Bran Hale
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Posted - 2004.04.08 11:54:00 -
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Edited by: Bran Hale on 08/04/2004 11:56:36
I'm a care-bear. I play a couple of hours a night, maybe more on a weekend. I'm not that bothered about PvP as I haven't got the time, or inclination. I mine low-grade ore in high sec to supply the guy two systems away with his Trit and Pye. I don't want to join a corporation as I'm happy being self-employed, so I'm pretty limited to doing just that. I'd like to maybe produce something. However, the mega-corporations with the infinite resources can make anything they like, more efficiently and better than I could. I have no problem with that, it's called economy of scale. However, they can reach the entire market pretty easiliy.
In the real world you don't have megacorporations that can make everything well and supply it everywhere quickly and cheaply. You have huge corporations that make one or maybe a few things. e.g. Ford=Cars, Glaxo=Pharmaceuticals. This is due to economy of specialisation. It's better to make a few things really well. We don't have transportation which can carry huge amounts of material quickly and cheaply. You can have small, high-value items carried quickly by plane (e.g. watches). You can have bulky, low-value commodities carried slowly by ship (iron ore). So, if I want a low value widget now, it's maybe easier and cheaper to get it from the guy in the next town than wait weeks for it to arrive from Japan or pay 10 x it's value to get it tomorrow.
So, I'm a carebear. I want to stay being a carebear and make widgets which people in my area may just want to buy. What do I want to allow me to do this?
1. Kill the highways. (yep, that's a carebear saying that)
2. Increasing levels of Tech forcing corporations to specialise more and more. (which I hope is happening anyway)
If you want a Tech 1 item then you may as well pay a little more and buy it from the guy in the next system than get a cheap one and pay 10 x its value to get it shipped to you.
If you want that Tech 2 item that's made all the way over in Amarr then the shipping cost may be worth it.
There's probably some flaws in their and there usually is when trying to use a real world analogy. But, I don't think it sounds to bad.
What does this all do? It gives carebears something to do other than mine. It forces the transport of high-value goods through low-sec space, leading to all sorts of PvP encounters and happy pirates.
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