wanted to introduce more sinks, but were unsure how to do it. And by judging the current situation, they still are.


I find it small-minded that people assume there must always be an ulterior motive for an interest in balancing, or in this case, macro-economics. But this being eve, I can't really blame ya...

As one of the 30-ish people at last fanfests economy round table with Dr. EyoG I confirm that CCP is aware and unhappy about the imbalance of isk entering and leaving the economy. At that moment, they wanted to introduce more sinks, but were unsure how to do it. And by judging the current situation, they still are.

I don't buy this at all.

I don't PvP because it's going to hurt me - I PvP because it's unpredictable and thrilling, because it's pitting your wits against another human being (and I enjoy fighting smarter people even when I loose than I do the dumb kills).

When I lose a ship it's a lesson to be learned. A challenge to rise to. I couldn't care less about the isk - that's just an annoyance. (and I agree that there should be some inertia - ie. some cost because otherwise it does have less meaning. but that cost doesn't need to be painful)

Because it makes the game mostly pointless if losses don't hurt.

In 2004 BS were a big deal and losing one hurt, now most people shrug off capital and faction BS losses like they don't matter.

IM RICH BIATCH!

Chribba bought himself CCP for Christmas...using nothing but PLEX.

CCP now stands for Chribba Control Productions...true story...

Me too but you don't see me calling people names

What has happened in EVE isn't infaltion though. To quote Wiki



Now the goods in EVE stay at pretty much the same level (because of the way industry works) our earnings however have increased so everyone has more disposable income.

An example of ingame inflation is a 'purple drop' as it's rare the more people want it and will pay more for it pricing newer players out the market. The more gold people have the more they will pay the bigger the gap gets.

Eve's market doesn't revolve around drops though it revolves around a complex 'crafting' system for want of a better word, where the price of an item is relative to the value of the minerals it can be broken down to (as a baseline at least).

This is essentially a good thing for a new player as they can now buy more stuff given what they earn than players used to be able to.

TLDR

Richer players != Inflation

EVE's market isn't comprable to other MMO's as it mostly 'crafting' based.

More money in your wallet = more fun for noobs

/edit I understand you weren't having a go, I just kinda carried on where I left off in this discussion of a slightly diffrent aspect of the subject, but thanks for pointing it out anyhow

Wow, page four already.
Anyway, to adress the OPs question.
(TL;DR at the bottom)

With work, there comes reward.

Without work, reward is shallow.

Where the minerals actually spawned doesn't seem to be relevant to my assesment, perhaps I'm wrong???

Also T3 didn't excist and I don't really remeber the T2 prices from 3 years ago, but most likely they haven't grown as much as earning potential has, which was the point.

Not really trying to asses the complex system of cause and effect or why things are the way they are, just commenting on the state of things as I see them. Thanks for theinsight though.

As in real life it's much more fun to be rich in Eve -

Is it because you have a lot of wealth earned when it was hard to come by and therefore it's irritating to see upstarts getting all the advantages without the effort? or I guess that those advantages are being erroded

Its not where they come from, its how much of it there is. Drone alloys give more minerals per unit of time than mining does, and can be done by combat pilots. If minerals only came from mining, then not nearly as many people would be able to farm them. While drone anoms were nerfed in crucible(you can no longer spawn the whole site at once, and farm them with you carrier, they spawn in waves now so they take longer to do) so we should start seeing a rise in mineral prices soon, this severely depressed the prices of minerals. When you add bots doing this, as well as mining, 23/7, you end up with minerals that cost so little that they don't noticeably shift due to inflation.

If you eliminate cheaters(bots) that will fix a large part of this, which will cause a significant rise in mineral prices, leading to inflation actually meaning something in terms of mods.

We don't see inflation effect player made mods because our current economy is being undercut by cheaters, so your theories only hold true as long as CCP fails to deal with the RMT rings, and fail to fix the horrible suffering that is mining(the boredom was worth it when minerals were worth something).

Edit: just as a point of reference, i don't know current vexor prices, but when I bought my first one on this toon 3 years ago, I remember it costing 5 mil in Jita. Perhaps there is some inflation affecting noobs after all?

I still want to know what is considered rich in this game...

1bil?
5bil?
10bil?
25bil?
How ever much Chirbba has?

Isk Wealthy is optical.

China server Plex go for 2 billion ISk. That's massive ISK.

Our server also doesn't look at distribution. The people saying there is more ISK in EVE have no way of determining who has that ISK. It's very much at the structural level the same as real world capitalism. Most of it is held by the 1% and I assure you, any of the people reading this is NOT in the 1% group. (Exception might be Chribba)

We all might "think" we are rich and that's reflective of real world too. The truth being, most of us sit on very little in percentage of what is in the game. 99% of the money is in 1% of the wallets.

There is also the issue of asset perspective. That ISK is liquid ships in alliances that won't ever use it. So it's not even really in the game. They keep it in the even they get wiped out and that never happens. Mostly because we see decimations months in advance and can avoid them.

Branch is a good example. Goons did nothing there and won't. They displaced players but Branch residence were in evac as soon as it became clear the unbeatable Goon NAP train was coming. Add to that any ships that are lost don't really require that much ISK to replace because the people who have all the ISK also control the Ship industries. So they keep thier ISK and just stop selling thier minerals, using it to make thier ships. That was the original purpose of it, to replace ships but when no ships need replacement, it becomes surplus and the ISK distribution system kicks in.

The only thing we need to look at is PLEX. When PLEX are at 2 billion a pop, then EVE has hyper inflation because everyone is sitting on 50 billion ISK.

Last time I checked incursions were open to everyone.

This is all symptomatic though. Making ISK be it in Incursions, WH, low sec or where ever. That's not the problem.

Over 8 years, CCP have nerfed, nerfed and nerfed again. They do this based on the amount of ISK in the game. None of that nerfing has worked though because it isn't removing the ISK from the game. We see EVE as a spreadsheet in Space, so do CCP. They need to figure out how to pry those trillions of ISK out of the alliance wallets. They need to make those alliances want to spend that money though. Nerfs won't work. They need more content that will matter to those alliances.

The reason it needs to be done is to allow CCP to see with thier spreadsheets how much ISK is needed. They can't do that with static ISK clouding the spreadsheets.

Why did we get handed L3 battle cruisers?

Want an Idea, CCP? Real player R&D. Allow Goons to make a Goon supercap. Through R&D that takes alot of money to research. Allow them to make thier own player agents (us) and allow them to create prototype BPC's that can then be either used or copied say 5 copies per prototype with more material added?

Make it a sink, not an ISK trade, make it realistic to get it done. Make it worth it.
Real crafting in EVE anyone?

This. Just like higher mining yields just depress mineral prices and thus do not increase mining income. And so on and so forth.

Its not where they come from, its how much of it there is. Drone alloys give more minerals per unit of time than mining does, and can be done by combat pilots. If minerals only came from mining, then not nearly as many people would be able to farm them. While drone anoms were nerfed in crucible(you can no longer spawn the whole site at once, and farm them with you carrier, they spawn in waves now so they take longer to do) so we should start seeing a rise in mineral prices soon, this severely depressed the prices of minerals. When you add bots doing this, as well as mining, 23/7, you end up with minerals that cost so little that they don't noticeably shift due to inflation.

If you eliminate cheaters(bots) that will fix a large part of this, which will cause a significant rise in mineral prices, leading to inflation actually meaning something in terms of mods.

We don't see inflation effect player made mods because our current economy is being undercut by cheaters, so your theories only hold true as long as CCP fails to deal with the RMT rings, and fail to fix the horrible suffering that is mining(the boredom was worth it when minerals were worth something).

Edit: just as a point of reference, i don't know current vexor prices, but when I bought my first one on this toon 3 years ago, I remember it costing 5 mil in Jita. Perhaps there is some inflation affecting noobs after all?

You are under the impression that minerals come from mining as opposed to say, reprocessed mission/drone loot.

... bla ...

Careful Ocih, if you give them a great idea like that, they might actually improve the game, and we can't allow that now can we?

I still want to know what is considered rich in this game...

1bil?
5bil?
10bil?
25bil?
How ever much Chirbba has?

Funny thing is, that ISK don't even belong to you. CCP can take it away any time per the EULA, and not even have to explain anything.

Ie getting barred is one thing, getting barred with -ú100 worth of plex on account with no recourse to refund is questionable considering trading standards law.

That's been true for some items, but the overall price indexes have remained pretty flat, despite the amount of ISK in the game continuing to increase.

You have to take a look at external sites to figure out all the implications and all the conclusions you have to consider.

Look about sites selling SC's Titans and even ships/minerals/bpc's whatever for real money

Look at some Killboards giving you the exact amount in US$ or EUGé¼ for "x" Km or "y" LM

Then, think about the game as it stands, the bot blahblah, the moon goo blahblah and alike, take another look at the game once you've done your researches and figured out it's a big business for far more people than CCP it self.

Just take a good look on the internet and have IRL laughs.

I wonder what would happen if they removed all loot drop from missions, had BS spawns in highsec belts (0.5->0.8) with no bounties. Better ore types in small quantities. Would that even remotely help mining ? Cause lets face it, theres not many MINING corporations doing to well in empire now is there ?

I know many people who dont PvP cause they dont want to spend 2 months in an asteroid belt mining to afford a new ship.
and please, don't say pvp in a frig or cruiser, ya'll know as well as me that 99% of PvP is not with low end gear.