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Nocxium: It's in the Bible!

First post
Author
Destiny Corrupted
Deadly Viper Kitten Mitten Sewing Company
Senpai's Afterschool Anime and Gaming Club
#1 - 2012-04-08 21:46:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Destiny Corrupted
tldr: I derped. Disregard this.

I was thinking about the Pax Amarria/Nocxium manipulation, and some things just didn't add up. If you look at the market histories in the regions where Pax Amarria was sold, you'll see a period of about a week where sales volume skyrocketed from nonexistent to double-digit millions. Pax Amarria is (and was) sold in stacks of a few hundred. Let's say that a [mentally disturbed] human being can place an order every three seconds. That means about 25,000-30,000 orders in a period of one day, resulting in a volume of roughly 10-20 million units. This means no sleep, and very little time devoted to biological needs.

Furthermore, the jump in sales was abrupt; there was no steady climb. This is a sign that the manipulation was done either by a single person, or a very small group of people. After about a week, a narrow but concentrated effort to bring this issue to CCP's attention was observed on the forums. This effort was successful, with an overnight removal of the book from the market. Nocxium almost doubled in price the day after.

So, two things I'd like to discuss:

1. What is the probability that the manipulators used bots to buy Pax Amarria from the market? Depending on how clever they were, it's possible that a few bots were used to place orders at longer intervals, instead of one bot spamming ten of them a second.

2. Is CCP investigating the potential for exploitation that exists in this case? Even if my speculation is wrong, the timing just seems too convenient to not warrant some kind of inquiry.

I wrote some true EVE stories! And no, they're not of the generic "my 0.0 alliance had lots of 0.0 fleets and took a lot of 0.0 space" sort. Check them out here:

https://truestories.eveonline.com/users/2074-destiny-corrupted

Riley Moore
Sentinum Research
#2 - 2012-04-08 21:48:16 UTC
You do know you could put an order for a million units and the npc order will fill it all right? No need to make 25.000 different orders.

Large volumes of highly researched Ammo, drones, charges and ship bpo's. Biggest BPO store in EVE! https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=445524#post445524

Destiny Corrupted
Deadly Viper Kitten Mitten Sewing Company
Senpai's Afterschool Anime and Gaming Club
#3 - 2012-04-08 21:53:54 UTC
Riley Moore wrote:
You do know you could put an order for a million units and the npc order will fill it all right? No need to make 25.000 different orders.

I just tried that method and it does not work on any NPC good.

I wrote some true EVE stories! And no, they're not of the generic "my 0.0 alliance had lots of 0.0 fleets and took a lot of 0.0 space" sort. Check them out here:

https://truestories.eveonline.com/users/2074-destiny-corrupted

Riley Moore
Sentinum Research
#4 - 2012-04-08 21:55:14 UTC
Destiny Corrupted wrote:
Riley Moore wrote:
You do know you could put an order for a million units and the npc order will fill it all right? No need to make 25.000 different orders.

I just tried that method and it does not work on any NPC good.



You're doing it wrong then.

Large volumes of highly researched Ammo, drones, charges and ship bpo's. Biggest BPO store in EVE! https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=445524#post445524

Stella SGP
#5 - 2012-04-08 21:55:20 UTC
Oh look I don't know how the market works, so someone must be cheating.
corestwo
Goonfleet Investment Banking
#6 - 2012-04-08 21:58:59 UTC  |  Edited by: CCP Phantom
Destiny Corrupted wrote:
Riley Moore wrote:
You do know you could put an order for a million units and the npc order will fill it all right? No need to make 25.000 different orders.

I just tried that method and it does not work on any NPC good.


Did you fail to notice that there are not, in fact, 25-30k orders placed?

No? Didn't think so. In fact, the volume right around March 31st in the forge peaks out around ~1550 orders. In Lonetrek, where many of us (more on "us" later) did our purchases, order volume is much lower (376 orders that day) although with a much higher unit volume (almost 92 million units)

Now, you're right that the method doesn't work on all NPC goods, because many NPC goods adjust their price as more of them are bought.

Pax Amarria did not function this way, so you could (as I did) place an order for several dozen million units and have it fill all at once.


You are right about one thing, though - up until it being posted on the forums by a third party, it the majority of purchases were made by just a few goons. Lol Of course, once it was posted on the forums we small group let the rest of goondom know, which no doubt accounts for the majority of purchases made in those few days.

Edit: Personal attack removed, CCP Phantom

This post was crafted by a member of the GoonSwarm Federation Economic Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.

fofofo

Destiny Corrupted
Deadly Viper Kitten Mitten Sewing Company
Senpai's Afterschool Anime and Gaming Club
#7 - 2012-04-08 22:01:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Destiny Corrupted
Oh, never mind, I see now. So now I'm wondering why they didn't patch that out when they reworked NPC stacks ages ago. I haven't fooled with the market in like half a decade, so I guess I derped on this one. I just don't like bots all that much.

corestwo wrote:
Now, you're right that the method doesn't work on all NPC goods, because many NPC goods adjust their price as more of them are bought.

Pax Amarria did not function this way, so you could (as I did) place an order for several dozen million units and have it fill all at once.


You are right about one thing, though - up until it being posted on the forums by a third party, it the majority of purchases were made by just a few goons. Lol Of course, once it was posted on the forums we small group let the rest of goondom know, which no doubt accounts for the majority of purchases made in those few days.

Yes that was an oversight on my part. I have nothing against this if it was done legitimately. Like I said, I'm not a fan of bots, so this kind of jumped at me. Thanks for clarifying though.

I wrote some true EVE stories! And no, they're not of the generic "my 0.0 alliance had lots of 0.0 fleets and took a lot of 0.0 space" sort. Check them out here:

https://truestories.eveonline.com/users/2074-destiny-corrupted

Pod Potato
Gluttonous Hungers Inc.
#8 - 2012-04-08 23:32:09 UTC
Happy Easter everyone.

☻/ /▌ / \ This is Bob, post him into your forum sig and help him conquer the forums.

CCP Phantom
C C P
C C P Alliance
#9 - 2012-04-10 13:53:56 UTC
Thread locked upon OP request.

CCP Phantom - Senior Community Developer