Trade goods inspired by real life - Sherry in the age of sails

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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Hi all, weird idea.

tl;dr trade goods that grow in value based on distance travelled, inspired by sherry that was worth more cause it was aged on ships as they sailed the ocean.

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I was listening to a new episode of No Such Thing As A Fish, a podcast about random interesting facts.

So sherry used to be super popular and correctly aging it is a massive part of the taste and value of it. One of the fanciest ways to age sherry was to take barrels of it about boats to sail around the world.

When Magellan sailed the world, a fifth of the value of his cargo was in sherry. Simply buying it, sailing the world and then selling it in the same place where you bought it could almost make a voyage worth it on it’s own.

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So, a strange proposal: data chips that slowly accumulate value based on how far they’ve travelled, or jumps, or total unique systems visited. Maybe variants for all of these.

You could have it so you only had to have them in cargo, so it’s a sacrifice of some cargo hold. Or you could make it tied to a new mid-slot module or something so you had to sacrifice some fitting.

As you go about your business, you gather data on these chips for Sisters of EVE or whoever. Maybe there could be combat/industry based ones for other corps.

Maybe they have a maximum value. Maybe you can only cash them in to the NPC corp once they are full. I think they would need to be easy to cash in though, to make them a good piracy reward. So I guess I would want them to be Jita-able.

I think in my ideal world, you could go all in on this as a career. Make an exploration ship with a big cargohold, fill up on expensive data chips that scan wormhole or null space and make your money dodging gankers professionally.

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So yeah. You could choose to sacrifice some fitting/cargo and invest a chunk of cash in order to have something that slowly gains value as you go about other activities.

But it also increase the value of your killmail and makes you a little less capable of defending yourself.

Just like privateers loading up their cargo holds with barrels of sherry.

I know y’all have to be careful about putting free sources of isk in the game and all, but I’m guessing you have people clever enough to balance all that.

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Thanks for reading, it was fun to write.
Eury

1 Like
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yeah, we are clever enough to know that “free sources of ISK in the game” can be balanced best by avoiding them at all costs.

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@Eury_Nomo It’s a good idea but I don’t see CCP introducing any of that unless those chips, or whatever, can be bought only on the NES with PLEX and sold only in NPC stations at a loss - with maybe added benefits like standing and/or the purchase of a module/BPO…

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Idk, if they are bought with real money it kinda feels like gambling to me.
Like, full ones would have to be worth way more than just selling PLEX for ISK or why would anyone bother risking carrying them. But then if you die you lose it.
It feels like anti-insurance, which I like the idea of for ISK but with real money it feels too exploitable/eploitatitive.

How about you get them from data site cans. They come in heaps of different flavours for different activities and it different types of space.

To activate them you have to find a corp that will give pay you for the data then load it in to your data scraper mod while you go about whatever activity the data chip asks for.

The only NPCs that will buy them are the mission giving corp. They’ll increase in value until full then give a bonus. Mabes paying in LP instead of ISK.

For most people its just more Jita-able junk from data cans. And they won’t even be worth that much empty unless it becomes a popular industry.

For some it will be a small passive income bonus while they do what they were doing anyways. This would be at the cost of a module slot.

And for a small few it might be a full time profession. You could potentially travel in a frigate all day and still get paid enough to replace it when you do find a gate camp.

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It is not gambling. It’s simply money in CCP’s purse. As a business, a good idea is an idea that makes money.

Why do some players have billions worth of stuff in their cargo hold and then die and lose it all? If the payoff is worth it players will buy them even if some isk is lost this way but gained another way.

That’s the beast that gaming has become.

Sure. If CCP sees value in that. Remember, you’re not only presenting an idea, you have to sell it.

Same difference. LP provides buying power like isk, except you have to jump a few more hoops.

That sounds too much like free isk and CCP doesn’t like free isk.

Overall a good idea. The details would have to be worked out CCP’s side.

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I still don’t really see the ‘free ISK’ argument.
Like, it’s a way for players to generate ISK but it’d be limited by data site mining, standings for the corps to get the missions to fill the chips, and actually having to do the activity to fill the thing.
Not to mention you have to nerf your ship to do it, and increase your killmail.

Like, if that’s introducing free ISK to the game then CCP can’t really introduce any content that has any reward of any kind.

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It isn’t really an argument. I don’t know enough about EVE to have many of those.
I was basically reacting to this:

I meant it when I wrote “Overall a good idea”.

I agree. But remember that “rewards” - in any online game - are a means to an end, which is to get players to play longer and more often, that’s why the rewards are better for pilots who fly expensive Omega ships in more dangerous parts of space than for pilots who fly Alpha-allowed ships in less dangerous space.

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