Challenging CCP’s approach to their problems is no doubt useful to them. However, they might also appreciate your informed and positive suggestions about future adjustments to EVE’s eco-system.
You should probably save the detail for a more lengthy submission, addressed to CCP Rattati, rather than posted here.
In the nicest way possible, your hard work is at risk of being skimmed, scanned, and scattered to the winds!
I know. But even the subject is very related to CCP and it is even related more managemant/leadership , I don’t have access to them. I have tried in the past and they do direct me to forums.
CCP Rattati has some brilliant ideas. Took bit time for me to grab the essence in the past. Issue is not everybody has to be and possibly can be specialised and have education and knowledge in every area this is result of in specialisation in professions and therfore specialists work in coordination for optimal results. CCP has no issue with good intentions, ideas, Objectives. But at the execution lvl, there is great potential out there.
I do aware of what is going on in this thread. As I experienced before too. It sounds like voodoo or buzz to people. But I had a chance to talk to CCP in the very past face to face about the partially related subjects. And they all listen attentively and give me time. And made sense to them. Not all players but CCP can understand. I know that. Just I cant reach them atm.
Unfortunately this is my only outlet . I have web page too . And of course possible to voice these ideas in different media that way. But i want to keep everything at home. And i dont want my words used and derailed and create any negative image about CCP games or EvE online in any external platform. That is my concern and reason that I voice it in home.
A funny as that one liner is, it’s also profoundly true. Lots of people have the “I want everything, 100%, with low effort and zero risk” (this is effectively what a carebear really is), and they want it regardless of the game world implications or long term effects it has. They just want “moar”, like locusts.
While it’s clear that you and Destiny have such a jaundiced view of humanity that you believe this tripe (although somehow weaksauce highsec gankers are the “one true brave smart hardworking” counterexample), please provide some numbers or reference to back up your believe that “carebears” want 100% of everything with low effort and zero risk. You might even want to define a carebear and estimate their numbers (with supporting evidence) while you’re at it.
Because at the moment, it looks like you, Destiny, and some others are all just on a whiney crying jag about “carebears ganked my Eve!” without a shred of data to back you up.
I mean, if you folks want to cry away day after day because your personal view of humanity is “they all suck except us brave smart capable PvP types”, feel free. But don’t expect anyone to take your extremist, exaggerated and negative opinions seriously.
Not even closely, I stated several times that gankers are really just another form of carebears and when Destiny said “well it takes pretty much 10 to gank someone now” I went against that. I’m completely ok with the concept of ganking in a competitive pvp sandbox meritocracy that EVE is, but I feel that most ganking is kinda cringe and incredibly terrible, especially with the unoriginal copy/paste larping that tends to accompany it.
Yeah I caught that and think I already liked that one. But you do in multiple places state that those people are the best prepared, done their homework, know the game types. So maybe not as one-sided about it as Destiny but the stream of invective against ‘carebears’ is a lot more common (even from you) than anything said against PvPers of any stripe.
I should point out that I personally don’t have anything against any of the PvP going on in the game, although I do think the constant posturing and posing of the ganker types as the “lions” of the game is a bit ridiculous seeing as they hug high-sec just as assiduously as any ‘carebear’.
I pretty much just razz anyone on that bandwagon simply so they get a taste of their own medicine, and it’s kinda funny to see how emotionally they react and get all defensive. Kind of like what they say they do to their targets, you see.
Anyhoo, my point of view is there’s a small percentage of whiney carebears, and a small percentage of lazy weaksauce gankers, and a noticeable percentage of max-ISK farmers, and a noticeable percentage of “real combat-ship PvPers”, and then there’s the 60% of the actual player base who never comes to forums, but simply plays the game as intended.
All these extreme views of “carebears bad” “PvP good” (or vice versa) are mostly artifacts of looking at a few dozen posters out of the 2% of the player base who actually forum, so I try to balance the odds a little.
Anyway, enjoyed your recent posts and you made some excellent points. Just posting the contrarian point of view for the sheer contrariness of it. (Sometimes)
O dear, Kezrai.
I wondered whether that ‘other’ topic would somehow be worked in to a discussion about Scarcity and Behavioural Economics.
I was not disappointed, for here you are, steering us mildly off-course into a discussion ostensibly about carebears, but in reality setting sail for an oft-visited and favourite haven of yours.
Westward Ho!
That’s true, they do their homework and are active, as they need to scan for possible targets and find the correct ones. So at the very least they are not afk, they actually work for their meals. And whichever way you look at it is far better than sitting AFK for 3 hours in a belt.
Well you’d have to define ‘better’ then I think, since that seems to be the core of the disagreement I have with many PvP-rah-rah types.
If I’m selling winter jackets, and one guy buys my jacket and wears it every time he goes outside, and one guy buys my jacket and puts it in the closet “just in case” because he doesn’t like the cold and stays inside, it’s no difference to me. They both paid the same money to do whatever they want with my product.
While they’ve never published a “who subs the most” breakdown by player activity (that I’ve ever seen), the stats they do publish make it quite clear that PvE and space economy sells far more subs than PvP does, even though some people will say “PvP drives the economy”.
If people produce a lot, and drive prices down, that’s a win for everybody who uses ships/modules and wants to buy them cheaper. The only people who would be upset by high production driving down prices are players that also want to do production but want to get paid more for doing less without having to fight the competition. You know, the exact thing you accuse carebears of aspiring to.
A miner sitting AFK on a belt for 3 hours is simply content that somebody hasn’t found yet. The more miners, the more content. EVE could have 50,000 miners sitting in belts (so long as they were mostly Omega) and it would be good for the game. More PvPers would spring up to farm them, and a very small percentage of them would switch to PvP themselves.
If there aren’t enough PvPers, that’s because PvP is implemented poorly in EVE. It’s not because there’s too many miners. And it will certainly never increase the amount of PvPers in the game if you just cut back on ‘AFK miners’.
I meant “better” from an “active vs afk” playstyle perspective, not in a personal play style preference kind of way. I feel that people who “play” afk shouldn’t be rewarded for it, if only because it competes with players who DO play actively (which is inherently unfair, but is kinda changing now with the whole mining changes that is very obviously aimed at making AFKing less worthwhile) but also because there’s nothing worse than playing an MMO that is full of afk/bots who don’t underact and move around on their own.
That is less of an issue in MMO that are more player focussed, where it’s all about you (the saviour of Stormwind) and your personal journey and where if someone else picks an ore node before you that doesn’t take it away from you, also those MMO generally won’t have a player run economy. But in EVE which is less about you as a player but more about interaction, both positive and negative THEN people who AFK are pretty much destroying both the economy through their unfair competing and destroying the immersion by littering the landscape with, what might as well be, bots.
Whatever kind of afk, regardless of the play style. And from that (my) perspective, ganking is far less problematic than afk mining, or afk anything, simply because ganking by its very nature is not afk. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think lots of it is terrible, you can agree to a concept but find the execution horrible or in need of balancing.
And if AFK mining would be abolished, resulting in increased prices for goods, then I’d be ok with that consequence. At the very least I’d not have to tell a newbie in rookie “I’d not pick up mining unless you really like it, it pays terribly”.
Well that’s all valid but I think it’s more personal preference than objective reality.
For instance, let’s say there’s currently 10,000 AFKs in the game, and 15,000 actual pilots I can interact with. Removing the 10,000 AFKs doesn’t in any way increase my player interaction, although it may reduce my competition in the realms of mining/production. (Although personally I suspect AFK ratting and other forms of AFK are as or more of an economic problem.) Regardless, let’s remove them all. I still have 15,000 people to interact with, exactly what I had before, but CCP has $120,000 less coming in every month. Not what I’d call a positive.
Now let’s change those AFK miners to active miners. But they’re out in space, mining, in belts. I’m still not going to interact with them (except very very rarely in local chat) because I’m never out in mining belts. So still, extremely minimal “interaction with players” change.
I do agree that for instance, an active player should be making 2-3 times what an AFK or semi-AFK player does, and everything possible done to combat pure AFK botting (as opposed to semi-AFK players keeping a minimal eye on the game while they do other things).
The current changes help that a bit in mining, although I would have added an ‘active mining’ component myself, such as a mini-game, scanning or focusing mechanic that increases yield with more attention (and reduces yield with little/no attention).
At any rate, agreeing to disagree on this because I feel semi/AFK players are not overly harmful but do contribute cash to CCP which is needed to support the game. Which is as or more important as having players to interact with in-game, IMO.
Well it has nothing whatever to do with the amount of ISK in the game…which could be a million times higher yet still you could have scarcity. It is actually when there is insufficient raw material to make all the ‘stuff’ people want to buy.
But I would agree that the recent situation has not been scarcity at all. One way of determining that is the fact that many local stations open up for buying ore on some days, and then reduce the price drastically on others. Clearly there is too much ore. More ore is being mined than is being used…which is the reverse of scarcity.
The trouble is that miners don’t stop mining when the local price falls…they just carry on mining and store up the ore. Thus there is always a ready supply waiting.
AFK mining could easily be resolved simply by de-automating the 3 minute laser cycle and requiring some active input at the end of each cycle to start the next one. I mean, this is exactly what happens with non auto-guiding missiles…you have to re-cycle every time missiles fire.
De-automating the laser cycle would mean that anyone AFK would have to ‘be’ there and would only get 3 minutes worth of ore if they weren’t. Any good miner will be watching the cycle anyway, as ending it when ore hold is full is an excellent time saver.
I like AFK. It makes everyone happy.
I like it when someone is complaining about someone complaining about others complaining about something. It makes me happy.
In your opinion
Yes that post you quoted have lot of opinions of mine… esp the one i have reflect belief to CCP s objectives . I i do wish that I am not wrong about their good intentions .
And i don’t have data about their “current staff” . As i mentioned.
I do challenge their metodology based on knowledge and well researched facts.
Also interrsting read :
This article from 2011, since than like i have mentioned many times in that thread… this new concept was the centeral interst for many researchers. And lot of data gathered… and lot of new strategies developed.
Major question mark for these researchers in the begining was… how much these virtual evenomies reflect human behaviours on real economies … is there any representing relationg corelations on that dimention… if yes , which areas ?
Answer was positivive All researchs find similarities and there are even researches adress the fact joining these virtual microeconomis as volunteer activity , in an enviroment with abundance of sources. They even research the “whale” behaviours beside so many other parameters in these microeconomic systems .
This was an example of one of many frontier kinds of research lead today’s more detailed researches focuses today to use this data to develop strategies.
EVE: Online as a Potential Microeconomic Model
Christopher Smith, author
Dr. Marianne Johnson, Economics, faculty mentor
Dr. Marianne Johnson is a professor of economics at UW Oshkosh. She frequently
teaches a research methods class called econometrics as well as introductory economics
courses and public economics. She has supervised nine Student/Faculty Collaborative
Research grants over the years as well as an equal number of Oshkosh Scholar
publications.
Abstract
EVE: Online (EVE) is a video game with one of the largest virtual economies
in existence. The question reigns, can a video game economy function realistically
according to microeconomic theory? To test this, I examined multiple variables for a
commodity in EVE over an extended period. I found that the commodity’s price and
demand acted in the same way that real-world commodity prices do. This suggests that
EVE’s economy adheres to microeconomic theory. Knowing this, there are many useful
applications for EVE as a tool to measure and predict microeconomic behavior and
possibly even macroeconomic behavior.
Conclusion
The evidence suggests that EVE adheres to real-world microeconomic assumptions.
It appears that game theory and auction theory are both testable mediums in EVE.
Furthermore, the data show a relationship between supply and demand that are accurate
according to microeconomic theory. My research indicates that further experimentation
would be worthwhile. Next time, perhaps, I would create a variable that accounts for
Page 36 Oshkosh Scholar
the dual relationship between sell order price and buy order price and their error terms.
If my results are found to be accurate on multiple or all occasions, it is reasonable to
say that economists can use EVE and possibly other video game environments to study
economics. If game designers were to enforce fiscal or monetary policy, they would
observe the effects of that policy as created by real people. EVE functions as
Dr. Guðmundsson intended: an observable universe that abides by and functions in
all the ways that classical economic supply and demand would suggest. Knowing that
EVE functions in an accurate economic way shines new light on modern econometrics.
Branes. “How Does the Eve-Online Market Work?” Mechanical Forum, September
16, 2016. Accessed September 18, 2016. http://mechanicalforum.com/2016/09/16/
how-does-the-eve-online-market-work/.
Casey, Michael. “Real Economist Learns from Virtual World.” Wall Street
Journal, June 21, 2010. Accessed September 21, 2016. https://blogs.wsj.com/
economics/2010/06/21/real-economist-takes-lessons-from-virtual-world/.
Cavender, Robert S. “The Economics of Self-Governance in Online Virtual Societies.”
Ph.D. diss., George Mason University, 2015.
Chribba-OMG Labs. “EVE-Online Status Monitor-Serenity.” Accessed September 29,
2016. eve-offline.net.
Gilbert, David. “Eve Online: Meet the Man Controlling the $18 Million Space
Economy.” International Business Times, May 6, 2014. Accessed September 22,
2016. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/eve-online-meet-man-controlling-18-million-spaceeconomy-1447437.
Gujarati, Damodar N., and Dawn C. Porter. Essentials of Econometrics. 4th
international ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2010.
Hansen, Robert. “Empirical Testing of Auction Theory.” American Economic Review
75, no. 2 (1985): 156–59.
Klemperer, Paul. “Auction Theory: A Guide to the Literature.” Journal of Economic
Surveys 13, no. 3 (1999): 227–86.
Muscaat. “EVE: Online Market Data.” Accessed September 30, 2016.
eve-markets.com.
Perloff, Jeffrey. Microeconomics. 5th ed. University of California, Berkeley. Pearson
Education, Inc., 2009.
Salter, Alexander, and Solomon Stein. “Endogenous Currency Formation in an Online
Environment: The Case of Diablo II.” Review of Austrian Economics 29, no. 1
(2016): 53–66.
Smith, Vernon L. “An Experimental Study of Competitive Market Behavior.” Journal
Oshkosh Scholar Page 37
of Political Economy 70, no. 2 (1962): 111–37.
Wollari, Daniel. “Wars/Kills.” Accessed September 29, 2016. evemaps.dotlan.net.
You’re challenging based on opinion. You are saying that this data correlates your opinion but you have no way of proving it. Ergo, it is your opinion. You cannot in good faith say it is an absolute fact. Please learn to science kthx.
Learn to research methods kthx.
Blah blah blah. Son, you can keep posting links and articles. You’re doing a lit review, albeit a bad one. None of this proves your opinion as fact.
Hell, you don’t even have a clear point or hypothesis that you’re trying to make. You are basically trying to prove scarcity is impacting people’s mental health and how they act in game as negative correct?