Player Features and Ideas Discussion

While I honestly don't care one way or the other about clone costs given that I can count the number of times I've been podded across all characters and (barely) over 7 years of playing on one hand and, probably, have a digit left over what does concern me effect this might have on the flow of isk out of the game.

As it currently stands having your ship blown up creates isk from nothing while replacing your clone sends isk to that nothingness. If you fly a lot of small/cheap/T2/faction ships, and moreso if you fly uninsured, the net flow will be isk out of the game due to high(er) clone costs. If, however, clone costs are reduced then the threshold for when isk leaves the game will subsequently be lowered.

While everyone loves to have money having too much money in the economy can be a bad thing, especially if the NPC-derived isk that a lot of new players feed off of remains relatively static. Increasing the isk generated by NPC interaction would, in my opinion, be a Very Bad Thing which rather leaves increasing either the amount of isk removed from the game via other, non-clone related NPC interactions or increasing the number of NPC interactions that remove isk from the game.

I would sincerely hope that CCP staff is looking at that aspect of this issue as well as how it affects the willingness of players to engage in "risky" behavior. Speaking solely for myself I'd rather see the price of tritanium rise to 30 isk/unit*1 based on market demand and not because there's too much isk in the economy.

While it's not always the case there is at least the perception that PvP is, at least for the players engaged in it both voluntarily and otherwise, an isk sink. If clone costs are reduced and ship/module costs go up as a result of less isk leaving the economy then it might actually lower the likelihood of players to engage in "risky" behavior as compared to now even if the cost of getting podded was reduced.

*1 - Gross exaggeration for effect. I hope...