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Daelin Blackleaf
Aliastra
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Posted - 2007.12.30 04:03:00 -
[1]
In answer to what I think is Bellums question:
PvP'ers are consumers and an ISK faucet.
Mission runners are consumers, gatherers, and an ISK faucet.
Neither of them is destroying the market.
The market is not dependent upon either them.
The "market" in EVE relies upon three things gatherers, builders, and end users.
Gatherers bring in the raw material
Builders turn the raw material into products
End users use the product
There are also traders, however they simply act to even out the market between different areas and assist people in making quick sales... all for a healthy percentage.
All three main groups are of varying worth.
If prices raw materials could be profitably purchased from NPC's gatherers would become worthless. The main pressure upon them currently is internal competition. Since some of the gathering professions produce the same raw materials if one can obtain it easier than another then it is possible to make that profession unprofitable. An example (or indicator at least) would be the drastic effect the drone regions had on miners, and the effect mission runner refined loot has on miners. Miners suffer the most here as they are not supplemented by an ISK faucet as ratters and runners are.
If all needed items could be gathered without building manufacturers would be worthless. Runners and ratters gather items that compete with manufacturers but since supply of these items is far lower than demand, and since many items cannot be obtained this way manufacturing items remains profitable.
If players could create or gather all items they need themselves then there is no need for a separate end user. This is unlikely to ever be the case due to player specialization and the fact that it's often possible to get stupid people to do the things that simply aren't worth your time.
You could argue that for there to be customers items need to be destroyed via PvP. This is not true. Products are bought a first time before they ever need replacing and there is a constant stream of new players to buy items (this is what keeps WoW's market moving). In addition players often decide they want more than one of an item. Lastly PvP is not the sole cause of item loss (I'd be interested to see what percentage of ships are killed by NPC's as opposed to players).
As for ISK sinks and faucets as has been shown both mission running and PvP bring ISK into the system. This ISK is beneficial to the system as both ISK sinks and faucets must balance inflation and deflation within the economy. It is far more complex than ensuring the amount of money in the system per person remains the same, as has been pointed out it is more to do with the movement of money than ownership of it, but basically a balance must be maintained making neither inherently worse than the other.
Mission runners and ratters are bad for miners (as shown above, though this will get better when t1 loot is removed from the loot tables) but not for the economy.
PvP'ers are bad for everyone who is not a PvP'er  but they are not bad for the economy.
Long post was long but hopefully thorough. I've never studied economics so no doubt there are words for some of the concepts used here that I am not aware of, feel free to point them out (for my personal interest) but I don't think Bellum would benefit from the use of terminology only understood by those who have studied economics.
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Daelin Blackleaf
Aliastra
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Posted - 2007.12.30 05:31:00 -
[2]
 Originally by: DigitalCommunist
I agree that both isk faucets and isk sinks need to be balanced to maintain the amount of total ISK in the economy at a good level for the size of the population. That much is kind of obvious.
Originally by: DigitalCommunist
[ISK sink list]
There are other things, but this would be a good start.
You recognize the need for balance, I assume you can see from experience that there is a steady but slow case of deflation, have probably heard from the (admittedly inexperienced but capable with numbers) hired economist that there is an overall state of deflation with inflation occurring in certain faction markets, and yet feel the need to imbalance the system by adding more ISK sinks?
Don't get me wrong most of those are nice ideas in and of themselves but we simply don't require any more ISK sinks at the moment, the market is reasonably well balanced.
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Daelin Blackleaf
Aliastra
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Posted - 2007.12.30 07:08:00 -
[3]
Massive deflation would be worse.
If a small amount of "wealth" can buy you all the assets you need then it all becomes meaningless.
Though neither is a favorable situation.
If inflation became a huge issue we could at least barter with minerals.
I'd hate to see either happen but there seem to be no signs of either overall, the market has some issues (mostly related to supply limitations) but inflation and deflation are not amongst them. Should one of the two rear their ugly head a small tweak such as a percentage increase or decrease to one or a number of existing faucets/sinks would likely be sufficient.
Future features may impact the balance here, as might a small imbalance if left unaddressed, but I'd like to think CCP wouldn't allow the situation to spiral out of control.
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Daelin Blackleaf
Aliastra
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Posted - 2007.12.30 17:37:00 -
[4]
Originally by: 10 year old boys voice
If you actually played Eve you would hear a great sucking sound of isk and material leaving through player action. As it is you can't hear anything above your own giant vacuum generator
Iyhi; just about the only part of your post that I can agree with is that Bellum is indeed not qualified to comment on economics within EVE.
Perhaps that is why his OP ended with a question mark.
While Bellum can be an annoying, stubborn, poster prone to the occasional insult he has at least stimulated intelligent discussion and learned something from this thread. You on the other hand have managed to contribute nothing but smacktalk and immaturity.
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Daelin Blackleaf
Aliastra
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Posted - 2007.12.30 17:39:00 -
[5]
Edited by: Daelin Blackleaf on 30/12/2007 17:45:01
Originally by: DigitalCommunist
Money In > Money Out
Players In > Players Out
Besides there are so many ways the market can be tweaked and so many artificial limits in place that our "free" market can easily be regulated.
Also most of your points are clear signs of deflation. What your suggesting is that we need more ISK faucets to lower the value of ISK and therefore reduce the buying power of the community.
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