Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Its bothering how technically easy it should be for CCP to integrate a loan/financing system into the game so that players can make and take loans from each other. They would just have to create a loan/bond market so that contracts can be created, you would state your purpose as an option, you can make an offer regarding interest rate, interval of payments, and collateral pledge, end then you can as an option have an audited balance sheet provided by CCP, maybe even for a fee, so that people could look at what you have, compare and assess risk. Also there should be a procedure in which even if the player didn't pledge a portion of its assets, and he defaults on the loan, then CCP would take the assets that the player has and give it to the lenders, everything the debtor has to cover the value of the loan should be given back to the lenders, this way things are more secure, there would be more confidence, and the system would work much better, specially considering the fact that it would not be possible to really know the person you are lending to no matter how hard you try.

But CCP will probably never do this because they have to make money selling PLEX. There is such a huge amount of idle isk out there, probably enough to halt PLEX sales. However, on the other hand people who make alot of isk would probably not have the option to buy PLEX for game time. I think thou that there could be an alternative solution for this, CCP could instead of just selling PLEX sell ISK directly for cash, and game time directly for ISK, both as a separate item. With the current PLEX system you are technically selling your isk to players for game time, not exactly a loan but it provides funds, however instead of selling the isk for PLEX a loan is more like a rent over cash, so its not really the same thing. If CCP eliminates PLEX they can still make money by selling both game time for isk and the isk needed for cash, the total demand for isk would be less so their income would be less initially, but later on it might go up.

The reason could be that some of the loans provided would be lost, some players would lie about what they would do with the isk or they could lose the money by getting ships destroyed, so in this regard there would be a need for greater production of resources and products. If more isk is available to players then there probably would be more industrial activity going on, and more demand for minerals, which could go up in price, or be more stable, and maybe we would have more miners with better equipment, or taking more risk by going to lower sec systems.

Now this is just one part that would not make things perfect, it should be that way, and so it should be part of the fun and add to the excitement and value of the game, to its sense of risk and true loss.

On the other hand, what most people might not consider, perhaps even CCP has not truly considered this, is that they can easily increase the demand for isk, the loss in demand for the isk by the PLEX system can be completely, and I mean totally eliminated by just increasing sales taxes, broker fees, industry production fees, and contract fees. If they charge more for all of this then more isk would be coming out of the system by the use of the market, it would be so easy. The isk for cash sales would skyroket in a short time, and the CCP would be making the same amount of income they did from PLEX. Now this realy would be a totally win-win situation, because CCP would not lose money, the game would have added value, many players would have more fun, and CCP would be creating market with greater freedom, and we all know EVE is known for this, so I think this would be important. Maybe more people would become interested in the game, there is no way current players would be lost with this because you won't be forced to participate, you will always have the option to buy isk with cash, or buy game time with isk. The only difference is that prices for both isk and game time would be fixed instead of being determined by market prices, or CCP could periodically adjust the prices according to their evaluations, or they could even add an algorithm that would act as a market participant to change prices according to trends in the demand.

However what also occurred to me is that the PLEX system can be maintained because all CCP would have to do is raise the sales tax and fees even more so, so that no there would be no need to have to sell isk for just game time, or cash for isk directly to CCP, the two system can coexist and CCP could make the same amount of income. In fact maybe even more, and they would have to include a fee for issuing or buying bonds or granting loans, just as with contracts, so this would be an added cash sink. Now in a system like this there would be true competition, because players would decide if they want to wait for a loan offer or if they would prefer to buy PLEX for isk, depending on the situation, and deciding if its better to pay a certain amount of interest or not. In a case like this PLEX prices would initially skyrocket, double or triple, but this would not be forever, it would eventually settle somewhere, much higher anyways offcourse but CCP would gain sales for game time by selling more subscriptions since alot of players will could not afford PLEX. So I think one thing would compensate the other and CCP will not lose, it would just get more complicated, there would be some changes and adjustments but I think it would be better, more fun, more value, and more choices.

If you want loans -- go check out the Market Discussion forum. All kinds of money loaning going on there...

Yes I know about this, obviously, but you are missing the whole point. Did you even read my entire original post and thought about it? The issue here is about making things easier and more secure for everyone. Right now I wouldn't even dare to give one isk away to somebody who is just asking for it on a forum, there is nothing to verify, no assurance, no real collateral, no system of tracking anything. What is needed is a medium, in this case CCP, like a bank, who will oversee these transactions and who would provide a system where players can be audited, collateral can be placed and secured by the medium, and so some type of assurance is provided for the loan. And also there should be included automatic interest payments, so that the player doesn't just say that he will pay 2% per week and then out of his whim just skip a week of payments or whatever. You have to know what I mean, its so obvious, and it will add much to the game.

Oh you want a loan? Try Jita! Oh people think you're a scammer? Well that's because it's EVE.

Long story short, bad idea. I never needed money from anyone, and I'm currently placing on 7 characters while still earning more than enough to plex through 2015.

I don't see any points that you made that make your argument strong enough to implement, even the ones you claim to be a positive influence to the game.

You are also putting a permanent price on plex rather than have it fluctuate with both a supply\demand effect AND isk inflation. This is actually limiting the freedom of the game, not giving it more freedom. Let alone the isk that is spontaneously created in the game, which is well, bad.

Too much effort for a pointless system that will mess with the game. -1 for me.

So I make an alt with nothing to its name, trade it a 1 bil ship for a loan, default and.....you get nothing, still.

Second problem....I am sure ccp has very strict rules regarding touching peoples accounts. Its an IT thing. Whole can of worms opens up when ccp randomly picks out things from peoples hangars.

AS far as I know the only time ccp uses this power is in the case eula violations or gm approved reimbursements. Example of eula violation, isk sellers get their wallet set to ungodly negative isk then banned. Bit later you can petition you learned your lesson, get account back. And you can then work off your negative isk balance.

Third problem is you are reducing all risk from lending. Every money making scheme in eve has a downside. This would not. Eve has inflation issues as is. Having the numerous space rich players lend out billions at a time risk free not the way to fix it. It make it worse. Sit on ass, collect interest payments and if defaults happen ccp has it covered. At say 10% interest even if I take 2 bil of my isk that is 200 mil a month not doing a damn thing. And this scales....somewhere out there iare many who can put up 10, 50, 100 bliiion.



No chance of me losing a ship jumped in a gank, no market speculation backfires, not even the clicking of death involved in pi. To data core farm I even have to fly to several agent stations all the place to do some work ffs.

the tl;dr....loan defaults that hurt the lender are their control mechanisms. I have no guarantee I won't get ganked on a mission...a money lender should not have a guarantee every isk will be returned to them.

The dev hours required to implement this vs benefit of implementation is huge, we already developed a functioning loan system on the forums so it would not add anything.

all you want is super safe loans where there is no chance of default, get the hell out

The biggest thing I do not see you covering ...

... in this new safety-net loan system, what's to stop me from creating a 20 billion ISK loan to an alt, having the alt "default" on the loan, and then getting 20b out of thin air (and then getting the "defaulted" 20b back from the alt's alt)?

I said that the PLEX system can coexist with this loan system somewhere in my post. I said that what was needed was to just raise the taxes and other fees to counterbalance the money supply, but I think I was wrong, CCP probably would not need to do so after an initial tax and fees increase so that the added money supply that comes out of selling iks outright is counterbalanced. You say that isk would be spontaneously be created and you are right, but what you don't see is that all is that what would be needed to counteract this added money supply is to just raise taxes and fees, thats it, if CCP hikes taxes by 2 or 3 percentage points, that might me more than enough, a whole lot of money would be coming out of the system in a heartbeat, its very easy really.

Also, I also said that CCP can periodically adjust the price of isk for cash, say once a month or once a week depending on their evaluation of the situation, or they can even very easily implement an algorithm that adjusts the prices say every hour, it is still a free market, prices would change according to supply/demand its just that CCP would be a market participant in that sense, but they already are market participants and we all know it, it makes no difference, they already set the cash prices for PLEX, how free do you think that is? Does the price of PLEX simply drop because the demand in the past week was much lower? The answer is no, its pretty much a fixed price on PLEX for cash, even thou they make periodical deals and offers it doesn't make much of a difference, and they also take the PLEX that was stored in closed accounts and just sell it into the market to add some extra offer, and also who is to say that CCP doesn't buy and sell PLEX out of thin air every day or every week? You don't really know, CCP is like some central bank, they can do whatever they want and you probably won't ever know it, its their game and they kind of have the right, even thou I wouldn't be ok with this but its the truth of the matter.

Lastly, you are not really seeing this for what it would be, it would add a level or realism, freedom, and gaming value to a game that is known for its player led free market, it only makes sense that players like me who would at times want to make more secure loans with a system of controls implemented in the game should do so, and that new players out there trying to start their industrial production can have an option other than PLEX to fund this. Again the decrease in demand for PLEX would be counteracted first by the introduction of isk for cash and by the increase in the quantity of cash subscription accounts due to the increase in the price of PLEX, but this added money supply from the cash for isk feature would be counteracted by just raising taxes and fees, its very simple, CCP won't lose a penny over this, and the game could have more depth an value to it. They could just make a test and see if it works, develop it, implement it, and see what happens in one month, if they don't like what they see and players are asking for it to be removed then they could very easily do so, but I doubt that this would happen.

Also, it doesn't matter if you didn't ever need isk for your characters, this is because you just bought PLEX to start and then earned alot of isk over time to expand your production, this is what everyone does, I did it, its obvious because its the only option out there. I'm talking about an alternative to this if you haven't noticed yet. I for one have about 60 billion in assets, but 10 are in BPO's, 12 are in inventory ships I bought for cheap prices, 15 is in production materials like minerals to build ships, I have to keep at least 10 in cash so that I can start my production cycles again, I also have some other inventories and so on, so EVE is a really capital intensive game. Right now I would like to increase my industrial production by starting to make battlecruisers and battleships in a weekly cycle, but to do so I would need to select one ship of each race for each category so that I can counteract the risk of price fluctuation and of margin gains because if you have noticed there is usually a leading ship for each race in each class in terms of demand, and the demand for each races leading ship fluctuates over time so that if the price of a Drake suddenly starts to plummet and minerals are stable then it probably means that the price of Harbingers is going up and so on. So my point is that I would need an additional 10 billion at least to start producing three or four different ships for one type of ship, and I don't want to spend $300 hard earned just to do this when I have so much collateral I could pledge instead of selling because I want to keep some of ships and inventory for future price appreciation, so with a system like this where players have alot of security I could submit an audited balance sheet made by CCP so that people know what I really have, pledge assets, mainly liquid ships that I want to keep, and just take the 10 billion to start this production. I would be fun, safe, and add a greater amount of player interaction and participation.

You made good points here, but this doesn't mean it cannot be fixed. First, if this scenario starts to happen what CCP could do is to just take the ship that C bought from D and give it to A. If the ship is blown up then CCP takes whatever, even everything C bought and give all back to A, and also everything that B has would be returned, no matter if the debtor goes EVE broke it would be done, thats something I mentioned in my initial post. Also what can be done is that If whatever B or C has is not enough to cover the value of the loan then the account gets temporarily suspended, think about that, ouch! So there would be major losses for this player, it would make somebody think hard before losing an account with very well trained characters. >

Yes offcourse, because you probably either scam and/or does some pirating, but in any case this wouldn't be eliminated, its just loans, how other way would this affect the risk of the game other than the way people lend others the isk they need? It really doesn't, the risk in the game would still be there, pretty much the same. You can still scam and you can still do pirating etc.