Market Discussions

Updated rates, as of Feb. 11th, 2014:

I'm changing the way I display the available Dust to Eve batches. From now on, I'll just show the current batch price, in a variety of batch sizes, the amount of isk available at that price, and what the price will change to when the current batches run out. So:



For the opposite direction of isk transfers, converting Eve isk into Dust isk, various batch sizes are available:


-Gyn Wallace/Min Lo



original post follows:

Your best bet to have people "trust" you is to have a general trusted third party hold assets worth at least what you will be trasnferring. That way if you do scam people, then they still get their money from the held collateral.

As for the amount to charge, that is up to you and the market. A small percentage is probably best (5-10% maybe).

I would also double check rules and regulations on this, just to be sure you aren't stepping on CCP toes for some reason. I don't know how the interaction between Dust and Eve works financially.

Also, characters are cheap in eve (and I assume they are not super expensive in Dust either) so nobody will care that you have posted your characters.

@OP

1) How often do you perform these kinds of transactions?

2) How do you show your customers your locked down collateral vs how much you are floating in your transactions?

I want to expecially stress on point 2, because you won't get any Chribba / Grendell or even me back up if you don't provide metrics to assure you are not overextending (in good or bad faith) vs your locked down assets.

If you are for single transactions with immediate collateral lockdown => get Dust currency => send EvE ISK => collateral restitution then point 1 has to be much more detailed.

" In addition, you agree not to use the Site for any unlawful purpose or in any way that might harm, damage, or disparage any other party. " - Dust Forum rules, from dust514.com/terms-of-use , emphasis added.

It is my understanding that Eve has an analogous rule for its Character Bazaar forums, to prevent scamming. Would this rule for the Dust forums offer potential customers a sufficient remedy against currency exchange scammers?

I think this is more like a straightforward escrow service, which he's indicated that he's willing to do in the Dust thread, where ChribbaX has posted (Dust Forum subsection: Feedback/Requests, Thread titled "Rules Question re: player run isk exchange between Dust and Eve"). I've outlined an example of how that might work in that Dust thread.

It seems like you just invented a new profession: "Escrow of escrows".

How long would it be reasonable to let someone sit in the queue? Is one week too long or too short? I'm tempted to say that someone can post in this thread or the Dust forum thread to reserve a place in the queue for 5 days or one week; but if they don't confirm terms and complete their delivery to me or an escrow agent within that time, they should go back to the end of the line.

I haven't made explicit queue rules. I don't believe I'm under any obligation until I've confirmed the terms of a specific transfer with someone, but I'd like to nip any problems in the bud by addressing this sooner rather than later. Any suggestions for appropriate queue rules are appreciated.

Rates updated.

First things first, if you're thinking about playing Dust, make a PSN account, create a character, and begin accruing passive skill points. Even if you need to visit a friend with a ps3 to do this, its worth doing sooner rather than later.

Since Dust 514 is free to download and play, the real question is whether you have a PS3 with space to download and install it. As for the game itself, I don't think I can adequately summarize it in a single forum post. The official Dust 514 site gives a pretty good overview.

I haven't looked carefully at whether its more efficient to spend real money on Aurum, or on a plex to convert to Eve isk, to convert to Dust isk. The advantage to the Aurum equipment is that it typically has lower skill requirements to equip it, so its better for beginners.

Again, I haven't done a side by side comparison, but I suspect that you'll find that spending your real money on Aurum is more advantageous when you're new to Dust, but once your skills are higher, so you can use the best prototype equipment, converting Dollars to Plex, to Eve isk, to Dust isk, might be more efficient. That's a really good question.

On the other hand, if you're not looking for the most efficient bang for your real money buck, and are just looking to use your massive pile of Eve isk on something fun, yes, that's what this exchange service is all about. Facilitating wealthy Eve players having fun in Dust, and helping Dust players convert their Dust isk into Eve isk to support the demand for plex.

The most up to date rates are in this this Dust forum thread re: isk exchange.

It occurred to me that I really didn't answer your precise questions, and regarding passive skill points I should be clear: unlike Eve Online, you don't have to update a currently training skill. You simply have a total unallocated skill points number that slowly creep upward, passively. If you create a character today, start passive skill point accrual and log in a year from now, you should have 7 or 8 million skill points to spend. Most people earn most of their skill points by playing actively though. You can earn about 180,000 additional skill points per week playing actively, and at a slower active rate thereafter.



Sort of. You use prepackaged free loadouts (like the newbie ship in Eve) or build suits, loaded up with gear that costs Dust isk or aurum. There are also blueprints that allow you to fit equipment to a suit for free. (Unlike Eve Online blueprints which require you to go through a manufacturing process; you simply fit the product of the blueprint in your Fitting screen.)

Every time you spawn, you use one of your predefined fits (kind of like undocking). Every time you get killed and respawn, you've used up one of your fits. In Very rough numbers: Free suits are free, Basic fits are about 20k isk, advanced fits are about 30-70k, and prototype fits can be around 90k to 180k.

So if you run proto gear and die six times in a match, you can easily be a million Dust isk poorer. As they payout at the end of the match partially depends on how much enemy equipment you destroyed, you might easily fail to make a profit. On the other hand, of you run free gear, die ten times, and kill a few enemies wearing proto gear, you'll likely make something like 150k to 250k. Again those are Very rough numbers. Lots of people in similar circumstances might see payouts half or twice as big, depending on how much other stuff they did. (My logi has gotten top place with over 4000 war points, with zero kills, and a payout of over 700k.) I honestly don't have a superb grasp of how war points or payouts are calculated.

There isn't a "leveling" system so much as a skill tree that enables you to use better gear, or increases your damage, etc. Aurum gear routinely has lower skill requirements than gear with similar stats that costs isk.



Real money, at first, to buy aurum, so you can afford Aurum gear, and help CCP and Sony conclude that their investment in Dust 514 was worthwhile. If you're less interested in supporting CCP and Sony, and just want to have fun: nothing. You'll get stomped sometimes running free gear, but getting in the game, getting experience, and most importantly, getting into squads and corps that use teamwork, is far more important than the gear. Once you've got comparable teams fighting against one another, then the gear definitely makes a difference.

Tanks are expensive though (cheap ones are about 200k, well fitted expensive ones can cost a couple million). Once you've got the skills to run better gear without buying aurum, you might want to shift idle Eve isk into Dust to support what can be an expensive role. Tankers rarely profit at the end of the match if they lost a single tank. Piloting drop ships can also be expensive.



I don't think we need anything complex yet, because the current interaction is pretty simple. The bond between games is still weak, so the only isk traffic so far consists of people who want to play the other game, rather than people who want to advance in their main game by supporting friends and allies in the other.

I'm amazed CCP is leaving isk transfers to the private exchanges rather than building an official one, since one way of looking at Dust 514 is as a massive advertisement for Eve Online. Failing to follow up on that ad by making it easy for Dust players to support plex demand within Eve seems like a big opportunity missed.

As you can see from the batch numbers, all the traffic I've seen so far consists of Dust players wanting to keep playing Eve. Pheota would be my first transfer in the opposite direction.

Perhaps this is a good time to ask everyone, "Should the batch size be smaller than the current price of a plex, for Eve to Dust transfers?

I wonder if transfers from Eve to Dust isk, should be more like:

550M Eve for 56.8M Dust isk, for the "A" batch;
550M Eve for 56.8M Dust isk, for the "B" batch;
550M Eve for 55.9M Dust isk for the "C" batch;
550M Eve for 55.9M Dust isk for the "D" batch;
550M Eve for 55M Dust isk for the "E" batch;
550M Eve for 55M Dust isk for the "F" batch;
550M Eve for 55M Dust isk for the "G" batch;

So that Eve players can buy a plex, sell it, and convert that isk to Dust... which the 600M Eve isk batch size doesn't facilitate when plex prices are below 600M.