Travis Shireen
Gallente
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Posted - 2007.09.06 07:25:00 -
[1]
I smell a doctorial paper comming up in this study. The eve universe is an awesome chance to watch human economic behavior in a very sealed petri dish. There are only a few small holes to watch out for:
1) The influence of Cash for Isk companies out there. The price of online isk is dropping, which means their real world competition for purchasers is going up, or isk is becomming more readily available.
- As seen on other MMORPG's, farmer's DO have a direct impact on actual player markets. For those of you that ever played Guild Wars (Forgive me CCP, I did mention them), originally they had rare items and gear upgrades plugged into a true, restrictionless buy/sell system. The number of units availabe world wide affected the prices, the longer something went missing off the market the higher the price for the item got. Then the farmers got into it and started price gouging the economy, purchasing everything available the raise the prices of the high end goods which in turn, made those goods outside the reach of all but the hard core enthusist, increasing the demand for their services. It wasn't untill GW.com stepped in and implimented significantly lower maximums on their buy/sell system that the in-game economy stabalized and the game honestly became fun again. (followed by a dramatic drop of cash for gold ratio's from the online vendors). But the presige of having those long coveted items fell away (It's all about the skill caps there anyhoot...)
That relates to eve in a big way and on a much more dynamic level. (yes they are your cometition, but their your little brother too, lets learn from em). I've been online for about two month now and I've allready SEEN a macro fleet tear through 1.0-.7 and decimate asteriod fields no nothing in a few hours. There especially prevelent after a server re-set near or after patch time. And I know I've been watching the in-region flux of market goods to quickly stableize out (far faster than normal players would allow). Macro'ing, even though they realistically only represent perhaps 2%-6% of player actively online, probably make up for 30-40% of the economic 'farming' that occours online. Their influence, and efficency are devistating to our comunity.
I know if I were a Macro writer, givent he rules, I would stick to high sectors as much as possible, then it's just a matter of accounts over time to make the money to supply demand for isk. Which is another reason why 0.0 sectors (or low sectors for that matter) tend to fluxuate drastically differently, as the mass of programed efficiency is no longer present (it's so much fun to pop AFK solo haulers, right guys?).
That and I allways wondered about that magical 17K worth of users I allways see pop up after every patch or downtime? Ever wonder about how many of them are farmers?
It's a matter of mass production (farmers) VS the Mom and Pop Craftsman Shops (Us real players). Sure you can have 100,000 mom and pop shops spread across the nation, but MCDonnalds, Walmart and Starbucks (three corporations) can wipe out 75% percent of them economically just by the shear volume that they represent and the testimate to effeciency.
If you guys really want to do something to stabalize the economy and let it thrive, do more to catch macro'ers. Don't impliment cross regional statistic pulls of prices (that will only make price uniformity worse and give the macro'er an easier time) and for the love of god, no Guarenteed banking services. The near barter system is whats holding it together.
Though removing economic dependence on NPC stores and goods would be a good idea In my humble opinion.
-Are we considered truly lost if we do not know where we are, but have little desire to return home? |