Can Eve Online survive without PvP?

[Etch_Masuka]

That’s all sounds like busy work and punishment.

There needs to be a carrot to go with the stick

[Gerard_Amatin]

@Kezrai_Charzai

EVE’s economy is neither unique nor special - it simply has a quantitatively larger focus on crafting than most MMO’s which leads to a larger presence of the player marketplace in carrying out standard gameplay activity.

A number of EVE players have some very strange ideas of what the economy in other games is like or that “EVE industry and markets” are somehow worlds different than other MMOs.

EVE’s economy is different (better and more realistic in my opinion) than the other MMO economies I’ve played in, for a few factors.

The common theme MMOs have is the market where players can trade with eachother, which results in people undercutting eachother, buying out market sections, flipping items for money, speculators… EVE is no different in that regards than other MMOs with markets: you’re right about that.

The things that make the EVE economy different in my experience are:

• location in EVE matters - items can be more valuable or less valuable based on their physical location. While for example World of Warcraft used to have a similar thing with the goblin black market (that allowed trade between the independent two markets of the two factions that couldn’t trade with eachother), this scale was much smaller: wherever you had access to a market you had either one or the other interconnected market. EVE has markets everywhere and each of them is a unique location, which creates unique trading and hauling opportunities.

• crafting in EVE is done for economic reasons - where other games too can craft items to sell on the market, those games have different learning systems where, unlike EVE you learn skills passively, you have to craft endless amounts of worthless items that subsequently end up flooding the market in order to get some of the value back. RuneScape has a really nice market that I’ve had a lot of fun in, but the oversupply on the market as result of people clicking things in order to reach higher numbers means that items on their economy are mostly based on what the developers chose to be the best training method, rather than economic opportunities picked by the players.
  (To solve the problem of overflooding items on the market, in RuneScape players can use the ‘high alchemy’ spell on items to get a hardcoded amount of gold coins for those items, which sets a baseline payout for items. And also introduces massive inflation which is one of the reasons that many players in that game hit the ‘max cash’ limit, lol.)

• craftable items in EVE are relevant - other (themepark) MMOs usually have a progression players follow until they’re at the end game and the prices and items on the market follow that pattern. Low level equipment is built from low level materials and when that equipment is irrelevant, so is the demand for the materials and the price of both is worthless. (Or sometimes there is some demand from high level players, to powerlevel a new skill or alt, in which case the prices are way too high for newbies).
  New patches means new materials replace the old items as the next best thing to make and another set of goods becomes irrelevant.
  This isn’t the case in EVE, where we have no real endgame to work towards and where even the most basic minerals are used in building the most advanced ships, where base modules and ships are used as crafting components in the more advanced versions. And where new ships are always added to work together with the old stuff, rather than to use powercreep to replace the old versions as ‘the better item you should get now if you do not wish to fall behind’.
  As a result, most items on the EVE market are relevant and interconnected.

Of course, RuneScape and World of Warcraft are only a few of the MMOs I’ve played and there are many more MMOs. It is very much possible that you have experienced a much more EVE-like economy in another MMO, but I haven’t seen it.

To me it seems the EVE economy is a lot different (and feels more real) than the economy of other games, not because of the way the market works, but because of the way EVE is built, where location matters, training happens passively and new stuff is always added as sidegrade to existing tools in this sandbox, rather than to replace it as the next higher level equipment.

[Gerard_Amatin]

@Etch_Masuka

That’s all sounds like busy work and punishment.

There needs to be a carrot to go with the stick

Oh I agree!

It could be part of a bigger PI change, one that reduces a few more clicks while setting up the planets and adds a bit more depth to choosing the right planet by adding planet-type unique buildings.

As someone with a rather large amount of planets, I’d love such a change.

I’m aware I went a bit off topic with these responses last few posts. So let me post something on topic:

Q: Can Eve Online survive without PvP?
A: It might, but I wouldn’t be playing it. To me, no matter the state of the game, it would be dead. PvP is why I play, even when I spend a lot of time doing PvE.

[Hugs_n_Kiss_s]

@ OP. Why not just ask CCP to make all the rats you shoot have 5 bil bounties and can be alpha’d in a rookie ship ? Isnt that basiclly what you want. To be able to farm without risk ?

[Wadiest_Yong]

@Michal_Somebody

Add some of those new “upgraded” NPC pirates to the relic and data sites to make the “hacking” game a little more challenging. Again, for PvP preparation.

That already exists.
And they do not prepare you for PvP, they challenge you to fit your ship correctly for their (stable) environment.

@Michal_Somebody

Let us freely transfer between the two servers with the jump clone system with access our assets (Ships, hanger contents, ISK, PLEX etc).

Now THAT would really nuke the economy.

Regarding the list of suggestions you make in your post:

Ask yourself if PvE can ever prepare you for PvP in EvE. I’ll throw my two cents in, and say it does not. What you get is what the current diamond rats and FedNavy npc’s do: they web, scram, and … kill you. It does not make the loss different between them and another player, unless for one’s pride and self-esteem. Why would you accept a loss to a mindless npc any more than you would from a player ?! It just doesn’t make sense, you should prepare for both. How ?

Knowledge and experimentation, perhaps best under the guidance of a good corp, most likely work better. If EvE was designed along the lines of PvP, with supportive PvE to have an economy, it was also designed to make players work together. Any player’s understanding of how to play the game is expedited by joining a good corp, cementing new social bonds in place at the same time, making this a real MMO, not a solo player’s theme park.

[Iceacid_Frostpacker]

We have white diamond npc fleets to prepare for pvp I thought.

[Xuixien]

@Kezrai_Charzai

“Market PvP” isn’t PvP. It’s simply competition for resources or relative advantage, which is common to virtually all MMOs. If you start defining PvP as “being in competition with other players” then everything becomes PvP and the term is meaningless.

There’s PvP (market PvP is real) and then there’s PvP combat.

And yeah. Everything is PvP. At least in my play style. I’m PvPing right now, just being logged in in a certain system. Even though I’m out shopping. My character is there, causing high blood pressure.