Market Discussions

This post is being written in the Market Discussions section rather than the Ideas & Features section in order to gauge the reaction & criticism of the marketing career Capsuleers.

After a very recent visit from CCP FoxFour in one of the RvB public channels, a topic was brought up that I found to be quite truthful in retrospect. Another Capsuleer commented that, despite the effort to promote Career Advancement post Tutorial Missions for the new player, it was practically a necessity that a brand new player to EVE Online 'ship-up' in order to survive in the Universe and make ISK.

It would appear that (setting aside Mining, as a profession), a new Capsuleer would almost certainly have to forego less prosperous and accessible professions such as marketing, hauling, courier-contracting, and trading. In order to prosper from the former activities, the Capsuleer would need Skill Points outright in the Industry or Trade groups, and immediate ISK capital in order to perform in the market.

This inevitably means (and, of course, there are always exceptions to generalisations), that the aforementioned career paths are not accessible to the new player until much later in their subscription; usually after having trained combat Skill Points in order to run missions to generate capital (as an example).

In light of this, I would like to make a proposition for the EVE Universe to the marketers and traders in this forum section. I understand that, once in the early years of the EVE Universe, NPC corporations had a foundation in the market. Could an NPC-driven market be introduced as a separate entity to the EVE economy, allowing access to the business and trading aspects of the Universe to new players, without the immediate effects of expense and competition present in the player-driven Capsuleer market?

There is a subset of goods in the EVE Universe called 'Consumer Products', which could provide a decent example of the sorts of produce and items that would be present in this NPC-regulated economy. The wealth of NPC corporations present in the EVE Universe, and their distribution throughout the various regions, provides the player-base with little at the moment beyond Loyalty Point markets and EVE Lore. By implementing an economy of Consumer Products respective to this corporate network, a new marketplace can be born that is not entirely dictated by Capsuleer competition, prices, and inflation; and is thus much more accessible and affordable to new players wishing to subscribe to EVE Online with the marketplace as the primary attraction.

Ultimately, young traders and marketers will be able to afford to turn a profit in a less volatile market. However, as their Skill Points increase and their range of ship types diversifies, it will ultimately become more profitable to switch to the Capsuleer economy and engage in the primary EVE marketplace; much like it is undeniably more profitable to undertake Level Four missions as compared to Level Two's once a Capsuleer has the Skill Points and ability to do so.

In the real world, there are multiple markets available for a diverse range of trader and business or industry, why should this not also be present in EVE (discounting Loyalty Point markets, and the like)? I strongly believe that this system could be a viable addition to the current, deceptively niche Career Advancement pathways available to newer players (and also veteran players creating a new trading or industry character).

True, there are a few items that are accessible to new traders. But 'plenty of room' is disputable. The profit margins on such items are extremely small and would be required to be bought in large bulk in order to turn any profit. Remember also that a trader must account for a stations' Broker's Fee when setting up orders; this can be quite an obstacle for a new player with only a few thousand ISK.

As for the Trade skill taking minutes to train; true you can have it bumped up a few levels in a few hours, but obviously the whole Trade skillset is a little more complicated than that. Besides, the argument is not about 'skilling-up', but about providing engaging and meaningful access to a profit at an early point in the game. I hope I am making some sense with that.

The new tutorial missions are quicker than the past and give some millions. You get given hauler and destroyer you can use to do L1 and L2 missions. In like 1 day you can have a Caracal or similar and with it you can do SoE epic arc without a flinch (I have done all of this on my alts).
That SoE arc gives 10M or so but if the guy mines the missions he can make 10M per mission just in minerals.

It won't take excruciating tortures to get to 50M, once you have that you can go to Amarr and get to about 1 - 1.2B in 1 month (I am just describing what I have done).

From that he can do anything he wants.

The only stuff I'd change is to add a "connector" to make the player get to those 50M in a more consequential way than just being left to himself figuring out how.

Another example is the run of the mill meta 4 ECM modules. They can be bought for pennies in most regions, but still sold for 300K-500K. Volume is not the best, but being a trader is about using your wits and capitalizing on perceived value.

This makes me want to see if I can do it as a newbie now. Might just add another account.

I have not played long, but long enough now to know I have a lot to learn about the game still.

You seem to imply you are new, and yet you want to tell the game how to be better without really knowing the game to well yourself it seems.

You then seem to imply that if you traded NPC items you would be doing more trading then if you did named items? That makes no sense to me. Is trading 10 units of wheat in one station to another more fun then some guns or trargeting systems?

I am sorry if I am missing something, I just do not see what you are saying is better with my knowledge of the game at this time.

I see the point you're making, classified, but don't the NPC items you're describing already fulfill this function? I seem to remember hauling large quantities of cigarettes across regions in the very early stages of my game, although as you point out, this wasn't my primary source of income.

I would suggest that any new player should be encouraged to complete at least the tutorial missions, in order to get a vague idea of the options available to them, and even the most hardened roleplaying pacifist can come away from the non-combat tutorials with a little shy of a million ISK and a hauling ship. With no skills at all the maximum broker's fee is 0.9% or 100 ISK, so that's hardly a barrier to the prospective trader.

Avoiding missions from this point onwards is certainly an option.

I had an account previous to this one with a > year old industrial / trade toon. Half of his time was spent in a Null-Sec industry alliance. The other half was spent trading in High-Sec / Low-Sec.



Simply the mechanics of small-scale supply and demand between NPC stations, and the profit to be made vs profits on the main marketplace. I am not saying that the NPC marketplace system would be entirely exempt from the influence and competition of other players. But the marketplace would be designed to accommodate the younger player with smaller capital and resources, until they are ready to move up to the Capsuleer market.

Why should market trading be more of an accessible profession as compared to, say, drug production , moon mining, or Incursions? The same issues (Need the relevant skills, need capital, need knowledge) are just as much of a problem for the latter as they are for the former. I put forth that:


1) Market trading, for all intents and purposes, can be considered an "advanced" profession. Yes, you can make a go of market trading and you can likely earn a goodly sum even if you're just starting out, but it bears the same kind of risk that comes with getting into something that requires knowledge and experience of the game, as a newbie.

2) Such "advanced" professions - with their accompanying higher profit potential - provide depth to the game by ensuring that newbies work through more accessible professions first, to build up capital, experience, and skills. Such barriers to entry reward those who are capable being focused, who are able to set and follow long - term goals to progress beyond starter professions and get involved in the higher levels of gameplay.

3) Making such advanced professions more "accesible" through means that do not accurately convey the workings of the "real" profession - Such as a separate NPC market - portrays a false image of how real market trading would work. Supply and demand fluctuations, market games, speculation - all are risks that players would be ill - prepared for by such a hypothetical NPC market.

My personal opinion is that new players stand to learn more about the markets by being a participant in them - Not necessarily via trading, but by observation and trial and error while working up the ranks of the "lower" professions. Perhaps you're buying ammo for your mission run, and you realize that the spread between the buy and sell orders in your region is so large that you'd be saving a ton of ISK by putting up a buy order and waiting for it to fill. Perhaps you're back in station from a day of mining and notice that buy orders for your minerals keep going up, and the sell orders you used to see have mostly disappeared, hence leading you to conclude that perhaps you'd be better served by keeping your minerals - and maybe buy up more from your mining buddies - Thus introducing you to the wonderful world of price speculation. Perhaps you notice that the modules you're manufacturing keep getting snapped up immediately by other players in your region, realize that your own production capacity cannot meet local demand, and start exploring other markets to see where you could purchase such modules to resell at your own location - And you've gotten into inter - region trading.

The means already exist for those who're interested in the market to get involved in it - If you want to limit your exposure, don't put too much of your savings onto the market. If you're worried about risk, do your research and find out which items have lower historical price fluctuations. If you're worried that you don't really understand the market, either choose a market that you're more familiar with (due to your experiences in your starting profession of choice), or do research on the item that you're interested in. The current means for a player to get involved in the market reward intelligence and effort by allowing a player to customize what "the market" means for him. I'm of the opinion that only players who refuse to do their due diligence would find such an NPC market more appealing.

Trading rewards those who seek out opportunities and are able to react appropriately to them, not those who expect such opportunities to be provided for them.

Back at the time I used an expanded Tormentor.

Then you can upgrade to an expanded Magnate (these things get up to about 1k m3 space!).

You can also expand a Probe or an Heron.

In all of the above cases you'll usually (as newbie) finish your money before you even fill those ships to full.

Opportunities are there, there just needs to be a better tutorial for trading and a better way for noobs to get a start on understanding how the economy works. People saying "I started a new alt and made xxxx ISK in a single month" are people who are being ignorant concerning the hurdles noobs have to jump to get started. It's not startup money, skill training, etc that is the problem. It's knowledge. No new player comes into EVE and understands the economy in a few days. All of you trying to use your personal experience with new alts took weeks, months, maybe even longer, to start understanding how the economy works and the best ways to make money in it. Noobs don't have that starting knowledge. Stop using this thread to stroke your egos.

Disclaimer; I'm a 6 year player, I do know the market. Start thinking from a noob's point of view and not your own.

The only thing needed though, is better ways of teaching new players how to work the market.