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I realize this is vague but...
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Alonzo Odantis
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#1 - 2012-05-09 20:20:03 UTC
New player here, only been in Eve about a week.

Was just wondering what etiquette there is, if any, to selling information. Say if I knew the location of something valuable (A miner with a fat bay of goodies for example) and was willing to hand that information over.

I realize prices would all vary on the details of "valuable"


What i'm curious is on the following:

1) What can i do to protect myself from giving up the info and getting nothing in return. Obviously scams are part of the game and I love it, but I doubt anyone is going to want to pay me up front any more than I want to give them the info up front. Since I'm new I'm not sure if the community has developed more "secure" ways of buying information or if someone just has to be the guy that risks getting burned.

2) Just how valuable can information alone be? For example, if I tell you "Hey, there's a miner in location X with 100 million worth of stuff, he's not fitted for combat, and he's gonna be afk at a certain time every day which will be provided with purchase of location" Would there be enough financial motivation in it for someone to even WANT that information? I still have no sense of "scale" on the economy and what is valued and what is not.

Thanks
Daemon Ceed
Ice Fire Warriors
#2 - 2012-05-09 20:37:18 UTC
Alonzo Odantis wrote:
New player here, only been in Eve about a week.

Was just wondering what etiquette there is, if any, to selling information. Say if I knew the location of something valuable (A miner with a fat bay of goodies for example) and was willing to hand that information over.

I realize prices would all vary on the details of "valuable"


What i'm curious is on the following:

1) What can i do to protect myself from giving up the info and getting nothing in return. Obviously scams are part of the game and I love it, but I doubt anyone is going to want to pay me up front any more than I want to give them the info up front. Since I'm new I'm not sure if the community has developed more "secure" ways of buying information or if someone just has to be the guy that risks getting burned.

2) Just how valuable can information alone be? For example, if I tell you "Hey, there's a miner in location X with 100 million worth of stuff, he's not fitted for combat, and he's gonna be afk at a certain time every day which will be provided with purchase of location" Would there be enough financial motivation in it for someone to even WANT that information? I still have no sense of "scale" on the economy and what is valued and what is not.

Thanks



Eh, I don't think you're going to get much money selling information about miners, tbqh. You'd be better off scanning down grav sites and finding empty higher-class wormholes that are chock full of good sites. Some people would pay a lot of ISK for a those. I'd especially imagine miners would love for someone to find them some of the higher-end grav sites, especially during Hulkageddon month so they didn't have to sit in the regular asteroid belts and get ganked. Besides, sites like that often have better ores, too. Unoccupied wormholes could also mean 100's of Billions (if not trillions) of ISK for a corp looking to move into one. What I'd do is get your scanning skills up enough to be able to quickly find them and scan down the insides to see what's there and log your scanning character off inside the wormhole. You'd then post on the forums that you have a good wormhole and offer a bookmark to it's entrance by creating a contract. People will have to take your word that it's worth it.
Karloth Valois
1st. Pariah Malefactor corp.
The New Eden Yacht Club.
#3 - 2012-05-10 00:35:58 UTC
Your find most people wont be interest in that sort of info. Its easy to find ourself so people normally wont pay for it. If you had something really nice, like a freighter moving down a lowsec pipe each week without proper support or a mission runner that you know is fitting 10+bill isk worth of officer and deadspace mods to his ratting ship you might find people willing to pay for the info because the reward for them is worth a huge amount if they get a good drop.

As for how to go around it, that would depend on you and the party your selling it to. You might get scammed, but your could easierly be scamming other people aswell. Might be best to ask for % of isk upfrount then the rest if the tip pays off. Your defo get some isk and they are more likely to pay if its a smaller amount of isk to start (could still not pay up rest but at least you got some)

You may find if you get good at finding people good targets the same corps will be coming back and you can develop a deal with them, maybe start cutting you in on there loot drops.

There is plenty people will pay for, but its going to have to be worth enough to them so that they will pay, and they will have to trust you to hand over there isk.

It's not been nice, but thanks for using lube
ShahFluffers
Ice Fire Warriors
#4 - 2012-05-10 01:19:59 UTC  |  Edited by: ShahFluffers
Here's my take on selling information; you either want to get on good terms with a particular group of people or you want to be "info for hire."

Generally speaking, to become the latter you must first do the former (to gain contacts and establish reputation). Now... how do you gain trust in a game that encourages you to trust no one? There is no silver bullet for this one... but here has been my experience...

A while back a guy came to my corp and asked if we'd be interested an easy capital kill. Because my corp and its allies are a bunch of bloodthirsty jackals we cautiously said yes. Without any strings attached, the guy gives us the name of the pilot, when he/she was generally online, and the star system he/she operates in.
Now... normally we are suspicious of such info being given so easily (it could be a trap). So we went and investigated for ourselves with an alt character. Turns out, the info was good. But we were still cautious. So, rather than use our standard "capital-killer" fleet, we all hop into gank battlecruisers.
Our fears never materialized, the target pilot sucked (as was reported to us), and we got the capital kill.

A little time passes by and the guy approached us again. He again says that he has some info on another capital ship being piloted by another noob. He again gives us the info, it checks out, and this time we go in a bit stronger. The info turns out to be good again and just as we are killing the poor sob our "informat" asks, "Hey guys? Can I call first dibs on the capital loot?"
Since the guy has now netted us two capital kills we give the okay. He takes one or two mods for himself and leaves the rest for us.

After awhile of feeding us info on various [rather expensive] targets he has become a "trusted person." If he now reports that he has a capitals and/or an expensive kill on his radar, we believe him. And if someone asks or questions his credibility, we point to the numerous killmails he has netted us.


tl;dr: a guy came to us with info that he knew we would be interested in (he had to ask around a bit first). He gave us a freebie the first time to establish some trust and asked for a "bone" the second time.

The general idea? It takes time to earn trust with any group of people. Expect people to be suspicious the first few times, make sure you are giving the right info to the right people, and be DAMN sure about the info you are giving.

How did you Veterans start?
Dibblerette
Solitude-Industries
#5 - 2012-05-10 02:55:36 UTC
Shah's advice really is your best bet. Unfortunately, there is no Shadow Broker in EVE (As awesome as that would be, or despite claims some may make), although some larger alliances have intelligence personnel. You also occasionally hear about groups like the GHSC (Heists of epic proportions back in the day) or whatever that Smiling Friends stuff was awhile back that deal in things like this, but you don't hear much about them.

Keep in mind, that's kind of like saying you don't hear about bear attacks. They just might be doing a very good job Blink
Orlacc
#6 - 2012-05-11 02:05:44 UTC
Maybe OP could become the "Shadow Broker." Always an angle in EVE.

"Measure Twice, Cut Once."
Alonzo Odantis
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#7 - 2012-05-11 20:01:00 UTC
Dibblerette wrote:
Shah's advice really is your best bet. Unfortunately, there is no Shadow Broker in EVE (As awesome as that would be, or despite claims some may make), although some larger alliances have intelligence personnel. You also occasionally hear about groups like the GHSC (Heists of epic proportions back in the day) or whatever that Smiling Friends stuff was awhile back that deal in things like this, but you don't hear much about them.

Keep in mind, that's kind of like saying you don't hear about bear attacks. They just might be doing a very good job Blink


Always nice to have goals :)