CCP re-arranged the moon goo for T2 production and ended up, as Salvos, noted making Technetium the bottleneck moon goo, IIRC it was not an R64 (I could be wrong…just going by memory) but because the distribution of moons is not even across new eden Technetium was primarily in the North. So there developed a cartel producing Technetium and, IIRC, the price rose to something like 150,000 ISK/unit maybe even higher. This increase was partially offset by significant drops in prices for promethium and dysprosium.
As for damage to the game’s economy that is not really so clear. As I noted prices adjusted and goods continued to flow into the economy.
It is not clear if OTEC actually did limit the supply. OTEC was definitely a mutual protection deal, but trying to tell the other tech moon holders what do to with their technetium…not sure how well that went over. Those kinds of agreements tend to break down without some sort of enforcement mechanism. For example, with OPEC, the Saudi’s would act as the enforcer. Having some of the largest reserves they could try to get members to adhere to production quotas or else they’d flood the market and drive the price down.
I think people are making the question way too complicated. The bottom line is any buy order higher than manufacturing costs gets filled PDQ. The buy listings that remain are the ones below manufacturing costs. Some buy orders below cost do get filled sometimes (at a relatively slow rate for reasons mentioned) so there is sufficient incentive for market traders to post buy orders. I don’t have the metrics, but as an example, I could post 200 buy orders below manufacturing cost and five could get filled… those five translates to profit when I flip the goods. To a trader, it’s all about scale, so maximizing the number of listings increases the chances of a score. That’s all it is.
About the techtenium topic:
I see absolutely no problem with that happening. I look at EVE as a simulation.
There are unfair situations like that in real life too. Just like cartels. In fact I’d like to see more like this without rebalance from CCP. Just to see how sandbox EVE actually is. I believe that players could negate problems like that with ingame politics and market reactions. Over time…
I’m not saying that unfairness is good for a computer game. But we all agree that EVE is not like other games.
I agree with you. Things are usually simpler what people think.
Your analysis is completely true from a specific perspective. But there are other (perhaps wider) perspectives too.
Actual response: The idea is good. “Good” buy orders get filled so fast that we only see the “bad” ones. It is probably part of the anomaly.
But don’t forget that manufacturing takes time. Just like starting production in a specific market. So there should be a bit more delay in my opinion.
I compare the delay to reprocessing for example. Reprocessing takes no time and you can still find some markets where you can make a bit of a profit by buying ores and reprocessing them. If there is so much delay in that business there should be a bit more in manufacturing too.
There was nothing wrong with players forming a cartel and price fixing/gouging in and of itself, but CCP fked up the resource distribution.
This is after all just a game that people play in their past-time.
People, as consumers, have a pretty strong demand for “fairness”, even in EVE.
As relating to the overall topic here, on how the economy regulates itself, Technetium was a case where the situation was largely caused by CCP as an external omnipotent force. That players exploited it, was to be expected but they arent the ones that made Technetium a T2 bottleneck, nor chose where the resource spawned. CCP did that, and then had to correct their actions.
Its hilarious how many “bad” buy/sell orders there are.
They are so ridiculously off the mark they will never be filled.
Pragmatically something like >90% of them could simply not exist and it wouldnt change a thing.
Makes one wonder why people even bother making them in the first place.
Thats one of the reasons Im a strong proponent of trying to direct the game to more differentiated markets by location. Then you might actually find more opportunity to make a buck elsewhere in EVE, rather than all roads/goods invariably passing into and out of Jita.
I agree so much!
I think it is something that we, players could make an impact on too. By setting up all kinds of sell orders in less populated regions. Variety is the key.
What CCP could do about it is a useful tool to see different region markets well. I think there is a lot of profit in trading/hauling bettween regions but too few people do it because it’s really hard to find opportunities. Not because of the lack of opportunities but because there are actually too many of them. It’s a bit like finding the right market for margin trading but in this case you gotta choose an item of 100000 items + you gotta choose a region pair of the 10000 possible pairs.
Unfortunately this only really happens with DED modules/BPCs sourced from PvE specific to certain areas, and to some extent from Faction Warfare LP items.
For example its not unusual to find Angels DED loot/BPCs for sale in Hek/Rens cheaper than Jita, although usually not cheaper by much and few of them. I put those up myself sometimes when I want a quick buck. I announce it in Local and its usually sold in a matter of minutes, no doubt on its way to Jita therafter.
Ideally, I wish CCP would kill universal market API.
This is a very drastic option, and harms smaller entities that cant monitor multiple regions at once, but also creates tremendous opportunity.
For technetium, I don’t see any issue. many resources are limited in the locations you can have them. eg the faction BS. As long as each region has its own specific limited resource, I don’t think this is a bad situation. Maybe the error was to not have MORE resources limited to specific regions /areas ?
For local markets, I think the issue is being addressed with the jump delays, and the increase (?) in fuel consumption for jumps. Making freighter costs more expensive would increase the cost of moving to Jita, thus increase the interest in local markets. The matter is that flooding a local market with resources does not make it sell more, so basically you still have orders that can’t get sold
Technetium could have been sub-divided into “types” necessary for varying T2 productions, as sourced from different regions of EVE. Perhaps even so that you would need specific Technetium types from each region so as to run T2 production.
Instead, CCP just introduced Technetium to Moons elsewhere and adjusted the T2 mats. I suppose they wanted T2 to remain as generic in materials, as possible.
Its typical of CCP to simplify in this way, albeit the recent T3 materials change contradicts this. I wouldnt be surprised if they simplify that too eventually, once the T3 changes on a wider scale have had time to settle into the meta.
I agree with what you are getting at.
Unfortunately, this angle will make you very unpopular.
There have been numerous lengthy threads addressing the goal you have in mind, and resistance has been very inflexible, to say the least, especially regarding the LS threshold between HS and NS.
I had some alternative parallel idea of how to increase cost of cargo transit that was equitable to all involved, but I goddam cant remember it atm.
I’m not sure if transfer costs affect this problem. Because on one hand there are the people who farm stuff and just want to sell it. But on the other hand there are people who could setup buy orders for items in different regions to sell them in Jita. So increasing jump fuel costs would be harmful for them.
I see no problem with a central market. But there should be more market activity in other areas as well.
Also the trading in other regions shouldn’t be limited to farmable materials. Trading activity in t2 stuff and manufacture only items would create a “real market” in different areas.
So hauling should actually be helped in my opinion.
The goal is good, but conceiving a way to do it that is equitable to all, and mechanically sound, is very difficult.
Its always “on the otherhand”, after “on the otherhand” where each solution seems to cause more problems than it fixes. I believe there is a way. We just havent gotten that far yet without the thread being trolled to death.
For me, this is one of my favorite topics/core concerns for EVE, and direction I would like to see this thread go, as it has enough relevance to OP to warrant it.
It was an issue, but not a huge one. Yes higher prices could dissuade people from PvP, but overall I don’t think that is a primary driver. CCP did change alchemy so it could provide some relief on extremely high prices. And I can’t remember exactly when CCP changed insurance payouts to reflect the market price more accurately in insurance even for T2 hulls which would alleviate the negative effects on PvP to some extent. Eventually CCP got back around to tweaking the T2 production requirements and technetium’s price plummeted.
Interestingly during the “crisis” lots of people suggested all sorts of solutions like moon goo depleting and randomly reappearing around the map. Having technetium “re-seeded” etc. CCP’s solution is probably the most reasonable.
As for local markets, trade hubs, etc. those are emergent phenomena and are the result of human action, but no human design, IMO. You can do what you like to try and influence those, but don’t be surprised if they don’t work out like you expect.
Everything is the result of CCP’s design, so this is so trite it is virtually useless. Did CCP intend for Jita, Amarr, Dodixie and Rens to be trade hubs ex ante? Not that I can see. I have seen nothing, anywhere to suggest that CCP went out of their way for this…it just happened.
That is one of the aspects of emergent order it often looks defined after the fact. We see it all the time in nature with evolutionary processes. You look at something like the eye and it looks like it was designed ex ante, but the evolutionary process is not a guided process and as such it cannot be the product of design. The same thing is true of an economy, including the IG economy. What is going on in the IG economy? Is there a grand master plan being implemented by a single individual or even a small cadre of individuals? No. Absolutely not. Each player is out there doing things and making decisions that influence the economy in a small way or even a large way. Yet all of these dispersed decisions give us an economy where there are plenty of ships, modules, etc. for us to play the game.
Now you can try to create a trade hub out of some nowhere system. You can go in there and set up a bunch of buy orders, sell orders, etc. And something might come of it, but not because you simply did what you did, but also because it was advantageous to others. Those who fulfill your buy orders, those who buy from your sell orders, etc. And you have no control of them. If it happens it is not simply because you “designed it” but because of the actions of others too.
The aquarium (EVE) in which we exist in this game, is defined by CCPs design of its limitations and content. We may not know if our universe, or anything in it is the result of intelligent design, but we DO know EVE is.
Surely you understand the difference between how CCP has built the game, and what people do in it? No player in EVE can exceed the parameters designed into. Evolution of what players do in EVE is centrally dependent on what CCP does with EVE.
If they change the shape or content of this aquarium, we will evolve, but none of us except CCP can prompt that change by changing EVE.
Evolution is the process whereby that which is able to adapt to changing circumstances, survives and proliferates. CCP is the ultimate arbitrator and enactor of such change in circumstances. When CCP makes changes, its like God himself decided to change the laws of our natural universe, and there isnt a damn thing you can do about it.
If you design something you have an intent. I see absolutely nothing that suggests CCP intended the current trade hubs to be trade hubs.
Sure, but CCP does not control the players and as such CCP is not in charge of the grand master plan. There is no grand master plan. IMO, that was CCP Greyscale’s colossal failure. He tried to implement such a plan and the players basically kept saying, “Nope.”
Of course, that is my point. CCP created the game, but the players are a significant factor in the game. A system like EVE is dynamic and adaptive and as such the system adapt in and change with the environment. As such trying to draw a distinction between the environment and the system is largely meaningless, the system will adapt to the environment.
Sure CCP can make changes but the players will adapt to that, and the players adapting will also influence what CCP does. The two are not separate, there are feedback loops. To pretend otherwise is to grossly over-simplify.
There is also the concept of co-evolution. In a co-evolutionary system, as an organism adapts and evolves to its environment it also can change the environment as well. A cheetah evolves to run faster, and as a result the antelope in turn evolves in response to that evolutionary adaptation.
Actually there is…you can adapt to the change. This is why many of CCP’s design goals often are not meet. They want X to happen, but the players respond and instead they get X’. For example CCP Greyscale wanted NS to be comprised of much smaller entities. But despite his efforts and attempts to break up the big coalitions met with continual failure. I am almost certain that there are many times where the CCP Devs sit there in their offices and go, “Huh…I didn’t think of that,” as the players come up with some sort of “out of the box” adaptation. I recall the early days of Dominion sov when, IIRC, Goons SBU’d one of their own systems to get a tactical advantage. IIRC there was a threadnaught about it as well. My guess people at CCP were sitting there going, “Well I’ll be dipped in ■■■■…” Another example with a fairly high degree of certainty was grid-fu when grid’s were smaller. CCP probably did not foresee the tactical manipulation of grid sizes and shapes including those weird pockets that are “inside” a grid, but are actually off grid.
No, you just don’t understand emergent order and complex adaptive systems.
Here is a clear indicator that CCP is not omniscient/do not know everything about the game. That they have to sometimes deem certain actions an exploit. If they did truly know everything this would never happen. That it does suggests that CCP is often as clueless about the game as the rest of us until some sneaky bunger figures out some unintended result and uses it. Sometimes CCP declares it an exploit, the rest of the time they just go, “Working as intended (but not really as we didn’t intend it, but hey we’ll roll with it).”
The definition of god is that somehow all goes according to his grand scheme.
Like Tzeentch says, “according to plan”. However CCP can design the basic bricks we use to build the Eve universe, but they can not foresee what building we will imagine (because they didn’t design our reaction) so the players never go according to plan.
So basically CCP is bound to go with errors in their plans. The smaller the step, the smaller the error and so the easier to correct though.
