Crash the martket

[Steezie]

I fell in with a group of miners today and while you mine in EVE, there isnt much to do so we were just shooting the breeze about the economy (Obviously the status of the economy is important to people like us). One of my new friends idly mused that the economy's balance could potentially be easily upset and the market crash.

This topic got pulled center stage for discussion and we started throwing ideas around about how to potentially crash the universal market in EVE.

Here is some information on the in-game economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EVE_Online#Economy

What do you think could be done to bring the economy down or atleast seriously de-value the ISK?

Im simply curious, I'm of the opinion that CCP would never allow a crash and would artificially support the market.

 

[Dracil]

A massive influx of Isk farmers.

All the major producers banding together and selling stuff dirt cheap would also crash the economy. Getting them to all work together however, is another matter.

 

[Dannager]

Unionization of a given commodities production chain. In an economic system as cut-throat capitalistic as EVE's, I'm sure hitting the game with an organized union would shake things up enough to seriously screw with the market for a while as everyone tries to adjust to the new economic paradigm.

 

[peanutbutter12]

This is, sadly, one of the reasons I no longer play Ultima Online on EA's production shards. These are the main reasons the economy has collapsed in this once awesome game:

1: Dupers/Exploiters
Those wonderful people who believe cheating makes them the best and on top of the rest. They are usually the ones who don't care about the economy. As long as they are the ones with all the gold and items without working for them, they are happy. They continuously make more high end items, and eventually, flood the economy with them till the price drops and there is so much gold in the system that, while the actual cost of the item may seem high in the millions, it's actually quite low in value compared to the amount of gold floating around.

2: Gold Farmers
I'm sure some have heard the stories of these people in Mexico or Chine and their video game sweatshops. They have a shop with 40some computers running at once and someone sitting there getting gold or resources all day long for very little pay. At the end of the day, their payoff is in the millions and regular players can't keep up with them as far as supply is concerned.

3: Macroers
Along with those wonderful farmers, come macroers who use programs to keep the character in game doing something all day while they are off at work, school, the mall... This was a huge hit in the past 3 years with Ultima players who would do things like gather resources all day long without actually being at the computer, or maybe being in the dungeon that gives artifacts and having the program setup to attack the main monster when it comes while healing yourself over and over until you have a nice stock pile of artifacts in your pack to sell off at a high price. These people flood the market with items and gold just as much as farmers and dupers do.

I think the sad thing about all that is that people just don't care about a gaming economy. I've been playing UO now for almost 9 years and it's very sad to see the direction it's gone in. But EA dug it's own grave by not being strict and just allowing people to do these things without banning them or finding ways of stopping it.

I've left EA and now play a free shard that has the T2A playstyle. Back when UO was what it was suppose to be instead of the candyland game it's turned into...

CJ

 

[Dannager]

I'm not quite certain but I think that none of the three problems mentioned above can occur in EVE.

 

[Steezie]

I'm not quite certain but I think that none of the three problems mentioned above can occur in EVE.

Only the first one is impossible (Allthough one of the designers of EVE was caught giving high end items to corporations).

Its difficult to impliment a macro in EVE because of how the game is set up, but not impossible and gold farmers are a constant prescense

 

[Dannager]

Only the first one is impossible (Allthough one of the designers of EVE was caught giving high end items to corporations).

Its difficult to impliment a macro in EVE because of how the game is set up, but not impossible and gold farmers are a constant prescense

I can't see how gold farmers can be considered a "problem" in EVE when EVE has a developer-sponsored cash conversion method (timecard sales) for turning your dollars into ISK. I'm sure they're there, but they don't screw with the economy.

 

[Steezie]

I can't see how gold farmers can be considered a "problem" in EVE when EVE has a developer-sponsored cash conversion method (timecard sales) for turning your dollars into ISK. I'm sure they're there, but they don't screw with the economy.

Actually the timecard system allows players to buy gametime with ISK (Usually with a LOT of ISK). You dont get to actually buy ISK itself. Purchasing ISK with real money (or selling it) is a violation of the EULA

 

[WingsOfTheNeophyte]

You can buy a gametime card from CCP and then sell it for isk, a two step process which turns real money into isk

Personally I think, the market can be crashed by reducing the value of t2 stuff, named equipment, and the like, however it seems the way the game is run, the market balances itself so well, and of course it has "divine intervention", so a proper market crash could only possibly be organised by BOB and their allies, in a specific region

 

[Dannager]

You can buy a gametime card from CCP and then sell it for isk, a two step process which turns real money into isk

Personally I think, the market can be crashed by reducing the value of t2 stuff, named equipment, and the like, however it seems the way the game is run, the market balances itself so well, and of course it has "divine intervention", so a proper market crash could only possibly be organised by BOB and their allies, in a specific region

Given the (seemingly) dev-flooded composition of BoB, it seems unlikely that they would deliberately crash the game's economy.