Mass cloaky camper

[Caitlynn_Askyra]

@Teckos_Pech

You literally said it was a trash argument that did not apply back upstream. Holy crap.

Yes, that’s what negligible means. Negligible =/= doesn’t exist, however they can be treated the same if the precision is not important.

[Teckos_Pech]

@Caitlynn_Askyra

Yes, that’s what negligible means. Negligible =/= doesn’t exist, however they can be treated the same if the precision is not important.

Thanks for demonstrating your lack of intellectual honesty yet again.

This is typical of the anti-AFK cloaking crowd. They can’t win on the merits of the argument so they just lie. You are a liar.

[Caitlynn_Askyra]

@Teckos_Pech

Thanks for demonstrating your lack of intellectual honesty yet again.

This is typical of the anti-AFK cloaking crowd. They can’t win on the merits of the argument so they just lie. You are a liar.

What was dishonest about that?

[Teckos_Pech]

@Caitlynn_Askyra

What was dishonest about that?

Because I said in some context’s it might be low and you took that and decided it is always low.

For example, if I have trained a cloaky camper alt on a second account, and I am also training a PI alt on the same account, then the opportunity cost may very well be low–i.e. I can’t do anything with that alt yet. But once that alt is trained then the opportunity costs would change. If that alt could make say 50 million every 4 days doing PI, then my opportunity cost is around 350 million a month. Now for some players that may be chump change and thus still a relatively low opportunity cost. For others maybe not, and it is a more significant cost.

Your insistance that it is always and for everyone “negligible” violates what you wrote earlier,

@Caitlynn_Askyra

If the cost for a pilot is too high they simply don’t do it, because why would they? You have to account for player psychology to make it applicable.

[Caitlynn_Askyra]

@Teckos_Pech

Because I said in some context’s it might be low and you took that and decided it is always low.

For example, if I have trained a cloaky camper alt on a second account, and I am also training a PI alt on the same account, then the opportunity cost may very well be low–i.e. I can’t do anything with that alt yet. But once that alt is trained then the opportunity costs would change. If that alt could make say 50 million every 4 days doing PI, then my opportunity cost is around 350 million a month. Now for some players that may be chump change and thus still a relatively low opportunity cost. For others maybe not, and it is a more significant cost.

Your insistance that it is always and for everyone “negligible” violates what you wrote earlier,

It is always low, because who is going to give up 350 million to AFK cloak? Players aren’t going to do it unless the cost is small.

[Caitlynn_Askyra]

The clue is in the name anyway. The bottom line is if you are AFK cloaking, you are putting the account in a system and doing something else with your time that you was going to do anyway. There is no lost income because the motivation is that you aren’t going to be doing anything with the account anyway, so you may as well go and annoy another player and affect how he has to play through little effort on your part.

That’s the problem with AFK cloaking.

[Keno_Skir]

@Linus_Gorp

I honestly don’t care about safe spaces. I’m a grown up and won’t cry about virtual safe spaces being violated in a game that’s all about doing exactly that to other people.

I know dude, i really have no issue with you. It was a semantic chuckle at best. Wasn’t expecting it to be read so deeply into but that’s what i get

@yellow_parasol

there is no statistic they will not claim is flawed. there is nothing that can be used to convince them, because they don’t give a rats ass about any of that. all they care about is having their way and people like you, who don’t see that, simply aren’t helping improving the situation. sorry.

You don’t have to be sorry this is a discussion. I think both sides probably say the same about each other. Dispite my feelings toward cloaky camping (sandbox, let people do with it what they can) there are core game mechanic issues that could be raised and would have merit. I think it’s important to wade through the sludge and call out the rubbish in the hopes that a bigger picture may emerge from the exchange as a whole.

[Teckos_Pech]

@Caitlynn_Askyra

It is always low, because who is going to give up 350 million to AFK cloak? Players aren’t going to do it unless the cost is small.

No players are not going to do it if the benefit from AFK cloaking camping is less than the opportunity cost. This depends on the player in question, it is not some universal given. I might be willing to incur those costs, another player is not. So I camp, he does not.

[Teckos_Pech]

@yellow_parasol

there is no lie they skip to try to achieve that. there is no statistic they will not claim is flawed. there is nothing that can be used to convince them, because they don’t give a rats ass about any of that. all they care about is having their way and people like you, who don’t see that, simply aren’t helping improving the situation. sorry.

Keno is a good guy, I have been reading lots of his posts and while he was making a joke in passing, he has zero sympathy with people you describe.

I would argue being able to take a good natured joke will help our side showing that we aren’t just bitter vets saying “No!” to everything.

[Teckos_Pech]

@Keno_Skir

Dispite my feelings toward cloaky camping (sandbox, let people do with it what they can) there are core game mechanic issues that could be raised and would have merit. I think it’s important to wade through the sludge and call out the rubbish in the hopes that a bigger picture may emerge from the exchange as a whole.

I agree, I am looking forward to the implementation of the Observatory Array with some hope it will address this issue in a reasonable and balanced manner. And by that I think both local and cloaking need to be addressed. I think AFK cloaking is balanced but sub-optimal.

[Teckos_Pech]

@Caitlynn_Askyra

The clue is in the name anyway. The bottom line is if you are AFK cloaking, you are putting the account in a system and doing something else with your time that you was going to do anyway. There is no lost income because the motivation is that you aren’t going to be doing anything with the account anyway, so you may as well go and annoy another player and affect how he has to play through little effort on your part.

That’s the problem with AFK cloaking.

OMG…

Even if I have no other alts on the account, I am still incurring an opportunity cost because I could. Am I leaving ISK on the table by AFK camping? If yes, then there is a cost.

Good God, no wonder why most people believe in the most idiotic economic policies…

[yellow_parasol]

you’re right.

also… what is your motivation trying to educate the uneducatable?

[Caitlynn_Askyra]

@Teckos_Pech

OMG…

Even if I have no other alts on the account, I am still incurring an opportunity cost because I could. Am I leaving ISK on the table by AFK camping? If yes, then there is a cost.

Good God, no wonder why most people believe in the most idiotic economic policies…

It doesn’t matter if the players are leaving ISK on the table anyway does it. That’s my point, nobody is using their accounts to 100% efficiency. No player is going to choose to AFK cloak unless the account is inactive anyway, in which case no ISK is left on the table that wouldnt otherwise be.

[Teckos_Pech]

@Caitlynn_Askyra

It doesn’t matter if the players are leaving ISK on the table anyway does it. That’s my point, nobody is using their accounts to 100% efficiency. No player is going to choose to AFK cloak unless the account is inactive anyway, in which case no ISK is left on the table that wouldnt otherwise be.

This has nothing to do with efficiency. Costs do not imply inefficiency. You must incur costs to do something. If you want to make tennis shoes, you must incur costs to do so.

And no, inactivity is not the issue. The player clearly felt having an additional account was worth while. This too demonstrates opportunity cost. Not only does the account cost $15/month, but there is also the next best option as to what that $15 could be spent on.

Again, this is the definition of opportunity cost,

In microeconomic theory, the opportunity cost, also known as alternative cost, is the value (not a benefit) of the choice of a best alternative cost while making a decision. A choice needs to be made between several mutually exclusive alternatives; assuming the best choice is made, it is the “cost” incurred by not enjoying the benefit that would have been had by taking the second best available choice.

In other words, if there is a choice, then there is opportunity cost. If there is no choice at all, then there is no opportunity cost. And in this issue there are always choices.

1. Do I get an alt account or accounts? This means opportunity cost is present because I could have spent the money I spend on alt accounts elsewhere.
2. Do I train just one alt on the account(s). If yes, then there is opportunity cost, the forgone net benefits of training more than one alt.
3. Is one of those alts a cloaky camper alt? If yes, then the opportunity cost is whatever I could have used on that slot.
4. Do I use my alts for cloaky camping, if yes then the opportunity cost is whatever benefit I could have derived if I used on of the other alts.

Do you play Eve at a given time or do something else, if you decide to play Eve, then your opportunity cost is the benefit of the next best option for your time.

Most people do not even consciously think about this kind of thing when making a decision, but the notion of opportunity cost is what allows us to put it into a cost-benefit framework. It also allows us to evaluate various issues like the broken window scenario back upstream. We can use it to evaluate various policy proposals. A common refrain is policy X will create N jobs! But the next question is, okay, but how many jobs could that money have created without this policy? If it is M and M > N then X is actually a bad policy. Opportunity cost lets us evaluate the proposals for things like protective tariffs. Will it “save” jobs in industry Y? Maybe, but it will also mean higher prices for the goods produced by industry Y. That means everyone buying those goods will have less money to spend on other things reducing employment in industries not-Y. So we see that free(er) trade has cost N-hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, but that completely ignores how many jobs were created elsewhere. And when confronted with this kind of argument the proponent of protectionism dismisses it by saying, “Those jobs sucked anyways,” without even knowing what those jobs are.

A failure to grasp and appreciate opportunity cost is not a good thing. And you have failed to grasp it. It applies anywhere there is a decision…a choice. That a person chooses A over B does not mean there is no opportunity cost it means that the (net) benefit to A exceeds the opportunity cost of B.

[Caitlynn_Askyra]

@Teckos_Pech

This has nothing to do with efficiency. Costs do not imply inefficiency. You must incur costs to do something. If you want to make tennis shoes, you must incur costs to do so.

And no, inactivity is not the issue. The player clearly felt having an additional account was worth while. This too demonstrates opportunity cost. Not only does the account cost $15/month, but there is also the next best option as to what that $15 could be spent on.

Again, this is the definition of opportunity cost,

If the account is a skill farm it doesn’t cost them anything, it generates ISK.

[Teckos_Pech]

@Caitlynn_Askyra

If the account is a skill farm it doesn’t cost them anything, it generates ISK.

Yes, it does. Opportunity cost is still there. Free lunches, if they exist, are actually rather rare and look rather different than this.

Suppose for example, a sub costs $15/month (to make the math simple). You could pay for your sub or you could invest the money. Over 10 years the opportunity cost of this would be around $530, the foregone interest income.

Now along comes skill extractors/injectors and you can now “play for free”. Think again. You’ll need at least a few months to skill up your character so he can have implants. Now you get just enough pay for that account. But you still have an opportunity cost. Suppose it takes 6 months of a paid sub to get this “free” scenario. Now my opportunity cost is around $56. But, now I have 25 accounts, so multiplied by 25 my opportunity cost is a bit over $1,400. Alpha accounts might make this a bit high in that I could do some while as an alpha and avoid spending the $15. But the point still stands, this is not a free lunch.

And I am still limiting my options in game as well. Any account that is a skill farm is locked out of skilling for other things. So even if I have an account with an SP farm alt to pay for it (lets assume this is also the cloaky camper), a PI alt, and freighter pilot, I cannot train anything else in game. That account is now “locked out” of training anything else, new or old. And as soon as I deploy my cloaky camper, I also lose out on the use of the PI alt and freighter pilot while cloaky camping…unless I interrupt my camp…which means I am not camping 24/7.

The bottom line is the game is not really “free”. AFK cloaking is not “free”. There is no free lunch here.

[Caitlynn_Askyra]

That has absolutely nothing to do with AFK cloaking cost.

[Teckos_Pech]

Maybe if you stopped trying to find anything you could try to hang the “AFK cloaking is free” hat on and just came up with a valid argument for why it is bad…

[Caitlynn_Askyra]

Ive told you about 40000 times, it’s an argument which ignores reality.

[Teckos_Pech]

@Caitlynn_Askyra

Ive told you about 40000 times, it’s an argument which ignores reality.

Which is why every economist in the world believes it, and most people who have studied economics. The conclusion is inescapable, AFK cloaking is not free. If you believe this you are wrong.