Supercapitals, Ponies and Rainbows.

[Sir T]

While on the topic, did they ever nerf mission salvage as a mineral source?

They did several years ago. They drastically cut the amount and quality of loot dropped from missions due to the constant beating about "waah you can make more money in empire mission running than in 0.0. nerf mission running to encourage people to go out into 0.0 and be ganked by 20 guys in Hacs". With the result that people now refine the loot and sell the minerals as its the only real way to make any money at all missioning in high sec.

And frankly people don't mine Veld even in high sec. There is literally no money in it. Its hugely bulky to transport everywhere in the quantities that you need. In IAC we tried to get people to mine veld the huge veld rocks once and people rage quit after half an hour and there was a lot of harsh words exchanged over coms.

[tgr]

I participated in one mining op in defi4nt while they were where TNT are now. 24 hours of god knows how many people, and they still didn't have enough of all minerals to build the dread they awere apparently gunning for.

[IainC]

While on the topic, did they ever nerf mission salvage as a mineral source?

They did several years ago. They drastically cut the amount and quality of loot dropped from missions due to the constant beating about "waah you can make more money in empire mission running than in 0.0. nerf mission running to encourage people to go out into 0.0 and be ganked by 20 guys in Hacs". With the result that people now refine the loot and sell the minerals as its the only real way to make any money at all missioning in high sec.

Most high level mission runners don't even bother looting, they just blitz level 4s as fast as possible for the LPs and the bounties. The change in drop rates affected only a small percentage of mission runners who were fully looting their wrecks. Running level 4s in hisec is still very good isk/hr compared to almost every other activity in the game.

[Reg]

How many of those mission runners who had their game nerfed do you suppose moved out to 0.0 to play in the accepted fashion?

[Stabs]

LOL!

Imagine me, if you will, giving you the evil eye for using "LOL". The evil eye.

Ha ha sorry.

I don't mean to impugn the professionalism of Iain's colleague. I've been in the situation where as a middle manager I'm responsible for orchestrating something that is obviously going to be a clusterfuck while having no ability to affect the outcome. I even got a written warning after it fucked up despite having warned them for weeks it was going to.

My point is not that the industry doesn't contain people who do this work, in fact I'm about to provide an example. My point is that the industry doesn't listen to them, they're professional cassandras.

In Eve at the moment one of the things that is broken is incursions. Specifically the Vanguard OTA sites.http://incursionguide.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/blitzing-quick-reference-sheet/
In an OTA you complete the site by killing 3 Deltolle battleships. To make things easier on the logi pilots people usually kill 2 augas at the start, some cautious fleet commanders may kill more but increasingly people are just doing AADDD blitz (2 Augas, then 3 Deltolles). This takes about 5 minutes for a fleet of casual randoms who X up in Incursion Local. Everyone in the fleet gets 10.5 million isk plus some Concord loyalty points (which are better than regular LP).

By contrast the Level 4 mission I just ran pays 804k credits plus an on time bonus of 908k credits as well as 3840 LP. That's with the relevant Social skills maxxed it would be less for a newer pilot. It could take a new pilot a good half hour, maybe an hour. (Attack of the Drones) http://eve-survival.org/wikka.php?wakka=attackofthedrones4

The new content is miles better than the old.

Here's what CCP's resident cassandra had to say in Q4 2010:

Q4 was therefore a good end to a good year for EVE Online. However, success does not come with-

out its challenges. Increased demand, along with changes to the faucet/sink system of EVE, has

changed the balance of ISK floating in and out of the EVE economy. The ever increased popularity

of PLEX (Pilot License Extension – an in-game item that can be changed into game time or sold for

in-game currency) adds complexity to the management of the money supply since we now not only

need to monitor the total amount of ISK within the game, but also how fast money flows (known

as velocity of money in the money supply equation MV=PQ). Though the Central Bank of EVE does

not see a reason for alarm, it has voiced its concerns and proposed changes to be made to the

faucet/ISK balance, which might include anything from bounty changes and NPC price changes to

changes in taxes.

http://cdn1.eveonline.com/community/QEN/QEN_Q4-2010.pdf

Faucet/isk balance spiralled out of control with Jita average plex prices rising from 318m on 14 Feb to 411m on 31st May (now ironically the economy has been rescued by the Monoclegate fiasco which caused largescale liquidation of plexes). The Incarna-related plex crash is discussed here: http://www.eveonline.com/iNgameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1538313

So you see Eve does indeed have people looking at the game holistically. But the game design is not being controlled holistically. Just after Dr Gudmundsson had expressed concern about the money supply it veered out of control.

The reason the incursion running faucet is out of control is a combination of things I talked about up-thread. Incursions were really tricky to start with and there was high risk. A lot of people lost expensive ships before the player base reduced it to the current formula (7-8 dps plus 3 logis for Vanguards, prefer Vanguards to the 3 other site types, delay the mom kill). The emergent gameplay has seen a high risk high reward short duration feature turned into a low risk high reward long duration feature as players have worked out how to manage the risk and extend the Incursion duration.

I don't have inside knowledge about why the decision was made to make this content so highly rewarding when it can be run in high sec. I do strongly suspect it's the trait I talked about before that Live team developers want to incentivise players to play the stuff they add in and consequently make it better than the old stuff. You know, the trait that Iain says couldn't happen.

Now Iain's case against this is partly that he's on the CSM. So he knows better.

We're veering into the territory of Cialdini's book on compliance psychology now. The essential points of compliance psychology is that it works on everyone and everyone thinks it doesn't work on them.

CCP fly a select handful of players to Iceland and ply them with beers not because they lack ideas on how to run a game, nor because they listen attentively to the CSM and change the game accordingly but because the process of discussion inevitably creates sympathy. It's the same process as billionaires inviting politicians to yachts and dinner parties.

The CSM reciprocate (Cialdini chapter 2 iirc) by speaking to the player base of agreements worked out with CCP which blunt the edge of player anger (Cialdini chapter 4 social proof and 6 authority). A few days after he posted on SA saying that the Goons might pull out of Eve in flames here's The Mittani placating the rioting playerbase:
http://www.tentonhammer.com/eve/news/ccp-reaches-an-accord-with-eve-csm

Iain, old bean, being on the CSM doesn't put you in a better position to comment on Eve, it puts you in a worse position because you've had compliance psychology applied to you. It's the stuff you see on http://youarenotsosmart.com/.

[Comstar]

Consider though, The Mittani went there to make sure there would be no PayToWin coming soon. Right now, there isn't. Op success.

Now, CCP didn't say never ever to PayToWin, but the wrath of the playerbase was clear and CCP knows the CSM know it. Mitten's said he was surprised by an order of magnitude how many accounts had been cancelled, and the dozens of bad press articles were clear signs a disaster was in the making.

However, you're point is probably right in the CCP corrupted the CSM by inviting them to talk to them directly- Vile Rat didn't go, and his opinion is a lot different from the CSM members who did. I also think CCP is quite capable at learning *nothing* from the fiasco.

We should find out when the supercap nurf comes, if CCP Soundwave's promises are true. The rumour is we might see them in the next 90 days.

[Goumindong]

EVE has an automatically balancing price mechanism for the majority of goods. PLEX is the only thing that can change in price. And i think it may be safe to say that people built up the plex prices due to speculative demand rather than money supply issues.

If it was a money supply issue why were there increased stocks of PLEX in preparation to sell?

I haven't trusted the good doctor since he totally messed up the (very basic) economics on the "trit cap"

[Amaron]

PLEX is the only thing that can change in price.

   I'm sure you are trying to say some economics jargon thing.   I'd suggest using English in general conversation though.

[IainC]

Iain, old bean, being on the CSM doesn't put you in a better position to comment on Eve, it puts you in a worse position because you've had compliance psychology applied to you. It's the stuff you see on http://youarenotsosmart.com/.

I'm pretty sure that flying to Iceland and having CCP explain to me what they are trying to do with Eve and answering my questions on why they are doing that puts me in a better position to comment on what CCP are doing with Eve. If you think that all of a sudden I'm going to give them a pass on utter bullshit like the ~force projection~ nonsense because they fed me an imported steak and barbecued pelican then I don't know what to tell you.

[Reg]

You ate a pelican? A pelican!!?

[IainC]

Puffin. Sorry. And no, not a whole one.

[Reg]

Oh well. That's OK then. Puffins have it coming.

[Goumindong]

  I'm sure you are trying to say some economics jargon thing.   I'd suggest using English in general conversation though.

EVE has essentially price controls on various goods [everything made with minerals for instance] that enforce minimum and maximum prices.

Because these price controls are by explicit trade[I.E. you buy an item it destroys isk and creates an item made of minerals] money supply cannot effect the prices of those goods beyond the edge of that control. If the price gets too high or low they will just correct. And note that the economy will be "better off" for it.

So the only things that can have their price effected are things that are not tied to those price controls. Which (contrary to what i said earlier) is t2/t3 items and PLEX. Any problems with money supply should show up equally in the price of all those non-controlled goods [absent supply/demand changes]

Note that some amount of sustitutability implies that the price controls should have an effect on t2 prices and PLEX as price changes for plex do imply real cost changes for tech 1 goods.

[palmer_eldritch]

EVE has essentially price controls on various goods [everything made with minerals for instance] that enforce minimum and maximum prices.

Because these price controls are by explicit trade[I.E. you buy an item it destroys isk and creates an item made of minerals] money supply cannot effect the prices of those goods beyond the edge of that control. If the price gets too high or low they will just correct. And note that the economy will be "better off" for it.

So the only things that can have their price effected are things that are not tied to those price controls. Which (contrary to what i said earlier) is t2/t3 items and PLEX. Any problems with money supply should show up equally in the price of all those non-controlled goods [absent supply/demand changes]

Note that some amount of sustitutability implies that the price controls should have an effect on t2 prices and PLEX as price changes for plex do imply real cost changes for tech 1 goods.

I probably shouldn't ask this but what the fuck? Start at the beginning - the minumum price control is a reference to insurance, yes? But why is there a maximum price? Why is there a maximum price on minerals, and why is there a maxiumum price on those implants I get from missioning and then sell on? (I mean, there's a maximum price in the sense that other players are also spawning those items through gameplay and selling them but that's not a price control, that's just a market functioning, yes?)

Speak slowly as if to a child and if anyone complains, explain it's for my benefit. They will understand.

[eldaec]

Insurance is now automatically adjusted based on mineral prices in trade hubs, it doesn't act as a price limit any more. He's talking about npc buy and sell orders, though in most cases ccp remove them if they become active as a mineral price limit. (see shuttles)

It is honestly best for everyone if you don't reply to Goumindong theory posts.

[Fordel]

How many of those mission runners who had their game nerfed do you suppose moved out to 0.0 to play in the accepted fashion?

Less then Zero is my guess.  




Mission running is still way better for the High-sec player, nothing is as low on the food chain as the High-sec 'sustenance miner'.

[palmer_eldritch]

Insurance is now automatically adjusted based on mineral prices in trade hubs, it doesn't act as a price limit any more. He's talking about npc buy and sell orders, though in most cases ccp remove them if they become active as a mineral price limit. (see shuttles)

It is honestly best for everyone if you don't reply to Goumindong theory posts.

Ok

To be honest I didn't realise there were NPC buy and sell orders any more for items which players could harvest or manufacture.

[Goumindong]

Insurance is now automatically adjusted based on mineral prices in trade hubs, it doesn't act as a price limit any more.

My mistake. [though it should act as a stabilizer if it is not immediately updated]

In case the price of PLEX are more likely to reflect demand rather than money issues.

[Stabs]

Insurance is now automatically adjusted based on mineral prices in trade hubs, it doesn't act as a price limit any more. He's talking about npc buy and sell orders, though in most cases ccp remove them if they become active as a mineral price limit. (see shuttles)

It is honestly best for everyone if you don't reply to Goumindong theory posts.

Ok

To be honest I didn't realise there were NPC buy and sell orders any more for items which players could harvest or manufacture.

I don't think there are. I'm looking at Salvager Is just now. The cheapest in this region is 33 000 the most expensive 999 500. I'm pretty sure I could put one on sale for 0.01 isk or for 10 trillion isk if I wanted to. I'm 99% sure that every order is a player order and that there's not some secret station somewhere that buys Salvagers.

What Goum might be saying is that these Salvagers could become minerals which could become ships which could be blown up for insurance. Therefore the floor for insurance fraud affects not just ships but ultimately all mineral based items.

I'm pretty sure there's no ceiling. If, hypotherically, you were the only person in the game making Salvagers you could set your own price and people would have to buy from you, do without or start making them.

Anyway I think the reason he brought it up is that he doesn't see plex as an adequate indicator of the Eve economy. I think it is based on the huge proportion of market share it has. I also don't think you can handwave a jump of almost 100m in 3 months as speculator stockpiling, especially since those stockpiles have now been liquidated without the price reverting to the original level.

[Stabs]

Insurance is now automatically adjusted based on mineral prices in trade hubs, it doesn't act as a price limit any more.

My mistake. [though it should act as a stabilizer if it is not immediately updated]

It's not immediately updated. It will be updated manually by CCP if they see a need to do so, presumably if there's too much insurance fraud/suicide ganking.

In case the price of PLEX are more likely to reflect demand rather than money issues.

You could be right. I don't think you are but you could be.

Is there something else that you do see as a valid indicator of money supply? We could look at that. It certainly feels from doing incursions that isk is pouring in. Previously the main fawcet was rat bounties. One nullsec battleship is approx 1m isk. One incursion site is 10 * 10.5m isk, these sites are crowded in high sec and there can be as many as three incursions up in high sec at once.

It will be very interesting to see whether it is discussed in QEN 2011 Q1. If it isn't I'd argue that the economy is fubar and they're trying to keep it quiet. That would be the only reason not to talk about it. (Well the other reason not to talk about it would be if it were economically insignificant and I'm 100% sure it's not the case).

[Goumindong]

Is there something else that you do see as a valid indicator of money supply?

If its money supply and there are no price controls [via trade] to constrain movement then we expect inflation unless velocity is changing significantly at the same time. When we say inflation we mean price movements in all goods(irresective of real cost changes). So if there was a money supply problem you would not see it simply in PLEX, everything would have gotten more expensive.

Going further into the regulation of money supply with regards to velocity implies a lot about just what the goals are. The goal is probably price stability[so long as productivity isn't falling]

[Stabs]

Is there something else that you do see as a valid indicator of money supply?

If its money supply and there are no price controls [via trade] to constrain movement then we expect inflation unless velocity is changing significantly at the same time. When we say inflation we mean price movements in all goods(irresective of real cost changes). So if there was a money supply problem you would not see it simply in PLEX, everything would have gotten more expensive.

Going further into the regulation of money supply with regards to velocity implies a lot about just what the goals are. The goal is probably price stability[so long as productivity isn't falling]

OK, fair point I had a think about what might make a good indicator. Produced stuff and LP stuff may not be a good indicator as there are so many other factors affecting mineral prices and LP farming respectively but I think criminal tags should be a reasonable indicator. There a rich player's luxury, allowing you to get faction standing which reduces trading costs so there's a consistent demand and the supply may be reasonably steady. Their value is also tied in with the value of luxury ships like Fleet Stabbers so one would expect them to get more expensive if everyone is rich.

Angel Electrum was 1015.58 on 14th Jan, peaked at 5000 in May and is now averaging 1844.52
Guristas Silver was 1 590 000 on 14th Jan, peaked at 1 988 000 in Feb and is now averaging 1 057 000
Blood Diamond was 21 996 on 14th Jan, peaked at 6 472 000 in May, and is now averaging 10 000 (although 3 days ago 65 were traded at an average of 3.8m.

The figures are not conclusive but may indicate an increased money supply. The Blood Diamond tags in particular - if it's not a manipulation then people paying 3-6m for a 10k tag indicates people about with more money than sense.

[Goumindong]

Assume for a second that prices indicate relative value of goods constrained by input.

Why would we assume that an increase in money would increase the price of one good compared to another? A change in relative prices assumes either a change in the relative costs or a change in the relative value. With inflation we expect the relative price change to be zero between any two goods.

I think that it is much more likely you're looking at goods that have a lot of price volatility [either due to low volume or some other reason] than are experiencing any inflation.

If goods really aren't under any price controls you should see inflation in the cost of ships and modules.

[eldaec]

We need to implement AAAAAAAA chain functionality in this subforum.

[tgr]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[tgr]

Cool. It works here as well.

[IainC]

Z

[eldaec]

0

[tgr]

r

[Stabs]

Temporarily and I hope briefly drifting back on topic, CCP Soundwave Kristoffer Touborg had this to say earlier this week:

First of all, we’re going to crank up ship balancing efforts. Continual balancing should be part of the EVE universe, it shouldn’t be a special event that happens every year or two, it should be a constant process and that’s being kicked off. A ship, modules, everything under the sun needs a bit of a shakeup. CCP Tallest has taken the banner on this and is currently rebalancing super-caps. I think we need to give the power back to the masses, so expect to see an increased role for sub-caps. That EVE is real trailer? That’s where we need to be.

The second part is 0.0, where we’ll look at resources. Resource scarcity or exclusivity is something we’ve done really well when it comes to stuff like tech 3 and so on. In other areas, such as minerals, ice etc, we’ve not done so well. So I’d like to take some of the broadly distributed stuff and kind of slim down the availability. Hopefully that will create more professions for people, and make content that’s currently underutilized interesting again. I think people generally need some sort of identity and letting people do everything at once detracts from that.

[Pezzle]

EVERY 0.0 region needs to have some type of incentive that makes living there awesome.  It could be rats, it could be minerals, it could be extra boosts in space improvements (which need to be boosted and not suck) or other oddball things that just happen in that region.  CCP has ignored all of that and made 0.0 less and less attractive.  The old jump bridges were a good thing.  Towers need to be less 'work' and your space needs to be more engaging period. 

Supercaps (and probably caps in general) need to be removed.  Just do it.  Since they will not the ships really need to be given a passive or secondary  role so fielding 200 of them becomes pointless or of little actual benefit.  A mobile station or supply hub, a big command bonus or something but NO WEAPONS OR FIGHTERS ETC. 

Also they really need to streamline most activities.  Too much of EVE is logging in and getting punched in the face by the tedium of maintenance or irrationally complicated tasks.   

[palmer_eldritch]

The second part is 0.0, where we’ll look at resources. Resource scarcity or exclusivity is something we’ve done really well when it comes to stuff like tech 3 and so on. In other areas, such as minerals, ice etc, we’ve not done so well. So I’d like to take some of the broadly distributed stuff and kind of slim down the availability. Hopefully that will create more professions for people, and make content that’s currently underutilized interesting again. I think people generally need some sort of identity and letting people do everything at once detracts from that.

Is he talking about making 0.0 less useful?

You can't do everything at once in Eve already, simply because there aren't enough hours in the day and because even veteran characters don't have every skill in the game.

I get the impression here he's talking about making one area great for mining and another great for other stuff (exploration? ratting?). So, what if your alliance is in the "wrong" region for the stuff that you want to do, are you meant to jump alliances?

Also, wasn't the idea of dominion that we would be able to upgrade our space, to turn a system into a miner's paradise or anomaly utopia depending on what the players do? How does slimming down the availability fit in with that?

[TripleDES]

They're all the time going on about getting people into nullsec, and then they start raining on the parade. Every. Damn. Time.

What "underutilized content" are they trying to make interesting again? Because I don't see it.

[IainC]

They're all the time going on about getting people into nullsec, and then they start raining on the parade. Every. Damn. Time.

What "underutilized content" are they trying to make interesting again? Because I don't see it.

Faction Warfare, All of Lowsec, Ice Mining, L5 missions.

[Sir T]

Of course L5 missions and lowsec are underutilized. You might as well cover your ship with salt and vinegar and serve it up with chips.